doe not goe to heaven to be with Christ expresly contrary to the 2 Cor. 5. 6 8. and to Philip. 1. 23. now whether some of you may not hold those opinions seeing they were publiquely preached at Arnheim and never condemned as ever I heard I know not but have reason rather to suspect you doe how ever though you doe not nourish any Monsters or Serpents of opinions in your bosomes yet I feare you have running wormes in your heads and together with the gold silver and Ivory of Orthodox truths you have store of Apes and Peacocks conceits and toyes as strange coined distinctions new strained expositions of Scriptures odd opinions about the personall raigne of Christ on earth and I aske you what the annointing with oyle of sick persons as an Ordinance for Church-members and what the bringing in of Hymnes composed by the gift of a Church-member cum multis aliis are whether are not these strange conceits and how ever you may be free of Monsters and Serpents of opinions lurking in your bosomes yet there is much of a Monster and the Serpent lurking in this Apologie and to be sure one Monster of opinions you all hold generally and some of you have preacht for A Toleration of divers sects and opinions and let me tell you granting you five be so Orthodox and supposing your argument good to prove it exposing your selves to the hazard of discovery in this Assembly which is no concluding argument yet there are many members of those Churches to which you belong besides many other members of Churches of your way and communion whom I suppose must be tolerated as well as your selves that doe hold very odd and strange things Some of Arnheim hold strange conceits and some members of Mr Sympsons Church hold some of the points of the Anabaptists and daily the Independent Churches like Africa doe breed and bring forth the Monsters of Anabaptisme Antinomianisme Familisme nay that huge Monster and old flying serpent of the Mortality of the soul of man and indeed there is no end of errours that the Independent principles and practises lead unto As for those words if we had carried it so as that hitherto such errours were not aforehand open to the view and Iudgement of all yet sitting here unlesse we would be silent we could not be long hid c. I answer some one or two Heterodox opinions may be hid where men are Orthodox in the most especially if all points of doctrine have not been discussed nor reviewed as in the Assembly they have not many Articles of our Church not having yet been gone through so that your errours in doctrine may be behind and your triall of being Orthodox will be when the Assembly comes to these Articles Article 19 22 23. 26. and when that doctrine concerning the Lawfulness of a Toleration of divers sects and opinions shall come to be discussed But before I passe from this I desire the Apologists to remember and the Reader to observe they call the Church of England Our Church and so in the fift page of this Apologie Our own Congregations we meane of England So that if you meane as you here write then the Nationall Church of England is your Church and the Parochiall Congregations are yours and so you establish a Nationall visible Church under the new Testament and if so why doe you erect other Churches and withdraw from your own but if you doe not meane so nor beleeve there is a Nationall visible Church nor account your selves members of this Nationall Church why doe you speake so and call the Church of England your own Church and the Parochiall Churches your own Congregations As for that part of this Section which concernes your good carriage in the Assembly in matters of Discipline In matters of Discipline we are so farre from holding up the differences that occurre or making the breaches greater or wider that we endeavour upon all such occasions to grant and yeeld c. I not being present at the debates will say nothing against it but whether since the writing of your Apologie and the Assembly comming to the points of Discipline which are properly yours your free-hold you have been so faire and moderate endevouring upon all occasions to grant and yeeld to the utmost latitude of your light and Consciences that I doubt and your best friends are not satisfied in it but rather much offended and you have much lost your selves with them by your demeanour and way of managing matters of difference in the Assembly But supposing all you say of your selves in this Section were fully so both before and since your Apologie yet it were not much materiall nor much to be trusted to being upon the triall of your good behaviour for it is probable all that may be done out of policie in reference to the main designe of obtaining a Toleration which at first cannot be imagined to have any probabilitie of being gained without all seeming fairenesse and compliance and drawing neere to us and therefore this Apologie is so framed in the words phrases and composure of it that in it you have stretcht your selves to the utmost latitude and highest compliance with the Church of England and the Reformed Churches even beyond what is meant by you in our sence and in common acception and beyond what many of your followers will own As also you hide and reserve severall things you hold both in matter and manner that so by all this you might court the Parliament Assembly Reformed Churches to beare with such conscientious men who differ so little from them and are so moderate and temperate also in and about the debate of those differences but the Parliament and the Assembly are wise to see into and thorough these Artifices and to consider that if once a Toleration were granted there would quickly be