or no It is not how far Christians are bound to submit to a restraint of their Christian liberty Which I now inquire after of those things in the Treatise it self but whether they do consult for the Churches Peace and Unity who suspend it upon such things How far either the example of our Saviour or his Apostles doth warrant such rigorous impositions We never read the Apostles making Laws but of things supposed necessary When the Counsel of Apostles met at Jerusalem for deciding a Case that disturbed the Churches Peace we see they would lay no other burden 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 besides these necessary things Act. 15. 29. It was not enough with them that the things would be necessary when they had required them but they looked on an Antecedent necessity either absolute or for the present state which was the only ground of their imposing those Commands upon the Gentile Christians There were after this great diversities of practice and Varieties of Observations among Christians but the Holy Ghost never thought those things fit to be made matters of Laws to which all parties should conform all that the Apostles required as to these was mutual forbearance aud condescension towards each other in them The Apostles valued not differences at all and those things it is evident they accounted such which whether men did them or not was not of concernment to Salvation And what reason is there why men should be so strictly tyed up to such things which they may do or let alone and yet be very good Christians still Without all controversie the main In-let of all the distractions confusions and divisions of the Christian World hath been by adding other conditions of Church-communion than Christ hath done Nor am I now inquiring whether the things Commanded be lawful or no Nor whether indifferences may be determined or no Nor how far Christians are bound to submit to a restraint of their Christian Liberty But only inquiring as he there doth concerning the Charter given by Christ for the binding men up to more than himself hath done And I further inquire by what power they can be bound which Christ hath not given And if there be no such power to bind them suppose the things required were all lawful which if it can be evinc't I should rejoyce to see done yet while they cannot in conscience think they are how can they apprehend themselves bound to be without the means of Salvation which Christ's Charter entitles them to I readily grant it is fit a man do many things for peace and Common Orders sake which otherwise no Law doth formally oblige him to i.e. supposing he can do those things without intolerable prejudice to himself And so it is commonly determined in the matter of scandals But can it be thought a man is to put himself out of the state or way of Salvation in complement to such as will otherwise take offence And be so Courteous as to Perish for ever rather than they shall be displeased Yea and it may be moreover added That our course being accounted lawful must also as the Doctor speaks in another case be thought a duty For the things that are as means necessary to our salvation are also necessary by Divine Precept We are commanded to hear Gods Word to devote our selves and our Children to God in Baptism and at the Lords own Table to remember him and shew forth his death till he come And if we compare together certain Positions of this Reverend Author we cannot see but he must as our case is acknowledge our obligation to the practice which he here seems to blame For in his Iren. p. 109. He asserts That every Christian is under an obligation to joyn in Church-society with others because it is his duty to profess himself a Christian and to own his Religion publickly and to partake of the Ordinances and Sacraments of the Gospel which cannot be without society with some Church or other And he after adds on the same page It had been a case disputed by some particularly by Grotius the supposed Author of a little Tract An semper sit communicandum per symbola When he design'd the Syncretism with the Church of Rome whether in a time when Churches are divided it be a Christians duty to communicate with any of those Parties which divide the Church and not rather to suspend communion from all of them A case not hard to be deoided for either the person questioning it doth suppose the Churches divided to remain true Churches but some to be more pure than other in which case by vertue of his genral obligation to Communion he is bound to adhâ—re to that Church which appears most to retain its Evangelical purity To which purpose he further tells us page 110. He knows not whether Chrysostom ' s act were to be commended who after being made a Deacon in the Church of Antioch by Meletius upon his death because Flavianus came in irregularly as Bishop of the Church would neither communicate with him nor with Paulinus another Bishop at that time in the City nor with the Meletians but for three years time withdrew himself from communion with any of them And p. 113. Where any Church is guilty of Corruptions both in Doctrine and Practice which it avoweth and professeth and requireth the owning them as necessary conditions of communion with her there a non-communion with that Church is necessary and a total and positive separation is lawful and convenient What he discourses page 111 112. upon the Question Whether it is a sin to communicate with Churches true as to Essentials but supposed corrupt in the exercise of Discipline Many of us will no doubt heartily concur with him in But it touches not the case of many more who do not so much fear upon the account of the neglect of Discipline