peoples hands and of which there is neither precept nor president in all the holy Scriptures for this distinction of Officers they call for in all churches and many other things they rigidly exact of us for the compleating and forming of a church after the New-Testament forme were not in the church of Ierusalem the mother church and yet it was by my brother Burtons confession the first formed church and that in the judgment of all the Independents besides himselfe a perfect church at that time But because he requres of me to shew him distinct Officers and Members united into one body respectively in all the severall congregations in the church at Ierusalem without which he affirmeth they were no formed churches properly so called I desire of him likewise that he would shew me that distinction of Officers and Members in that whole church that he demands of me in its parts without the performing of the which all that he hath written is nothing and he must of necessity grant that the church at Jerusalem was not a church properly so called if that distinction I say of Officers and Members be essentiall to the compleating of a church or churches For he confesseth at that time he calls it a formed church they had no Deacons and all the Independents that ever I have seene or talked with say they reade of no Elders in the church at Ierusalem till the 12. of the Acts which was a long time after the first forming of this church and we reade not at any time of any particular Pastor or of any Doctor or Teacher ioyned with that Pastor as is usually in the churches of the Congregationall way but that upon all occasions all the people applyed themselves to all the Apostles and and said Men and brethren what shall we doe and that they continued in the Doctrine and fellowship of all the Apostles and that all things were transacted by the common Counsell of all the Apostles and that they all laid their hands in the Ordination of the Deacons upon each of them we heare nothing I say of any particular Pastor or Teacher or of any Elders all this while and yet by my brother Burtons Doctrine it was a formed church then and we neither heare nor reade also any thing of an explicit particular Covenant which the Independents call the forme of a church neither doe we reade of many things they now rigidly require of all such â—s desire to be Members of their new Congregations practised in that Church I shall therefore cordially desire of my brother Burton seeing the underwriters his tributaries have given him leave as he saith in his Truth shut out of doores that he should baulke no truth he shall meet with in the plowing up of the Scripture but should Preach every truth I say he having obtained this Christian liberty of his Benefactors and truth being now no more in prison that he would candidly and plainly without any reserve Doâ—eâ— ad triarios redieritres tell me the next time I heare from him who was the particular pastor in the church at Ierusalem who was their particular Doctor or Teacher who were their Elders who were their Deacons seeing my brother Burton denieth any congregation to be a church properly so called if it have not its distinct Officers and Members united into one church body respectively for these are his words therefore I put him upon this to prove and without proving it all that he hath hitherto writ both in this book and in his vindication will all prove but waste paper to use his own language I am confident he will not say that Iames or Peter were their Pastor or Teacher or that any of the Apostles were the Pastor or Teacher of that particular church for they were the Universall Pastors of the visible Catholicke church and were extraordinarily sent into all the world as the Scripture recordeth therefore they could not be either the particular Pastors or Teachers of that church for as the Independents teach they must be fixt and should not leave their charge and Flocks neither can my Brother Burton tell which were their Elders for the Independents say they reade of none in the church at Ierusalem till the twelfth of the Acts and therefore according to their doctrine they then had none and it seemes to be my brother Burtons opinion â—or he â—aith the Church at Jerusalem wanted that part of discipline of casting out of corrupt Members which if they had had Elders they could not have wanted and for Deacons my brother Burton acknowledgeth that at that time he calleth it a formed Church they had none So that by this I have now said I beleeve it will be a difficult if not an impossible thing either for him or any of his fraternity to shew me that distinction of Officers and Members in the whole Church at Ierusalem which he requires I should shew him in the several branches congregations without the which notwithstanding according to his learning it cannot be a Church properly so called and so then the church at IerusaleÌ„ it self was no church properly so called Therefore when he is at plow again as now I understand he is I desire him that he would furrow up this truth unto me and shew me that distinction of Officers and Members withall I desire to be resolved how he comes to make this distinction of Officers and Members united into one church body respectively to be the forme of a Church when his brethren of the congregationall way make an explicite particular covenant to be the forme of a Church and the Members and Officers to be the materials onely of a Church All these truths I desire and that earnestly that my brother Burton at his next going to plow he would lay open and discover unto mee and then I will conclude of him that he is a singular tiller and a very good husbandman in Christs field his Church or otherwise hee will never be fit either to make a compleat Independent Country courtier or an absolute Independent Gentleman but he shall be a Haberdasher in the small wares of Independency and with those I perswade my selfe he will be best able to trade with But in the mean time till I heare from him I will affirme that if it be true he saith That the Church of Jerusalem wanted Deacons and Church discipline and an explicite particular covenant and many other good things they require of us for the compleating of a church or churches properly so called then that Church was not perfect and compleat and yet we read not that the Saints of those times made any separation from their publike Assemblies and Congregations though they wanted Officers and Discipline and many other things required now by them so that we may learn from those primitive and holy Christians that we ought not to forsake the publike Assemblies of the Saints for want of some part of Discipline or for want of some Officers
or for want of many things they now exact of all Christians for the compleating and moulding of them into Church bodies pro perly so called for we read That in the Church of Jerusalem they were perfectly converted and were Saints indeed and yet that for some wants they made no separation rent or schisme from their brethren but that they dayly met together in their publick Assemblies as in the Temple and in Solomons Porch and from house to house openly and that in all love and charity with one accord And yet if my brother Burton and the Independents may be beleeved they had neither Deacons nor Elders nor distinction of Officers nor a great part of Discipline nor many other of their requisites So that from the pious and godly example of those glorious Saints I learn this lesson That rents and scismes are not to be made amongst brethren for some failings in any Churches yea though there be some defects not onely in Officers and Members but a very want of Officers themselves and of a good Discipline also in any Church or Churches and that they that do make rents and divisions have a great deal to answer for Withall I learn that it may be a true Church though there be a failing in Discipline and a want of some chiefe Officers and Members For my brother Burton acknowledgeth That the Church at Jerusalem was a formed Church although it wanted both Officers and Discipline and all those things they now require of all such as desire to be made Members in their new Congregations And therefore if this he now preacheth be solid and orthodox Divinity and if he may be credited in what he writeth as there was at that time no just ground of separation from their publike Assemblies for want of those things so there is now in these our dayes no just cause of separation from our Assemblies if there be indeed a reall want of discipline and Church Officers which we might long since have injoyed had not he and his brethren hindred our happy begun Reformation Especially I say we ought not to separate when there is no failing or want in any dominative or fundamentall pointe of Religion necessary to salvation and where all the counsell of God requisite to eternall happinesse is dayly publikely taught in every one of our Congregations and Churches all which the Independents themselves do acknowledge we want not Besides it is granted by all orthodox Divines that Discipline makes not for the esse but the bene esse of a Church Yea the Independents themselves hold That Officers in a Church make not for the esse but the bene esse of it as the New Lights from the Summer Islands apparently delucidate For they say Though the Officers all dye yet the Church ceaseth not to be a church But to return to the matter in hand Whereas my brother Burton affirmeth that the Church at Jerusalem wanted Discipline and that it had not Deacons at first and that the Churches were not brought forth to full perfection in one day and that their very constitution had a graduall growth I maintain that in all he asserteth he is not onely exceeding erroneous and ignorant but understandeth not the very doctrine of the Independents who are all against him in those his assertions for they all acknowledg and in express words affirm it in their writings that all the Officers of the church were virtually in the Apostles saying they were Pastors Teachers ruling Elders and Deacons c. And therefore they wanted neither Deacons nor Elders if their concession be true nor any church Officers which is point blank against my brother Burton his opinion They confesse likewise that all the Apostles and every one of them had the Keyes of the Kingdome of Heaven that is the power of order and jurisdiction viz the key of knowledg and authority And therefore they had also in the church of Jerusalem that part of Discipline of casting out corrupt Members They acknowledge in like manner that all the Apostles had equall power amongst themselves and that they had authority over all the churches as having the care of all the churches who were committed to their charge and that they left both the Presbyters and people in their several churches to the exercise of all their particular rights impeached neither of them of their liberties And they do also confess that as Paul by his own authority did excommunicate Hymeneus and Alexander 1 Tim. 1. ver 20. and others so might the other Apostles have done if they had had the like occasion given them and might have put any church not only in mind of their duty and reproved them for their neglect of Discipline but have injoyned and commanded them also to have put it in execution as both Paul did the church of Corinth and Saint John the seven churches of Asia which were all well constituted and well and perfect formed churches by their first constitution and brought forth to full perfection in one day so as they had no need of a graduall growth as my brother Burton affirmeth All these things I say the Independents do accord unto And all reason will perswade any well grounded Christians That the church of Corinth was a perfect church at its first constitution before the incestuous person appeared in it and the same they will say of the other seven churches in Asia before the doctrine of the Nicolaiâ—tans and that of Baalam and Jezabell sprung up in them and before those luke-warme Laodiceans appeared and all the other offenders there spake of all the which were so far from adding any perfection to those churches as it was a deformity to them all to have such creatures and failings amongst them and it was reputed their great sinne to connive at them and suffer them to be amongst them and in their bowels which by their first constitution they had power to have cast out For it is well known that all those churches at their first plantation and founding had all of them their Presbyters and Elders and all other Members and Officers as consisting of Saints and had in all those severall churches both the power of order and jurisdiction and the power of the Keyes and this in their first constitution and therefore had no neede of a graduall growth but were all brought forth to full perfection the first day contrary to my brother Burtons doctrine And it is confessed likewise by the Independents and by my brother Burton himselfe That where there are Church Officers as a Pastor and Teacher with an Elder or two and a Deacon and where there are a few visible Saints if they amount but to the number of twenty nay if they be but ten or twelve gathered together according to their method that there is a compleat formed Church where Christ is set up as King upon his Throne and that this Church is clothed with Christs power and honoured with his presence the which
and most set him upon his Throne that own his Law and that onely for the rule of their faith and obedience for Christ himselfe hath said it Iohn 10. My Sheep hear my voiyce they will not listen unto the voyce of a stranger Christs voyce onely the King of his Church is to be heard and they onely that obey it advance him for their King and set him up on his Throne which when the Ministers and Beleevers in the Church of England doe and the Independents do not they more advance Christ for their King than they for the Independents to Christs Law and Commission adde their owne traditions and inventions and enjoyne all that will be admitted as Members into their congregations besides their beleeving and being baptized to walke with them some time for approbation and to make a publike confession of their faith before the Church and to bring in the evidences of the truth of their conversion and enter into a private and solemne Covenant and not to be admitted as members without the consent of the Church all which Christ the King of his church never commanded and those that will not submit themselves to these their traditions they will not permit or suffer to enter into their church as joyned members which they call the onely true Churches of Christ and count of all others that differ from them as enemies of Christ and his Kingdome and as men without the covenant and if this be to set up Christ upon his Throne then the Pharisees set up Christ upon his Throne who preferred their own traditions before the commandements of God yea the Pope himselfe and the Prelates set up Christ upon his Throne who preferred their owne traditions and idolatries before the Lawes of Christ Now if all the traditions of the Papists were justly abhorred and cast out of the church as things deâ—ogatory to the Kingly and Propheticall dignity of Iesus Christ and as things repugnant to his Royaltie I see no reason but all other popery under whatsoever name or title it be intruded upon the people should be eliminated and cast out of the church and whether this be not a new kind of Popery to bring in new wayes and new borne truths and new lights and impose them upon the people as the commands of God and to excommunicate and unchurch all churches in the world but their owne assemblies I referre my selfe to the judgement of any intelligible christian Saint Paul writing to the Galatians blames those false Teachers amongst them that would have joyned but the ceremoniall Law with the Gospel and cals it a perverting of the Gospel of Christ and wishes that such Teachers were cut off Gal. 5. v. 12. and blames likewise those Galatians that received their doctrine saying Oh foolish Galatians who hath bewitched you that you should not obey the truth and yet they onely urged the ceremoniall Law which God by Moses had appointed to remaine till the fulnesse of time but was now abrogated they were not their owne traditions they were no new borne lights no new wayes no new truths Now if Paul was so displeased or God rather with the Galatians both teachers and hearers the one for bringing in or joyning the ceremoniall Law to the Gospel and the other for admitting of them how highly would God have beene displeased with them if they had set up their owne inventions for the Lawes of God and had brought in new borne truths and intruded them upon the people as necessary to salvation and for the setting up of Christ upon his Throne Without doubt the Apostle would most sharpely have reproved them and have given speciall caveats against them as hee did in his Epistle to the Colossians the second chapter of the which is chiefly spent in condemning all humane traditions yea in his first chapter of his Epistle to the Galatians verse 8 9. Hee chargeth them that though the Apostles themselves or an Angel from Heaven should preach unto them otherwise than that they had received they should count him accursed and as J said before saith the Apostle so say I now againe if any man preach unto you otherwise than that you have received let him be accursed But none of the Apostles ever taught the Church that christians and beleevers though baptized should not bee admitted as members into the Church unlesse they had walked some time in church-fellowship with them and had first made a publicke confession of their faith and had brought in the evidences of the truth of their conversion and entred into a solemne private covenant and were admitted by the consent of the church none of all this did ever the Apostles teach or the christians of those times embrace or beleeve and therefore such doctrines as these ought not to be received In the first of the Corinthians in many places he reproves those that made schismes and brought in heresies and sects into the Church and in the fourth chapter and sixth verse under his owne and Apollo's name hee sets an example before them that they should containe themselves within the limits and bounds of that doctrine and manner of preaching prescribed and set downe in the Word of God and used by the Spirit of God and commands them that they should learne in the Apostles not to presume or to be wise above that which is written and enjoynes all christians to reject all wayes of teaching that have not Gods Word for their warrant Now in all Gods Word there is nothing of all this written that after men beleeve and are baptized they should not yet be admitted into the Church without they had walked some time with them for their approbation and without they had made a publike confession of their faith before the congregation and brought in the evidences of their true conversion and had entred into a private covenant and were admitted by the consent of the church none of all this is written in Gods Word and therefore wee ought not to imbrace it And in the 2 of the Corinths c. 11 v. 4. the Apostle signifieth unto the Corinthians that no man can teach the Gospel the things of of heaven more exactly than he and the other Apostles have taught them nor set before them a more perfect Doctrine of Jesus Christ than that that they have taught them for the converting of any unto Christ and for the setting up of Christ as King upon his Throne and for the making of them Members of the Church and for the building of them up in their most holy faith and commands the Corinthians to take heed of all false Teachers whatsoever piety and godlinesse they make shew of calling them deceitfull workers and such as transforme themselves into the Apostles of Christ And no marvaile saith he for Sat an himselfe can transforme himselfe into an Angel of light and therefore it is no wonder his Ministers transforme themselves as though they were the Ministers of righteousnesse Now if men will
consider what those false teachers were wee shall find them to be no other but such as under shew of holinesse and piety taught their owne inventions and grolleries and abused the simplicity of the people for their owne advantage and brought them into bondage and devoured them verse 20. as the Phatisees did the Widowes houses under pretence of their long prayers which our Saviour Christ sharpely reproves them for and denounces a woe against them for their so doing after the same manner did these false Teachers amongst the Corinthians who made their owne traditions joyned Members with the Gospel as if they had had a more fine neat eleganter way of gathering of churches and admitting of Members than Paul and the other Apostles But the Apostle bids the Corinthians take heed of all such how glorious soever they seeme to appeare and tels them they cannot teach the way to Heaven and happinesse better than hee and the other Apostles have done and yet neither Saint Paul or any of the Apostles in preaching of the Gospel taught them that they should admit of none to bee joyned Members of the Church although they beleeved and were baptized except they walked sometime in fellowship amongst them that they might have approbation and tryall of their conversation first and after make a publick confession of their faith before the church and did give in evidences of the truth of their conversion to the congregation and entred into a solemne private covenant and were admitted Members by consent of the church Not a word of all this in the Gospel that Saint Paul and the other Apostles taught and therefore all that teach their new wayes their new-borne truths and set up their new lights are wise above that which is written and teach otherwise than Christ and his Apostles have taught or the christians of the Primitive times had received and therefore ought by the Apostles command Gal. 1. verse 8. 9. to be accursed Saint Iohn also in his second Epistle to the Elect Lady verse 9 10. saith Whosoever transgresseth and abideth not in the doctrine of Christ hath not God hee that continueth in the doctrine of Christ hee hath both the Father and the Sonne If there come any unto you that bringeth not the doctrine of Christ receive him not into your house neither bid him God speed for hee that biddeth him God speed is a partaker of his evill deeds Now the doctrine that the Independent Ministers teach for the gathering of churches and admitting of members and joyning and jumbling of them together was never taught by Christ nor any of his Apostles for they themselves confesse it is a new way and a new borne truth and a new light and therefore not the doctrine of Christ and therefore such novelties are not to be entertained nor imbraced nor the teachers of them if we will be obedient to Apostolicall precepts I desire therefore those of the Independent brethren to produce any one testimony or any one president out of the Word of God where these things following are taught or have beene practised First that although men and women beleeve and are baptized they are not yet to be admitted as joyned Members till they have walked sometime in fellowship with the church for approbation of their conversation this is the first thing I desire of the brethren either a precept or an example for this in Gods Word The second where it is commanded that those that beleeve and are baptized should not be admitted as Members of the church whithout a publike confession of their faith before the church The third where it is enjoyned that to their Faith and Baptisme they should bring in the evidences of the truth of their conversion before they can be capable of their membership The fourth where it is commanded that they should enter into a solemn and private covenant before they can be admitted to church-fellowship The fifth where it is imposed upon those that beleeve and are baptized that they should not be received into the church without the consent of the congregation Sixthly where it is commanded that the Ministers of the Gospell shall run about from their own places and charges into the sheepfolds of their fellow-shepherds and separate and pick out all their best sheep and bring them into their own folds and debar them from all church-fellowship and communicating with the other beleevers in Gods holy Ordinances and Sacraments or where ever it is commanded that the Preachers of the Gospel shall gather beleeving Christians from among beleeving Christians and separate them from the other sheep into Independent congregations and shall proclame all that are not thus moulded up after this new modell to be people out of covenant and to have no right to the seals of the new covenant neither they nor their children though beleevers All these things I desire the brethren by evident places of the holy Scripture to make good and to confirme or by any president or example to declare to have been practised either by Christ or his blessed Apostles for I look for a law from Christ the King of his church who was as faithfull in the house of God as Moses was and hath not left the ordering and disposing of his church to the will of men but hath commanded the church to hear his voice who is the great Pastor and Bishop of our souls and the teacher of his church his Word therefore I look for for a warrant for the ratifying of all these doctrines and I have good ground and reason to demand of them a warrant and authority out of Gods Word for what they both teach and practice for we are taught by Christ the onely Prophet of his church that they that serve God after the precepts of men offer him a vain worship and it stands with all good reason that if all humane traditions though of never so ancient standing and of never so long antiquity were all cast out of the church because they had no footing or ground in Gods Word that all novelties or new inventions of men which notwithstanding are imposed upon the people as the ways of God should be abrogated and nullified and cast out of the church It is recorded in holy writ Ioshua 9. that the Gibeonites deceived Ioshua and the people of Israel under pretence that they came from a farre country and for proofe of that they produced their mouldy bread and their tattered botles and their old shooes and they taking what they said pro confesse and not consulting with the mouth of the Lord as it is fully related in that chapter were deceived by them and entred into a League with their enemies And thus the Papists and Prelates for these many hundred years have deluded the world under pretence of their mouldy antiquities and tattered raggs of traditions and in all this time they prevailed to mislead the poore people because they consulted not with the mouth of God nor examined things
Truly if ever the Scripture were fulfilled in any age of the world it is now fulfilled in these our times there being not any part in this whole description of those dangerous seducers that doth not in every branch of it agree with the Seducers and Sectaries of ours the most dangerous times in that regard that ever were in the world And therefore it concerns all men that desire the peace of Zion and the welfare of their own souls to take heed of them all least they be found fighters against God for we have precept upon precept to this very end given by all his holy Prophets Christ and his blessed Apostles to shun them and Saint John in his second Epistle v. 10 11. saith there speaking to all Christians If there come any unto you that bring not the doctrine of Christ entertain him not into your house neither bid him God speed for he that biddeth him God speed is partaker of his evil deeds Now we know the Sectaries of our times teach such doctrines as were never taught by Christ nor any of his blessed Apostles how then dare any that have the name of Christians be familiar with such and entertain them in their houses especially when Saint Paul saith 2 Tim. chapter 2. verse 19. Let every one that nameth the name of Christ depart from iniquity or evill And what greater iniquity and evil can there be then to live in the open violation of Gods Commands for in the very same chapter hee exhorted them ver 16. 17. to shun prophane and vaine bablings which is the practice of the Sectaries saying they would increase to more ungodlinesse and that their words will eate as doth a canker of whom is Hymeneus and Philetus who concerning the truth have erred saying that the Resurrection is past already and overthrow the faith of some he nameth some of the Sectaries there Now here also we are commanded againe to avoid all evill whether it be the evill of Doctrine or manners or evill company and especially to avoid and shun all false Teachers whose doctrines eat as a Gangrene such as are the new Doctrines of our times which are inferior to none for evill impiety and wickednesse that were ever yet taught in the world as yee may see in Learned Master Edward's Gangrena and therefore it concernes all to shun the evill of all Sectaries company and fellowship and in the 6 chapter of his 1. Epistle to Tim. verse 3. as if hee could never have given caution enough hee saith there If any man teach otherwise then he and Christ had instructed Timothy to teach and consent not to wholesome words even the words of our Lord Jesus Christ and to the doctrine which is according to Godlinesse from such with draw thy selfe If Timothy which was a well grounded Christian an Evangelist by his place if he were againe and again by the Holy Apostle commanded to shun and decline the company and familiarity of all false Teachers and Seducers how much more ought all other Christians that are so much inferiour to Timothy in all respects to take heed of all Sectaries especially when we by our daily experience find how many they have misled and seduced Truly it hath been the great Rebellion of both Ministers and people in these our times contrary to the command of God to follow them and to lend them not only their eares but their Pulpits and Churches to preach in and doubtlesse whatsoever they may thinke they have both of them much to answer for before God as being the principall causes of the ruine and misleading of so many soules and if the State doe not speedily take order for the suppressing of all those wicked Deceivers the times will grow more dangerous and perilous not only in regard of the precious soules of many but in respect also of the peace and quiet of the Land for all things will speedily run to confusion and the Sectaries will bring downe Gods judgements upon the Land by their damnable and desperate Doctrines and ruine upon the very Parliament and the States of the Kingdome and there will one Iack Straw or other or one Wat Tylâ—r or some worshipfull Knipper or other be raysed up to be a deliverer of their Soveraigne Lord the people out of the hands of all Prerogative and King-creatures and out of the hands of their owne creature the Parliament The Lord awaken the Parliament the Lords and Peeres of the Kingdome and all the Governours through the same to stand now all upon their Guards they having had so many Warning-Peeces both in the Army and in the Citie both in Pulpits and Pamphlets what the Independents and Sectaries intend to doe Were there no other Books but Iohn Lilburns who knows the mind of his brethren and the great concourse of people that follow him and countenance him in his wicked practices it were enough to awaken the whole Kingdom But when wee daily heare and reade what Peters Salt-marsh Dell c. those worthy Saints both preach and print and what gallant Fellowes they have now with the sword in their hands and what priviledges they clayme unto themselves it is a matter of wonder and astonishment to me that they are not all of them timely looked unto and it stranges me most of all that there should be any of those Sectaries permitted through the Kingdome to beare any office of charge committed unto them or to have any other weapon offensive or defensive in their hands then a bodkin or a thimble which were the only iron many of them wore before these times for it is well known that all the Sectaries in the Kingdome within these six years were as much afraid of the Artillery Guarden and of the Military Yard as they were afraid of a Cathedrall Church and the roaring of the Ordnance and Canons and the noyse of a volley of shot the sound of a Trumpet and the beating of a Drum were as formidable Musick in their eares as the noyse of a paire of Organs or Sackbuts or the singing of the Choristers in Pauls Westminster-Abbâ—y or in the Kings Chappell and yet now they can begin to talke of the sword in their hands It is not good that such children as these are should be suffered to have such dangerous weapons in their fingers It was not thought fit by our Fore-fathers who were commended for their wisdome that any Papists should sit in the Parliament and our ever to be honoured Worthies now sitting in that great Conncell did not thinke it for the Kingdoms safety that any Papist should bee of the Kings Councell and at the first sitting of the Parliament no Monopolists or Gatherers of Ship-money or Pattentees or any such creatures though they were lawfully chosen by the people were suffered to sit in Parliament but were thrust out as being suspected they would prove bad instruments to the State and therfore I say notwithstanding the peoples election they were immediatly dismissed the great
