of us hold that neither Christ nor his Apostles over appointed any Elders to Rule the Church by the power of the Keys distinct from the Magistrates Government by the Sword but only ordained Ministers of Christ who have also authority to preach and administer both the Sacraments However we know that when many of these belonged to one Congregation one that was the Chief Speaker usually the Bishop was w 〈◊〉 nt to preach and the rest to be his Assistants especially in private Care of Souls and those of us that think otherwise that Christ or his Apostles made such a Church Office as Ruling Elders not-ordained or that have no power of preaching or administring Sacraments do not hold such essential to the Church nor refuse to live in love and peace and Communion with the Churches that have no such Elders And we all think that so small a difference should make no greater a breach among us VIII We are against the Excommunicating of Kings and of other Magistrates on whose Honour the well-governing and peace of the Kingdom doth depend and are sorry to find some of our sharp Accusers of another mind Our Reasons are because the dishonouring of them is forbidden in the Fifth Commandment And Positive Institutions caeteris paribus must give place to Moral Natural Laws Rituals and matters of Order are no Duties when they make against those Grand Duties which are their Ends or those that are of fundamental or greater use And this Christ hath often taught us by sending the contrary minded to learn what this meaneth I will have mercy and not sacrifice and bidding the unreconciled leave their Gift at the Altar c. The End is to be preferred before the Means which indeed are no Means when against the End And Church-Order is not to be pretended for disordering and confounding Kingdoms or against the publick good and safety We judge that Bishop Bilson Bishop Andrews and such others have truly heretofore determined that some wicked impenitent Princes may be denyed the Sacrament but not defamed or dishonoured by a Sentence of Excommunication Much less by any Foreign Usurper or any Minister at home that the Prince himself doth not by consent make the Guid of his Soul for no other but he that is called to give him the Sacrament if qualified is the denyer of it if he be unqualified unless as he is to do what he doth by the advice and consent of Fellow Pastors But the very use of Excommunication is to punish and reform men by dishonouring and shaming them therefore it is not to be used where we owe such honour by the Fifth Commandment to our Prince Obj. 1. We are bid also to honour Father and Mother 2. Yea to honour all men Answ 1. We dare not justifie any Pastors publick disgraceful excommunicating his own Father or Mother unless where a publick obligation for publick good requireth it 2. But to both instances we say that a greater end and more publick good is to be preferred to a le 〈◊〉 s And when a private mans honour is forfeited we cannot give him that which he hath cast away and God will penally take away till he repent But when the publick order and welfare which is above all personal good obligeth us to honour Magistrates a subordinat 〈◊〉 Law will not suspend it Publick Excommunication is an Act of Government to be exercised on the Governed for the Ends of Government But for a Prelate or Priest or any other to do this on his Governours though of another rank crosseth the Ends of Government Nor are Subjects so to be tempted to contemn their Rulers lest they come to think as Bellarmine and such Papists that Infidels are not to Govern Christians nor to be tolerated in their Government or as their very Religion teacheth them Concil Later c. 3. sub Innoc. 3. that when Princes are excommunicated they may be deposed by the Pope or as their learnedest Doctors say that they are no Kings and to kill them is not to kill the King See the Testimonies of this cited at large and expresly by H. Fowlis in his Book of Popish Treasons If ever any Protestants Episcopal Presbyterian or Independents were or be of another mind for the Excommunicating of Kings or Chief Rulers that 's nothing to us who shall neither live nor dye by the Faith or Opinion of others But we should so much the rather here disown it IX It is none of our judgment that when men are excommunicated by Pope Prelates Presbyters or People who are the four Pretenders to that Power the Magistrate must be their Lictor or Executioner or must further punish men by the Sword meerly eo nomine because they are excommunicate or because they reconcile not themselves to the Church by penitence and obedience or because the Pope or Prelate or Priests deliver up the excommunicate to him to be punished or threaten him if he will not do it The Civil Ruler may punish the same men for the same Crimes but upon their own exploration and judgment of the Cause and not as meer Hangmen that must needs execute the judgment of other Judges Their own Conscience must be satisfied and they must know what they do and why else to how many base and bloody offices the factious worldly Clergy may oblige them the Papal Kingdom hath long given men too sad a proof And we must profess that we are fully perswaded that we have good Reason to conclude that so near a Prosecution by the