to be involv'd in the guilt of other mens sin as there seems to be little cause that part being not incumbent upon us Nor if that be his meaning when he speaks of separating on a pretence of great purity is it the case with most of us but we justly fear and therefore avoid to be made to sin our selves by having such things as we judge to be sinful imposed on us as the Conditions of our Communion And as to this case this Reverend Author speaks our sense in this last cited Proposition and pleads our present Cause Nor need we more to be said on behalf of it than what is reducible to that general Proposition or particularly to that second thing compared with the third which p. 115. he says makes separation and withdrawment of communion lawful and necessary viz. Corruption of practice where we say as he doth We speak not of practice as relating to the civil conversation of men but as it takes in the Agenda of Religion when unlawful things of that kind are not only crept into a Church but are the prescribed devotion of it Those
Assemblies ought to be Communicated with so far as is alledged was declared As I know none of the dissenting Ministers that thought they ought always and only to be Communicated with so I see not with what pretence it can be said they keep up their judgment herein as a mighty secret If it be so how came this Author to have it revealed to him Is Printing it to the World keeping it secret Some have published it in that way as we see is known to the Doctor Others by their frequent discourses and their own practice And to my observation divers of them have in their Sermons made it much their business to dispose the minds of their hearers to a truly Catholick Christian Union as I have been much pleased to take notice some of the Conforming Clergy do also But if this be the Doctors quarrel with any of our Ministers who think such Communion Lawful that they do not constantly in every Sermon inculcate the business of Communicating in the Ceremonial way for my part I shall blame them as much as he when once he hath made it very evident that the Ceremonies are more profitable and likely to do more good to the souls of men than repentance the faith of the Gospel the fear of God a good life in this world and eternal life in the other which I confess are the more usual subjects so far as I have had opportunity to observe of their preaching And let me add that I can tell you of a secret which some might be apt to think as it is really so is industriously and much more unrighteously kept up in one mans breast that may be conscious of a great design in it The Author of the Book intitled the Weapon Salve or Irenicum seems to have found it some inconveniency to him to have been the Author of so good a Book whereupon in a certain Soliloquy though he is pleased to represent it as a tripartite Dialogue he askes himself his own opinion of it and gives himself this answer I will tell you freely as you know men use great liberty in talking with themselves though prudence would direct that to be done in some cases with great Caution and not to talk inconvenient things too loud left they be too much overheard I beleive there are many things in it which if D. St. were to write now he would not have said for there are some things which shew his Youth and want of due consideration others in which he yielded too far c. Now here though I beleive he had begun to be inclin'd to throw away his Salve and use only the Weapon for the Wounding of sound parts not the cutting off the incurable yet I conceive one may safely enough take it for granted his intention was not to retract the whole Book But whereas he tells us not what he doth how would the Doctor take it if one should ask why is this kept up as such a mighty secret in his own breast Or say the tenderness of his mind might 't is likely out of meer shamefac'dness keeps him from declaring against what his own Conscience tells him is truth However his retractation cannot make that which was true become false The reason of things is sullen and will not alter to serve mens conveniences Perhaps indeed his judgment is really altered If therefore he would acquit himself like an honest and conscientious man let him tell the world plainly which be the pernicious principles of that Book that honest and consciencious men who have thought well of many things in it and perhaps the same things which he now disapproves may not always be deceived by the shews of Reason that deceived himself and by which he deceived them The same justice that obliges not to lay a stumbling block in the way of the blind doth also oblige him to remove it who hath laid it Which is to be done not by professing another opinion for we depend not on his authority which he hath himself so much diminished but on the reasons he alledged which if they were fallacious let him shew wherein and answer his own reasons To say the truth the gravity and seriousness wherewith that Book was written appears to have so little of the youth in it in comparison of the jooularity and sportful humor of some of his latter Writings when he hath been discussing the most weighty and important Cases of Conscience that it seems as a Prodigy in Nature and that he began his life at the wrong end that he was old in his youth and reserved his puerility to his more grown age But we hope there is a great residue behind wherein he may have opportunity and inclination to shew the World that he did not repent the pious design of that Book Or at least with a repentance that can as well as that ought to be repented of 4. And whereas such of the dissenting Ministers as have most openly declared for communicating at some