discovered another face of things which hitherto stands behind the curtain As for this passage in the close of this Section your not being backward urgers unto a temper not only in things concerning your own consciences but others also such as may suit and tend to union as well as searching out of truth judging this to be as great and usefull an end of Synods as a curious and exact discussion of all sorts of lesser differences with binding determintions of truth one way I judge then you had but a weake ground to urge you to temper in matter of difference and I question whether you were so forward to a temper in the things that might suit and tend to union for I suppose you are so farie from holding that a great and usefull end of Synods a curious and exact discussion of all sorts of lesser differences with binding Determinations of truth one way as that you deny it I have read a letter out of New-England from a Minister of note there speaking of that Synod which met upon occasion of the Antinomians and Familists formally denying this power of binding
spirited men and of the vulgar and all kind of spirits But before I leave this passage of yours concerning the Separation pray let me aske you the reason of this Parenthesis and to whom you speake it whom ye call Brownists and why could you not have writ who are commmonly called Brownists Is it not to both the Houses of Parliament to whom this Apologie is presented and to whom you appeale your discourse being carried as spoken to them and does not this phrase of speech carry with it a secret checke of the Houses for calling the Separatists Brownists calling them so as you would not call them But who are you that you may not speake for so much as concernes this in the language of both Houses if both Houses call them Brownists Why may not you Five terme them so but we may guesse the Reason Mr Browne and your Principles are too nigh a kinde and you feared lest you might be called so but let me tell you though the Reformed Churches may not be called disgracefully Calvinians as the Commissioners of the Church of Scotland have well observed in their late book yet the Separatists and all Sectaries may fitly be termed from the Authours and so the Separatists justly called Brownists because as he was one of the first Leaders in that way so he was the first that digested that way into forme and method and writ so for it and the first that visibly and openly drew so many out of this Kingdome beyond the Seas and therefore both Houses of Parliament and others too may truly terme those who goe in Brownes-way Brownists As for that last passage in this Section that last of all We had the recent and laâ—…er example of the wayes and practises of those multitudes of godly men of our own Nation c. which without so many words you might have said New-England but that on purpose you would take an occasion of extolling them to the Heavens and so render both your selves and way in them more glorious both to the Parliament and people into whose hands your Apologie should come Sure you might more truly and ingeniously have put them in the first place and have writ First of all We had the recent and later example of New-England which wrought to my knowledge with some of you very much and that the purposes and intentions of some of you were first for New-England as you may remember some of you told me One of you marrying a wife in reference to your going to New-England and how farre he was hindered or altered by her death he knowes Another of you having sent over goods before and in particular books where he meant to follow after I have a very bad memory if these things be not so A third namely Mr Simpson when he desired his dismission from that Church at Rotterdam he alleadged that as a cause that he was intended for New-England but I must examine the Encomium made by you here of New-England and see whether to make it hold the words must not have the allowance of that figure in Rhetorick called Hyperbole the first part of the praise is Multitudes of godly men of our own Nation almost to the number of another Nation Are the godly men in New-England so many in number that they are almost the number of another Nation that they doe almost make such another Nation as England then New-England hath more godly persons in it then old England for the multitudes of godly persons amongst us are not almost so many here as to make another Nation but it will be found that granting all the men in New-England were godly which yet you dare not affirme seeing multitudes live there without the Church who are not accounted visible Saints yet what are they to so many people as are in England reckon up all the persons in New-England good and bad and list them and they will be found not to come almost to the number of the Nation that lives in London nay hardly to come to the twentieth part there What are they then in New-England to this whole Kingdome and then doe but substract all that are not of their Church and it is evident your affection is better to new-New-England then your Arithmeticke and in this particular that Proverbe of Almost must help you But shall I give you the reason of this stretching here 'T is to possesse the Parliament and Kingdome what a great party you have for your Church-way Almost another Nation in New-England and Almost another Nation of your way in old England which may serve to ballance your opposite party of Presbytery in England and Scotland and therefore the Parliament shall doe well to take notice of your Numbers to grant you a Toleration at least of your Church-way lest you being such multitudes should c. I could tell stories what