it I am so well assured that it is Gods Ordinance as I am of any point in Religion But as I said before if men may argue after this way The Presbyters in the Apostles times did miracles and sâ—ake with strange tongues and their Schollers and Disciples did the same doe you likewise and then we will acknowledge you to be true Presbyters otherwise wee will not Thus the Jewes might have argued against all their Prophets as against Isaiah Ieremy Ezekiel c. Moses and Elias fasted forty dayes and forty nights and did many miracles do you so and then we will beleeve you are true Prophets and sent to us of God otherwise we will not beleeve you to be true Prophets Yea all the wicked and ungodly men of these times may argue thus also God gave unto his Church Apostles Evangelists Prophets c. and they spake all strange tongues and divers languages and did many miracles but you and your Congregations have neither Apostles Prophets nor Evangelists nor ye have not the gifts of Tongues nor yee can do no Miracle Ergo you are not the true Church The Primitive Christians and the servants of God in those times had the gifts of Tongues and Prophesie and the holy Ghost came down upon them and they spake by direction from God his infallible truth and Gospell whose speeches were not tyed to time and to one speaker but many spake one after another by Interpreters as it is at large set down in the 1. of the Corinthians chap. 14. vers 27. 28 29 30. c. So that they spake infallible truth by direction from God But you have none in your Congregations so miraculously inspired with sundry languages and divers tongues nor ye do not speake infallible truths by direction from God nor you cannot cure diseases nor do miracles Ergò your religion is not the same Religion nor your Congregations the true Church shew us these miracles and then we will beleeve you to be the true Church otherwise we may not we dare not acknowledge you to be the true Church Again they may argue thus The Apostles and Primitive Pastors and Teachers preached freely and laboured with their own hands and were helpfull to the necessities of others and were not burthensome and exacting from others and spake ex tempore by direction from God but your Ministers in your Congregations do not preach freely nor labour not with their own hands nor are not helpfull to to others necessities but are rather burdensome and exacting from others nor they do no miracles nor speake not immediately by inspiration and ex tempore but by Study and out of their Bookes and are confined to time and speake not in strange tongues and languages one after another by Interpreters Ergò Your Ministers are not Gods Ministers nor your Congregations the true Church nor your people true Christians for you want all those things that the Primitive Christians and the Primitive Churches had There is a Pamphlet lately come out and highly esteemed and prised amongst many full of such consequences as these which if they hold good against the Presbyters they may also for ought I know be of equall validity to overthrow not onely all Christian Congregations but indeed all Christian Religion But briefly to answer We look upon the Apostles and Primitive Presbyters as men miraculously and extraordinarily gifted and as wonder-working men for the confirmation of the truth of the Gospell to all succeeding ages and we consider in them and in the Christians of those times something extraordinary and temporary as their working of miracles and speaking of strange tongues and gifts of healing c. And those we conceive were to continue no longer in the church then for the confirmation of the truth of the Gospel Christ himselfe proclaiming those blessed that believe without seeing of miracles speaking unto Thomas Iohn 20. 29. Because thou hast seen me saith he thou believest blessed are they that have not seen and have believed So that miracles now are not ordinary and we are tied to the written Word But we consider likewise in the Apostles and Primitive Presbyters that that was permanent and to continue in all Ministers and Presbyters in succeeding ages to the end of the world and that was the power of order and preaching and the power of jurisdiction that is of ruling which is not denied by the most learned of the Independents themselves and this I have proved by the Word of God to be transacted over to all Christian Churches whose Presbyters have that power given unto them neither will the Learned Brethren deny it whatsoever the ignorant may do Yea the very name of a Presbytery as I said before if we look through the whole Scripture signifieth a Magistracy or Signiory or Corporation invested with authority of governing and ruling and such a counsell and company of men as upon whom the government under Christ is laid and to be extended so far as their jurisdiction extendeth and as far as by common consent it may make for the good and edification of the church and for the safety of the same And such was the government of all those churches of the New Testament which were as so many Committees their limits and bounds prefixed them as at this dayall Committees through the Kingdom have in their severall Hundreds Rapes Wapentakes and Cities to whom the ordering and government of those places that are under them are committed so that all that is done or transacted must be done by the joynt consent and councell of the whole Committee not any particular man or any two of them severally considered by themselvs can make an order but that order onely is binding which is made by the joynt consent and common agreement of them all or the greatest part of them assembled together Even so all those particular Congregations that are within the compasse and jurisdiction of the severall Presbyteries are to be ordered and governed by the common and joynt councell of the severall Presbyters or the greater part of them For this was the order the Apostles established appointing in every City a Presbytery and when they had so ordered the Churches they set them all to their severall imployments the Presbyters to command and all the people and particular Assemblies and Congregations under them to obey neither is it ever found in the holy Scriptures that the people were joyned with the Presbyters in their Commission So that they that oppose this government resist Gods Ordinance And if we looke into all the Epistles writ by the Apostles to the severall Churches we shall finde in them That they enjoyne all the severall Congregations to yeeld obedience to their Pastors and Rulers over them and signifie unto them that they owe unto them double honour especially such as labour in the Word and Doctrine that is they must yeeld unto them not onely due reverence and subjection and obedience to their councell and just commands in the
I am most confident will by and by evidently appeare though all the former Arguments to the contrary should not so much as be thought of and withall it will also be obvious to any judicious man that in all respects their Argument makes much against themselves For if I should grant unto them That at this instant of time that that place speakes of the whole Church in Jerusalem or the number then of Beleevers were no more but that one place might have contained them all for the enjoying of all Ordinances which I cannot doe for innumerable reasons and some of them above specified yet it doth not follow nor evince that after there were daily such additions of Believers and such multitudes of new Converts added unto the Church that then also one place or roome could containe them all and that they might still meet in one Congregation and all together partake in all acts of worship For there is a vast difference betweene one hundred and twenty names for there was no more in this assembly and in many ten thousands which all the World knowes could not bee contained in any one place of Jerusalem to communicate in all the Ordinances though that place had equalized the most magnificent Structure that ever the World yet saw especially they could not have all met there to edification for they could not have all heard and understood and wee know that in the Church all must be done to edification and this would rather have hindred the mutuall edification of the assembly and have brought a confusion rather then any profit or benefit unto them But the truth is the number of names here spoken of if wee will goe to the genuine interpretation of the place not to speake of the universall consent of all the learned Interpreters who gather that in this assembly the seventy Disciples the Lord Jesus sent out to preach through all Judes and all those other Ministers of the Gospel that had beene Christs and Saint Iohn the Baptists Disciples every one of the which was thought fit for learning and divine knowledge to succeed Iudas in his Apostleship and to be a Disciple all these or most of them or such like were those that are included in the number of names I say to omit this Interpretation of all the most Orthodoxe Divines and their universall agreement and harmony in their learned Commentaries about this portion of Scripture the very words themselves following shew they were select and eminent men and men of note and Disciples of longest standing and all of them or the most of them Ministers and Preachers themselves and were indeed the Presbyters of the Church to whom with the Apostles the power of ruling was committed and who within themselves and without the consent of the common multitude of Beleivers had power to oâ—daine their own Officers and that by their own authority as we may see Vers 21. 22. Wherefore saith S. Peter of these men which have companied with us all the time that the Lord Iesus went in and out among us beginning from the baptisme of Iohn unto that same day he was taken up from us must one be ordained to be a witnesse with us of the resurrection And they appointed two c. and they prayed c. and they gave forth the Lots c. all businesses here were managed and carryed in an Aristocraticall and Presbyterian way and all was done by a joynt consent and the common councell of them all Here wee finde none of the multitude of the people though Beleevers here were no Women that gave forth their lots Neither doth the Apostle Peter say Men Mothers and Brethren or Men Women and Brethren or Men Brethren and Sisters but Men and Brethren For howsoever in the foregoing Verses it is said that these meaning the Apostles and Elders all continued with one accord in prayer and supplication with the women and Mary the Mother of Jesus and with his Brethren by which they fitted themselves for the Ministery after they should receive the Holy Ghost though I say they joyned with them in those duties of humiliation and prayer which any women may do in the society and company of godly Ministers yet when they went about other acts of Church government as choosing of an Apostle then the Apostles and Elders onely by themselves to whom the power of the Keyes was given ordered that businesse and left the Women to their private devotions and their severall imployments for in this action of giving forth their lots there is no mention of the Women And it is manifest from the Text it selfe that this choosing of Matthias was at another time and without all doubt upon a set day for this purpose for it is said Verse 15. And in those dayes Peter stood up in the middest of the Disciples and said Men and Brethren Here was onely Disciples Men and Brethren and no Sisters Till Pope Joans time and our dayes Peters Keyes never hung at any womans Girdle and we heare not in Scripture that they had any voyce in choosing of Church officers and admi ting of members into the Church or casting out of any till these unhappy times an usurpation not beseeming that Sex as afterwards in its due place I hope to make appear But this by the way Now to the matter in hand I say it is apparent to any that will not shut their eyes that all those or most of them that were in Peters company and at that time met together were capable of an Apostleship and such as were the most eminent of all Christs followers and such as were best instructed in Christian Religion as having been bred up in the doctrine of Saint Iohn the Baptist and under the Ministry of Christ himselfe the Prophet of his Church and therefore they were the Teachers of the Church and people who were their flock which they all fed in common And from thence it argueth That the multitude of Beleevers in Ierusalem was not onely a distinct company from them but that it was exceeding great and numerous that had so many Pastors and Teachers over them For if they had been but so small a company as is here mentioned and that the whole Church had consisted but of sixscore names then the Pastors exceed the number of the flocke which is not onely absurd to thinke but against the evident truth of the holy Scriptures which relate unto us multitudes upon multitudes that were dayly converted by the ministery of John the Baptist and of Christ and his Apostles and added unto the Church before this their meeting So that by this I have now said it is most clear and evident that all or most of these were the most eminent Ministers of the Gospell and the Presbytery of the Church But in this that our Brethren do acknowledge That this assembly here spake of were the church it makes as much against them and greatly for us for it is manifest from the Text
as yet any particular visible formed churches for all these severall congregations are but so many branches of that one catholicke visible church and a branch and a member of a church is not a church properly so called in my brother Burtons Dialect and therefore wee have no true visible churches or church bodies upon earth properly so called this I say will necessarily follow upon my Brother Burtons unsound Principles and this his opinion which I am confident upon his more serious thoughts and when he makes not such haste as he confesses he did when he writ this his book against me he will acknowledge to be very erroneous But if he shall against all reason undertake to maintaine the same doctrine concerning the Catholicke visible church he doth about the church of Ierusalem I am assured he will be highly condemned by the learnedest of his party as well as by the universall consent of all the judicious Divines in the world who I know are of a contrary judgement But I say if upon mature deliberation he shall acknowledge and grant that the severall congregations or churches of believers mentioned in the Scriptures as that of Corinth Ephesus Galatia c. and their own severall congregations in their new gathered churches howsoever he will not grant that title unto our assemblies I say if he shall but accord that both the primitive churches and their new congregations be churches properly so called or church bodies though but so many branches and members of the Catholicke visible church which yet is but one and the same church then likewise of necessity it will follow and he must yeild unto it that all those severall congregations and assemblies in the church of Ierusalem were churches properly so called though but so many branches of that one and the same particular church because as the learned know all particular congregations and churches that partake in all the Ordinances as they are similar parts of the whole church so they doe all partake of the name and nature of it and are all of them churches properly so called and therefore by the very same reason I say all those severall congregations and assemblies in the church of Ierusalem being parts of that Nationall city or Presbyterian church that one and the same church as partaking both of the name and nature of that church are all of them churches properly so called one of those conclusions I affirme will necessarily follow from my brother Burtons principles And for the better evidencing of what I have said I will adde a few words more by way of a corollary that whatsoever the whole church at Ierusalem had in it to make it the first formed church properly so called the same had all the congregations and assemblies respectively and severally considered to make every one of them churches properly so called And therefore if the whole church at Ierusalem may challenge the name of a true formed church as the Independents acknowledge then the severall congregations and assemblies respectively and severally considered might do the same and were churches properly so called For if the whole consisted of visible Saints so did every one of those severall congregations and assemblies consist of visible Saints And if the whole had the blessed Apostles in it and Christs seventy Disciples and all sorts of church Officers so had every severall congregation and assembly of that church though but a part and a branch of the whole And if the whole church inioyed all the saving and sealing ordinances and all acts of worship and continued stedfastly in the Apostles doctrine and fellowship and in breaking bread and in prayer so did every one of those congregations and assemblies severally and respectively considered And therefore when all the branches of that one particular church at Ierusalem viz every congregation and assembly severally considered and as a part were equall to the whole church in all priviledges immunities and in whatsoever is required for the making of a true formed church so that there was nothing wanting to either of those congregations that the whole church partaked in and injoyed or could challenge for the making it a compleat Church then it followeth and that necessarily that if the whole church be a true formed church and a church properly so called as the Independents confesse that all those congregations assemblies severally considered were churches properly so called This I thought good to premise And now I come to make good what I undertooke which is to prove those severall Assemblies in the church of Ierusalem to be churches properly so called which I do by this argument All such assemblies congregations as daily met together in diverse companies in the Temple and in Solomons Porch and in severall private houses in the fellowship of the Gospell and in the name of Christ and clothed with his power and honoured with Christs presence being all believers and Saints and such as gladly received the word and were all baptized and continued stedfastly in the Apostles doctrine and fellowship and in the breaking of bread and in prayer and injoyed amongst themselves in their severall congregations all the saving and sealing Ordinances and all Acts of worship and whatsoever priviledges and immunities the whole church partaked in and the which the Independents themselves repute and thinke sufficient for the making and constituting of a formed church and who also had amongst them in those severall assemblies Ministers immediately sent them of God and inspired with the holy Ghost every one of the which had the keyes of the Kingdome of Heaven given unto them by Christ himselfe with a promise to be with them to the ende of the world and that whatsoever they loosed on earth should be loosed in heaven and whatsoever they bound on earth should be bound in heaven and that his spirit also should leade them into all truth the which Ministers likewise taught them whatsoever Christ had commanded them and that daily in the Temple and in every house all and every one of them respectively and severally taken were true and compleate churches properly so called But in the church of Jerusalem there were many such assemblies and congregations as dayly met together in diverse companies in the Temple and in Solomons Porch and in several private houses in the fellowship of the Gospell and in the name of Christ and clothed with his power and honoured with Christs presence being all believers and Saints and such as gladly received the Word and were all baptized and continued stedfastly in the Apostles doctrine and fellowship and in the breaking of bread and in prayers and injoyed amongst themselves in their severall congregations all the saving and sealing Ordinances and all acts of worship and whatsoever priviledges and immunities the whole church partaked in and the which the Independents themselves repute and thinke sufficient for the making and constituting of a formed church and who also had amongst them in those severall
them in all which Ordinances every one of those severall congregations did daily partake with the Fellowship of the Apostles all which in these our dayes are thought sufficient by those of the congregationall way to make any of their Assemblies a true and compleat formed Church and a Church properly so called so that wheresoever according to their owne Doctrine and Principles they inioy all these Ordinances in their severall meeting houses with a Pastor and Doctor and an Elder or two and a Deacon and three or foure good women and as many men every one of these severall Congregations challenge unto themselves though they consist but of ten or twelve the name of a formall and compleate Church properly so called and doe conclude that they are so many Churches properly so called in all which they affirme and no where else that Christ is set up as King upon his Throne And therefore if all the severall Congregations of the Independents considered by themselves respectively apart may properly in their opinion be called churches and that for the injoying but some of the above mentioned Ordinances and Priviledges that all those severall Congregations in the Church of Ierusalem did compleatly partake in then all good reason will conclude that all these severall Assemblies in Jerusalem respectively and severally considered were compleate churches properly so called and that as I said before with a great deale more and better reason by how much it is certaine that those congregations and severall assemblies of Beleevers in the Church of Jerusalem had both for Matter and Forme and all other requisits whatsoever in these our dayes can make a compleate Church or Churches properly so called And this that I have now said for the confirmation of the Major Proposition of my Argument may suffice it being grounded upon the Independents owne Principles and Doctrine so that I shall not need any more Reasons for the corroborating of the truth of the same As for my Minor Proposition they that shall reade but the first six Chapters of the Acts and the 18. of Matt. and the 28. of the same Booke and the sixteenth and twentieth of Saint Iohns Gospel shall find it sufficiently confirmed yea my Brother Burton denys not that there were many congregations in Ierusalem So that now I hope every judicious and intelligible Reader from all the forgoing Discourse will see that I have proved what I undertook viz. that there were not only several Congregations and assemblies of Beleevers in the Church of Jerusalem which all the Independents saving my Brother Burton deny but that all those severall congregations and assemblies severally and respectively considered were Churches properly so called which my Brother Burton thought a thing impossible to be evinced and that all those congregations and Assemblies notwithstanding made but one Church and were all of them under one Presbyterie governed communi consilio Presbyterorum which my Brother Burton all the Independents do acknowledge and therfore of necessity it must follow there was in Ierusalem a subordination or combining of many Churches all which neverthelesse were called but one Church as being under one government as the Churches at this day of Geneva Bazill and of the other reformed Cantons all the which consisting of many congregations or churches properly so called being united and combined together and subordinate make up but one Church in their severall Precincts after the example of the Church at Jerusalem and the other Primitive and purest Churches the government of all the which was left as a patterne of imitation to all succeeding 〈◊〉 to the end of the world to teach them to unite and combine themselves ther for the better and more orderly governing regulating of them And it is very fit that as the Mother Churches and those the most purest ones were ruled and ordered so should all the Daughter Churches be moderated and regulated in all following Generations to the full consummation of all things yea all reason will perswade any intelligible man that a Councel or colledge of grave Divines and experienced men and men of Knowledge Learning and Integrity should know a great deale better how to governe then a few giddy headed witlesse and worthlesse men women which most of the new Congregations consist of Now in all the Primitive and Apostolicall Churches wee find this kind of government as in the seven Churches of Asia the which consisted of many and severall Congregations in their severall Precincts and yet made but one Church in their particular Jurisdictions and all those my Brother Burton speaks of and which hee brings in for the making up of a compleate paterne of Church government were so governed communi consilio Presbyterorum as that of Ephesus as I shall by and by briefly prove after I have answered to what my Brother Burton hath yet to say in this busines to whose words if any credit may be given then the Church of Ierusalem it selfe which hee cals the first formed Church was not a perfect formed Church for hee accuseth that of imperfection and not that only but all the other Primitive and Apostolicall Churches saying that they were not compleate within themselves so that to make up a compleate patterne of a true constituted Church we must borrow something from each of them and he affirmes that there is the same relation betweene church and churches that is betweene the Members of the body every one having need of the other so that of necessity by this his doctrine they were all dependent by the which he doth oppose all his brethren of the congregationall way who hold and labour to maintaine not the perfection onely of every one of the Primitive churches within themselves but the parity likewise of them and the equall authority and affirme that they were all Independent which opinion of theirs my Brother Burton overthrowes making them all Dependent But let us heare himselfe speake Secondly saith hee it being no more then one entire particular Church and not any Diocesan or Provinciall Church or the Presbytery thereof classicall as you would beare us in hand it is a paterne to all particular Churches in succeeding ages and yet by your favour not so perfect as no Apostolick churches besides it should also come in to make up the patern compleat for wee must necessarily take all the Churches c. as you may see at large in his words before quoted I desire the Reader here in the second part of his answer to take notice of his expressions where First there is Petitio principii an ordinary Error amongst sophisticall dealing men hee begs the question denying the Presbytery of the church at Ierusalem to be classicall which notwithstanding the Scripture sufficiently evinceth as hath beene abundantly proved viz. that the church of Ierusalem consisted of many congregations and notwithstanding it was governed by the joynt consent and common counsell of many Presbyters to both which he accordeth and yet as if
likewise wanteth nothing for matter and forme but hath plenary authority within it selfe and therefore is as compleat a Church within it selfe as any church in the world by all which it must necessarily follow and that upon their own principles that it is brought forth in perfection in one day and hath no neede of a graduall growth Now I shall never beleevethat those glorious churches founded by the holy Apostles in every city in the which they had their Elders and Presbyters and all other Officers appointed them the which churches also consisted of visible Saints that they were not at their first constitution as compleat churches and in the which Christ was not as well set up upon his Throne as any of our new gathered churches of the congregationall way Yea it were an impiety to think that the blessed Apostles did not know how to gather churches and how to set up Christ upon his Throne in them and how to bring them to perfection in one day at their first constitution as well as our brethren the Independents who notwithstanding do all proclame they but imitate the Apostles both in the gathering and constituting of their new churches And therefore if the Independent congregations are all compleated at their first founding and constitution and be all compleat within themselves as having plenary authority and power within themselves much more had all the Apostolicall and Primitive Churches absolute jurisdiction within themselvs at their first constitution which is yet more manifest from the reproofe given to the Church of Corinth by S. Paul who blameth them for not casting out the incestuous person and from the reproof given to some of the 7 churches of Asia by Christ himself For otherwise they if they had not bin perfect and compleat at their first constitution might have replyed and answered That they had no power to cast out corrupt Members and that their churches were not compleatly moulded up at their first founding and that they wanted that part of Discipline but none of these churches pretended any such thing neither could they for Saint Paul had given the church of Ephesus by name a caveat to take heed of Wolves that would rise up among them after his departure and had armed them likewise with power and authority for the casting of them out as it is at large to be seen in the twentieth of the Acts and that church executed its power in finding out of false Teachers and is praised for it though the other are blamed So that the neglect of this their duty and not executing of their Discipline was that that was found fault with in them and that they had not exercised that power that was given them in casting out of those corrupt Members from amongst them This I say was their failing and for this were they blamed so that it was not for want of Discipline or that they were not perfect at their first constitution but their negligence and their not doing their duty was their sinne Neither was the Church of Ierusalem inferior to any other church in power or wanted that part of Discipline of casting out corrupt Members as my Brother Burton boldly and without all reason affirmeth for it is well knowne that the church at Ierusalem had power of life and death as wee may see in the storie of Ananias and Saphira his wife the which if it could take away the very life of offendors as it did theirs for lying to the Spirit of God then it had power to cast out any corrupt Members and scandalous persons if they had had any amongst them as all reason will dictate to any well grounded Christian But that wee reade not of any excommunicated in the Church at Ierusalem it was not for any want of Discipline or power in that Church of casting out offenders but because there was no open Delinquents and scandalous persons for they were all zealous of the Law as it is well knowne and would suffer none in the least to transgresse it without questioning them nay if they conceived but an offence in the Apostles themselves they would call them to an account as wee may see Acts the â—1 where they questioned Peter for going in to the Gentiles and it is conceived by learned and judicious Christians that the punishment also that was inflicted upon Ananias and Saphira strucke so great a terrour of offending into all the Ghurch as it is in expresse words declared that they durst not in publike be vitious and therfore that made them all afraid of publike open and scandall withall it is recorded that they were all true Beleevers and Saints in the Church of Ierusalem and that they continued stedfastly in the Apostles Doctrine and Fellowship and in breaking of bread and prayer and were all true converts and Saints indeed now no church useth to cast out Saints and men of a holy and unblameable conversation and such as persevere in goodnesse and doe their duty but the wicked and scandalous which when there was none in the church at Ierusalem there was no need of excommunication or at least they had no occasion of exercising that part of discipline at that time For discipline in any church is as Magistracy in a Common-wealth or Kingdome which is not a terrour to the good but to the wicked as Saint Paul speaketh Rom. the 13. it is a comfort to well doers and as the Magistrate useth the sword onely against Offendors and Delinquents so the Officers of the Church exercise that part of Discipline only in casting out corrupt and scandalous Members which is solely to bee put in execution against them and therefore that wee reade not of excommunication in the Church at Ierusalem it was not for want of that part of Discipline but because there were no publick and scandalous persons there as in the church of Corinth Besides all men know that Discipline is one thing and the execution of discipline is an other and is but the result and effect of discipline as the church is one thing and the Administration of the Sacraments is another Power and Authority in a court whether ecclesiasticall or civill is one thing and the execution of the power of that court is an other and as the execution of its authority makes it not a court nor giveth not the power to it but declareth it to be a court invested with authority as in the Parliament the great and supreme court of this Kingdome the cutting off of Strafford and the Prelates heads gave not power to the Parliament but declared the power they had by their first constitution for they were a court before and had the power of execution before but upon this occasion they exercised it but will any man say if they had not at this time exercised their authority as they have not done for these many years before that the great court had wanted that part of Discipline all men that should attempt to say that great councell