times with some of the Parochial Churches have also declared their judgment of the lawfulness and necessity of Preaching and Hearing and doing other Religious Duties in other Congregations also If now either the Doctor discern not the consistency of these things or they discern not their inconsistency is there nothing to be said or thought but that they acquit not themselves like honest and conscientious men Must it be taken for a demonstration of a mans want of honesty and conscience not be presently of the Doctors Opinion in every thing or not to see every consequence which he sees or thinks he sees But let us consider the goodness of this Consequence which it must be so great a piece of dishonesty not to discern If it be the duty of some to communicate sometimes with some parish-Parish-Churches for this is the most the Doctor could make of that Relators Concession whom he cites p. 21 22. of his Sermon Therefore it is the duty of every one to communicate with any parish-Parish-Church where his abode is so constantly and entirely as never to have any communion with any otherwise constituted Congregation This is the thing must be to his purpose infer'd yea and he would have it be from somewhat a lower premise For he tells us p. 37. That he dare say if most of the Preachers at this day in the separate Meetings were soberly askt their judgments whether it were lawful only for the people to joyn with us in the publick Assemblies they would not deny it He surely dare not say that their meaning was that it was lawful constantly to joyn with them in all their Parochial Assemblies unless he dare say what he hath not from any of them the least ground to think Now hereupon he collects p. 38. that our Ministers cannot declare so much in a separate Congregation but this truth must fly in their faces Because he supposeth is repugnant to it to preach at all in a separate Congregation and yet afterwards on
being required which he adds as an accession to the foregoing as necessary conditions of communion from all the Members of their Church which makes our withdrawing from them unavoidably necessary as long as we judge them to be such corruptions as indeed they are And whereas he instances only in such things as belong to the Head of Idolatrous Customs suppressing what might be instanced under the other Head which he also there mentions viz. Superstitious practice yet we doubt not if other things also that appear to be sinful besides idolatrous Customs be required as necessary conditions of communion the case will be the same unless we will distinguish sins into such as be lawful and such as be unlawful Or there be any that may be committed that we may be admitted to the communion of this or that Church Now to reduce things to the method which sutes the present case if this reverend Author do still judge that where sinful conditions of Communion are imposed there Non-communion is necessary and those things be sinful to us which our Consciences judge to be so as he hath acknowledged And again if he still judge that we are under an Obligation to joyn in Church-society so as to own our Religion publickly and to partake of the Ordinances and Sacraments of the Gospel He must certainly account that our duty which he taxes in this Sermon as our fault at least till our Consciences be otherwise informed whereof many of us have no great hope We are indeed not so stupid as not to apprehend there are Laws the Letter whereof seems adverse to us Nor are we so ungrateful as not to acknowledge his Majesties clemency in not subjecting us to the utmost rigor of those Laws whom we cannot without deep regret so much as seem not in every thing exactly to obey Nor can it enter into our minds to imagine that he expects to be obeyed by us at the expence of our Salvation Or that it would be at all grateful to him that being as we are unsatisfied in some things that are by the Law made necessary to our partaking the priviledges of the Christian Church we should become Pagans in duty to him His Majesty was once pleased to give an ample Testimony by his neverto be-forgotten gracious declaration of March 15. 1672. How remote any such thought was from his Royal Breast and though we humbly submit to the exigency of those reasons of State from whence it proceeded that we enjoy not the continued positive favour which his Majesty was then pleased to express towards us yet we have no reason to doubt but his propensions are equally benigne as they were Nor though it be uncertain to us what Laws they are the Authority whereof this reverend person relies upon to make our practice sinful yet we hope he doth not mean to urge us herein with the Laws of the Civil Government because those as much forbid our Non-Communion and under as severe penalty for which he acquits us from the Guilt of Shism or if we endeavour satisfaction from any sin imputable to us But if that should be his meaning we desire it may be considered how unreasonable it seems that the design of the Law relating to that part of our practice which the Doctor in this Sermon condemns being declaredly to prevent sedition they should take themselves to be meant who are conscious of no such design or disposition And again that it is not with any reason Charity or Justice to be supposed that when that and other restrictive Laws were made either the Temporal ruine of so great a part of the Nation as are now found to be dissenters was intended by the legislators or the reducing them to the condition of Heathens But an uniformity in the Worship of God being in it self a thing realy desireable this means was thought fit to be tryed in order to that end And so are humane Laws