Civil Power as is the imprisoning and undoing of Persons Excommunicate meerly because they stand Excommunicate and are not absolved as Penitents hath not a few nor small incommodities Ecclesiastical 1. So great a Dominion in the Clergy hath done much to corrupt the Sacred Office and make men naturally proud unmeet for the humble Services of the Gospel 2. And it breedeth in the People a distast and hatred of the Clergy as if they were the grievous Wolves that devour the Flock in Sheeps Cloathing and bear not Grapes and Figs but wear Thorns and Thistles to p 〈◊〉 ick and hurt them and causeth their Exhortations to be the more unsuccessful 3. It seemeth to dishonour the Discipline instituted by Christ as if the Keys of his Church â—â—re of no more signification than the Crown of Thorn◠〈◊〉 Reed with which he was derided and could do nothing without the Princes Sword 4. It contradicteth the experience of above 300 years when Church Discipline was exercised more effectually than it is now and that not only without the Sword of the Magistrate but also against his will and opposition Yea it was many a hundred years more after Emperours were Christian before the Keys were ever thus seconded by the Sword and had not the Donatists by inhumane assaulting the Orthodox provoked the Churches and Magistrates it had been like to have been long before the Sword had been drawn against Hereticks at all 5. And that which much
28. and 13. 9. Col. 3. 16. and 4. 6. Eph. 4. 7. 29. and 3. 8. Gal. 2. 9. 2 Cor. 8. 6 7. and 9. 8. Joh. 1. 16. c. II. The words MORALITY and MORAL have also divers significations I. In the first most comprehensive and most famous sense MORALITY as distinguished from meer Naturality or Physicks doth signifie the Relation of the Manners or Acts of an Intelligent free Agent to the Governing Will and Law of God And so Actus morales and Actus humani are used in the same sense and all Morality is distinguished into Moral Good and Moral Evil Virtue and Vice II. Some have used MORALITY in a narrower sense unfitly for so much of Man's duty as is revealed by the meer Law of Nature and as is of common obligation to lapsed Mankind And so it comprehendeth the relicts of the Law of Innocent Nature to love God and obey him c. and the additional Law of Lapsed Nature to Repent and use all possible means for our recovery and thankfully improve the Mercies which we receive And thus it is distinguished from Duty known by supernatural Revelation and especially the Mysteries of Redemption by Jesus Christ III. Some use the word improperly also for all that Duty which is of perpetual Obligation whether by natural or supernatural Revelation And so it is distinguished from Temporary Duties And thus the Lords-Day Baptism the Lords-Supper a Gospel Ministry Scripture to be used discipline are said to be Moral-Positives distinct from meer Natural Duties and from Temporaries IV. Lastly Some yet more unaptly confine the sense to the Duties of our common Conversation towards man as distinct from Holiness or our Duty to God And so they distinguish a meer moral honest man from a godly or religious man Though we wish that the needless use of words improperly were not the common Fuel of vain Contendings yet we being not the Masters of Language must take words as we find them used and leave all men arbitrarily to use them as they please so be it they will but tell us what they mean by them before they lay any stress on them in disputing In reference to these various senses of these words we suppose that we are all agreed as followeth I As to MORALITY in the first and most famous signification we are agreed 1. That all proper Humane Acts are moral that is morally Good or Evil And all Duty and Sin Virtue and Vice in Habit and Act Positive and Privative Vice are parts of Morality moral Good directly and moral Evil reductively and consequently 2. Holiness to the Lord or the Love of God as God is the chief part of Morality and what Duty soever is Evangelical and spiritual is also moral 3. Nothing is morally laudable or rewardable but Moral Good and nothing is punishable but Moral Evil. 4. All Morality is seated primarily in the Will but is secondarily as flowing thence in the imperate Acts of the Intellect and inferior Faculties 5. All truly moral Good in lapsed man is 1. From God's Efficient Grace 2. And exercised on some Objective Grace And 3. Is it self Subjective Grace either special or common 6. The Good called Moral in Infidels and all other ungodly unsanctified men is such but secundum quid and not simpliciter nor in the full or properest sense Because bonum est ex omnibus Causis essentialibus And a good Principle Rule End and right Object especially the formal Object are all essential to a truly good moral Act But every ungodly man in every Action doth want at least some one of these And an Act is denominated in Morality from that which is prevalent in it and not from every conquered deprest ingredient We say not that he that killeth his Father or Prince with the reluctancy of better thoughts and inclinations doth therein do a good work though that reluctancy was good So he that hath some Love to God and Goodness but more Hatred and more love to sinful pleasure doth not a work properly Good which proceedeth