that Church was wholly committed into the hands of the Presbyters who had the charge for the examination and tryall of the doctrine of all Teachers that came amongst them and that they were invested with power likewise and authority of casting them out that were Deceivers and fals Teachers and we farther learne that the care of all those severall congregations was committed to all the Bishops and Presbyters of that Church in common and although it consisted of many congregations yet it was but one church and therefore was classically governed communi consilio Presbyterorum and so were all the other six churches of Asia governed in all and every one of the which there were many congregations and churches of beleevers as is manifest from the manner of Christs concluding his Epistles sent by the Ministry of Saint John to all those Asian churches Rev. the 2. ver 7. Let him that hath an eare hear what the spirit saith to the churches From the which I thus argue He who maketh the particular or singular church he writeth to to be a multitude or company of Churches not one onely as the body is not one member onely he doth make that one church to which hee writeth to in singular or particular to be a Presbyterian Classicall or Collegiate Church But Christ in his Epiphonemicall conclusion to every Church which he had spoken to in singular or in particular doth speak of the same as of a company or multitude of Churches let him that hath an eare heare what the spirit saith to the Churches Ergo One Church hath many Churches in subordination to it and is classically or collegiately governed communi consilio Presbyterorum To the which argument the Independents answer by denying of the assumption saying that the words may be taken consequentér as well as antecedentér with relation to what followes as well as to what goes before and they cite Junius his testimony for the proofe of this their denyall nothing to the purpose They produce also Master Bains his authority to as little end Christ saith he doth not use the plural number in respect of the one Church preceding but in respect of the seven collectively taken it being his will that the Members of each singular Church should lay to heart both severally and joyntly whatsoever was spoken to them and to others This is the Answer the Author of the New Lights from the Summer Islands in the name of all the Independents makes to this Argument page 133. And if words may serve for answers those of the congregationall way will never want Answers and Replyes but we look for reasons and not for words in any men that shall deny our arguments And therefore when he hath no reason for his gainsaying the argument shall for ever stand in force to prove many Congregations and many Churches in the Church of Ephesus and in the other six Churches And truly he granteth the argument whiles he seemeâ—h to oppose it saying that the words may be taken consequenter as well as antecedenter So that he acknowledgeth the worâ—â— may be taken antecedenter as well as consequenter that is with relation to what goes before as well as to what follows viz both wayes which is as much as I require and as much as by the argument I laboured to prove For who ever denyed that when Christ spake to his Apostles bidding them watch that what he spake to them he spake to all men So who ever yet denyed that when Christ in the conclusion of every one of his Epistles to the Asian Churches said Let him that hath an eare hear what the spirit saith to the Churches that by Churches there Christ hath as well reference not onely to all the seven churches in Asia but to all succeeding Churches to the worlds end that they should by their examples be forewarned lest they likewise offend in the same manner For all men know That whatsoever was written was written for our instruction upon whom the ends of the world are come Though primarily principally and antecedenter he hath reference to all the severall Congregations Assemblies or Churches in each of those Churches as first to those of Ephesus which is yet called but one Church in the singular number as the others also as consisting of many severall companies and severall congregations yet being all combined together in their severall Precincts and subordinate to each of their Presbyteries were all collectively taken but for one Church within their particular jurisdictions and therefore Christ speaks to them all severally in the conclusion of all his Epistles in the number of multitude as to many though in the beginning of his Epistles he writes to them all as particular and singular Churches because though each of them consisted of many congregations as I said before yet they were subordinate to their several Presbyteries and governed by the common counsel of their severall Presbyteries in a classicall way And there is all reason to convince any man that the word Church in those Epistles should as well be considered collectively as the word Angell Now all orthodox writers and the very Independent Ministers themselves hold that by Angell is meant all the Ministers and Presbyters in each of those severall Churches And therefore if the word Angell in those severall Epistles may or be to be taken and interpreted collectively for many Ministers then the word Church also may or is to be taken collectively for many Churches For those of the congregationall way do acknowledg that Pastor and â—lock are relatives and have reference one to another Now if there were many Pastors in each of those Churches then there must likewise be many Flocks in each of those churches but that there were many Pastors and Bishops in those churches it is manifest by their constitution For the Apostles ordained Presbyters in every Church Acts 14. and in the church of Ephesus by name we finde many Presbyters and Bishops a whole colledge of them Acts the 20 ver 17 and 28. And therefore it is manifest there were many congregations and assemblies of Beleevers as in that church so in the other six for in expresse words Paul sayes that he preached unto them in the Church of Ephesus publikely and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is in every house which is by Master Knollys acknowledged to signifie many several congregations in that church And as it is at this day amongst us when the Independents preach publikely and from house to house or in every house every one of the shallowest understanding knowes that they have severall congregations and severall meeting places and therefore severall churches even so it is to be understood by the same expression that there were many churches in that one church of Ephesus because they had many assemblies and many meeting places which the Scripture saith they had both publikely and privately It seemes that the Magistrates there were converted and the Christians in that city had obtained so much
and pleasure of God in them and accordingly determined that difference and question by the written Word and from thence commanded that the Decrees of that Councell should be observed in all Churches After the very same manner in this their so doing the church of Ierusalem is a paterne to all other churches upon the like occasions it any difference of opinion rise amongst the churches or if any new heresies spring up tending to the subversion of the soules of the people how holy and godly so ever they seeme to be that broach them and what pretence so ever they make that they have them from divine Authority I say upon the like occasions in Imitation of the Apostles and Elders in the church at Ierusalem Kings and Princes and Christian Magistrates and those that are in Authority may call a councell or Synod of Divines together and as the Apostles and Elders there debated things by dispute and reason and by searching the holy Scripture found out the truth and determined the question and sent their Decrees which were binding to all other churches so I affirme also in this their so doing that church is a paterne of imitation to all churches in all Nations and Countries and Christian churches in them that Ministers out of severall Presbyteries in a representative body may meet together by the appointment of their Magistrates and dispute those questions by reasoning and discourse and finding by searching of the Word of God what his good will and pleasure is may determine the question accordingly and give out their decrees grouned upon the written Word with authority to be observed by all those churches under their severall Jurisdictions and as the people then did patiently wait till the determining of that difference without making of any rents schismes or separations one from another and did then yeild obedience to those decrees without any reluctation but observed them all willingly after the debate so ought all people in imitation of them and following their example with patience to wait without making any rents and divisions till things are fully discussed and determined in any such Synode or councell and then willingly and cheerfully submit themselves and yeild obedience to them and in their so doing they have the church at Ierusalem for a paterne and the Apostles and Elders of that church and the other churches for an example of imitation so long as they injoyne nothing contrary to the Word of God For this way of governing the church by Synods and Councells upon differing and dissenting opinions betweene church and church and upon occasion of any new Heresies sprung up in Christian Countries or any old ones revived as it hath its paterne from the church at Ierusalem and that of Antioch which is left for our imitation that all churches upon the like occasion should follow it So this way of ruling is grounded upon most excellent reason as most agreeable both to the Law of God and nature and the practise of all Nations and Kingdomes of which we have many presidents in the holy Scriptures besides this councell at Ierusalem and some others For as all Nations and Kingdoms have been ever governed by generall councells and have ever had their severall appeales from inferior Courts and councells to Superior upon either publicke grievances or upon any differences betweene Province and Province and County and County or betweene Corporation and Corporation or City and City or upon any Pressures or oppressions or impeachments or incroachments of each on the others liberties or through injustice or injuries done to each of them from some that are in power and authority So the church of Iesus Christ which is his Kingdome is inferior to no other Kingdome upon earth but in that also the severall Corporations that are under it which are so many Presbyterian churches have in like manner the liberty of their appeales upon any of the aforesaid or above named occasions And although they all injoy equall priviledges amongst themselves as the severall Provinces Counties Corporations and Cities in any kingdome do so as they cannot severally and by themselves considered give a Law each to other yet as in a generall councell in Kingdomes and Common-wealths when the Knights and Barons and Burgesses of each of them are all met together in their representative bodies in a Parliament or Diet may being so Assembled together not only redresse any abuses and punish Delâ—nquents but also for the better government of those severall Doâ—inâ—ons for the future give Lawes to each Province County City and Corporation yea and unto the whole Country And enact penall Statutes both to them and to the whole Countries under them according to the fundamentall Lawes of the Kingdomes and Countries In the same manner it is in the visible Catholicke church which is Christs Kingdome although in it the severall Presbyteries and churches considered by themselves and as having equall Authority amongst themselves cannot give Lawes to each other severally and by themselves considered as the Church of Corinth and that of Antioch and Ephesus and the other could not prescribe to each other a rule or Law to walke by with Authority but only in an examplary way by well doing yet all these severall churches ioyning together in a generall councell as they did at Jerusalem Acts the 15. and having from each of them deligated and sent their Presbyters and Ministers as so many Burgesses of their severall cities and Corporations and they being all met together upon any grievances and having by debating of the matters and differences in question by dispute and by disquisition found What is the good will of God and what is his pleasure in his good Word and in the holy Scriptures which are the Fundamentall Lawes of his Kingdom may in any Christian councell so called and ordering their businesse as the councell and Synod of Ierusalem did give out their Decrees and those binding ones to all those severall churches that are under their jurisdictions and all these severall churches ought to yeild obedience to them And in this their so doing they have the church of Ierusalem and the other churches a president and a paterne For I say in all these respects the church at Ierusalem is a paterne to all other churches And as in the church at Ierusalem Corinth Philippi Samaria Ephesus c. the Apostles Evangelists and the Presbyters in every one of those churches had the charge of each of those churches committed to them in common as is manifest from all the places above quoted and through the holy Scripture and as they fed them all and governed them all in common so in that also both the church at Ierusalem and all the other churches according to my brother Burtons doctrine who saith they must all come in for the making up of a compleat platforme I say as all the Presbyters and Ministers fed those severall churches in common so they are a paterne to all churches in all
Church we read of is Acts the second that consisted onely of visible Saints and yet had neither Deacons nor Presbyters at that time nor distinct Officers and Members united into one Church body respectively and wanted that part of Discipline also of casting out corrupt Members as my brother Burton asserteth pag. 10. So that by this it evidently followeth That those Congregations that consist of visible Saints though they have not distinct Officers within themselves and want Discipline may be true formed Churches after the New Testament form as the Church here of Jorusalem was which at that time it was a true formed Church by my brother Burtons confession had no Deacons nor Elders nor dictinstion of officers members nor that part of Discipline for casting out corrupt Members and yet I say notwithstanding it wanted all these things by their own concession it was at that time a true formed church that because the Members of that Church consisted of visible Saints from all which I may draw these two infallibleconclusions The First that all such congregations as consist of visible Saints such as beleeve the Gospel and make profession of the Christian Faith and are baptized and continue stedfastly in the doctrine of the Apostles in breaking of bread and in prayer are true formed Churches after the New Testament forme although they want both distinct Officers and Members united into one Church body respectively and although they want that part of discipline for casting out of corrupt Members This first conclusion I say I infallibly gather from the Independents doctrine The second is this That whatsoever Congregations and Assemblies they be that have both distinction of Officers and Members and Church discipline and all other outward performances if the Members of them bee not visible Saints they are not true formed Churches after the New Testament forme for all true formed Churches after the New Testament form are such as consist of visible Saints without which they are but shadows of Churches and no true churches for substance but all the Independent congregations are such as only glory in outward performances consist not of visible Saints Ergo. And this shall suffice to have spake to all that Mr Knollys I. S. my Brother had to reply against all my Arguments for the proof of my first Proposition viz. that there were many Congregations and severall Assemblies of beleevers in the Church of Ierusalem in the which they injoyed all acts of worship and all the saving and sealing Ordinances amongst themselves and that before the persecution and under the persecution and after the persecution And now I come to what Master Hanserdo I. S. and my Brother Burton have to answer to my second third and fourth Propositions insuing and after I have dispatched that worke I will then in like manner reply to whatsoever either Master Knollys I. S. or my brother Burton have to say to all my Arguments concerning the gathering of Churches and touching the liberty of conscience or the toleration of all Religions and because they are not so large in their answers to them as they were to my fore-going reasons and to speake the truth speake little to the purpose but for the overthrowing of their owne opinion and for the corroborating of mine I shall be the briefer in them But first I will set downe my Propositions and shew how farre the Jndependents assent unto them and I will then also faithfully relate their owne words so far as they are for their purpose or any way make against my Arguments or are in any respect advantagious to their cause My second Proposition now followeth viz. That all these congregations and severall Assemblies made but one Church And for proofe of this I shall not need to use many words or any great dispute for the brethren themselves acknowledge that all the beleevers in Jerusalem were all Members of that Church and they accord farther that it was but one Church And it is manifest out of the holy Scripture for it is said they that were converted were added to the Church and therefore Members of it and that they continued in the Churches communion and in the Apostles doctrine and put their estates in the Churches common treasury and â—hose Officers for the Church and all this I say our brethren doe acknowledge and take this fellowship of these Members for a paterne of ordinary Church-communion and therefore this my second assertion is without controversie it being in expresse words set downe in the 2 3 4 5 6. chapters of the Acts and many places in the same Storie and assented to by the brethren To this Proposition and the Reasons of the same Master Knollys in the eleventh page of his Pamphlet thus replyes To which J also saith hee consent but the brethren have not acknowledged neither bath the Doctor by Scripture proved that in this one Church of Jerusalem there were divers Congregations and severall Assemblies of Beleevers and therein I must manifest my dissent from the Doctors opinion promising him if he shall soundly prove it in expresse words of Scripture which he hath undertaken I will acknowledge it This is all Master Knollys hath to say to this Proposition I will first therefore reply to him and in doing that insert my brother Burtons answer to it with what I. S. hath to say and answer to them all in order Now whereas Master Knollys affirmes that the brethren have not acknowledged nor the Doctor by Scripture proved that in this one Church of Jerusalem there were divers Congregations and severall Assemblies of Beleevers in all hee saith I am most assured all that shall without prejudice reade my fore-going Arguments and seriously weigh and consider what my Brother Burton Master Knollys and I. S. have written will conclude That Master Hanserdo is a man of very shallow capacity and of as little honesty and no way to be credited in what either hee saith or writeth Neither ought Master Knollys in this controversie especially when the debate is yet sub Iudice to bee both party witnesse Iury and Iudge in his owne cause as all wise men will gather and therefore I leave it to the judgement of the learned whether or no I have not by Scripture sufficiently proved there were many congregations and severall Assemblies of Beleevers in that one Church and whether I have not by expresse words of Scripture and from my brother Burtons and Master Knollys his owne words abundantly evinced it all this I say I leave to the judgement of all impartiall and understanding Christians who I am confident will grant that I have sufficiently proved there were many congregations of beleevers in the Church of Jerusalem and therefore I challenge Master Knollys his promise and expect that hee should acknowledge his error and so relinquish his fond opinion of Independency which if he doe not hee cannot be an honest man and a true Saint as not keeping his word for David describing a
sent to Samaria by the Apostles Act. the 8. and Paul and Barnabas were sent from Antioch by that Church there to Ierusalem and from Jerusalem they were sent againe to Antioch Syria Galatia so that they were as much dependent as any other Ministers of the Gospel and therefore M. Knollys is altogether in error in asserting that the Apostles were independent neither is that true also that the presbyters were dependent upon the Apostles any farther then they commanded in the Lord for there was a speciall caution caveat made to the contrary not only by Christ himselfe who said to all his Followers and Disciples beware of false Prophets and false Christs but also by the Apostles themselves and that in the Synod at Ierusalem Acts the 15. who bad all the Gentiles beware and take heed that they listned not to any as comming from them unlesse they taught according to the word of God and their decrees yea Saint Paul in his Epistle to the Galatians Gal 1. verse 7 8. gives them and all Christians a speciall charge that if hee himselfe or any of the Apostles or an Angell from heaven should teach otherwise then hee had taught them that they should account him accursed and the same doctrine hee delivereth to the Corinthians 2 Cor. 10. and 11. charging them to take heed of fals Apostles although they transformed themselves into the Ministers of Righteousnesse and injoynes Timothy and Titus to doe the same and in them warnes all Christians to beware of false Teachers though they come in the name of Apostles if they bring not the doctrine of Christ and teach not according to sound words and the same doth Saint Peter in his Epistles and Saint Iohn in all his Epistles and commandeth them withall that they should not receive them into their houses nor bid them God speed and the same doth Saint Iude in his and the Church of Ephesus Revel the 2. verse 2. is commended for discovering and casting out the false Apostles by all which and many more proofs and reasons that might be alleaged it is apparently evident that the Presbyters did not depend upon the Apostles themselves but upon Christ whose Ministers and Angels they were and the stars in his right hand Apocalyp the 2. verse 1. who had their authority and Commission as well from Christ as the Apostles themselves had theirs and who preserved and protected them as well as hee did the Apostles bidding them not to be affraid what man could doe against them as the second and third chapters of the Revelations sufficiently declare and therefore they were all dependent upon Christ and not upon the Apostles as Master Knollys fondly saith who were their fellow servants though in a higher degree and order and if wee duly consider the transaction of all the busines in the Synod at Ierusalem Acts 15. the Presbyters were as much guided by the spirit in that Councell as the Apostles themselves as I said in my Argument and shall by and by by Gods assistance more abundantly prove that all the world may see the vanity of Master Knollys who thinkes all men should take for an Oracle every word that fals from his pen though it be never so erroneous and never so lyable to exception and just controule as that other of his expressions is where he saith that the Apostles were alwayes guided by the spirit in the Government of their Churches in the which words there is a twofold error for Peter was not guided by the spirit neither when Christ called him Sathan neither when he denyed his Master nor when he temporized amongst the Galatians besides the Churches were not the Apostles Churches as he erroneously and ignorantly speaketh but they were Christs golden Candlesticks Revel 1. ver 20. who walked amongst them And the Apostles professe 2 Cor. 4. ver 5. that they preached not themselves but Jesus Christ the Lord and themselves the servants of the Church for Jesus his sake and in the first of the Corinthians chap. 3. ver 21 22 23. Therefore let no man glory in men saith the Apostle for all things are yours whether Paul or Apollo or Cephas or the World or Life or Death or things present or things to come all are yours and ye are Christs and Christ is Gods If the Churches therefore be Christs golden Candlesticks and his Churches and his houses as Paul in the 1 of Timothy averreth ch 3. ver 14 15. where he saith These things I write unto thee that thou mayest know how thou oughtest to behave thy self in the house of God which is the Church of the living God the pillar and ground of truth if therefore I say Churches be the houses of God and the Churches of the living God and the golden Candlesticks of Jesus Christ and he be the Lord of them and there be also a speciall prohibition given by Christ himselfe to all his Apostles and to all ministers that they should not Lord it over his people as the Princes of the Gentils did over them that were their subjects how then can Mr Knollys say that the Churches were the Apostles Churches Every man I conceive that hath any ordinary understanding that with deliberation shall read Mr Knollys scriblings will conclude of him That he is altogether ignorant in sacred things and if he had not been a frontlesse man and without all shame he would never have published so many errors and so much ignorance as he hath done to the view of the world neither would he ever have said that though the Apostles were called Presbyters in the Scripture yet they acted not as Presbyters especially when it was proved unto him and all those of his fraternity in my first book that they acted in all acts of Government and in that Synod at Jerusalem Acts 15. as ordinary Presbyters But because Mr Knollys is not yet satisfied about that point nor perhaps never will be for the more ample satisfaction if not to him at least to others I will here prove that point a little more fully viz. that the Apostles acted as Presbyters in an ordinary way as the other did and after I have done that I will briefly also answer Mr Knollys his grolleries concerning the fufferage and votes of the Church and people in that Synod in Ierusalem But first I will prove that the Apostles in the debate and controversie in the Synod and in that whole businesse did not act as Apostles with a transcendent and infallible authority but as Presbyters in such a way as makes their meeting a president and pattern to ordinary Councels and Synods For first Paul an Apostle and Barnabas though both extraordinary men and indued with an infallible spirit yet were at that time sent to Ierusalem by the Church of Antioch ver 2. as servants of that Presbytery who willingly and in obedience to the order of that Church subjected themselves to their determination which they would not have done had they acted as
to obey now when these of the congregationall way have neither precept nor president for these their proceedings in their admission of Members it is but a vaine tradition of their owne braine and ought by all Christs true Disciples to be abhorred and abominated But whereas my brother Burton saith that they that are to walk together should first be agreed together and cites these words out of third of Amos ver 3. Can two walke together except they be agreed To this I thus Reply First that if the Independents were Gods and all the Presbyterians went on in wicked and sinfull courses then this question of his had been to the purpose but when it is certain that the Illdependents are sinners as well as the other Sonnes and Daughters of Adam and many of them known to be notoriously scandalous not onely for their damnable and hereticall opinions and schismaticall doctrines but for their lying rayling hypocrisie pride covetousnesse c. and all of them guilty of the sin of seducing and misleading the poor people I say in all these regards I see no reason why there should be any necessity layd upon Gods heritage and people to be acquainted with them and their ways except it be that all such as fear God and will walk in his pathes by knowing of them may shun them and their by-wayes which they are bound to do both from precept Prov. 4. v. 14 15. Ps 1. v. 1. and from the example of our Saviour Ioh. 2. ver 24. where it is said that Iesus did not commit himselfe unto them because he knew them And so all good people and such as truly fear God should make use of their knowledge to shun such seducers and deceivers and to decline all their by-wayes But secondly I answer that God hath no where injoyned or required that those that either are to be made Christians or to be admitted into Church fellowship should either know the faces of all the Members of the congregation or should be particularly acquainted with the whole church that he is to be admitted a Member of For we have no warrant for such practice in the whole Scripture neither is there any example of it from one end of the Bible to the other and therefore it is meer Will-Worship and a serving of God after the commandments of men which is so often condemned in holy Scripture as Isaiah 29. Matth. 15. Mark 7. Coloss 2. and therfore ought to be abhorred as an intolerable yoke of bondage which neither we nor our forefathers could bear Acts 15. Whereas Christs yoke is easie and light and they that take his yoke vpon them finde rest unto their soules Matth. 11. ver 28 29 30. who saith unto his people Come unto me all ye that labour and are heavy laden and I will give you rest He doth not say If you will come to me and be admitted into church fellowship you must first walk sometime with my people and be acquainted with them I say Christ the King of his church hath given no such command either to those that are to be admitted or to his Ministers and stewards of his house which is his church of any such practice Thirdly I answer that as there is an impossibility almost for any man or woman to be acquainted with a whole Church so it is neither necessary nor usefull For that knowledge that is required as necessary to salvation and for the making of any fit to be church Members consists in these things that they repent and beleeve and be baptized and that they should know the onely true God and whom he hath sent Jesus Christ John 17. And this is the first thing absolutely necessary to salvation which is required of all such as will be Christs Disciples The second thing is the knowledge of our selves which consists in self-denyall and regeneration For if any will be Christs Disciples they must deny themselves and take up his crosse dayly For so saith Christ our King Matth. 16. Luke 9. And again John 3. ver 3. Christ speaking unto Nicodemus saith to him and in him to all men Except a man be born again he cannot see the Kingdome of God ver 5. Except a man be born of water and of the spirit he cannot enter into the Kingdome of God He must be a new creature saith he And this is the knowledge that Christ the King of his church requires as necessary for their salvation so for their admission into church fellowship and he that has these qualifications has as much as Christ requires and there is no need of any particular or familiar acquaintance with all those of the congregation or with the whole church or that they should walk some time with them therefore it is wickedly done in all those of the congregational way to impose laws of their own making upon the people of God their brethren who are a free people and therefore they that desire to serve their King Christ Jesus and to hear and obey his voice only ought to detest all these false teachers that would so inthrall them especially they ought to abominate their practices because they make these their traditions Gods Ordinances But whereas my brother Burton saith that abundans cautela non nocet and that they look not so much at circumstances in conversion as the substance I affirme it is a most arrogant expression in any so to speak for in his thus speaking he makes as if it were in the power of poor mortall creatures to search mens hearts and judge of the secrets of the same which is onely Gods peculiar but that is not all but in this his expression there is a high strain of confidence in the man that he will seem to be wiser then Christ himselfe that was the King and Lawgiver of his Church and the mighty Councellour and yet he gave no precept for this abundans cautela and yet it is most certain that he revealed the whole will of his Father and his Disciples also delivered unto the church the whole counsell of God Act. 21. And yet neither Christ nor his Apostles did ever deliver this doctrine of walking with the church sometime nor never spake of this abundans cautela therefore I gather it is neither part of the will or councell of God that they injoyn this walking upon his people therefore all the true subjects of Jesus Christ and all his leige people ought to abominate and abhorre all such usurpers as my Brother Burton and his complices are that trample down the Laws of Christ our King and impose their own inventions and traditions upon his people for Christs Ordinances and Statutes And this shall suffice to have spak to what my brother Burton had to say to my second Quâ—rie To the third quaerie concerning the consent of the people and congregation my brother Burton replyes that it is answered before which was no answer to that quaerie But now learned I. S. comes in and Page 18.