some of your way have spoken if they might not have their way but I shall spare them now The second part of your praise of New-England is And among them some as holy and judicious Divines as this Kingdome hath bred That there are holy and good Divines among them whom I truly love and honour I acknowledge but I judge this too transcendent a phrase and more then befits the words of sobernesse Some as holy and judicious as this Kingdome hath bred It had been an expression high enough to say as holy and judicious Divines as any you now know in this Kingdome but to say as this Kingdome hath bred how know you that and how can you affirm it You were not acquainted with many who lived before being all young men to speake of so that there might be before your times men more judicious and holy and if we may judge by the works of some men and by their lives written and by the reports from good hands of the godly ancient Ministers there were men more judicious and learned then any now in New England as Whitaker Reynolds Brightman and others and more holy as Mr Greenham Mr Banes old Mr. Dod c. But for the holy and judicious Divines of New England there are not above three or foure at most were ever accounted so eminent I might say but two and yet the present age hath Divines in England to compare with them both for learning judiciousnesse and piety so as you needed not to have gone backe to the ages past Take the prime man of them all in new England and yet he is not to be accounted as judicious and learned as ever any this kingdome bred Doctor Whitakers never held any opinion that was accounted erroneous nor any private peculiar opinion but what was commonly held in the Church of God as it is reported in his life but the most eminent Minister in new-New-England though he be an excellent and worthy man hath had his errours and I referre you for proofe to his Discourse about clearing the Doctrine of Reprobation which is in some of your hands
with his being deceived for a time in the businesse of M Wheelwright and Mistris Hutchinson and some of those opinions about Sanctification evidencing Justification and to some other manuscripts and printed things about the Church-way where there are many things of wit and fancie more then of deep judgement The third part of your praise rises so high as 't is hardly to be paralel'd The sinceritie of them of new-New-England in their way restisi'd before all the world and will be to all generations to come by the greatest undertaking but that of our father Abraham out of his owne Country and his seed after him a transplanting themselves many thousand miles distance and that by sea into a wildernesse c. Certainly some Independents then must write their Chronicle or else their sincerity will not be so testified to all the world neither will they be so famous to all succeeding generations It is well that in this high praise of them who went to New-England there was some exception and that Abraham their father was excepted how ever in the instance you presently give of their undertaking you secretly preferre the men of new-New-England before Abraham for Abraham went by land and not by sea and not many thousand miles distance nor into a wildernesse But I am not satisfied in the truth of this undertaking for new-New-England but am of the mind there both have been and are greater undertakings besides Abraham and his seed after him namely that of Moses and Aaron carrying the people out of Egypt and leading them through the wildernesse to Canaan of Nehemiah and Zerubbabel in building of the Temple besides the present undertaking of the Parliament for Reformation in Church-government and worship against the Papists Prelates and Malignants which you had seen when you writ this Apologie was farre greater and is testified before the world and will be to all generations to come farre beyond that of new-New-England 'T is strange to me you should thus forget your selves to make the undertaking of new-New-England to be the greatest that ever was in the world but that of Abrahams But thus partiall we see good men are apt to be for their own party and even starke blind in their own cause And as I am no whit satisfied in this third particular of your praise of New-England so nor in the truth of the thing that you affirme they went to New-England for namely meerely to worship God more purely whether to allure them there could be no other invitement For that which was first held out and most spoken of in the beginning of that Plantation in New-England was the hopes of converting the poore Indians There were some Ministers of note and others who dealt first in that businesse and were prime actors in it that propounded that and really intended it as Mr White of Dorchester Mr Humphreys and I am forgetfull if I have not read some things printed to that purpose As for the worshipping God more purely if your words could bare that sense or you understood them of being freed of the Ceremonies and of Episcopall government that was some part of the designe and ayme though not meerely that but if by worshipping God more purely be meant the worshipping God in the Church-way and the Church-government pleaded for in this Apology it was not in the thoughts of them who were the first movers in it or of the Ministers who were sent over in the beginning as is apparent by a Letter of Mr Cottons sent to Mr Skelton a Minister upon his falling into the Church-way after he came over wherein Mr Cotton writes to him that he went from England of another judgement and tells him how this came about namely from them of New-Plymouth who were Mr Robinsons people and further unto many who went