from such a mixed Cause But the evil Principle and End is predominant in all ungodly men 7. But materially and secundum quid bad men may do Works that are morally good and physically very good to others as Governing and Protecting Common-wealths and Churches building Cities and Temples and Hospitals relieving the Poor preaching the Gospel expounding Scripture defending Truth promoting Learning and in good Nature Patience Meekness Temperance Chastity Wit and Industry they may be commendable and exemplary and their Precepts and Practice may conduce much to the good of others 8. Whatever good is found in Heathens or Infidels or ungodly Men is to be acknowledged and praised proportionably according to its real worth it being all from God who must not be robbed of his praise 9. A Man that hath but Common Grace is better than he would be if he had none and it is the usual preparatory for special saving Grace Though many civil temperate persons by overvaluing Common Good are hindred from seeking Special Grace that is not caused by the Good but by their abuse of it objectively And though God take occasion from some mens great sins to affright their Consciences to Repentance and Reformation that is not caused by the sin but by Gods Mercy Sin as remembred is not sin in the act of remembring nor sin as repented of in repenting but before in the committing God may Convert Paul in the act of Persecuting But Persecuting is not the way or means of Conversion Special Grace must be sought in the use of Common Grace and not in a way of negligence contempt or wilful sin II. Of MORALITY in the second sense as taken for Natural Duties which all Mankind is obliged to by Natural Revelation of God's Will we are agreed as followeth 1. The sum of this Natural Morality or Duty is to love God as God for himself and all things else for him even as being of Him and through Him and to Him to obey God and make it our chief care to please him and therein to place and seek our Happiness even in everlasting mutual love To love others as our selves and do all the good we can to all for Soul and Body especially to the most publick Societies to do justly and as we would be done by to use our Bodies as the Servants of our Souls and Soul and Body as the Servants of God And to hate and avoid all that is contrary to these This Natural Evidence will prove to be the Common Duty of Mankind 2. This Love to God and Man before described is true Holiness that is The Soul's separation and devotedness to God 3. All the Evidence which Nature affordeth us herein is not seen by all men that are of natural Wit or Industry no more than all that is revealed by the Scripture is known to all that read the Scripture or that believe it 4. Holiness is the End of Medicinal Grace as used
by their works deny him and are void of true sanctifying Grace 20. Therefore it is intolerable in those that are stiled the Ministers of Christ and Preachers of the Gospel to preach little more than what Heathens teach and when they speak of Christianity and Faith and should open the Mysteries of the Gospel to do it as drily scantly and heartlesly as if it were done but on the bye and for Custom or Fashion sake rather than as a matter of the necessity and importance before described In all this we are agreed III. As to MORALITY in the third sense as it signifieth Naturals and Positives of perpetual Obligation we are agreed 1. That all to whom they are promulgate are obliged to the practice of them 2. And that for that Practice we need the fore-described helps of Grace even efficient objective and subjective Grace For saving Practice special Grace and for common Practice common Grace IV. And as to the fourth Sense of MORALITY as signifying only our Duty to Man as distinct from holiness to God we are agreed 1. That as the Love of our Neighbour as our selves is the second great Commandment like to the first so the practice of this in our Duty towards Man proceeding from Love and Obedience to God is the second part of our Duty and to be preached and practised accordingly 2. And it is that part about a near discernable Object by which our Love to God must be expressed and made known and by which it shall by Christ himself be judged of at the last day 3. And it is that Matter in which God will have our obedience to him to be carefully and constantly exercised Because God needeth us not himself but as his Government of Man is his ordering us to our own good and felicity so he obligeth us to do good to our selves and one another 4. But as Man without God is nothing and no Man so Duty and Love to Man not depending on Duty and Love to God is no Duty no Morality at all And as to love honour or obey Man above God as the best or greatest is damnable Idolatry or Rebellion against God so to preach up Love Honour and Obedience to Man as separated from or not dependent on our Love Honour and Obedience to God much more as above him or against him were but to preach up Idolatry or Rebellion No Man can love Man for Gods sake that loveth not God more And no Man can honour or obey Man for Gods sake who doth not more honour and obey God He that will serve Man more than God doth as it were make Man his God and from Man must expect his Protection Provision and Reward 5. Profession of Piety to God without true Justice and Charity to man is but Hypocrisie While we have time we must do good as we are able to all Men for with such Sacrifice God is well pleased Gal. 6. Heb. 13. Christ was our great Pattern in doing good even to the unworthy and he purifieth to himself a peculiar People zealous of good works Tit. 2. 