as my Brother Burton sayes be the Gospel form of a Church and the Church of Jerusalem wanted that part of discipline then it was not a formed Church but so he speaketh of it in the tenth page where I observe a notable contradiction to usurpe his one Language And here I leave him a while to reconcile it But now to speak breifly by way of answer to these my Brother Burtons grolleries First Whereas he joyning with the Papists unchristians and unchurches all those that were baptized by the Baptist he is very erroneous in so doing and dealeth most wickedly and unchristianly with all those glorious Saints for they were as good Christians and beleevers as he or any Independents in the world As who all of them have Christs own testimony for their true faith in him and their unfained repentance towards God which are sufficient characters ever to make any people good Christians and of all them our Saviour saith Luke 7. 29 30. That they justified God and rejected not his counsel against themselves as the Pharisees and the Lawyers did that is all those that were baptized by the Baptistâ— repented and beleeved in Christ and imbraced the Promises and therefore by our Saviours own witnesse they were all good Christians as any in the new gathered Churches And therefore my Brother Burton as a notorious Papist and a calumniator ought to be reproved especially by the seven new Churches which hold That all that were baptized by Iohn the Baptist were beleevers and good Christians And this shall suffice to have spake to his first grollery His second is That he makes excommunication the form of a Church as we may see page the twentieth of his Book where answering unto my Argument by which I proved our Churches to be true Churches viz. Because the saving Truth of the Gospel of Iesus Christ was preached received and profest in our Churches To the which Argument of mine he there thus replyes If you saith he mean the whole truth of Christ it is well But do not you know saith he that there dre three special visible marks of a true visible Church The Gospel purely Preached the Sacraments duly administred and Discipline rightly practised All which marks to gather the Church of England for ought I know is yet to seek So that by these words of my Brother Burton it is manifest That in his opinion the Gospel-Form of a Church is to have Discipline rightly Practised So that where Discipline is wanting by his learning there is no true Gospel formed Church But before I answer to this his grollery I will say thus much to my Brother Burton That Discipline rightly practised is not one of the special visible marks of a true visible Church and that for these Reasons First Because the Holy Ghost who better knew the essential marks of a true visible Church then my Brother Burton yet he in setting them all down omitting that of Discipline saith Acts 2. 42. That they continued stedfastly in the Apostles Doctrine and Fellowship and in breaking of Bread and in Prayers So that according to this unerring discription of the essential marks of a true visible Church Wheresoever the Gospel is truly Preached and where the Sacraments are rightly administred and where there is the true Invocation of God which is the third essential mark in Gods Dialect of a true visible Church there there is a true Church although there be no Discipline and therefore I gather that Discipline though a most excellent Ordinance and much to be desired and had long since been obtained had not the Ildependents hindred it makes not for the esse but the bene esse of a Church And I will ever beleeve the Holy Ghost in this point rather then my Brother Burton And withal I will live and die in this opinion That the Church of England is a true Church notwithstanding whatsoever all the Sectaries can say to the contrary because in the Church of England the Gospel is truly Preached and the Sacraments are rightly Administred and the Name of God is truly called upon all which if they were sufficient to make the Church of Ierusalem a true formed Church yea and the first true formed Church according to my Brother Burtons own learning then they are sufficient to make the Church of England a true formed Church But a second Reason to prove that Discipline rightly practised is not the forme of a church is from my Brother Burtons owne words for hee everywhere saith that the church of Ierusalem was a true formed church and yet shee wanted that part of Discipline of casting out corrupt Members so that Discipline there could not then be rightly practised if that church wanted that part of Discipline and if it were not there at all as hee saith and therefore for that marke it does not make for the esse of a church and for the bringing in of a Gospel forme as is said before and which is yet more if excommunication be the Gospel forme of a true visible church then all the Synagogues in Ierusalem in Saint Iohn the Baptists time were true formed churches after the Gospel forme for Synagogue and Church in the holy Scriptures are all one and in all the Synagogues they had excommunication as in many places it is evident and for instance these Iohn 9. 22. For the Iewes had argued already that if any man did confesse hee was Christ hee should be put out of the Synagogue and in the fourtieth verse in terminis it is said that they cast out the young man and in the twelfth chapter verse 35. it is said there that amongst the chiefe Rulers many beleeved in him but because of the Pharisees they did not confesse him lest they should bee put out of the Synagogue Many places more to the same purpose might be produced to prove that there was that part of discipline even in the Synagogues and that in Johns time howâ—oever it was abused as excommunication daily is amongst all the Sectaries at this day and if we duly weigh and consider all things this part of discipline was taken from the Jewish Synagogues and from them brought into all Christian Churches so that if that part of discipline be the Gospel forme of a true visible Church or one of the essentiall markes of a true visible Church as my Brother Burton saith I shall not need to take a great journey from Ierusalem and Iohn Baptists Churches as my Brother Burton would have me goe to visit all the other Christian Churches to find in them excommunication that Gospel forme of a Church I will leave that journey to their Itinerary Independent Predicants who have nothing else to doe and will content my selfe with the Christian Synagogues and Churches amongst the which John Baptist and Christ himselfe both conversed preached and performed all the offices of true Pastors and in those Synagogues and Churches of Jerusalem in all and every one of them I find the Gospel
c. and of what even of a Toleration of any Religion but the true Religion and of that Religion Christ hath taught us by what authority soever it comes ratified unto us whether by Ecclesiasticall or civill yea though it bee imposed upon us by the command of Kings and Rulers themselves for saith Christ our Master I charge you all take heed and beware of the leven of the Pharisees and of the leven of Herod Now by leven our Saviour understands all traditions and doctrines of men and injoyns all his Disciples to beware of them and commands them to take heed of them and not to tolerate them amongst them and that this is his good will and pleasure he hath ratified it when hee was in heaven for writing unto the Church of Thyatira Revel 2. verse 20. I have saith hee a few things against thee because thou sufferest that woman Jezabel which calleth her selfe a Prophetesse to teach and seduce my servants c. Here Christ hath declared his will and good pleasure and how much he displeased with that Church that shee suffered those false Teachers and Seducers amongst them and that they but connived at them and pronounces fearfull judgements against both that Church and the Church of Pergamos and that of Laodicea for tolerating the Doctrine of Baalam the Nicolaitans and for suffering those luke-warme Christians amongst them so that there is nothing that Christ abhorreth more then a toleration of all Religions but that wee may farther yet know what the good will and pleasure of God is concerning this point let us heare Paul who made knowne the whole counsell of God to his Church Act. 20. Now hee in the 17. of the Acts declareth the will of God touching this matter for after that hee had reproved the Athenians for their superstitions ver 22. and undertaken to teach them the knowledge of the true God who they ignorantly worshipped and the right way of worshipping and serving him and informing them that hee is not worshipped with mens hands that is with any of their inventions and with what way or in what manner they thinke fit God saith hee is not to bee worshipped after any traditions of men but according to his owne appointments and this hee challenges by right from all men as being the absolute Lord of them all for he made them they are saith the Apostle the off-spring of God and his Generation and they live in him and move in him and have their being in him and their breath and life from him yea saith the Apostle hee hath determined the times before appointed and the bounds of their habitation Now God saith hee hath given you all these things that yee should seeke the Lord that is that ye should worship him as hee is your Lord and King and to whom all honour and service of right is due now then as wee are his off-spring we must not thinke of God after our fantasie and set up such a worship as pleaseth our selves or allow of any kind or way of worshipping God that men please to follow as you superstitiously doe at Athens no saith the Apostle God will be worshipped after his owne way and after his owne appointment and howsoever God winked at the times of this ignorance yet now hee commands all men every where to repent that is to set up the true Religion and to worship him after one way for saith hee all the nations are now to set up one way of worship and if they will not obey this Lord of the whole world and imbrace that one and onely true Religion that I teach and preach unto you then I tell you plainely that as God hath appointed a day wherein hee will judge the world in righteousnesse by Christ Iesus if you will not set up his true worship and the true Religion and the right way of serving him but will tolerate all manner of Religions amongst you still as formerly you have done and give liberty to every man to serve God after his owne will and pleasure and not according to this good will and pleasure of God you shall be eternally damned for this is the meaning of the Apostle so that the will of God must be our rule for worship and not Poland and Transsylvania the will of God saith the Apostle must be that wee must follow in worshipping and serving him Now when by the Word of God that acceptable and perfect will of his wee are taught that hee was displeased with his people the Jewes for tolerating of all religions amongst them and that he was highly offended with those christian Churches in Asia for tolerating the doctrines of Balaam and Iezabel we are sufficiently taught and instructed that Christians ought not to tolerate any other Religion but that which Christ the only King and Law-giver of his Church hath taught us and that whosoever should take that authority upon them to tolerate all Religions would bee found fighters against God and such as deservedly would bring downe his judgements upon the Land by it for if but conniving at evill and consenting to it be a thing displeasing unto God how would the tolerating of it by a Law be abominable unto his sacred and divine Majesty for this were to establish iniquity by a Law We are taught in the holy Scriptures that the consenting with a thiefe makes a man as guilty before God as the acting of thievery Psal 50 and that they that assented unto Jezabel in killing the Prophets made themselves all as guilty as Jezabel her selfe and that the Heathen Romans Rom. 1. verse 32. who knowing the judgement of God that they which commit such things are worthy of death not onely doe the same but consent with them that doe them made themselves as equally guilty as the Actors of them as Paul in his bill and information put up in the Court of Heaven against them sufficiently declareth the same did Elias in his bill of information against the people in his time accusing them all as equally guilty of the blood of the Prophets and destroying Religion as Jezabel and onely because they consented unto it They saith Elias have killed thy Prophets and have broken down thy Altars Which they all the people that assented unto her as well as the Officers and Executioners And so our Saviour in his time accuseth the people as well as Herod for slaying of Iohn the Baptist saying They have done to him whatsoever they pleased They which they all the Nobles that sate at Table with Herod that did not disswade Herod from that bloody and tyrannicall act and all the people that liked well of it the sinne of this Nation who assented unto the bloody Decrees and censures given in the High-commission-Court and in the Star-chamber and in all other unjust Courts the people that assented unto all their cruell censuâ—es against Gods people and liked well of it are as equally guilty who would ordinarily say that had they beene Judges
Presbyterian Brethren and of that great familiarity they have with Christ and what transcendent knowledge they have received from the mind and bosome of the Father it will not be amisse here to recite some passages of that seraphicall Doctors Sermons he preacheth in the Army I will take them out of the booke called the Vindication of certain Citizens where page 9. they set downe certaine points of doctrine that Saint Dell taught in the Army in their hearing viz. 1. That there are no more of a Church of God in a Kingdome then there be such as have the Spirit of God in that Kingdome 2. Neither Old nor New Testament doe hold forth a whole nation to be a Church 3. Whatsoever a State an Assembly or Councell shall say ought not to bind the Saints further then the judgement of those Saints shall leade them 4. The Saints are those that are now stiled Anabaptists Familists Antinomians Independents Sectaries and the like 5. The power is in you the people keepe it part not with it 6. The first party that arose against you namely the prophane ones of the Land are already fallen under you and now there is an other party Formalists and carnall Gospellers rising up against you but I am confident they shall all fall under you 7. They are willing to become subjects to make the Saints slaves nay they are all willing to become slaves themselves that they may tread upon the necks of the Saints These points of sublimated doctrine I find set forth publickly and published by authority as delivered by Saint Dell in one of his sermons at the Army which I had not put in to this my Epistle to the Reader had I not some dayes after the publication of them inquired whether Saint Dell had answered to this accusation against him and understanding that he had replyed nothing to it which he might have done in two houres if he had beene innocent and not guilty I tooke it pro confesso knowing that the Presses are open for all mens just Apologies and defence especially when I find them open to all wicked and impious Pamphlets and this as not all that made me beleeve the charge is true against him but because I have heard and that from men of reputation and worthy of beliefe that it is ordinary with him and his complices to preach such doctrines as these are publickly and privately and to maintaine them wheresoever he comes all the which I shall ever be able God assisting me to prove he never had nor received from the mind and bosome of God the Father nor from Jesus Christ though he boasts much of the Familiarity he hath with Jesus Christ If this be the knowledge the Sectaries vaunt so much of and if these be the things they pretend they have received from the mind and bosome of the Father I must confesse in these their notions they out-strip the knowledge of the Saints of old and of all the holy Prophets and Apostles and of the old Puritans of England who were ignorant of them all which was a learned ignorance in them knowing that God the Father taught a far different doctrine to his people as I shewed a little before and shall more fully declare in the insuing Discourse But this I will againe and againe assert that neither the old Puritans of England nor our godly Presbyterians now are inferiour to any of the Sectaries for an holy and conscionable outward walking in all manner of conversation or in the knowledge of God or of Jesus Christ or in any kind of knowledge that may truly be called learning or science whatsoever the Independents and Sectaries may glory and boast of themselvs I do farther assert that al the godly Presbyters in the church of England do preach Jesus Christ faith repentance and free grace and that in every Congregation upon all occasions more orthodoxly solidly sincerely and learnedly with all practicall divinity then ever any of the Sectaries did or can doe and therefore they do not know more of God then the Presbyterians doe as that Homothumadon Brother pharisaically and falsely gloried and all the Sectaries with him vaunt So that I see no reason why wee may not here make use of the Apostle Saint Pauls words concerning this busines who in the second of the Cor. 10. v. 7. 12. 18. Doe you looke on things after the outward appearance saith he if any man trusts to himselfe that hee is Christ's let him of himselfe thinke this againe that as he is Christ's even so are wee Christ's For we doe not make our selves of the number or compare our selves with some that commend themselvs but they measuring themselves by themselves and comparing themselves amongst themselves are not wise or understand not for not he that commendeth himselfe is approved but whom the Lord commendeth So that it seemes by Saint Pauls words not only in this Epistle but in others that the false Apostles and Seducers of his time had some high esteeme of themselves and of their own holinesse knowledge and abilities above others yea above the Apostles themselves as the Independents and Sectaries of our times have of their great piety and sufficiencie above their brethren as all their words Pamphlets and Vindications daily witnesse in which they slight all that oppose their novelties and stile them vaine men and such as neither know what to say norhow to hold their peace vilifying them all as the off-scouring and things of nought which practice of theirs when it was blamed in the false Apostles as sinfull it cannot be prayse-worthy in the Sectaries now in our times who walke in that way of unrighteousnesse those false Teachers then did and contrary to that rule prescribed by God which is to preferre others before themselves in honour which way the old Puritans of England walked in and not in the way of the false Apostles and the Sectaries of our times for they kept the road way and the royall way of righteousnesse esteeming of their brethren better then of themselves But the world was never without such a sort of men for Solomon speaks of the like There is a generation of men saith hee and how lofty are their eyes and their eye-lids lifted up and of such creatures Saint Paul speaks 2 Cor. 11 ver 22 which made him compare himselfe with them after this maner are they Hebrewes saith he so am I are they Israelites so am I are they the seed of Abraham so am I are they the Ministers of Christ I speake saith he as a foole I am more c. Thus the holy Apostle laughs at these seducers and vaine boasters and to make them more ashamed he compares himselfe with them not fearing to be counted a Jeerer and scorner of piety and religion though hee made himselfe merry with them whom he knew very well for all the shewes they made of being the Ministers of righteousnesse that they were a company of Impostors and therefore
Church then the doctrine of the Congregationall way falleth to the ground or vanisheth for if there were many and severall Congregations there that had not an absolute authority and jurisdiction Independent within themselvs respectively but were subordinate and subject to another authority above them then of necessity that tenent of the Congregationall way is but a meer chimera or whimsy of your own heads as all the learnedst of your tribe do acknowledge Now when my brother Burton hath not onely granted there were many Congregations of beleevers in that Church but by arguments proved it he hath utterly I say lost the field before he entered into the combat as will yet more perspicuously appear in the following discourse but by that I have now said you may see how unhappy you are in all these your Champions and Generals that give as great wounds unto your cause as any adversaries you have in the world now living ever gave That which I have now to say in the first place to all your leaders and guides is earnestly to intreat them as they look for true comfort in life and death and as they desire the peace of the Church and quiet of this distracted State and Kingdome they would now no longer withhold the truth from the people in unrighteousnesse which hitherto they have done but that they would unfainedly bewaile the errors of their wayes and repent of their seducing and misleading of the poor people let it be enough that they have so highly provoked God and caused the enemies to blaspheme our Christian Religion And in the second place I desire all you that have hitherto been misled and carryed about with every wind of their new doctrine that now you would more seriously prove and examine all things according to the Apostles rule 1 Thess 5. 12. and hold fast that which is good Lay not out your time and moneys for that which will profit you nothing but whiles it is called to day set your selves seriously upon the work of examining all those new doctrines that have been taught you set before your eyes the example of the noble Bereans search the Scriptures whether things be as they have taught you and if you please diligently to read what I have writ out of a zeal of the glory of God and out of love to your selves and a true desire of your eternall felicity If any of you that have erred from the truth shall be converted by it let him know that he that converteth the sinner from the error of his way shall save a soul from death and shall hide a multitude of sins James 5. 19. 20. John Bastwick THE ANTILOQVIE SOLOMON the Wisest of men and one beloved of God gives this counsell to all the sons and daughters of God and to the universality of all man-kind saying unto them all Prov. 23. ver 23. Buy the truth and sell it not also wisdome instruction and understanding He counsells them all to prise truth with wisdome instruction and understanding above all things as the onely means of making men happy not in this life alone but eternally for so Solomon that wise man asserteth Prov. 3. ver 13 14 15 16 17 18. saying Happy is the man that findeth wisdome and the man that getteth understanding For the merchandise of it is better then the merchandise of silver and the gain thereof then fine gold Shee is more precious then rubies and all the things thou canst desire are not to be compared unto her Length of dayes is in her right hand and in her left hand riches and honour Her wayes are wayes of pleasantnesse and all her pathes are peace She is a tree of life to them that lay hold upon her and happy is every one that retaineth her If all the Orators of the World had been gathered together 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 they could not with so illustrious a brevity have set forth the excellency of wisdome and understanding nor with more glorious encomiums and ellogies have decipher'd the amability of them for the making of them specious and lovely and for the inviting of all men to the ready and willing imbracing of them for if either life profit pleasure honour or any delectable content or any thing indeed desirable in the world can invite any creature to be inamored with any object of love all that can be said in way of the praise thereof is contained in this description of wisdome and understanding delivered by Solomon And yet truth hath the preeminency before them all the first place for dignity being given assigned unto her and by a speciall command from God himself who spake by his servant Solomon all men are injoyned to buy the truth and that upon any termes and not to bartell it away or sell it or to part with it though it might be with never so much worldly emolument unto them Buy the truth saith God sell it not keep it for ever For by the truth thou shalt perfectly attain unto liberty which is the life of life yea which is better then life liberty being that the whole world contends for every man not onely desiring it but fighting for it Now the truth will make every man free so saith Christ John 8. ver 32. The truth shall make you free from all error and from the fear of Hell and Death and from the very terror of both And lest any man should seriously doubt what truth is as Pilate scornfully did Christ himselfe hath taught us John 17. v. 17. saying Thy Word is Truth and that Truth that sanctifieth his people For every thing is sanctified by the the Word and Prayer 1 Tim. 4. v. 5. This precious good Word of God and the faith once delivered unto the Saints Jude 3. contained in it is that that all men are exhorted earnestly to contend for And therefore more especially in these our times every one ought vigorously to stand up and contend for it yea upon any termes or at any rate to buy it when it is become such a rarity as it is scarse to be met with being almost lost in the thickets meanders and labyrinths of so many errors so that the faith once delivered unto the Saints is very rarely to be found amongst the sons of men through the involutions and intanglements of writhing and restlesse spirits whose whole work and designe it is as by their dayly practices it doth appear either wholy to eclipse or darken it or totally to take it away that by this meanes Truth and Light being once removed the deceivers and impostors may the better put off their corrupt and putrid wares and commodities and the poor deluded people may the more facilly and readily be deluded cheated and consened and those that are wayfaring men for the want of its direction may wander in the by-paths of darknesse to their own eternall perdition And the verity is too too many by their needlesse vain and unnecessary janglings about the truth
Church at one time without all controversie it was impossible that they could all then meet together in any one place and for farther confirmation of this truth and for the putting of this controversie for ever out of doubt the Holy Ghost saith in the fifth chapter verse 14. And Beleevers were more added unto the Church multitudes both of men and women Marke I pray the expression multitudes Now by multitude all men know is to be understood and that in all Languages a very great Assembly or congregation or company whereupon the Scripture saith follow not a multitude to doe evill so that by multitude is ever understood some vast Assembly or Congregation of people and here the Scripture saith speaking in the plurall number that multitudes and that both of men and women were added to the Lord that is to say many great Congregations and Assemblies were added to the Church yea the expression doth as it were intimate that they came in so fast that they could not now any longer be counted as it were by retayle or enumerate companies as when they came in by small numbers as three thousand and five thousand at a time which might easily be told and reckoned but that now they came into the Church in such great bodies as they were forced to set them downe by whole sale and therefore the Holy Ghost saith that Beleevers were added unto the Lord multitudes both of men and women that is to say many great Congregations of Beleevers of both sexes yea and that there might yet be no mistake in this busines the Scripture saith in the last verse of this chapter for the great multitudes of them that the Apostles daily in the Temple and in every house ceased not to teach and preach Iesus Christ So that here by the testimony of the Holy Ghost wee are ascertained there were divers and severall Congregations of Beleevers at that time in the Church of Ierusalem for they had their meetings not onely in the Temple but in every house or from house to house which is all one that is to say they had many Congregations and Assemblies of Beleevers at that time in severall private houses as well as in the Temple so that this truth being confirmed unto us not onely by reason but by the mouth of so many infallible witnesses as that out of the second chapter where it is said they brake bread daily from house to house and two more witnesses also in this fifth chapter where it is recorded verse 14. that multitudes both of men and women that is to say many great Congregations of Beleevers of both sexes were added to the Lord and in the last verse that there might be yet no scruple made of the busines the places of their meetings are also expressed viz. in the Temple and in every house so that all good Christians are bound to beleeve that there were many Congregations and Assemblies of Beleevers at that time in the Church of Jerusalem and therefore more then could all possibly meet in any one place or congregation So that if I should say no more the truth concerning this point is so evidently apparent to all judicious and understanding men that they cannot doubt of it except they will deny the Scripture it selfe yet that the truth concerning this controversie may yet more fully be cleared I shall for the farther coroborrating of it and for confirmation of the same produce a few testimonies more In the sixth chapter verse 7. The word of the Lord increased saith the Holy Ghost and the number of Disciples multiplyed in Jerusalem greatly and a great company of the Priests were obedient to the faith Here wee find multiplication upon multiplication of Beleevers and more additions of them and that in Ierusalem and amongst these multitudes there was a great company of Priests that is a great company of their Ministers and learned Rabbies were converted and all these severall admissions of Beleevers into this Church of Jerusalem were without any of the conditions those of the congregationall way require now of their new Members for it is not said that they demanded of them that they should walke some time with them before their admission or that they should make any publicke confession of their faith or bring in the evidences of their conversion or enter into any particular explicite Covenant or come in by the consent of the people before their admission nothing of all these things were required at their hands in this Mother-church and therefore all the practise of this kind of admission in our new Congregations is without any president or example and therefore those of the congregationall way doe most wickedly to pretend they have the Church of Jerusalem for an example for their practise of admitting of Members But I say the thing chiefly to be observed here is the multiplication and the increase of many more Disciples to the former adding withall that amongst those Disciples and Converts that were added to the Lord there was a great company of the Priests now what an increase of Beleevers may any man suppose there must then needs follow when so many of their Ministers were converted without doubt when the people saw their Priests turne Christians and heard them also in their preachings give in their reasons for their imbracing of the Gospel and saw withall the daily miracles of the Apostles for the confirmation of this their doctrine they did infinitly multiply so that if there had beene no conversion of men before spak of yet the conversion of these very Priests in a short time would have procured the conversion of many more then could have met in any one place or a few and this all reason will perswade for wee find it by hourly experience how many hundreds are daily mislead and seduced by the error of a few temporising unstable Presbyters who are turned Independents and what a deale of mischiefe they have done here amongst us so that not a few places can containe their Proselytes and all this without the helpe of any miracles and we see daily if but any rich and crased Gentlewoman or any confounded Lady turne Independent or if but any unstable man of any eminency revolt from the Presbyterian way what a noyse there is by and by made at it and how many giddy headed men and women especially are seduced by it and that without any prodigies Now I say all reason will perswade any intelligible man that truth should much more prevaile then error and that in the hands of so great a multitude and of such learned Rabbies and those also in so great honour and esteeme amongst the people having withall the helpe of Miracles amongst them and that to the speedy conversion of many thousands yea the Scripture saith that the Word of God increased that is to say converted many and that the number of Disciples multiplyed in Jerusalem greatly not in a small manner and that a great company of the