about such mutable matters generally designed to be probationary the event and success being unforeknown Whereupon after a competent time of Trial as his Majesty was graciously pleased to declare his own favourable sense and intention so it is very commonly known that the like propensions were by Common suffrage expressed in Parliament viz. To grant a relaxation So that the Law being in its own Nature nothing else but an indication of the Legislators will we may account the thing was in substance done so far as may satisfie a mans private reason and conscience concerning the Law-givers intention and pleasure though it were not done with that formality as uses and is generally needful to be stood upon by them who are the Ministers of the Law And that it was not done with that formality also seemed rather to be from a disagreement about the manner or method of doing it than about the thing to be done And how usual is it for Laws without formal repeal gently and gradually to expire grow Old and vanish away not being longer useful as the ritual part of the Mosaical Law did being come an ineffectual and unprofitable thing And how easie were it to instance in many other Laws the letter of which they that urge these against the Dissenters do without scruple transgress and from which no such weighty reasons do urge to borrow now and then a point How many dispense with themselves in many parts of their required Conformity that have obliged themselves to it The Priests in the Temple trangress the Law and are blameless Yea and he that knows all things and who is judge of all knows how litte scruple is made of transgressing the Laws by gross immoralities and debaucheries Men learn to judge of the sacredness of Laws by their own inclinations Any that can be wire-drawn and made by torture to speak against Religion not modified their way must be most binding Such as prohibit the vilest and most open wickedness bind as the Wit hs did Sampson The summe of all is that whereas we are under the Obligation of the Divine Law to Worship God in the use of those his Ordinances which require to be dispensed and attended in society and that we apprehend we cannot do it without sin in the way which this reverend Author invites us to Whereas also we do with this Author deliberate whether Christ hath given any power to men to oblige us to the things we scruple or disoblige us from the things we practice and judge it unproved We cannot but reckon the judgment the Dr. hath given in our case that our practice is sinful is erroneous and indefensible by any Man but least fitly of most other men attempted to be defended by himself From whom it would little have been expected that he should so earnestly recommend that very thing to us as the only Foundation of Union which he had so publickly told us in his Preface to the Irenicum was without Controversie the main in-let of all the distractions confusions and divisions of the
of others whensoever that can be seasonably endeavoured for upon more probable and hopeful terms than he hath proposed in this Sermon Therefore be you serious and fervent in Requests to this purpose as you have that love to God and his Church which you profess and that value for this worthy Person which I reckon you still ought to have or if that can be fit to be added any kindness for Sir Your affectionate Servant c. SInce my writing these Pages I hear of Answers to the Dean's Sermon which in so remote a Corner I have had no opportunity to see What is here written may therefore upon comparing be communicated or suppressed as shall be thought fit And so I should take leave of you but that it may be needful whereas I have principally considered in these Papers the case of such as think it unlawful to joyn in the publick Assemblies to add somewhat whomsoever it may serve in reference to their case that think otherwise For to say the truth this is here the more common case And though the Doctor believes they that frequent the separate Meetings do generally judge it unlawful to joyn in the Publick Howsoever it is with you and it is likely the Doctor speaks of what is more within the compass of his own knowledge or theirs who inform him It is with us in this part of this Country quite contrary And I may truly say that in this place and others where I have sometimes occasionally been the generality of them who come to the other Meetings do also attend the Publick Now these may perhaps think themselves left under blame and may apprehend the Doctors Consequence is strong against them that if occasional Communion be lawful constant Communion must be a Duty Which he no doubt understands exclusively of any distinct way of Communion And if indeed they judge that Consequence strong I would fain know what hurt they can think it doth them Why should any man be afraid of his duty or of the truth which makes it known And if hereupon they can with the satisfaction of their own Consciences wave all other opportunities of worshipping God with others of his People they have the less to do And why should they complain who are satisfy'd But in short either they apprehend such other additional means a real necessary help and advantage to them or they do not If they do not they have no cause to trouble themselves nor to grudge that so much is said for others Whose for ought I know may as the Doctor thinks for I cannot make an estimate from this or that little spot be the much more common case If they do they have little reason to be concern'd about the Doctors Consequence Which I much wonder if he himself can think strong It hath not you see been altogether overlook't in the foregoing Discourse And if any feel themselves