14. For we are his workmanship created unto good works in Christ Jesus which God hath ordained that we should walk in them Eph. 2. 10. To be rich in good works is to be rich to God Luke 12. 21. and to lay up a good Foundation for the time to come to lay hold on eternal Life to lay up our Treasure in Heaven and to make us Friends of that which to worldlings is the unrighteous Mammon and blessed are the merciful for they shall obtain mercy and receiving a Prophet in the name of a Prophet or a righteous Man in the name of a righteous Man is the way to have a Prophets or a righteous mans reward when Christ will say In as much as ye did it to one of the least of these my Brethren ye did it unto me Pure Religion and undefiled is to visit the Fatherless and Widdows in their Adversity and to keep our selves unspotted of the World As we verily believe that not only the Parties called Conformists and Non-Conformists alas that we must call them Parties but most true Protestants are agreed in all this so we take it to be our Duty to profess our dissent from the Practice of such as would hinder Love and Concord by perswading men that we are really disagreed when it is not so And as we are the Believing Disciples of the Prince of Peace that blessed Reconciler who took down the Partition-wall between Jews and Gentiles and made them one so we would serve him with all our power and interest in building up the Wall of Defence and taking down every Partition-wall which unjustly divideth the Church of Christ and dayly pray that God would humble convert and reform those men who have built them up and will not yet be intreated to give peace to the Churches and in special to this self-distracting Land FINIS THE JUDGMENT OF NON-CONFORMISTS OF THINGS INDIFFERENT Commanded by AUTHORITY As far as the Subscribers are acquainted with it Written to save the Ignorant from the temptations of Diabolism described 2 Tim. 3. 3. and 1 Joh. 3. 10. 12. 15. Joh. 8. 44. Blessed are the Peace-makers for they shall be called the Children of God Matth. 5. 9. Printed in the Year 1676. THE JUDGMENT OF NON-CONFORMISTS OF Things Indifferent Commanded by Authority Quest WHether things antecedently lawful do therefore become unlawful because commanded by Lawful Authority Neg. We take the Question as we hear it stated by some Accusers of the Non-conformists who feign them to affirm it And some seem serious in the Fiction as if they did indeed believe themselves by which they dispatch these several works of no small moment viz. 1. They hereby render the Non-Conformists contemptible and odious as Brain-sick Persons who keep up a dividing Faction in spight of the Light and Obligation of the Common Principles of Humanity and Society 2. They hereby imprint the Stamp of Satan viz. the hatred of their Brethren upon the minds of such hearers as will believe them and receive the Impress 3. They hereby fill Families Cities and Countries with all that Spawn of ugly sins which are the genuine Fruits of such hatred and contempt and keep men also from Repentance for any thing that they have said or done how cruelly soever against such Ministers and others as are represented as so odious to them 4. They hereby fortifie the Peoples Souls against receiving converting or edifying instruction by such accused Ministers 5. They furnish Papists Insidels and other Adversaries with Matter of Accusation against one part of the Ministers and Servants of Christ They are able now to say that such and such Protestant Clergy-men themselves reported it 6. They tempt the worser and weaker sort of the accused to return the like measure to them again and to judge as they are judged Satan hereby gets Matter for a Temptation to call the Accusers Fools in revenge to bring
and what Accidents make a thing unlawful to be commanded and what not and what Scandal is and how far to be avoided which we shall do in these Propositions following Prop. 1. MORALITY is either Regulans or Regulata mensurans or mensurata The first is Radically in God's own Mind and Will and is called by many Lex aeterna and it is signally and expressively in Gods Laws and subord 〈◊〉 nately in Man's Laws as they are a Rule to Subjects Of these we are not now to speak that is not of the holiness of God or his Laws nor of Man's as they are truly a Rule to Subjects Morality as Regulated is subjected in the Minds and Actions of the Creature specially in the WILL and in our Actions as VOLUNTARY and so even the Laws of Men as those Men are God's Subjects and their Laws are Actions good or evil as Regulated by God's Superiour Laws are the Subjects of the Morality now in question Prop. 2. This Morality in Man's Will and Actions is nothing else formally but their Relation of Conformity or Disconformity to God's Law as their Rule and subordinately to subordinate Rules and materially to the End and O 〈◊〉 jects Prop. 3. How far this Moral Relation is immediately