in the Church of Jerusalem and yet all these as the Holy Scripture asserteth in many places made all but one Church and the Independents themselves acknowledge there was but one Church in Jerusalem Now how in any ordinary mans understanding can many congregations be one politicall ministeriall Church except only because they are united and associated under one Presbyteriall government that is to say under the government of a whole colledg of Presbyters which the Church of Ierusalem was for there was many Presbyters there as this 21. ch testifieth and the 15. chap. and many other places of holy writ all which had the government over that Church committed to them in common So that it may be a wonder to all rationall men that there should any appear in the world notwithstanding the abundant evidence out of the holy Word of God that should yet assert there were no more beleevers in the Church of Ierusalem then could all meet in one Congregation which assertion of theirs besides the Scripture very common reason overthrows for if we consider Jerusalem it is said to be the city of the great King in which there were never lesse then seven or eight hundred thousand inhabitants who dayly expected the Messiah who it is well known when he came had twelve Apostles and seventy Disciples at his command to go and come at pleasure whose powerfull preaching was such that it is related that Satan was seen fall down like iightning from heaven that is to say whose Kingdome was overthrown by their ministery and by all whose efficacious preaching and miracles we have this testimony that at one of their Miracles and Sermons there were three thousand converted at one time besides dayly additions added unto that Church by the Lord and five thousand men besides women at another and multitudes of beleevers both of men and women at another and that there was dayly increase of beleevers upon increase with a multitude of Priests besides a whole colledge of Presbyters settled Ministers amongst them and that all these should yet prevail to convert no more in future time then could all meet in one Congregation it seems a thing very incredible and truly for any to persevere in this error against all reason and against the evident testimonies of holy Scripture where we have it recorded there were many ten thousands of very weak beleevers in that one Church besides the strong it is an open and wilfull fighting against God and a resisting of his spirit which is a fearfull sin for all these are convincing arguments to prove the numberlesse multitudes and congregations of beleevers in the Church of Ierusalem And all thâ—s brigade of arguments militate against the whole Army of the Homothumadon Sectaries and shall I hope for ever serve to vanquish them all and to make good this field of truth That there were many Congregations and Assemblies of beleevers in the Church of Jerusalem and yet they were not every one a Church or Churches severally considered by themselves exercising an absolute soveraignty Independent within themselves respectively as all our new gathered Churches do now here in London but all those congregations in Jerusalem were all subordinate and being combined together made all of them but one Church and were all under a common Counsell or Colledg of Presbyters within that Precinct the example of which Mother-Church is left upon record to all posterity for imitation and therefore that tenent of the Homothumadon Independents concerning the congregationall way hath no ground for it in the whole Word of God but is a meer whimsy of their own brain and hath its foundation only in the aire and will soon vanish or be speedily blown away by the blast and breath of truth Now my other companies drawn out of the Apostles quarters after Christs death and ascension they militate against all the Burtonian Independents who acknowledge that there were many Assemblies of beleevers in the Church of Ierusalem but deny they were Churches properly so called now though by their grant they have lost the day as in the following skirmishes will appear yet that all men may see that this sconse of error to which they have betaken themselves cannot defend their cause I shall with one company at this time beat them out of that hold and fully vanquish them in the pitcht field It is recorded Act. 2. v. 42. of all those new converts which were in many assemblies in many houses that they continued stedfastly in the Apostles doctrine and fellowship and in breaking of bread and in prayers This very troop alone serves for the beating of them all out of what bulwark soever they can betake themselves to for shelter for if all these congregations and Assemblies of believers were equall in all priviledges and immunities with any Churches that ever were on earth and had in them severally whatsoever did make the whole Church of Ierusalem the first formed Church then they were all and every one of them Churches properly so called But the antecedent is true Ergo the consequent so that to any rationall man this question is also out of controversie for let any man but duly examine what it was in the whole church of Jerusalem that made it the first formed church and a church properly so called and he shall find the same in every one of those particular congregations and assemblies for the making of them churches properly so called so that thâ—y each of them severally may as truly challenge the name of Church as the whole Church can they communicating in whatsoever is essentiall for the making of any church a compleat church or a church properly so called if partaking in all Ordinances by lawfull Ministers can make any assembly or congregation a church properly so called So that by this one company and by this very argument all the whibling reserves of all the Burtonian Independents are dissipated and scattered and that place of truth maintained against them all viz. that every one of those Assemblies in Jerusalem were churches properly so called and yet all of them made up but one intire Church and they were not every of them severally considered by themselves and apart Independent and exercising an absolute soveraignty within themselves And therefore this truth shall for ever stand good against all sorts of Independents That many congregations combined together and subordinate to some one colledg of Presbyters make all of them within their precincts but one entire Church and that this is Gods Ordinance and not that tenent of the congregationall way which hath neither precept or president for it in all Gods holy Word So that by all these encounters and frequent skirmishes and by the mighty power and assistance of the great Lord of Hostes the Generall of all the Armies of heaven and earth I have vanquished all the forces both of the Homothumadon Independents and all the Burtonian Sectaries and maintained and kept not onely the field of truth but these
the most uncivilized people living they usually railing of me to my face and such of them as I know not nor never to my remembrance saw before their assaulting of me and they that carry themselves fairest towards me either puffe in my face as they passe by me thinking to provoke me or else make odd faces at me or stare on me as I passe by them like a hare in a forme and they have often professed unto many that they had as leive meet the devill as me and said that I was a devill and that I looked like the devill and like Cain and a thousand more such expressions they have upon all occasions in their mouthes concerning me besides whatsoever they have published in their Pamphlets and besides all their filthy and infamous language they dayly use to the defaming of me and mine But this is not my condition alone but so they deal with all those faithfull and godly Presbyterian Ministers all which confirms me in my opinion calling them ugly fellows and bland asses and Presbytyrants and loading them with all manner of reproaches so that they have made them all through the Kingdome so hatefull and infamous as they cannot dwell safely in their houses where there is any increase of them and all that I now write can sufficiently be proved by many witnesses which passages of theirs towards all corroborates me in my perswasion So that by these barbarous practices of all the Sectaries and by these their uncouth sounds they have so scared and terrified the people that now the name of a Presbyterian is formidable to many and it is enough to hinder any from preferment that they can but blast with the name of a Presbyterian and this also hath been generally observed that there is scarse a man found to have been familiar at any time with any of the Sectaries that if he once come to declare himself to stand for the Presbytery that ever they could endure after whatsoever love they seemed to shew towards him before that time yea it is farther observed that scarse ever any man of what rank or fashion soever he were that familiarly conversed amongst them that they have not afterwards betrayed or blasted their in honor and reputation yea I could tell many a sad story to the deterring of any Presbyterian for ever being familiar with any of that brood and I shall ever be able to prove that when some of them that were poor unlearned and obscure men yet for their seeming holiness have by great Parsonages been entertained in their families and whom they made their principall companions these most ungratefull and treacherous fellows have made use of this their noble courtesie and humanity but to find how they stood affected to Independency and when they perceived that they were not for their purpose though otherwise they were very moderate men yet they raised many infamous reports of them yea they so blasted them in their honours as they could never after recover their reputation So that it is a wonder to me that any cordiall reall and solid Presbyterian will familiarly converse with them when they have dayly so many sad presidents of their treachery before their eyes And for my part I wonder how any truly godly people dare come in their company much lesse hear them preach especially when they pray they may not be led into temptation and when they have a speciall command to take heed of all seducers and are so frequently in holy Scripture forewarned to decline all society with them which they according to Gods command ever ought to avoyd For Saint Paul speaking of false teachers in the fifth of the Galatians wishes that they were cut off and in the first chapter of the same Epistle v. 8. 9. he faith there that if an Angel from heaven should preach unto them otherwise then he had taught them that they should account him accursed therefore surely he would not have any of Christs Disciples and Scholers familiar with false teachers and such as teach the people otherwise then Paul had taught them which all the Sectaries do and much more ought all those that know the doctrines and practices of the Sectaries of our times how dangerous a generation of men they are in all respects and how many have bin utterly ruined undone in their souls and in their estates and reputations by their familiarity with them to shun them Surely it is a great provoking of God when they know his blessed Will who hath said Matth. 15. 7. Beware of false Prophets which come to you in sheeps clothing but inwardly are ravening wolves that yet they will not take heed of them but run after their preachments for this is indeed to thrust themselves into temptation and put themselves upon needlesse danger to the ruining of their own souls and the souls of those that are commitâ—ed to their charg in their families whom they are by Gods command to bring up in the nurture and fear of the Lord and to instruct in the way of truth and righteousnesse which the Sectaries do not walk in as I have sufficiently proved both in my Epistle to the Reader and through my whole Book and therfore ought to be shunned and declined whatsoever seeming holinesse and sanctimony they pretend to the World Without doubt the deceivers in Pauls times were as seemingly holy as any of our Itinerary and Independent Praedicants for he saith of them that like the devill they transformed themselves into angels of light and appeared like the Ministers of righteousnesse and the Pharisees in Christs time seemed very glorious outwardly as our Saviour speaketh of them and yet he commanded all his followers to beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and of the leaven of Herod he would have none of his Disciples famâ—liar with them but injoyns them all to take heed of their doctrines And Saint Paul 2 Tim. 3. 1 2 3 4. saith that the last times wil be perillous and dangerous times in regard of the false teachers that should then arise and after he had made a description of them that they might know them which in every thing agrees with the Sectaries of our times he saith of those seducers that they shal be lovers of themselvs covetous boasters proud blasphemers disobedient to Parents unthankful unholy without naturall affection covenant breakers false accusers that is in the Originall devils incontinent fierce despisers of those that are good treacherous heady high minded lovers of pleasures more then lovers of God having a form of godlinesse but denying the power thereof Now after he hath deciphered them he gives all men a speciall command to avoyd their society saying from such turn away he injoynes all men not so much as to hear them And compares them to Jannes and Jambres those sorcerers who withstood Moses and says of those seducers that they also like them would resist the truth they being men of corrupt minds and reprobate concerning the faith
Councell and the people were to make a new choyse For my own particular I will speake my conscience in this point and leave it to the judgement of all intelligible and wise men such as love their Religion and Countrey I see no reason that any Sectary whatsoever whether Independent Antinomian Anabaptist Seeker c. or any Fugitives that have ran over into Holland or New-England to set up new Churches there should be suffered to sit in the Great Councill of the Kingdome which without doubt will with al their ability and power labour to maintaine their severall factions all which tend to the ruineâ—of this State and Kingdom and to the destruction of all our liberties and therefore I conceive they are as dangerous as ever the Papists were yea the tenents of many of them are more destructive to all Government then ever those of the Iesuits were or the most inveterate Papist that ever yet put pen to paper and if the Papists were not suffered to sit in Parliament I shall ever beleeve it will not consist with the safety of the Land that any Sectary what ever should sit in the great Councell especially it being daily perceived that all the Sectaries through the land have their incouragement from some of them to doe mischiefe every where but if the people through the Kingdom will not humbly perition the Parliament that all such with all Minors and Novices should be put out of the Parliament it being proclamed by God himselfe as a curse to that people who have children for their Princes Isa 3. whether they be children in respect of years or discretion then it is a sad presage of that kingdoms and countries ruin where the people are not only divided amongst themselves but their councels also which they are through the whole land in all their Committees by reason of these Sectaries and Independents on all sides who are the only fomenters of factions and divisions and by this meanes have got all the wealth and riches of the Land into their own hands with most of the strength with the ruine and miseries of many The Lord open the eyes of all the people that they may timely see into their danger and petition the Great Councell that all the Sectaries may be removed out ofall offices and Committees and places of trust through the Kingdome But if any of them shall brag of any service done for the State it is well knowne they were not the only Actors in that imployment but ten to one better Christians then themselves did the worke though they have got all the honour from them and have beene ever well paid for it when the other wanted their monies and therefore they having bin so well regarded already above others they may hold their peace and be latisfied for it is well knowne that not one of a thousand of them before the warres begun was worth any thing yet now they are knowne to be very rich and wealthy when such as were borne to great estates and were as serviceable to the Parliament and faithfuller to it with fewer selfe ends then they have beene are many of them destitute of Livelyhood and many more of them by the calumnies and lyes of the Independents and Sectaries are now in disgrace and all their service is forgotten all the which things besides the dangerousnesse of these mens Doctrines should teach all men to avoid and shun both their teachings and teachers and complices and abetters This I thought fit out of my love to my countrey and out of my desire of all mens salvation to speake If my words shall find any esteeme or any shall for sake the errors of their new wayes by seeing the truth I shall rejoyce and count my selfe happy but if men resolve to persist in their erroneous opinions and by-paths of ignorance I will say with the Apostle 1 Cor. 14. 38. He that is ignorant let him be ignorant still THE Vtter Routing of the whole Army of all the INDEPENDENTS and Sectaries with the totall overthrow of their Hirarchy that new Babell more groundlesse than that of the Prelates THe Apostle Saint Paul in the fourth of the Ephesians exhorting all Christians to walk worthy of the Vocation whereunto they were called and to behave themselves as beseemed Brethren wisheth them with all lowlinesse and meeknesse with long suffering and patience to bear one with another in love And useth a forceable Argument to move them to brotherly kindnesse Because saith he there is but one body and one spirit and one hope of Salvation We all worship one God we are all consecrated to him with one Baptisme and we all hope for one and the self-same glory Therefore as there is but one Lord one faith one Baptisme so be yee also of one minde live in love and keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of Peace If ever there was need of this exhortation there is now singular use of it especially in this distracted Nation wherein we live For the division of a Kingdom is the ruine of it the division of a family destroys it the division between brethren brings a confusion amongst them It hath ever bin observed That diversity of judgment opinion hath made a difference in affection The difference between the Iews and the Samaritans in points of Religion made the Disciples desire That fire might come down from heaven to end that controversie The difference between us and the Papists and the diversity of opinions between us made them because they could not bring down fire from heaven fetch it out of hell to blow up the Parliament and because that had not the desired effect and the diversity of opinion stil remaining makes the difference of their affection from us so great that nothing can expiate their indignation against us but the utter internetion and destruction of us all and this and this only next unto our own sins is the cause of all those fatall calamities this miserable kingdome is now imbroyled with And therefore all care and diligence among brethren should be used to get a right understanding one of another and to move them to bear one with another and ever to call to minde the saying of Abraham to Lot Gen. 13. Let not us contend together for we are brethren I am most assured if there were a right understanding of the differences that are now among brethren there could not be such bitter expressions one against another and such alienation of affection as is now too frequent and too well known to the common enemy We are commanded If it be possible as much as lies in us to be in in peace with all men Rom. 12. 18. And the fruits of discord are set down in the 5 th of the Galathians verse 15. If saith the Apostle ye bite and devoure one another take heede yee be not consumed one with another and in the 20. verse Hatred saith the Apostle varience emulation strife heresies c. and
manner these men argue except say they the Presbyters by the imposition of their hands upon their Disciples can inable them on a sudden to speake with strange tongues to foretell things to come and heal the sicke c. we will not acknowledge them to be true Elders but let them do all these things by the imposition of their hands and then wee will acknowledge them for a true Presbytery See the vanity of these men and the instability of their faith by their own confession miracles will make them believe any thing if we may credit their own words though never so contrary to their judgement and to the faith once delivered to the Saints It is well known to the Learned that the Apostles and those Primitive christians had extraordinary and wonderfull gifts that ravisht the world then into admiration and it is confest also by all understanding Christians that those wonder-working miracles were but temporary as the miraculous feeding of the people with Manna in the Wildernesse where they were fellow-commoners with the Angels and continued but till they came into the Land that flowed with Milk and Honey So those miracles of the Primitive christians continued but for a time till the Gospell and the truth of the Christian faith and doctrine was confirmed and established which being once done and the holy Scriptures which were to be the rule of faith to the end of the world being left to posterity and to which we are tyed and commanded not to be wise above that which is written 1 Cor. 4. 6. and forbid in Gal. 1. 8 9. to believe otherwise then we have been taught though the Apostles or an Angell from heaven should teach otherwise after I say the Doctrine of the Christian Faith and Religion was confirmed the ordinary working of Miracles ceased And it is said of Antichrist in 2 Thess chap. 2. That he shall come with strong delusions and lying wonders and with all deceiveableness in them that perish because they received not the love of the truth that they might be saved So that I cannot sufficiently wonder to see the dealing of these men who in these dayes expect and look for miracles to confirme their faith when notwithstanding we are forwarned to take heed of all false delusions and commanded to the contrary Shew us some miracles say they and then we will believe you are true Presbyters So dealt the Jewes with Christ What signe shewest thou that wee may beleeve in thee But when Christ had shewed them signe upon signe and miracle upon miracle were they ever the more convinced Did those miracles create beliefe in them No surely but rather hardned them and made them blaspheme When he cast out Devils they say he did it by the Prince of Devils So without doubt if the Presbyters had those gifts of miracles that they could gratifie these men with daily prodigies and workes of wonder they would then say they came with lying wonders and with the working of Satan and they would make the world abhor them the more There is an old saying that hee must rise early and never goe to bed that will please all men and truly it would be not onely difficult but an impossible thing for any State or great Councell were it never so wise to please all the people under them God himselfe nor Moses nor Aaron his servants could please the Israelites though they saw never such wonders continually before their eyes to confirme their authority yea they told Moses and Aaron to their faces that they tooke too much upon them And afterwards they cast off Gods own government God himselfe as the Lord complains to Samuel in 1 Samuel and would set up a governement after the modell of their owne braine as it is at large set downe in that Booke And not long after they changed the manner of Gods worship in Ieroboams time and taught the feare of God as the Lord complaineth Isay 29. after the precepts of men and rejected Gods commandements as Christ saith Matth. 15. and Marke 7. So that what they thought best in their owne eyes that was ever best pleasing unto them They would not content themselves with the Written Word though they were never so often by Moses and all the rest of the Prophets commanded to cleave unto it saying to the Law and to the Testimony Isay 8. Even so it is now in these dayes they content not themselves with that Ordinance that is set downe in the Written Word but say Come shew us some miracles and then wee will beleeve you are a right Presbyterie Our Saviour speaking to the Jewes concerning Saint Iohn the Baptist and Himselfe Iohn saith hee came neither eating nor drinking and ye say behold hee hath a Devill the Sonne of Man came both eating and drinking and ye say hee is a Wine-bibber a friend of Publicans and Sinners So that whatsoever method or way God used to convert them they cavil'd against it and were never satisfied alwayes resisting the Spirit of God as Stephen told them in Act. 7. So now in these our times they looke for miracles and a new way of teaching But all good Christians are forbid to listen after or to give heed to miracles and are sent unto Moses and the Prophets Luke 16. and are commanded to search the Scripture John 5. Yea our Saviour himselfe in the person of Abraham Luke 16. saith That if men will not beleeve Moses and the Prophets they will not be perswaded by miracles and I am confident that could the Presbyters doe all those miracles these men desire they would the more reproach them and exclaime against them and affirme they wrought by the Devill as the Jews told our Saviour he did I must confesse I am of a contrary opinion to these men not only in the matter of miracles but in all external performances for I am instructed in the holy scriptures that the Devill can transforme himselfe into an Angell of light and that the Deceivers and false Teachers shall come forth in sheeps clothing and for outward appearance shalequalize if not exceed the faithfullest truest Pastors and Ministers of Christ and therefore we are in speciall commanded to take heed of such and for my particular if any men whatsoever of never such seeming sanctity sufficient abilities unblameable life should come forth and teach any other Doctrine of Faith Manners or Government then that I have been taught in the holy Scripture and should confirme this their Doctrine with never so many miracles I will still continue stedfast in the Doctrine of the Apostles and cleave unto the written Word and will never beleeve contrary to that though I should undergoe the greatest misery or be exposed to the greatest want by it that any man ever saw for I know that all these momentary trials and afflictions are not worthy that exceeding weight of glory that shall be revealed And for this very point of the Presbytery in that sense I take
and judgment in any one to conclude That all the beleevers in the Church of Ierusalem were there And unlesse they can so conclude the Argument is nothing to the purpose nor of any validity to evince and prove the Assertion of our brethren But if I should yeeld unto the brethren these two things the first That all the beleeving Greeks and all the beleeving Hebrews none excepted were all before the Apostles in one place yet still this will follow that all the beleevers of every severall Nation were not in this multitude and number for they had nothing to do in the businesse for they were no parties so that the Argument is nothing to the purpose but a meer fallacy to delude unstable soules and to make them beleeve that bladders are Lanthorns Secondly should I grant unto the brethren that by multitude here and by the whole multitude all the beleevers then in Ierusalem were to be understood and that then they might all meet in one congregation doth it therefore follow that many years after when there was dayly such additions of multitudes of Beleevers that they might all still meet together in one place and in one congregation for all acts of worship and to be edified I beleeve our Brethren themselves the Independents will not grant it yet they must grant it if they will stand to their principles But from this murmuring between the Greeks and the Hebrews I with very good reason can frame an Argument to overthrow our Brethrens Tenent and may from thence gather That in the Church of Jerusalem there were many and severall Congregations where they had all acts of worship and that every severall nation had their severall congregations and severall assemblies where they might heare the Word of God in their own language and to edification and communicate in all Ordinances with comfort For if there should arise a controversie in London between the Dutch and the French about points of Religion or about any other matter of practice concerning Religion and they should all apply themselves to the grave and learned Assembly for the decision of it would not all men gather that there were two distinct congregations of them in the City So it may well be concluded against our Brethren that every severall Nation of Believers in Ierusalem had their severall congregations and assemblies apart as well as the Greeks and the Hebrewes where they might partake in all Ordinances to edification and understand their Ministers Preaching to them in their owne language As for my part I verily beleeve it was so and from warrantable reasons and yet all these severall congregations made but one Church and were under one Presbyterie and for this my beliefe I shall give my reasons in the ensuing discourse But had there beene but one Nation in Ierusalem so many thousand Believers as the Scripture relates there was could not all have met in one place and in one congregation as all reason will perswade So that all the Arguments of our brethren to the contrary are but as so many Squibs which onely make a noise and then vanish in the ayre to say no more And these are the most rationall objections that as yet I ever heard from them to the which I have briefly given my severall answers which I hope by Gods assistance I shall ever be able to make good against them all And now I will goe on to prove That by the ministry of the Apostles and the divers miracles daily wrought by them after they had received the gifts of the Holy Ghost there were such additions of multitudes of Believers to those that were converted by Saint John the Baptist and our Saviour and his Disciples before the death of John and the sufferings of our Saviour that they could not all meet at any one time and in one place or congregation to partake in all Ordinances no nor in a few but were of necessity forced to be distributed into severall assemblies and congregations and that before the Persecution under the Persecution and after the Persecution And for proving of what I lay downe which is still but the first conclusion I undertooke to make good I will begin with the first eight Chapters of the Acts and then goe forward to the ensuing story of the same Booke in order to prove my assertion In the 2 3 4 5 and 6. Chapters of the Acts it is related how the holy Apostles imployed themselves in their several Ministeries after they had received the gifts of the holy Ghost were indued with all power of working miracles and had received the gifts also of tongues and languages and the effects also of their Ministry preaching and miracles are there set downe at large and it is specified that by meanes of that first miracle when all the people of severall Nations heard the Apostles speak to them every one in their severall tongues and languages who were very well knowne to bee Galileans that they were amazed to heare the wonderfull Works of God and from their amazement it is said they gave attention to the Sermon of Peter the Sermon it selfe being there set downe and the effect of it which was That when they had heard it they were prickt in their heart and said unto Peter and the rest of the Apostles Men and Brethren what shall we do Then Peter said unto them Repent and be Baptized every one of you in the name of Iesus Christ for the remission of sins and yee shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost c. Then they that gladly received his word were baptized and the same day were added unto them about three thousand soules And they continued stedfast in the Apostles Doctrine and fellowship and in breaking of bread and prayer And feare came upon every soule and many signes and wonders were done by the Apostles and all that believed were together and had all things common and they continuing daily with one accord in the Temple and breaking bread from house to house did eat their meat with gladnesse and singlenesse of heart praysing God and having favour with all the people And the Lord added to the Church daily such as should be saved Here wee see that by vertue of one Miracle and Sermon God working with them were added to the Believers that Saint Iohn the Baptist and Christ and his Disciples had converted and such as were formerly baptized three thousand more a great Miracle all which with the many other that were converted afterward are called but one Church For it is expresly said that the Lord added to the Church daily such as should be saved We heard of the great multitudes and of a world of such as beleeved in Christ before this Miracle and Sermon And can any man in reason conceive that all these could meet in any one place or congregation to partake in all acts of worship But let us goe on In the 3. and 4. Chapter by means of that Miracle that was