wounded by it He is so great an Achilles that they may have their Wound and Healing from the same Hand For as hath been noted from him in his Preface to the Irenicum he seems plainly to intimate that men have no Charter or Grant of Divine Power to make other Conditions of Church-Communion than Christ hath made If so then the Conditions by which this way of Communion is distinguished from the other supposing they be lawful are still in themselves matter of liberty not of duty And so 't is left to the prudence of a Christian to determine him as in all like cases this way or that as will make most for the common good consistently with that of his own Soul That is Sin or Duty which in this or that case will do more hurt or good There being no particular rule to guide a mans practice he must have recourse to that general one By which it may be my duty upon some great reason to do that at one time which for as great reason I ought not to do in a continued course And it is highly commendable when a Christian understands the latitude which the Law of Christ hath left him Is in his own Spirit exempt from servile restraints by other imagined bonds And can with a generous liberty pure from base self-respects turn himself this way or that as shall make most for the service of the ends he lives for And when any accordingly use that liberty 't is a fancy of none but half-witted persons to think they must therefore addict themselves to this or that Party If a mans case come to be so stated that he hath reason to apprehend it will do more good than hurt to others that he own a sort of Christians who have particularly modified themselves otherwise than they needed by any divine injunction or by any that God hath empowr'd men to put them under by communicating with them under the common notion of Christians only not as so modified He doth but express the genuine complexion of a truly Christian Spirit But he is not to do so in a continued course if he find it will be a real damage to his own soul in comparison of another way that he finds more edifying Perhaps if he will be religious only after the mode of this or that party his Fare may be either too fine or too course for his constant diet I may besides my own inclination drink a single glass of Wine out of Civility to one person or of Water to another when I am not for any mans pleasure to destroy my health by tying my self to drink nothing else And whatever Christian condescendingness and goodness of temper may prompt a man to who makes not what others do but what they ought to do his rule and measure They have least reason to expect much compliance from others who bind themselves up within their own party are enwrapt as Leviathan in his Scales call themselves the Church as many say here is Christ and there is Christ and call all men Separatists that will not be of their Church And perhaps they assume and appropriate the name with no more pretence or colour and with no better-sense than if an humorsom company of men should distinguish themselve from others by wearing a blue or a yellow girdle and call themselves mankind Do not too many in our daies distinguish their Church and Christian Communion by things no more belonging to a Church or to Christianity than a girdle of this or that colour to humane Nature And which no more qualify for Christian Society than that doth for human If however an ingenuous free spirited man out of respect to his present company or for any other valuable reason should in such a case put on a blue girdle I shall find no fault with him But if any should go about to pinch him too close with it so as would be inconvenient to his ease and health or oblige him to protest against the true humanity of all that neglect it I doubt not he would throw it away with scorn Much less would he be a consederate with them that use it if they professedly combine for the destruction of the rest of mankind that use it not when many of them that refuse it apprehend it a real grievance Especially when they that would impose it live with many of the rest under the Government of a just and sovereign Prince from whom they have no Charter for their imposition but who hath declared he will not have his subjects so impos'd upon In sum we are all indispensably oblig'd by our Lord Jesus Christ the sovereign Prince and Ruler of his Church to the substance of all Christian Ordinances As to uninstituted modes thereof we are free And they that understand their liberty may use or not use them as is more for their own and the common good They that understand it not and think themselves under an obligation from Christ not to admit questionable devised additions into their worship they are not therefore to deprive themselves of the substantial Ordinances of the Christian Religion whereof there is no question I shut up all with the words of the great Apostle Rom. 14. 3. 4. One beleiveth that he may eat all things another who is weak eateth herbs Let not him that eateth despise him that eateth not for God hath received him v. 13. Let us not therefore judge one another any more but judge this rather that no man put a stumbling block or an occasion to fall in his brothers way FINIS Errata PAge 2. l. 4. after may r. by dependence on divine help p. 3. l. 21. r. reverent p. 6. l. 19. r. Assemblies p. 7. l. 27. r. supposes p. 9. l. 2. r. One l. 5. r. design p. 13. l. 9. r. were p. 22. l. 13. r. become p. 25. l. 1. after according r. to p. 26. l. 23. after government r. these words as we suppose he means blot them out in l. 24. p. 29. l. 24. r. separate p. 33. l. 3. r. inclination p. 34. l. 18. r. obliged p. 36. l. 23. r. impracticable * Sermon on Josh. 24. 15.