founded in a Physical Relation which is before it in order of Nature viz. in the said Relation of the Will and Action to the End and Object as such antecedently to the Relation to the commanding or forbidding Law we would willingly open were it not lest we seem with Men that love not much distinction to justifie or excuse them that censure us as guilty of excess herein and we may do what is now necessary to be done without it Prop. 4. No Being as such no Substance as such no Habit as a Habit no Act as an Act is Morally Good or Evil For so they are but Quid Naturale and God doth not command and forbid Natural Beings as such Prop. 5. All Moral Good and Evil is subjected in Natural Beings or Privations but not immediately as such but as modified circumstantiated and related Prop. 6. Good and Evil make up all Morality there is no third Species There are many things that are Indifferent as to Morality that is neither Morally Good nor Morally Evil but there is nothing Moral-Indifferent Meer Natural Beings and Acts are Indifferent as to Morality that is they are not Moral But whatever is Moral is Morally Good or Evil and not Indifferent Prop. 7. The Subject and quid absolutum Fundamentale of all moral good is quid positivum or a real Being but the Form of moral evil is ever found indeed in a real Subject but not always in a real fundamentum For it is oft at least in total Omissions and Privations of the Act and in Privations of some modal or accidental qualification or rectitude Prop. 8. Yet the formal relations of moral good and evil are both tru 〈◊〉 Relations even Dis-conformity as well as Conformity as curv 〈◊〉 tude and dis-similitude are as well as rectitude and similitude And a Meer Negative is neither good nor evil e. g. Negative Non-conformity which is not Privative Dis-conformity is no sin because there being not the Debitum inessendi the non-inesse is inculpable It seemeth indeed to some Learned Men that non agere may be moral good e. g. Non odisse Deum au 〈◊〉 proximum non ment 〈◊〉 ri not to murder steal c. And it 's true that the 〈◊〉 is the thing remotely commanded or loco materie 〈◊〉 but the thing immâ—â—â—ately commanded is the 〈◊〉 agere The Will by all these Commands is bound positâ—â—ely to nill the forbidden Act e. g. Murder Adultery Lying c. To nill them is the prime Duty or moral Good that we say not with Ockam the only and not-to-d 〈◊〉 them is the secondary but that is as they are Acts restrained or forborn by a Commanding Will For a Man in Infancy or the Womb or in an Apoplexie or when he is wholly taken up with some other sin not then to Steal Lye Murder or commit Adultery is not at all a moral Good But a meer incogitâ—â—â—y non agere non velle may be a true moral Evil The reason is because when a right Volition is commanded as to love God or Man or â—â—ight Action to do good 〈◊〉 not to do it is a breach of the Command And not to will and not to do when we ought is the commonest kind of sinning Prop. 9. Right ordered Actions Dispositions and Habits then as in or of the Will directly and remotely some non agency are the only things commanded called morally Good save that eorum gratia the Soul and whole man or person is well and truly called morall 〈◊〉 Good And the P 〈◊〉 ivation and I 〈◊〉 ordination of Voluntary Actions Dispositions and Habits are the only moral Evil save that the person is also called such eorum gratia Prop. 10. An Action may be Indifferent or of no Morality as to Election or Performance and yet to Deliberate about that Act may be morally good e. g. I may doubt of two ways which are equal to my End as far as can be known by me whether they be so or not or which is the better I may be obliged to deliberate whether they are equal or not to guide my Progress and end my Doubt And when I have found them equal I have found that Comparatively neither of them is matter of Election as by reason to be preferred to the other But yet because I must chuse to g 〈◊〉 on therefore I must take one way and not the other because I cannot go both But this is only a chusing to go and a taking that way but not a chusing it which signifieth a rational preferring it Here my Deliberation is a moral Act and so is my chusing to go but my chusing this way rather than the other is none For upon deliberating I found that neither was Eligible and Choice no Duty Prop. 11. As the smallness of the least Physical Being though undiscernable proveth it not to be Nothing so the smallness of any moral Good or Evil Duty or Sin proveth not that it is no Duty or Sin at all Prop. 12. Moral Good and Evil is it self only an Accident for Habits Dispositions Actions and Relations are Accidents and Privations are either reductively Accidents as some call them or less than Accidents even meer nothings though from a Nullity or Privation a moral Relation truly result on the Person Prop. 13. Therefore when we say that a thing is Good or Evil by Accident we mean somewhat more than that the Good or Evil is an Accident it self for there is no other We mean that it is something acciding or added to the former Accident or State that maketh it now Good or Evil. Prop. 14. In an Action there is considerable 1. The Action as such or as specified only by the Faculty Intellection Volition Imagination c.