20. vers the 7. And our Brethren do not deny this And it is well known that the Primitive Christians had their meetings and assemblies in private houses as by the many places is manifest which I cited but a little before Besides the Sacrament of breaking bread is no Temple-ordinance and therefore could not be adminisâ—â—ed in the Temple with the safety of the Christians and Believers for if they were so highly displeased with the Apostles for preaching Iesus and the Resurrection in the Temple as it appeareth Acts 4. 2. They would not have suffered them to have administred the Sacraments there And if Paul was so assaulted Acts 21. 28. for being but supposed to have brought Greeks into the Temple what would these men have done if one should have brought in a new Ordinance and a new worship and service and that so contrary to their legall rights Surely the Iewes would never have suffered it neither do the Brethren contend for this Now it is well known that in the Primitive Church if not every day yet every first day of the Week at least they met together to break bread that is to receive the holy Sacrament which was never without preaching as we see in Acts 20. 7. and in the places above quoted in which it is said they dayly brake bread together and that in severall and particular houses and that of necessity must be for a few houses could not have held so many thousands as all reason will dictate and if they were or could be contained under one roof yet they must be forced to be in diverse and severall chambers or roomes So that what is done and spoke in the one the other knowes nothing of it so that they are still severall congregations as under the roofe of Pauls there are diverse meeting places where Men may partake in all Ordinances and they are called severall Churches and they that meet there several congregations though under one roof for the distinction of the places under one covert makes alwayes a distinct assembly as it is dayly seen in the severall Committees at Westminster where every Committee of both Houses have their severall roomes and equall authority and are yet all but one Parliament though distributed into so many severall assemblyes So here they had severall assemblies and that in severall houses as is declared and reason it selfe without any testimony of holy Scripture will perswade this for the Apostles they all preached and that dayly and they must have severall roomes to preach in to avoyde confusion for all things in the Church must be done in order and they must have severall auditories or assemblies or else they should preach to the walls so that if the Apostles would all preach and the people all heare of necessity they must be distributed into severall congregations and assemblyes to avoyde disorder and that there were severall congregations and severall assemblies the places above specified do declare and tell us So that there is no man that resolves not to oppose all truth that is contrary to his received opinion but may evidently perceive that there were many congregations and assemblies in the Church of Ierusalem and yet they all made but one Church and were govern'd by one Presbytery as the many Committees in both Houses are in divers roomes and make divers assemblies and have equall power and authority among themselves and yet they all make but one Parliament and all those severall Committees are govern'd by the joynt consent of the Great Civill Presbytery of the Kingdome which is all the Parliament and all this without confusion yea with most excellent order and decency This is the last argument I produced out of the above cited Scriptures to prove that there were many assemblies of beleevers in the Church of Ierusalem before the persecution And concerning this argument Mr Knollys before he comes to answer it makes a little sucking preamble His words are these But the Doctor saith he hath one argument which is more to the purpose then all the other which I desire the reader seriously to consider page 64. Thus he His Answer to this Argument is as followeth I will set down all his own words which are these Now I desire the Reader to consider how the Doctor proves his Minor which he saith it manifest from Acts 2. 46. and chapter the 5. 12. 42. and chapter 3. 11. 12. and many more places that might be produoed page 64 65 66. In all which discourse the Doctor gives you nothing but his own suppositions and conclusions for the proofe of his Minor proposition which is his manner of discoursing through his booke This Argument saith he I answer First by denying the assumption or Minor proposition and the reason of my denying it is because the Scriptures produced by the Doctor do not in expresse words declare that there were divers assemblies and congregations of beleevers in the Church of Jerusalem The Scriptures quoted do in expresse words declare the contrary to what the Doctor would prove For Acts the 2. verse 42. 46. All that beleeved were together and they continued with one accord in the Temple And Acts the 3. 11 12. it is expresly said that all the people can together to them in the Porch which is called Solomons Acts the 5. 12. And they were all with one accord in Solomons Porch So that these Scriptures produced by the Doctor to prove that there were divers assemblyes and congregations of beleevers in the Church of Jerusalem who met together in severall places at one and the same time upon the first day of the weeke where they did partake in all Ordinances do expresly prove the contrary to wit that the Apostles and all the Beleevers in the Church of Jerusalem met together with one accord in one place to wit in the Temple and in Solomons Porch and brake bread from house to house 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 domatim not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 per singulas domos and thus they did 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 quotidie day by day and they continued stedfast the Apostles doctrine and fellowship and in breaking of bread and in prayers and all that beleeved â—â—re together Acts the 2. v. 42 44 46. Yea the Doctor himselfe saith in his Minor proposition the latter part of it That the Apostles and all the Beleevers in Jerusalem did continue dayly with one accord in the Temple and that they brake from house to house and this shall suffice for refutation of what the Doctor hath written touching the first proposition Thus profound Mr Knollys confutes my arguments I have set down all his words at large And as he earnestly desired the Reader seriously to consider my Argument So I in like manner intreat him that he would but looke back upon it and advisedly weight whether there be nothing either in that or any other of my arguments and in all my discourse but my own suppositions and conclusions for proofe of what
I say as he affirmeth and whether I have not both Scripture and reason for what I say through my whole book and if he shall upon mature examination perceive that I have good authority for what I say then let him judg whether or no M. Knollys all his complices that thus upon all occasions traduce me bee not a generation of the accusers of the brethren and whether both Mr Knollys and all his confederats be not a company of calumniators raylors and Lyers rather then Saints For I bless God I have both Scripture and sound reason for all that I say and I speak it here in the presence of the great GOD that if I had ever seen the least ground of truth in all the Scripture of truth for what they of the congregationall way hold about their Church I would rather have suffered any misery in the world then ever have opened my mouth against their way much lesse have written against it but finding it not only a novell Opinion but hereticall indeed the very sourse of all heresies and errors and of dangerous consequence and such an one that if it be not speedily looked unto will not onely bring down the plagues and judgements of God upon the Nation and overthrow all the Christian Religion and all power of godlynesse but all government in Church and State through City and Country and bring a miserable desolation and utter ruine upon the 3 Kingdoms which God of his infinite mercy and goodnesse prevent And the consideration of all these things in the presence of God I say it again and no other put me upon this imployment to oppose the error of the wayes of all the Independents and Sectaries and in this course I am now in by the grace of God and his blessed assistance I will persevere in with all my endeavours to the last period of my dayes And now I come to reply to what Mr Knollys hath here set down by way of answer and although I have formerly given an answer to all the fond cavills of the Independents concerning their severall meetings together in the Temple and in Solomons Porch which the Reader I am confident will say is satisfactory enough to any that know what reason is yet here again for Master Knollys farther satisfaction if he will with any thing be satisfied I answer as followeth to what he childishly bables against this Argument of mine This argument of the Doctors saith he I answer first by denying the Assumption c. One would have expected that when Master Knollys began with this word first which amongst learned and rationall men in disputing it being a word of relation hath ever reference to some second answer at lest if not a third and fourth that he had had some second and third reserve of reasons at least to have fallen upon my argument with this I say all wise men would have imagined And yet there followes neither a second third or fourth answer But howsoever he may speak nonsense by his calling and by vertue of his Independency I will take no advantage against him for that I will examine onely the futility of his denyall which he calls a reason which indeede is a meer contradiction not only of himselfe but of the holy Scripture and is a giving of the spirit of God the lye as at other times as will forth with appear For whereas he saith that the Scriptures produced by me do not in expresse words declare that there were divers Assemblies and Congregations of Beleevers in the Church of Jerusalem and that the Scriptures quoted do in expresse termes declare the contrary it is most abominably false and that by his own confession as we shall by and by see For should I grant unto Master Knollys which I cannot do for many reasons set down in my foregoing Discourse That when there were but three thousand converted and added to the Church that they might then all meet together in any one place or congregation to partake in all Ordinances and that when there were five thousand more added to them they might still likewise all meet together either in the Temple or in Solomons Porch to hear the Word I say should I to gratifie Master Knollys grant him all this yet it will not follow that when there were dayly new additions upon additions of other Converts and Beleevers and that of many thousands that then they could still doe the same But I cannot grant all this for it would be against all reason and contrary to daily experience which tels us that eight thousand men cannot meet in any one Congregation to partake in all acts of worship to edification Yea if I should grant this to Master Knollys both hee himselfe and all his Fraternity would laugh at mee all learned men would conclude that I were indeed a mad man as my brother Burton speakes of mee for it is most certaine that all the Beleevers and Converts in the Church of Ierusalem did never all together partake in all Ordinances and in all acts of worship either in the Temple or in Solomons porch for wee never reade that they either baptized or brake bread in either of them neither would the Magistrate have ever indured or suffered it and yet both these were the discriminating and sealing Ordinances by which all Christians were distinguished from Jewes and Gentiles and all Vnbeleevers and it is well knowne that there was no room in any private house that could containe such a multitude to partake in all Ordinances to edification and this my brother Burton accordeth to saying in expresse words that there was no roome or place large enough to containe them all and the very Scripture also is cleare in this point in many places Yea Master Knollys assenteth to this though hee takes no notice of what hee sayes at any time But because hee perhaps will beleeve himself rather then me and because also his Followers and Schollers will give credit to his words rather then to any reasons produced by mee let them I pray heare what hee saith The Apostles and all the Beleevers in the Church of Jerusalem saith hee met together with one accord in one place to wit the Temple and in Solomons Porch and brake bread from house to house 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Domatim not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 per singulas domos and thus they did 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 quotidie day by day and they continued stedfastly in the Apostles doctrine and fellowship and in breaking of bread and in prayer c. These are Master Knollys his owne words From the which all learned men may easily perceive the force of truth and the weaknesse and feeblenesse of errour for whiles the man labours to enervate my Argument he contradicteth himselfe and the holy Scriptures and overthrowes his owne Principles and confirmes my opinion for by his owne words it is evident there were many Congregations and Assemblies of Beleevers in Ierusalem
such as have built upon this foundation that upon the reading of any books or hearig of any arguments on the contrary side their hearts may not like the heart of Ahaz Isai the 7. 1. when he heard of the confederacy of Syria and Ephraim be moved as the trees of the wood are moved with the winde This is the discourse of that Author whose words I have related in their full length and extent not intending at this time to shew all the errors of them which would require a just volume though occasonally I shall meete with some of them and make it appeare that according to his discription of a church which he hath taken out of Master Cotteos booke of New England none of the congregationall churches at this day are compleate churches properly so called And if that also my brother Burton speakes be true then the very church of Jerusalem as I said before which he calles the first formed church was not a true formed church properly so called All this occasionally I hope to make evident In the meane time I will make use of such Arguments as the new lights from the Summer Ilands afforde me for the proving of my major proposition which was that All those Assemblies and Congregations met together in those severall houses at Ierusalem every one of them respectively and severally taken were churches properly so called And this I doe the more willingly because I conceive it will better sound in my brother Burtons eares and those of his party to heare one of their own great Rabbyes who they usually call Giants and tall fellowes then to heare me who at pleasure they stile a Pigmy and Dwarfe from his words therefore I thus argue If two or three met together in the fellowship of the Gospell and in Christs name and clothed with his power and honoured with his presence doe constitute a visible church as he asserteth and laboureth to prove in the name of all the Independents then much more two or three hundred met together in the fellowship of the Gospell and in Christs name and clothed with his power and honoured with his presence having amongst them also their lawfull Officers and Ministers and injoying likewise all those saving and sealing Ordinances within themselves which the Independents confesse are sufficient for the constituting of a Church properly so called then I say and that with far better reason that such a company doe constitute a compleat visible Church or a Church body properly so called but in the Church of Jerusalem there was not onely two or three met together or two or three such Assemblies and Congregations but at least twelve if not halfe twelve score yea innumerable in all and every one of the which they met together in the fellowship of the Gospell and in Christs name and clothed with his power and honoured with his presence and in all and every one of the which respectively and severally they had also their lawfull Officers and Ministers and injoyed all those saving and sealing Ordinances which the Independents confesse arr sufficient for the constituting of a Church properly so called Ergo all and every one of those Congregations severally and respectively considered were Churches properly so called This Argument is grounded upon the Independents owne Principles and upon their very words and corroborated with their owne reasons For what people say they in the world may bee called a Church if they may not to whom Christ hath given his power and promised his presence If the gifts of Christ be of any force if the power of Christ bee of any efficacy then they have a right to be so called Thus the Independents speake and therefore without they will renounce their owne Principles and abjure all reason and the very light of understanding given them of God they must acknowledge those severall congregations in the Church of Jerusalem to be Churches properly so called as having in every one of them whatsoever they thinke requisite and sufficient to constitute a formed Church for there were in each of them respectively such Ministers and Officers as to whom Christ had given his power and promised his presence and that to the enâ— of the world Matth. 28. vers the last They had also in all those congregations all those Priviledges Immunities and Ordinances the injoying of the which the Independents thinke sufficient to make any one of their new congregations a compleat and formed church or church body properly so called as for their Ministers and Pastors they had all the blessed Apostles amongst them and Christs seventy disciples and many other Preachers abundantly furnished with al gifts as who had gone in and out with Christ from the very beginning of his and Iohns Ministry the meanest of which was thought fit to be an Apostle as is manifest from the first of the Acts and they had amongst them also in their severall congregations many Beleevers and Saints and all of them extraordinarily gifted and qualified and such as continued stedfastly in the Apostles doctrine and fellowship and in the breaking of bread and in prayers therefore they were visible Churches I doe not with the Author say mysticall bodies the Members of the which were visible Saints such as were called out of the world and united together in their severall congregations and that with the holy covenants of Baptisme and breaking of bread to worship the Lord in all his holy Ordinances and therefore they were so many compleat churches and churches properly so called as being joyned together in the fellowship of the faith of the Gospel and having in all those assemblies and congregations severally and respectively both for matter and forme that which the Independents hold ever sufficient to constitute and compleate churches properly so called for the matter of those congregations they were visible and miraculous Saints not ordinary ones as being inspired with the Holy Ghost and having amongst them Officers and Ministers of incomparable sanctified transcendent indowments viz the holy Apostles al the which were led into all truth by the Spirit of God who spake in them and by them infallibly who had all and every one of them the Keys of the Kingdome of Heaven viz. the power of order and jurisdiction by which they preached the Gospel and ordained and constituted all other churches and gathered and formed churches both in Ierusalem and in all other cities and countries wheresoever they came And as in all those congregations and assemblies they had the materials both for Officers and Members of true compleate formed churches so tâ—â—y had likewise that which the Independents call the forme of compleate churches properly so called to speake in their owne language for they were all united and combined together in all and every one of those severall congregations by the bond of an holy covenant or covenants as that of Baptisme and breaking of bread those sealing Ordinances and they had the preaching of the Word and prayer amongst
was a mighty company for it is related that the people of the City with one accorde from the greatest to the least both men and women believed and were baptized Now if any man shall duly consider and weigh things this City was no contemptible one as appears from that I said before and yet it is asserted by the holy Ghost who is worthy to be believed and credited that all the people of that City from the greatest to the least both men and women believed and were baptized and therfore they could not all meet in any one place or a few neither was any one Pastor able to Teach them all which appeareth in that the Church of Ierusalem at first sent two of the chiefest Apostles Peter and Iohn to Samaria so that all this shews there was an innumerable company of believers in that City all which could not meete in any one or a few places as all reason will easily perswade Besides the Apostles Evangelists and the Ministers of those times had an other manner of converting faculty then the Independents in our dayes who I never yet heard converted any though they have perverted and seduced many For the Apostles and Evangelists and the primitive Ministers there were immediatly sent of God and inspired with the holy Ghost and spake in all Languages and did Miracles such as none could doe but those that came from God as Nicodemus said unto Christ that none could doe such works and miracles as he did except God were with him Iohn 3. 2. for they cured all manner of diseases with their word and shaddow they raised the dead made the lame to walke and cast out Devils and did whatsoever was wonderfull Withall they Preached unto them the glad tidings of joy and peace and of everlasting happinesse after a miserable life here and did also instruct them how to order their wayes and conversations here so that they might live with honour and dye with comfort and be usefull to all men both in life and death and after death And the Apostles Evangelists and Ministers of those times as they did good wherever they came so they lived so holily and unblameably in all manner of conversation and were men of such integrity sincerity and of such plaine upright dealing as the people that beheld their conversation and saw withall their workes of wonder that they did said of them that gods were come downe amongst them in the likenesse of men so that they converted whole cities and countries wheresoever they came yea it was an ordinary thing with them to bring whole Nations in a short time and with a few Miracles to the obedience of the faith as wee may see through the whole Storie of the Acts and from that of Paul Rom. the 15. verse 18. 19. where the Apostle abundantly declareth the effect of the Gospel and Miracles of those times who wrought so powerfully wheresoever they came even to the converting of whole countries and cities and so they prevailed in this citie of Samaria that the people of the same were speedily converted from the greatest to the least both men and women who all beleeved and were baptized and what rationall man will thinke or can beleeve that all the people men and women of a mighty and royall citie could meet in any place or a few to partake in all acts of worship but must necessarily be distributed into divers congregations and churches if they would partake in all ordinances and yet all these made up but one Church as being under one government that of the Presbyterie for there were Presbyters ordained in every Church and in every citie as is apparent from Acts the 14. verse 23. and Titus the 1. And now I have proved that the two Mother cities of Palestine Ierusalem and Samaria consisting of many congregations were Presbyterially and classically governed I will goe on to the other cities of the Gentiles enumerated by my brother Burton and prove that they also consisted of many congregations and assemblies and were all subordinate to their severall Presbyteries and Classes And first I will begin with the citie of Corinth w ch was a famous citie and in the which there was an illustrious church and therfore in it also there was constituted a Presbytery that was many Presbyters to governe and rule that Church and those congregations under them for it is said Acts the 14. that Paul and Barnabas ordained them Presbyters in every church and Paul and Barnabas were Ministers in the church of Corinth yea Paul planted this church and Apollo with Barnabas and the Presbyters watred it and therefore there must necessarily be many congregations and assemblies in that church For one Pastor or Minister would have beene sufficient for owne flocke at least a Pastor and a Teacher or a Doctor would have beene sufficient to have fed one congregation now in that they had many ordinary Pastors and many extraordinary Teachers in it with all good reason it followeth that there were many assemblies and many congregations in that church which will yet more abundantly appeare from its first constitution or planting for wee reade of multitudes both of Jewes and Gentiles in that Citie that beleeved Acts the 18. verse 5. 7 8. c. and that besides Iustus Crispus also and all his houshold and many Corinthians beleeved and were baptized and the Lord also said that hee had many people in that Citie ver 10. which by the diligent preaching of Paul for eighteene moneths together were converted verse 11. for whose further building up in their most holy faith Paul Apollos Timothy Cephas and many other extraordinary famous Ministers and Teachers besides their owne Presbyters were all constantly imployed in season out of season in preaching the Gospel and administring the holy Sacraments and labouring in word and doctrine 1 Cor. 3 4. all the which imports many congregations and assemblies of Beleevers in that Citie Besides both the Epistles of Paul to the Corinthians shew that there were multitudes of deceitfull Teachers Seducers and false Apostles which urged the ceremoniall Law and the observation of it and they also had their congregations and assemblies there were also many vaine Instructers and idle Teachers who though they kept the foundation yet built upon it wood hay and stubble Now all reason will suggest that Pastors of such severall minds and teaching such severall discrepant doctrines had all of them schollers followers of the same opinion wherof their several Pastors were as now we see in the several Sects in our times therefore they did not all meet in one or a few places except we understand their meetings for the convention of their Officers with a part of the more choyce people for discipline besides as wee have expresse mention of a Church in Aquila and Priscylla's house 1 Cor. 16. so there were many other meeting places in Corinth where the Christians assembled themselves together for in expresse words there
succeeding ages to the end of the world that they may do the same in their severall and respective Presbyteries Neither is there any president or example in all the holy Scriptures of the new-Testament that any church had its peculiar Pastor and Teacher or Doctor alloted to it with but two or three Elders and a Deacon with a slender congregation of people of the which they only had the cure and care for the feeding and ruling of it and the which had absolute Authority within it self and from which there was no appeale the which notwithstanding the Independents assert is a true formed church after the new testament forme such a modell of a church I affirme can never be shewed or proved in all the new testament God saith Saint Paul 1 Cor. 12. vers 28. hath set some in the church first Apostles Secondarily Prophets thirdly Teachers after Miracles then Gifts of healing helps in government diversities of Tongues are all Apostles are all Prophets are all Teachers c. and in the 4. of the Ephesians vers 11. When Christ ascended on high he gave gifts unto Men c. and he gave some Apostles and some Prophets and some Evangelists and some Pastors and Teachers for the perfecting of the Saints c. all the which places are to be understood concerning the Catholicke visible church So that to appropriate these places of Scripture to any particular church as those of the Congregationall way do is to abuse and pervert the holy Scriptures for the upholding of their unwarrantable proceedings for if these Scriptures are to be applyed unto every particular congregationall church then there must not only be a Pastor and a Teacher but many Pastors and many Teachers in each of them besides other church officers and then the Pastors and Teachers would be more in number many times then the flocke and if we looke upon all particular Churches founded by the Apostles which must be a paterne indeed to all churches then we shall finde that in all of them severally they had many Presbyters as in the 14. of the Acts and in the 20. of the same and in all the above cited Scriptures doth abundantly appeare So that there is no ground in all the holy Scripture of the new modell of the Congregationall way for following the expresse Scripture to use my brother Burtons owne words the first formed church we finde is in the Acts the second which consisted of many thousands and in that church there were no distinct officers and members united into one church body respectively for all the Apostles and Ministers of that church fed and ruled that church in common and therefore after the very same example and paterne may all Christian churches to the end of the world do the same and be well formed churches yet have neither a particular Pastor nor Teacher nor distinct officers amongst them for neither the church of Ierusalem nor any of the Primitive and Apostolike Churches had that distinction of officers amongst them and all and every one of them neverthelesse were well formed churches and therefore in this they be a paterne to all churches And as in the church of Ierusalem and in all the other churches all those that were converted and added to them were none of them forced to walke either Dayes or Moneths or years with them before their admission that they might either know the Saints and Members of that Church or be known of them noâ— were ever forced to make a publike confession of their faith and bring in the evidences of their conversion or to enter in by an explicite particular covenant and to obtain the consent of the whole church before their admittance So in this the Church of Jerusalem and the other Churches of the New Testament are to be a pattern to all other churches to the end of the World that they may follow the example of that Mother Church and all the primitive Daughter-Churches in admitting of their Members without any of these things for that was the first formed Church and yet shee required no such things of any that were added into her But of this in its due place And as the Ministers of the Church in Jerusalem the Apostles and Teaches only had the power of government and admitting of Members and did it without the consent of the people as wee may see in their first admission of Members who applyed themselves unto the Apostles onely saying men and brethren what shall wee doe and not unto the people and as in that Church when the people and Beleevers opposed any that desired to be admitted as they did Saint Paul Acts the 9. verse 26 27. of whom they were afraid not beleeving hee was a disciple and hee then appealing to the Apostles who upon hearing of the truth of the busines they admitted him comming in and going out without their consent in this also the Church of Jerusalem is to be a paterne to all Ministers and people in all succeeding Churches that it is the Ministers place onely to admit of Members and not the peoples and if they should gaine-say the admission of any upon either their feares or jealousies or out of other respects that then they may have their appeales from them to the Presbyters in each Church and giving them an account of their faith they are by them to be admitted notwithstanding the dislike and dissenting of their brethren for of this way of proceeding wee have the Church of Ierusalem for a paterne And as the Church at Ierusalem and all the other Primitive Churches never made any rents and schismes from the publike assemblies for some faylings but alwayes constantly frequented their publike meeting places notwithstanding the many corruptions of the Teachers both in Doctrine Discipline and Manners and had not only the example of the blessed Apostles but of Christ also in so doing who when he was questioned concerning his doctrine said I taught publickely in the Temple and in the Synagogue and not in corners and by places and he inioyned the people also to doe the same Matth. 23 saying the Scribes and the Pharisees sit in Moses his seat all therefore whatsoever they bid you observe that observe and doe but doe not yee after their workes c. So likewise other Churches to the end of the world ought to imitate this Church as their paterne not to separate from the publike assemblies and those Churches for some faylings especially when they are found in doctrine and preach all saving truths needfull to salvation without any mixture of humane inventions and so much the rather all Churches ought to imitate the example of the church of Ierusalem and the other Primitive Churches in this not only because they have Christs both example and precept for it but because also separation is blamed by the Apostle Paul in the Hebrewes Heb. 10. and therefore forbidden who saith verse 23 24 25. Let us hold fast the profession of our faith without
it as the insuing places sufficiently prove Rom. 16. ver 17 and 18. Now I beseech you brethren saith the Apostle marke them which cause divisions and offences contrary to the doctrine which ye have learned and avoyde them 1 Cor. chap. the 5. ver 11. But now I have writ unto you saith Saint Paul not to keep company if any man that is called a brother be a fornicator or covetous or an Idolater or a raylor or a drunkard or an extortioner with such an one no not to eat 1 Tim. chap. the 6. ver the 3. and 5. If any man teach otherwise and consent not to wholesome words even the words of our Lord Jesus Christ and to the doctrine which is according to godlinesse from such withdraw thy selfe and 2 Tim. chap. 3. ver 1 2 3 4 5. In the last dayes saith the Apostle shall perilous times come For men shall be lovers of their own selves covetous boasters proud blasphemers disobedient to parents without naturall affection covenant or truce-breakers false accusers or make-bates incontinent fierce despisers of those that are good trayterous heady high-minded lovers of pleasures more then lovers of God hauing a forme of godlinesse but denying the power thereof from such tâ—rne away for of this sort are they which creep into widdowes houses and lead captive silly women laden with sinnes c. Tit. 3. ver 10. A man that is an hereticke after the first and second admonition reject saith the Apostle 2. John ver 10. If there come any unto you saith Saint John and bring not the doctrine of Christ receive him not into your house neither bid him God speed for he that biddeth him God speed is partaker of his evill deeds And Gal 1. ver 8 9. If we or an Angell from Heaven saith the Apostle preach otherwise then that which we have preached unto you let him be accursed as I said before so I say now againe if any man preach unto you any other Gospell then that you have received let him be occursed Out of all the which places and many more that might be produced we are taught to shun and decline the society and fellowship of all such Christians as are corrupt in their doctrine or manners and such as either preach or practise otherwise then they have precept or example for in the holy word of God especially we are to have no communion with them when they not only preach another way to Heaven then that which Christ and the holy Prophets and blessed Apostles have chalked out unto us and delivered unto the Church but have joyned themselves in a wicked and unwarrantable Covenant to persist and continue in this practice for they are no Saints But such are those of the Congregationall way whose Teachers and Members are combined together to persevere in their wicked practices and courses and therefore by expresse command from Heaven we are to have no communion with such unlesse we will be found fighters against God and partake in their punishments And these places of holy Scripture with these reasons shall suffice for the proofe of the Major proposition For the Minor that the churches and assemblies of those of the congregationall way consist of Raylers Revilers Slanderers and covenant-breakers c. it is evident and well knowne to all such as are acquainted with the practise of the Independents and are verst in their doctrine and have read their Pamphlets which consist chiefly of errors untruths and right-downe raylings as amongst others those of my brother Burton and Iohn Lilburne not to mention the Pamphlets of all the other Independents the very names of which would make a booke in all the which there is little other but rayling and dangerous novelties Some of my brother Burtons and Iohn Lilburnes expressions with an other or two more which write in the name of all the Independents I will produce that by the mouth of two or three of their witnesses the truth of their proceedings in their Raylings Errors and Lyes and bad practises may be yet more evident My brother Burton in his Vindication hath these insuing words against all the Presbyterians both Ministers and people and first against the Ministers of whom hee saith that they deny disclaime and preach against Christs kingly Government over mens consciences and churches so that such a conversion as is wrought by them comes not home to whole Christ and such with their converters doe deny Christs kingly Government or at least and best they are converted but in part and that maine thing is wanting to wit Christs kingly Office And in his Vindiciae veritatis hee accuseth mee pag. 21. for taking Christs name in vaine because in my Booke I asserted that the Ministers of the church of England set up Christ upon his Throne which for mee to affirme hee saith it is to take the name of Christ in vaine his words are these And here saith he I challenge our brother for taking Christs name in vaine when insteed of finding Christ set upon his Throne in their congregations we find there no more but an Image such as Michal had made up insteed of King David or as those that in mockery made of Christ a Pageant King stripping him and putting on him a scarlet Robe and on his head a Crowne of Thornes and in his hand a reed saluting him with Haile King of the Iewes with which title over his head they crucified him therefore saith he those passages quoted out of my Booke will stand good against their opposers These are his words against all the Ministers of the Church of England Now of all the people that are not of the congregationall way and of their new Assemblies my brother Burton in his Vindication hath these words Wee exhort them saith he to set up Christ King in their hearts Wee exhort them to become and professe to be those Saints of whom Christ is King for hee is King of Saints Revel 15. 3. but they will not beleeve us saith hee they will not depend upon Christ as the only Law-giver and King over their consciences Now what would you have us to doe in this case saith hee baptize the Infants of such parents as will not in this respect professe or confesse Christ to be their King why doe you not know saith hee that no Infants have any title to Baptisme that are not within the Covenant visibly and how are they within the Covenant visibly but by vertue of their parents faith outwardly professed and what outward profession of faith is there in their parents that refuse Christ for their onely King that are ashamed or afraid to professe to be in covenant with Christ as their King if therefore the parents professe not yea refuse thus to be in visible covenant can the children be said to be in visible covenant and so to have a right in Baptisme the externall Seale of the Covenant here is an obex a barre put These are my brother Burtons owne
speakes of as all the learned wil easily by his expressions perceive but hee is a meere novice in all divine learning and al good literature a fellow very wretched worthlesse and such an one as deserves to be exploded out of the schools of the learned and to be thrust out of the society of all orthodox and conscientious honest Christians and indeed if he were dealt with according to his merits hee deserves to be spewed out of the seven new churches of whom before I come to my reply I will take liberty to say yet a little more and as of him so of my Brother Burton and Master Knollys that as they are fratres in malo so they are equally guilty of the same sacriledge unrighteous dealing foras I. S. so they also rob the Church of Ierusalem of all those Members that were converted by Iohn the Baptist Christ himselfe and his blessed Apostles and Disciples before Christs death as is manifest from their words quoted before and from I. S. his scruples hee speakes of page 8. and 9. where hee unchurches and unchristians all those that were converted by Iohns and Christs ministry hee also with them with-holds the truth from the people in unrighteousnes and as if that had not been enough in the words I have now quoted out of the tenth page besides his denying that I have proved my first Proposition which indeed is a meere Presumptiou and begging the question to use his grollish expression hee to all his iniquity adds transgression and sinne which is the height of wickednesse accumulating error upon error as will frequently appeare for here againe hee first cuts off all those that were baptized by the Baptist from the Beleevers in Ierusalem whom hee deridingly cals Iohns disciples and converts Secondly Hee affirmeth of them all that they stucke in Iohns Baptisme and were but temporary Beleevers and ceased to walke with Christ Thirdly Hee affirmeth that those that were baptized by Iohn the Baptist did afterwards disperse themselves into severall countries And fourthly Hee asserteth that those that did continue at Ierusalem did gradually grow up into church fellowship Every one of the which assertions of Sir I. S. howso ever they are presumptuously laid downe by him as so many certaine and infallible truths yet I attest there is not the least warrant for any of them in the whole word of God no not so much as a shaddow of any authority to cover or colour them over yea they are all as egregiously and notoriously erroneous as they are uncharitable for they are all contrary to the word of God and to the law of love and kindnesse which thinkes no evill yea they contradict the revealed will of God as wee shall see in some particulars for whereas hee arrogantly amongst other of his false assertions saith That those that did remaine in Ierusalem did gradually grow up into Church fellowship as if they had not by Saint Iohns Ministry been made perfect Christians I say this is contrary to the expresse words of our Saviour Luke the 7. where hee giveth this testimony concerning all those that came out of Ierusalem to Iohns Baptisme all which were Inhabitants and innumerable companies for the Scripture saith Matt. the 3. and Marke the 1. That Ierusalem went out to him and they of Ierusalem that they justified God and rejected not his counsell against themselves to their owne destruction as the Pharisees and Lawyers did but they embraced Gods mercy to their salvation So that by Christs own testimony and witnesse the Pharisees and Lawyers onely excepted all the other were good and perfectly made Christians and in such a Church fellowship as with which they grew up to a perfect stature without any new Church-fellowship and therefore I. S. not onely saying that they were temporary Christians and ceased to follow Christ but that those of them that remayned in Ierusalem did gradually grow up in Church-fellowship afterwards in all hee saith I affirme hee giveth the spirit of God the lye who hath recorded the contrary as that they were perfect good Christians as having not rejected the counsell of God to their owne perdition but imbraced the promises to their salvation so that they were all by Iohns Ministry very well instructed in their duty in all respects Therefore both J. S. my brother Burton and all the Ill-dependents are most abominably wicked thus with their scriblings to unsettle the minds of the people ever pratling about a kind of Church fellowship of which they have neither Precept nor President in all Gods holy Word and which they themselves could never declare unto the world what it was and â—et they are ever babling of this Church-fellowship unchurchying all Churches but their owne because forsooth in their opinion they are not cast into a Church mold after the New Testament forme nor are not in church-fellowship whereupon they rashly proclame us all enemies of Iesus Christ and his Kingdome and it is no wonder that they thinke so contemptuously of all those that were baptized by the Baptist and that they judge so wickedly of us all for I. S. saith in the words above cited which is another of his great errors that it is suspicious that the three thousand converted at once were not so soone instructed in church-fellowship as converted These are his expressions From which I gather that Sir I. S. and all his complices are a generation of men very censorious and that they are creatures full of jealousies and causelesse suspicions and therefore that they ought by all good men to be shunned and avoyded as both dangerous and treacherous for here wee see they suspect those very three thousand converted by Peter as not well instructed in church fellowship notwithstanding in the very same chapter it is related that they were all well taught their duties both towards God and one towards another truly if ever any people were wel instructed they all were in whom all the acts fruits of faith are evident for wheresoever it comes it purifies the hearts of al those to whom God hath given it Acts 15. as here it is manifest it did it in that the soules of all those converts being pursued by the guilt of their owne sinne in crucifying the Lord of life and being sensible of the wrath of God due unto them for this their sinne their consciences also accusing them and aggravating unto them the haynousnesse of it it made them all fly unto Christ and roule themselves upon him and wholly rely on him for mercy and forgivenesse and wrought love also in them all toward God and Christ and charity one towards another the effects of which are set downe by the Holy Ghost and fully recorded in the second chapter verse 42 43. who saith That they continued stedfastly in the Apostles doctrine and fellowship and in the breaking of bread and in prayers and that all that beleeved were together and had all things common and sold their
and seduced and deceived such multitudes of simple people as they have done and that in a short time what multitudes of people may all men thinke those learned Rabbies those Priests with all the Apostles daily converted in Jerusalem when their doctrine was so crowned with so many miracles If the holy Scripture should never have delivered it unto the world that they converted innumerable companies yet common reason would perswade every man that they must needs have converted many thousands by the Ministry of them all but when the Scripture relateth unto us Matt. 3. and Marke the 1. and in many other places that all Ierusalem went out to the Baptisme of John and that they were baptized by him in Iordan and were made good Christians and when it farther also recordeth that there were three thousand converted at one Sermon and Miracle and saith in the same chapter that the Lord added daily unto the Church such as should be saved and when in the fourth chapter it relateth the conversion of five thousand men more and in the fifth chapter saith that more multitudes both of beleevers of men and women were added to the Lord and when in the sixth chapter it saith that the word of God increased and that the number of the Disciples multiplyed in Ierusalem greatly and a great company of the Priests were obedient to the faith all these places witnesse unto the world that they came into the Church in such great bodies as they could not now bee told for when they came in by by three thousand at a time and five thousand they could speedily be reckoned but when the increase grew so great they were forced then to set them downe as it were by whole sale not in enumerate parcels and spake of them as of numberlesse companies saying multitudes of beleevers both of men and women that is to say mighty congregations and great assemblies of both sexes in such abundance came in as they could not be told and as if this had not beene enough the holy Scripture speakes upon all occasions of the increase of the Word and sets downe in generall termes that the number of the Disciples multiplyed in Ierusalem greatly and a great company of the Priests were also obedient to the faith and as if this had not beene sufficient in many other places of the Acts there is mention made of the increase of Beleevers and in expresse words in the 21. of the Acts it is said that there were many ten thousands of Beleevers in the Church of Ierusalem now all men know that all these could not possibly no not a quarter of them meet in any one place or a few to communicate in all Ordinances to edification neither was there any place or roome spacious enough to containe the very bodies of the tenth part of them and if any place could have held the tenth part of them yet then it had beene impossible that they could then have partaken in all acts of worship to edification for they could not have heard the voice of their Ministers preaching unto them for by daily experience wee see it that in one of our Churches here in London which will not nor cannot hold halfe ten thousand that halfe of them ordinarily cannot well heare the voice of the Minister though hee have a strong paire of Lungs yea I heare men daily complaine that they could not understand the Minister preaching they stood so farre off from him when notwithstanding there were not three thousand then in the Church yea and I my self have been in lesse Assemblies where all the people could not heare to edification and therefore all reason will perswade any man that is not resolved ever to resist the truth that there must of necessity be many congregations of Beleevers in Ierusalem where there were such infinite multitudes especially they are bound to beleeve it when the Scripture in so many places as I have quoted saith there were many congregations and assemblies of Beleevers in that Church which I have at this time briefly related that if be possible I might at last satisfie Sir I. S. and perswade him to beleeve the Scripture and be satisfied with it if hee will not beleeve mee or be satisfied with any thing I can say to convince him of his error But if all I have hitherto writ will not satisfie his tender conscience and take his scruples out of his mind I shall now before I conclude this point for a Corallary desire him to heare what my brother Burton Saint Hanserdo two faithfull brethren of his society have writ concerning this busines It may be I. S. upon the testimony of two such approved witnesses and great Masters of the Assembly of the congregationall way will be perswaded that there were many Congregations of Beleevers in the Church of Ierusalem though he would not be satisfied with any thing I have delivered I cannot but often make mention of my brother Burton and Saint Hanserdo because all the Ill-dependents judge them to bee very honest men and suppose that they will speake the truth and I beleeve also that Sir I. S. hath a very venerable opinion of them both for their singular wisdome and erudition I intreat I. S. therefore in the first place to heare my brother Burton sapientum octavum it may be his words may satisfie his scrupulous and tender conscience who in the ninth page of his wise booke sayes that the beleevers in Ierusalem when there were but three thousand of them and five thousand at most were constrained to sever themselves into divers companies in severall private hou es to communicate Saint Hanserdoes words are these page 10. 11. The Apostles and all the Beleevers in Ierusalem met together in one place to wit the Temple and in Solomons Porch and brake bread from house to house Thus they both declare their faith and opinion cencerning the number and assemblies of Beleevers in the Church of Ierusalem and that in the infancy of it Now then when there were but about three thousand and six score soules at the first and five thousand in all at last according to the computation of my brother Burton and Saint Hanserdo they were then forced into many congregations and companies as having no convenient place spacious enough as wherein to break bread so that they were forced to heare the Word in the Temple that is one place and in Solomons Porch that is another place and to communicate in severall private houses according to my brother Burtons doctrin and to break bread from house to house or house by house and that dayly or day by day according to Saint Hanserdoes learning that is in innumerable places I say when by the testimony of these two Seraphicall Doctors it is evident that in the very infancy and childhood of that Church There were many Asse blies and Congregations and that in severall private houses or from house to house how many congregations and assemblies of beleevers
that by this their doctrine they not onely rob Christ the King of his Church of his honour and dignity which I made good before but all the holy Apostles and Presbyters his Ministers and Servants also of their honour power and dignity which the King of his Church the Lord Jesus had invested them with and bestowed upon them all which will clearly appear if we shall again briefly consider and but take notice First what power and authority God gave unto his Apostles and to his Ministers which was the power of the Keyes Matth. 16. and Matth. 18. that is all power in his Church under him Matth. 28. and Mark 16. I say if we shall duly in the first place but consider that all the Apostles Christs speciall Ministers and Servants were by Christ himself invested with all authority and guided in their preaching and writing by his holy spirit so that whatsoever they taught or writ as his Ministers were the dictates of his spirit and the commandments of God and were for ever to be the rule of his Church to all succeeding ages to the end of the World and if we consider also what he promised to his blessed Apostles and all his Servants and Ministers that should succeed them viz. that he would be with them to the end of the World to all which Ministers likewise he had given the keys and made them stewards and overseers of his house which is his Church I say if we but duly weigh all these things we shall finde them all invested with plenary authority and by the very commission of God for ever inabled to exercise all acts of Government in the Church and that by themselves without the assistance and concurrence of the people who were never joyned with them in commission but received commands from heaven to obey those that God had made guides over them and made Rulers in his Church I say if we maturely consider all these immunities and priviledges and the power that the Apostles and Ministers of Christ were indued with and that from Christ the King of his church And on the other side shall but consider what learned I. S. in the name of all the Independents his brethren declareth concerning not onely all the ordinary Ministers of the church but what he delivereth concerning the blessed Apostles we shall clearly perceive that herobbs them all of that honour dignity and power which God hath given them and invests the people with it which is a double injustice First in taking from the Apostles and Ministers that which was their due and which God had bestowed upon them And secondly in giving unto the people that which pertained not to them and to which they had no right nor could lay no claime and with which they were not to meddle But take notice of his Doctrine what hee holds and beleeves concerning the ordinary Ministers page 12. In ordination saith hee election belongeth unto the brethren Jmposition of hands is proper to the Officers where there are Officers as in a Church constituted and compleate otherwise if the Church be not compleate according to his learning the people may doe it Thus I. S. speaks there and in the 11 page hee grants it is the Presbyters part to rule But as soone as hee hath spake the word as if hee repented of what he had said hee comes in with a but saying but wee distinguish betweene Authority and Iurisdiction on the one hand and Power and Jnterest on the other this latter belongs unto the people the other is proper unto the Officers which yet they exercise in the name of the Church The Officers saith hee ordaine they excommunicate they leade and direct in all government and disputes they have the executive power but the people have a power and interest too that is in his dialect as hee declared himselfe in the words going before the Officers must exercise all their authority and jurisdiction in the name of the Church and must doe as the people shall direct them for their power is onely the executive power they are onely the executioners of the church they can neither elect any officers nor excommunicate any without they have the leave and good liking from the people for the radicall and originall power lyes in the people and church which if it be not utterly to overthrow the authority of the Ministers and to make them nothing but cyphers in the Church and most sacrilegiously to rob them of that power Christ the King of his Church hath given them and to arrogate it and assume it unto themselves and whether this be not the greatest wickednesse and injustice in the Independents that can be committed against men I leave it to the consideration and judgement of all conscientious and learned men and whether such temerarious and bold impudent theives and Church-robbers ought not with greatest severity and justice to be proceeded against for this their malefice and unsufferable wickednesse who doe not onely take from the Ministers of Iesus Christ whom they ought ever to have in great reverence for their workes sake 1 Thess 5. that honour power and authority Christ hath given them but labour likewise now with all their might to take from them also that that God hath put into the hearts of men his servants to give them viz. their tythes and lively-hood and all that by which they should support themselves and their poore Families which is as intolerable an in justice and ingratitude both towards God and men as can by mortall creatures bee committed which wickednesse of the Independents and Sectaries if the Magistrates shall suffer to goe unpunished I most confidently beleeve that the Lord and King of his Church the Lord of heaven and earth will take the quarrell of his righteousservants into his hand and will poure downe his plagues both on them and all their complices and abettors And now I have made it evident how they rob all the ordinary Ministers and Presbyters of the Gospel of their due honour and power I will make it likewise appeare that the Apostles also are by their doctrine in the same predicament and that they deale no better with them whom they have robbed also and spoyled of their honour power and authority and count of them all no otherwise then of ordinary and common Ministers and but as of a company of Executioners for wee must take what I. S. speakes in this busines to be uttered in the name of all the Independents for hee is but their mouth and his booke came forth by the authority and approbation of them all and was esteemed of as a goodly peece and he highly honoured amongst them for it His words are these page 12. The Apostles and Elders saith he as a Committee first prepared the dispute as not counting it so safe perhaps to admit the weake to the same whiles it was intricate and then reported it and had their assistance and concurrence and the Letters of resolution
were excluded who were not at any time permitted to vote in churches 1 Cor. 14. And therefore the whole multitude of beleevers were not there for women were part of the multitude neither were the weak brethren to be admitted to doubtfull Disputations by a speciall command from the Apostle Paul Rom. 14. v. 1. and this is accorded to by the wise I. S. that confident disputant who saith that the Apostles and Elders as a Committee first prepared the dispute and after reported it not counting it safe to admit the weak to the same whiles it was intricate so that from Saint Pauls Doctrine there were neither women nor weak brethen there and from I. S. his own concession the weak were not admitted all the time of the dispute and therefore the whole multitude of beleevers that were in Ierusalem were not in the Councell by all which it is apparently evident That by brethren and church and multitude there the whole company of Beleevers in Ierusalem cannot be understood and therefore by Brethren Multitude and the whole Church we are necessarily to understand the learned and godly Prophets Ministers and Members of that church chiefe and eminent ones such as Judas and Sylas were and with them are to be joyned the other Presbyters that came out of all the Churches of Iudea with those that came with Paul and Barnabas from Antioch which being all confidered together made up a great number and multitude all the which are called the Church v. 3. the Scripture there speaking Synecdochically and taking a part for the whole I say of all such as these are did that Synod consist and not of all sorts of believers w ch were not members fit for a Synod and Councell which was to be managed and ordered and consist of such men only as had received the Keys and upon whom the government of the Church was laid which was never committed to the people much lesse to women therfore I say in all these respects by the Brethren and Multitude and the whole Church we are to understand it Synecdochically as before for all those that were in the councell which were but a part of the whole for the eminent Ministers and Prophets that were Commissioners there and assistants to the Apostles and Eldâ—rs he which yet is more evidenâ— from this reason That they onely could bee Iudges and Voters in that Synod which had heard the whole debate and the full dispute on both sides for none can be Iudges in any cause to give righteous judgement that have not fully heard the allegations and probations on both sides which I. S. acknowledgeth the weak neither heard nor could judge of because they were intricate ergo they could not be Iudges nor give their voices there upon no terms for they could not be Judges of things they had not fully understandingly heard now the weake neither heard neither could they have understood if they had heard both which I. S. accordeth to and therefore by multitude and the whole Church the weak brethren cannot be meant much lesse the sisters and if men would but with deliberation weigh and consider of things as they ought to be pondered and considered of very reason without the warrant of holy Scripture would perswade every rational and wel grounded christian that none could or can be Iudges in any cause but such as have heard the pleading of the whole busines and controversie from the beginning to the ending which none but the apostles presbyters and the Commissioners and such as Sylas and Iudas and Barnabas were did for the Scripture saith verse 6. that the Apostles and Elders came together for to consider of this matter and when there had beene much disputing c. out of which words wee may gather that none but they that managed the disputation and heard the whole debate were or could be Iudges which all the people neither did nor possibly could doe neither may we conceive of the Councell of Ierusalem that they had any raw headed boyes or giddy braind creatures or Minors in it or any such as were ever running out and in for wee may not imagine that that great Councell was like a pigion house where they are continually fluttering out and fluttering in for that Councell consisted of such men onely as were holy grave and approved all Prophets such as Sylas Iudas and Barnabas were such as for gravity and experience were thought fit companions to sit with the Apostles and Elders in consultation so that it is apparently evident that Councell consisted of none but venerable pretious godly and staid men of whom wee can not by the Law of charity thinke that they did the worke of the Lord in that Synod negligently or to the halves or that they did not all sit close and diligently to the worke from the beginning of the Session to the conclusion of the same and therefore that as they met altogether at a set houre or time so that they continued and kept together in consultation and dispute as long as any other sate and till they in their wisedome by their joynt consents and agreements thought fit to sit to the full determination of the whole busines and till the Decrees were made were it fewer or more dayes or weekes and although it be not recorded how long the Councell continued yet wee reade no where in the 15. chapter but that they sate altogether in judgement the Apostles and Elders and Commissioners till they had heard the whole debate and diâ—pute and none but they This truth may be gathered not only from the holy Scripture and from that I have formerly spake but from I. S. his owne words above specified viz that there were neither weake brethren nor the sisters and therefore it is a great wickednesse in I. S. from such uncertainties as hee goes upon to raise and make such conclusions as he doth which tend to no other end but for the taking away all the authority and power from the Apostles themselves which God notwithstanding had invested them with and to put it into the hands of the people which they had nothing to doe with for as his words declare hee accounteth the Apostles and Elders but a Committee onely to prepare the dispute and then to report it that they might have the assistance and concurrence of the people without the which as hee affirmeth there were no great commendation of the resolution that is to say if the people had not assented unto the Decrees they had beene of no effect which if it be not wholly to devest the Apostles of all power and authority and lay it and place it upon the people I leave it to the judgement of the learned then the which there cannot be a greater sacriledge and injustice perpetrated against Ministers and servants of God in the world by any and as this dealing and proceeding of I. S. is most injurious to the Apostles so this his doctrine is contrary to all divine
the making of any one a Member or Officer so that if they gain say it being the greater number or allow of it the most voices carry the busines this is the fifth Querie the practise of the which as of all the former the brethren in some of their Congregations hold for orthodox and thinke all these things required of any that offer themselves to be a Member The last Quere is whether the practice and preaching of all these things and the gathering of Churches after this manner be to set up Christ as King upon his Throne and whether Churches and Assemblies thus congregated be the onely true Churches and in the which onely Christ rules aud reignes as King and all other that are not moulded up after this fashion bee no true congregated Churches and in the which Christ is not set up as King upon his Throne which is the opinion of the brethren as wil afterward appear If I have failed in any thing in stating the question or in any of these Quaeries the brethren must pardon me for I speak according to the practice of some of their Congregations and according to the doctrine many of them teach not onely in their owne Assemblies but in every Pulpit through the Kingdome where they come as I shall be able to prove And therefore if I have been mistaken in any thing they may blame their own practice and teachers and thank themselves also that in the space of almost three yeares though it has been again and again desired at their hands they have not so much as set down the modell of their government and what they would have with all the appertainances belonging unto it that all the world might be out of doubt What therefore I find practised amongst some of the most zealous of them and the most approved for integrity and what I shall be able to prove that I have without any spirit of bitternesse specified And now according to my method propounded I will set down their Answers to what all of them have to say to the severall branches and parcells of the insuing discourse concerning the gathering of Churches onely in this I shall refer every cavill they make against my severall quaeries and arguments to their right place whereas I said before they had in a confused and disorderly way by snatches answered to what they thought themselves best able to deal with eitherwholy passing by the main arguments with silence or slighting of them with contempt wherein I shall in their due places discover their dishonest dealing But before I come to my answer I shall desire the Reader to hear first what Mr Knollys and I. S. say concerning me about this second question Hanserdoes words are these Page 14. And this question saith he the Doctor brancheth into six Quaries wherein the judicious Reader may perceive the Doctor through mis-information I conceive hath mistaken the stating of the question which he partly acknowledgeth Thus Mr Knollys speaks I. S. his words are these Page 15 16. The second question saith he is of the manner of gathering of Churches and of admitting of Members and Officers proposed by him 1. in the Chaos it seemes 2. orderly as he supposes drawn forth into six Quaeries though I dare not say there is not interfering tautologie and great confusion The nature in which the things are viz. of Quarie incourages me rather to do some thing in them for that I hope the Doctor will not be great of his own sense but take an Answer of these things from those that know the way better then himselfe who it seems is but a Catechumenos therein I shall here therefore indeavour to instruct him instead of refuting him for as much as to me it seems unmeet that a man should be polemically exercised before he be positively principled Thus speakes learned I. S. For my brother Burtons good opinion of me and his kind expressions of his love towards me I shall in their places record them with my due thanks to him for the same But whereas Master Knollys accuseth me of ignorance in the stating of the question and saith that I have partly acknowledged it and conceives that this mistake in me arose from a mis-information In all he saith he playes the vain man for I am able to prove from their dayly practice all that I there set down and know the question as well as any Independent living and can at any time make it appear that Master Knollys knows not the Independents principles And so far as their New Lights have illuminated the world so far I know of their wayes and that I acknowledged and no other thing But why did not Mr Knollys in this place if I were mistaken honestly shew me my error And why did he not as beseemed a Christian and a man truly fearing God now set down fully and plainly what their Way is that all men may know where to finde them These ungodly men are not so honest as to set down their way and yet they pretend others are ignorant of it when notwithstanding they know it better then themselves In the same steps of Hanserdo doth I. S tread in accusing me of interfering tautologies and great confusion and that I am great in mine own sense and that I am but a Cateshumenos and that he knows the way better then my selfe and that he will endeavour to instruct me instead of refuting me for as much as to him it seems unmeet that a man should be polemically exercised before he be positively principled Thus this wretched man tramples upon me for my ignorance and vapours at no allowance of his own knowledge and yet keeps not his promise with me to instruct mee or to shew me my error wherein he proclames himselfe to be a very unworthy creature that I say no more for it had been his duty to have ingenuously here shewn unto me my failings if I were in ignorance and to have truly and uprightly set down what their Way is seeing he affirmeth he knoweth it so well that all men might at last be undeceived if in error This I say had been the part of a sincere Christian and one truly fearing God in the number of the which I cannot think or beleeve I. S. to be so long as he fondly boasteth of himselfe and keepeth not his promise and it is most apparently evident to all that have read his wicked Pamphlet that he is in the gall of bitternesse and band of iniquity where they find nothing but brutish impiety and apparent ignorance For he himselfe though a great teacher knoweth not neither what he saith nor whereof he affirmeth who is as apparently nescient as Hanserdo of the Independents Doctrine and had need himselfe to be positively principled before he be polemically exercised But whereas J. S. accuses me to be a Catechumenos in their principles I will undertake this upon my life before the whole Kingdome to make it good that I know the
of their conversion or that they should enter into a particular explicite Covenant or that they should have the consent of the whole Church nothing of all this was required there neither had the people any hand in the admitting of them but the Apostles by themselves and by their sole authority managed the whole business for those that were converted and pricked in their hearts applying themselves unto the Apostles said Men and Brethren what shall we do and the conditions upon which they admitted them upon their repentance were these onely beleeve and be baptized in the Name of our Lord Jesus the blessed Apostles were not acquainted with our new modell nor with the conditions of the new Congregations But by the way let me tell the Illdependents that the Apostles and Disciples had then a just ground of making such conditions if ever any had for they might with great reason have said howsoever these souls be not miracle proof but that they are wounded to the heart by them and by the Sermon of Peter yet we are not by and by to confide in them and to admit them into church fellowship unlesse they will walk some time with us that we may have experience of the truth of their conversion and unlesse also they will make all and every one of them a publike and particular confession of his faith and bring in the evidences of their conversion and enter also into a particular explicite covenant for observing all the Laws of membership and that they come in by the generall consent and approbation of the church I say if ever there was a time that these conditions might have been required by any it might then especially have been because all those had had their hand in crucifying of the Lord of life as Peter told them and therefore they might all be well suspected that howsoever for the present they were all struck into a trembling condition yet that they could not judge upon so short a time of the soundnesse of their conversion and therefore they might well have urged all the former conditions and chiefly because they had our Saviours own example freshly before their eyes in the second of John where it is related that he would not commit himselfe unto men which had been convinced by his miracles although they beleeved in him so that I say in that regard when Christ would not commit himselfe unto them the Apostles and Disciples might much more have pretended in all these regards that they had no reason to confide in these men until they had had better experience of them for the truth of their conversion But when neither the Apostles nor none of all the Disciples so much as urged any conditions upon them beyond the commission given them by Christ to wit Repentance Faith and Baptism the example of this church is for ever binding to all churches that they in the admission of their Members should do the same and they that propound other conditions do no lesse then accuse the Apostles of injustice and imprudency as of taking that authority into their own hands from the people and of so suddenly and without any deliberation admitting of Members into church-fellowship which ought according to my brother Burtons doctrine ever to be done with great caution who saith in his 14. Page Multa cautela non nocet adding moreover that in things weighty we cannot be too wary in regard they look not so much at circumstances in conversion as the substance and in regard also there ought to be a provident care for preventing inconveniences and scandalls seeing turpius ejiciâ—ur quam non admittitur hospes it is easier for a guest to be kept out then to be cast out by all which his expressions and by their dayly practice they do no lesse then proclame unto the world that the Apostles took too much upon them and were not so prudent in the admission of Members into church-fellowship and communion as they should have bin for if they did not accuse the practice of all the Apostles of deficiency why do they not follow their examples and why do they impose new laws of admitting of Members and other conditions then either Christ the King of his church God blessed for ever or his holy Apostles did Which whether or no it be not one of the presumptuous and blasphemous wickednesses both in the Ministers and the people that exercise this new Government that ever was in the world I leave it to the judgement of all consciencious and solid Christians This one example in the church of Ierusalem might be a sufficient president for all churches imitation for ordinary admission of Members into church-fellowship But I will produce other admissions in the same church that there may be no want of witnesses to corroborate this truth In the last verse of the second chapter besides this first admission in terminis it is said there that the Lord added dayly unto the Church such as should be saved Here we finde additions of Members upon additions for they were dayly added saith the Scripture and that by the Lord and King of his Church Iesus Christ and that upon the former conditions for we learn of no other viz. of repenting beleeving and being baptized Here we finde nothing of walking sometime before their admission here is nothing of publike confession of their faith nothing of bringing in of the evidences of their conversion nothing of a particular explicite Covenant nothing of the consent of the Church the Lord Jesus whiles the Government of his church whose yoke was easie and his burthen light lay upon his shoulders and as long as the rule lay in his own hands and before it came to my brother Burtons fine white fingers which he saith in his learned Epistle that some of his friends would not have him foule with me I say whiles the Government of Christs Church lay in his own hands and before it came to my brother Burtons fingers and into the paws and clutches of those of the congregationall way all Christs Disciples and pretious ones were admitted into church-fellowship without that heavy burthen of those conditions they have most arrogantly brought into the Church of God by which in as much as in them lies they have not only put the whole world in a combustion but most blasphemously dis throned Christ preferring their own vain traditions before his most holy Laws and doing all in the Churches name and inslaved his people whiles notwithstanding they pretend they set up Christ upon his Throne and they preach the liberty of the Gospell unto the people which is most impiously to juggle on all sides But now to go on to the other presidents of admitting Members in that Church In the fourth chapter we have it recorded verse 4. that many of them which heard the Word beleeved and the number of the men was about five thousand And all these were admitted into church fellowship and into the Communion
let them ask their husbands at home for it is a shame for women to speak in the Church And what Saint Paul writ to this Church of Corinth he writ to all Churches and proclames that what he writ to them were the commandments of the Lord ver 37. so that God had commanded that the women should not speak in the Church and saith that it is a shame they should and yet in these our dayes in many of the new congregations they have their voices in choosing of officers and admitting of Members and have all of them Peters Keys at their Girdle and make learned parts of speech in the congregation and dispute questions and debate of matters and give their reasons con pro as it is credibly reported and others of them set â—orth and print learned Treatises in polemicall Divinity with great applause and admiration of the Independent Ministers who cite their authority and quote them in their writings as classicall authors to the shame of the Nation and ludibry of Religion and howsoever there is not any that shall more honour the truly vertuous and pious of that sex than my selfe yet I must confesse when I see how far they become transgressors of the law of God and do those things that the holy Apostle hath not onely forbidden but proclamed a shame I cannot but exceedingly blame them and those Ministers that allow of and approve of such rebellion against God and nature And as if it had been the speciall care in the Apostle to prevent this evill of womens intermedling in matters of the Church he foreseeing the confusion that would be brought in upon it In his first Epistle to Timothy and in him to all Ministers to whom the Government of the Church was committed he gives him direction how to behave himselfe in the house of God which is the Church of the living God in chap. 2. verse 11. 12. hee saith Let the women learne in silence with all subjection for I suffer not a woman to teach nor to usurpe authority over the man but to be in silence for Adam was first made then Eve and Adam was not deceived but the woman being deceived was in the transgression c. Here the Apostle againe and againe twice in these few words enjoyns them silence in the church and imposes upon them subjection and obedience I suffer not saith he a woman to teach or to usurpe authority over the man but to be in silene and he giveth his reasons of this his command because saith he Adam was first made not by the woman nor of the woman but the contrary and therefore shee may usurpe no authority over the masculine sex especially in Gods matters and she is to be the disciple of the man and not the man her scholar and therefore that superiority that the God of order had established upon the man in the first creation hee doth now re-establish upon him againe in his holy Word after all things through sinne had beene disordered and confused and commands the woman to be both subject and silent especially in the Church Another reason of this his command is because the woman was first in the transgression and was the cause of Adams fall as hee accuses her and her disputing and voycing of it then brought confusion upon all man-kind and for this her so doing S. Paul concludes for ever hereafter that she ought to hold her peace be in subjection to her husband and ought to learne in silence at home but more especially in the Church for if they come to voice it once againe in the Church as Eve brought confusion upon man-kind by her disputation and reason so these with their loquacity and babble and confusion of voyces will bring in a new Babel into the Church and State as they have prettily well already begun to doe Saint Paul saith I suffer not a woman to teach nor to usurpe authority over the man but to be in silence Here the Apostle as in the place above cited out of 1 Cor. chap. 14. commands them silence and permits them not to speake and expressely forbids them to usurpe authority over the man that is the viril sex Now I appeale unto any understanding creature whether or no to make large parts of speech in the Church as many of them upon occasions doe and dispute and give their reasons con pro be not to speak in the Church and whether to have their voices in either admitting of Members or Officers or in the casting of them out be not to usurpe authority over the man for all the world knows that they that have the power in their hands of either admitting of any into the fellowship or communion of the Church or of hindring their coming in or have their voices for the casting of them out when they are received exercise and usurpe authority over those they so deal with and there-fore they do against the expresse prohibition of the Apostles and all those women that have usurped this authority and all those Ministers that have permitted them so to do or taught this doctrine unto them are all guilty of great contumacy against God and ought seriously to repent for this their temerity and rebellion and it will be the imortall honour of those women that have not intermedled and if there be not some speedy course taken by authority to forbid such disorder we may promise nothing to the Church and whole Kingdome but confusion It hath ever been observed that Hermaphrodite councels in any Kingdome or Country when women that are subjects intermeddle in government and matters of state that that Kingdome and Country is very crased and not far from ruine and destruction and we need not look into many ages or countries for presidents of this kind and if Hermaphrodite counsels in Kingdoms have ever been so fatall unto them what may any man think in time will become of this Church and Kingdome when the women have gotten Peters Keys at their girdle and have their voices in many congregations and a power of ordering and disposing of things in Church affairs Certainly nothing but confusion can be expected for this their doing is against the expresse command of God who is the God of order and injoyns the contrary Yea it is not onely against the law of God but against the very law of nature and the practice of all Nations for never was it yet heard of in any well governed City or Commonwealth or Kingdome that women that were subjects had their voices in choosing officers or Burgesses or making of freemen or disfranchising of them or were permitted so much as to sit in counsell with them much lesse to rule and give laws to others out of their own houses And therefore as it is a thing odious to God and man and that which is a shame to that sex it ought to be cast out of all wel-governed Churches and States and as the women ought to know their
the hearts of their brethren more then all their former afflictions and gives a great advantage to the common enemy and scandalizes the Gospel and exposes both themselves and us to the scorne of the Malignants who ordinarily jeere and say see those holy Brethren that lost their ears together are now together by the cares and count one of another as a company of Infidels and disclaime all holy communion one with another and will not so much as admit of their children to baptisme or suffer them to receive the Sacraments with them But this is that that makes all men wonder to heare them proclaime all the Ministers of the Church of England to be such as deny disclaime and preach against Christs Kingly government when it is apparently evident both by all their preachings and writings and all their practices that they ever advance Christs Kingly government as really as any of those that oppose them who in preaching up the Kingly office of Christ and setting Christ upon his Throne are inferiour to none of them in this work For we are taught out of Gods Word that those Ministers set up Christ in his Throne that open the eyes of the blind and turne them from darkenesse to light and from the power of Satan to God that they might receive forgivenesse of sinnes and an inheritance amongst them that are sanctified by faith in Iesus Christ and that teach men to repent and turne to God and doe workes meet for repentance and when the people that heare them give themselves first to the Lord and upto his Ministers by the will of God and after denying all ungodlinesse and worldly lusts live soberly righteously and godly in this present world And this the Word of God teacheth us is to set up Christ upon his Throne and those Ministers that teach all these things set up Christ upon his Throne and those people that embrace this doctrine make Christ their King as we may see 2 Cor. chap. 8. ver 5. Tit. 2. verse 12. For Christ sits as King upon his Throne when hee is beleeved in to bee that horne of salvation that was raised up for us in the house of David that has saved and delivered all that beleeve in him out of the hands of all their enemies both spirituall and bodily that they may serve him without feare and when Christ rules in all their hearts by the Scepter of his Word and Spirit and when they owne him as their onely Law-giver and acknowledge him to be the onely King in his Church and the Saviour of all those that truly beleeve in him and this is to set up Christ upon his Throne and the brethren themselves accord unto this Now when the Ministers of England teach this doctrine in their preachings and writings how can they be truly said to deny disclaim and preach against Christs Kingly government over mens consciences and Churches and how can that people be said truly to deny Christs Kingly government who do both beleeve and to the uttermost of their power practice this doctrine and follow onely the guidance of his holy Spirit and Word both for doctrine and government who is King of the Church whether therefore this be not an unjust and unchristian calumny laid both upon the Ministers and people of the church of England I leave it to the consideration of any moderate minded christian doubtles all charitable minded christians if they consider all things aright will not think so dishonourably neither of the Ministers of England not of the people under their Ministery for they deserve not to be accounted the profest enemies of Christ who are freed from that heavy accusation by Christs own testimony who when it was related unto him by Saint John Mark 9. ver 38. That they had seen one casting out devills in his name which followed them not and that the Disciples had forbad him because he did not follow them Our Saviour Christ replying forbid him not saith he for whosoever is not against us is on our part Now these Ministers that open the eyes of the blind and turne them from darknesse to light and from the power of Satan to God they cannot be esteemed enemies of Christ and to be against Christ but for him and ought highly to be honoured for their works sake 1 Thess chap. 5. ver 13. and singularly to be beloved and deserve not to be maligned and reproached especially by brethren who owe all their conversions next unto God to their Ministery yea both the Pastors and people of all the new congregated churches are beholding unto them for their conversion for they admit none into their Assemblies but beleevers and they were made beleevers and converted by their Ministery and therefore they are friends of Christ and not his enemies and they ought all of them to look upon them as their Fathers and on the church of England as their Mother and on the beleevers of England as their brethren and ought not thus unchristianly and ungratefully to cast dirt in all their faces Saint Paul in his Epistle to the Philippians chap. 1. hath these words Some saith he preach Christ even of envy and strife and some also of good will the one preach Christ of contention and not sincerely thinking to adde affliction to my bonds but the other of love What then notwithstanding every way whether in pretence or in truth Christ be preached I therein do rejoyce yea and I will rejoyce Saint Paul speaks here of such as preach pure doctrine though not with a pure mind and was glad that Christ was preached and counts them not the enemies of Christ as he did the false teachers among the Galatians who joyned the ceremoniall law and their own inventions with the Gospel and therefore he wisht that they were cut off but in this place he rejoyces that Christ and the Gospell were purely preached though it were of envy Now when the Ministers of the Church of England do not only preach the Gospell purely but of sincerity and of love and mingle not their own traditions and inventions with the Gospell but follow their commission how can any men without intolerable injustice proclame them the enemies of Jesus Christ and make them odious to the people under the name of Presbyterians whom they perswade all men that they will prove more cruell Taskmasters then the Prelates yea and they have generally possest the people with so prejudicate an opinion of them all as if they would more lord it over them than ever the Bishops did and causlesly have moved the people to hate the name of Presbytery And notwithstanding they themselves pretend they contend for the ancient Presbytery and by this make themselves Presbyterians as well as the other What justice or equity then is there in their dealing to make their brethren odious to the world for endeavouring to set up a Presbytery after Gods Word when they themselves are Presbyterians and labor to set up a Presbytery of
is mention made in that Epistle of churches in the plurall number 1 Cor. 14. verse 34. Let the women saith the Apostle keepe silence in the Churches by which it followeth that in Gods dialect congregation and church are synonima's and not that onely but that there were many churches in this church of Corinth and that they were all but one church as being so many branches and depending all upon that stocke and therefore were all classically governed and subordinate to one Presbyterie The same may be concluded of the Church of Philippi where verse the 1. Paul and Timothy salutes all the Bishops and Deacons so that in the first entrance of that Epistle wee meet with a colledge of Bishops and Presbyters for they were all one and wee meete also with many Deacons all which proves to any understanding man that there were many congregations and churches for one Deacon would have served for one congrgeation or assembly and yet they all made but one church as being subordinate to one Presbyterie and governed by their joynt consent and common Counsell and that there were multitudes of Beleevers there it is evident from the variety of Teachers besides their good and godly Bishops for Paul saith there were dogs amongst them evill workers and those of the concision and he bids the Philippians to beware of those Chap. 3. verse 2. and there were many other of their Teachers which were worldly men that minded earthly things whom hee proclames enemies of the Crosse of Christ who made their belly their God as too many of the Independent Ministers now adayes doe chapter 4. verse 18 19. and gives them in command to shun their example and only to follow his and such as walked as hee did whose conversation was in Heaven and many such Teachers there were in the Church of Philippi and such as taught the Gospel out of good will and sincerely all which sufficiently prove there were many congregations of Beleevers in this Church and that it was yet but one Church and governed by a classis and colledge of Bishops and Presbyters And the same may be said of the church of Galatia where Paul complaines that there were many false teachers amongst them which hee wisht were rooted out and cut off or destroyed so that it followeth that in that church also there were many congregations and they were all governed by the joynt consent common counsel of a Presbyterie there for there were Presbyters ordained in every church and in every Citie And now I come to the seven churches of Asia and that by name my brother Burton speaks of viz. the church of Ephesus with which I will conclude and this was but one church in the singular number Revel the 2. of the which Paul called the Elders to him Acts the 20. verse 17. In the which church there were such infinites of Beleevers as they could not all possibly meet in any one place or a few yea Paul himselfe declareth as much in expresse words in the 20. chap. verse 20. where hee saith that hee taught them publickly and from house to house which in the originall is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which by Master Knollys his learning signifies per singulas domos and therefore by him acknowledged to be many congregations as in the forgoing discourse is sufficâ—ently proved and all reason indeed will perswade it had it not in words beene specified For Ephesus was a famous citie and a place of great trafficke where Paul preached two whole yeares by whose hands God wrought no small Miracles so that all they that dwelt in Asia heard the word of the Lord Iesus both Iews and Gentiles and through other wonders that were wrought in that city it is related that the word of God grew mightily and prevailed as it is at large ch 19. set down so that great multitudes of the very Schollers and such as studied curious Arts were also converted and burnt their Bookes the price of which amounted to fifty thousand peeces of silver in so much that feare came upon all the Greekes and Iewes that dwelt in Ephesus and the name of the Lord Iesus was magnified And can any man conceive or beleeve that all the Jewes and Greekes in Ephesus a mighty citie and a mart Towne could all meet in any one place together to communicate in all acts of worship yea were it not a madnesse to thinke so if the very diversitie of their languages and tongues of the people did not disswade it for if they would all be edified they must understand their Ministers preaching unto them which so many people of severall Languages and dialects could never do by any one for it was then a Miracle to have the gift of tongues which for the most part were conferred upon the Ministers and Publishers of the Gospel and upon such as were to be sent from place to place and from Citie to Citie to convert the Nations such as were the Apostles Evangelists and Prophets all extraordinary men and very seldome had the ordinary people the gifts of the Holy Ghost conferred upon them but it was chiefly upon some select and chosen ones not upon all promiscuously buâ— upon such as the Apostles laid their hands for if it had beene upon all then Simon Magus needed not have offered money to the Apostles for the purchasing of the gifts of the Holy Ghost if those graces had been promiscuously given but without all doubt it was but to some sortsof men for the most part that the gift of tongues was distributed such as the Apostles made speciall choyce of for so it appeares 1 Cor. 12. ver 10. 11. And therefore when the common people had not the understanding of all languages they if they would be edified must have such to preach to them as they could understand and therefore all the Jewes and Greeks in Ephesus must necessarily have divers places to meet in if the multitudes of them otherwise had not been so great but that they might have assembled themselves together and onely that they might be edified Besides the great multitudes that we read of at the first plantationof this church the Scripture saith Acts the 20. That for three whole years together Paul taught them night and day as an extraordinary Minister they had also Timothy sometime amongst them and other extraordinary teachers and a whole colledge of Bishops and Elders ver 28. who all had the care of the flock committed to them with a charge that they should feede that church which Christ had redeemed with his blood They had a commission likewise given them to oppose all false Teachers which they faithfully performed as the Lord beareth them witnesse Revel the 2. ver 2. saying I know thy workes and thy labour and thy patience and how thou canst not beare them which are evill and thou hast tryed them which say they are Apostles and are not and hast found them lyars By which we learne that the Government of