over to new-New-England after the first and second yeare there were other invitements then meerely worshipping God more purely some of them concluding peremptorily this Kingdome would be destroyed and there would be a hiding place as also the great commendations of the Countrey and Land for subsistence many being low in their estates here led many into a fooles paradâ—…ce who finding all things so contrary to the high reports given out and their expectations have had leisure enough to repent since And some of you who to my knowledge intended for New-England yet when you came to understand better what a hard Countrey it was would not be of the number of them whose sincerity should be testified before all the world and unto all generations to come by going to New-England to worship God more purely when to allure you thither there was no other invitement And now after all this large narration of your falling off from the dark part and of your inquiring into the light part and the story of your impartial looking upon the word of Christ and of your consulting with reformed Churches and looking upon the old Non-conformists and observing the Separatists together with the examples of New-England you plainely come in the close of this Section to declare that for which all this was written namely to possesse the Reader of your freedome and un-ingagement notwithstanding all this to take that way or every thing in each way that was truth whereas you would insinuate that other men who differ from you were not so free nor un-engaged But how likely this is and how un-ingaged and free you were I desire the Reader to remember what presumption if not proofes I have already brought to proove the contrary As for those two Parenthesis brought in of the way of new-New-England namely those improved to a better Edition and greater refinement by all the fore-montioned helps and that all which we looke upon as reformed Churches To the first of these I say 1. It is a high confidence and presumption to judge the wayes and practises of a few in New-England to be better and more refined then of all the reformed Churches in Christendome 2. What ever the Edition and refinement of new-New-England is they made little use of all the forementioned helps named by you to attaine unto it few of them consulted with reverence the reformed Churches c. But the maine ground of their improvement to this new Edition and great refinement as you terme it was their consultation with them of New-Plymouth as appeares both by Mr Cottons Letter and by other relations To the second I can judge no other reason of inserting it here nor of calling the way of new-New-England in that first Parenthesis a better Edition and greater refinement then of any of the reformed Churches but onely that we may understand in what sense you took that part of the Covenant to be brought to agreement with the best reformed Churches that you meant and accounted new-New-England the best reformed Churches and so satisfie your consciences in taking that branch of the Covenant whereas we looke upon the reformed Churches those of France Scotland Holland c. who are
halfe slight late and partiall remedy to the offences and scandall relate the story more at large and then make some queries upon it and your solemne practise thereupon and then I shall leave it to the Reader to judge whether your principle of submission be comparable to the way of the combined classicall Presbyteriall government The Church in which this offence fell out was at Roterdam of which Mr Bridge and Mr Ward of Norwich old loving friends and both flying upon the same cause Bishop Wrens Innovations were the Ministers and the Minister deposed by the Church was this Mr Ward who for appearing and siding against Mr Bridge in some particulars and for his preaching of Sermons in the Church at Roterdam which he had preacht before in his Church at Norwich and for his giving too much heed to the reports of simple people and old wives tales was thus deposed but I cannot so fully cause the Reader to understand matters without relating the first difference between Mr Bridge and Mr Simpson the true ground and rise of this latter offence Mr Simpson one of the Authours of this Apologeticall Narration after some time of beholding the order and way of this Church at Rotterdam desired to be admitted a member and was upon his confession c. received in but not long after what were the true reasons he best knows he disliked some persons and things in that Church and he stood for the ordinance of prophesying to be exercised in that Church that the people on the Lords dayes should have lâ—…berty after the Sermons ended to put doubts and questions to the Ministers c. and he was troubled at a ruling Elder in that Church brought in by Mr Bridge which belike had more power and bore more sway then himselfe who as Mr Simpson in a Letter to a Minister in London complaining of the difference between him and Mr Bridge writ how that Elder was in that Church over all persons and over all causes but Mr Bridge opposed Mr Simpsons prophesying upon so the rationall grounds of inconveniencits as himselfe told me the story which were too long to relate yet he yeelded so farre that the Church should meet on a weeke day and then they should have that liberty but this would no way satisfie Mr Simpson whereupon the difference increased and there were sidings but Mr Bridges power was the greater to carry things in the Church and so Mr Simpson would abide no longer but quitted that Church though he had no Letters of dismission from that Church and with the help of a woman whom Mr Bridge called telling me the story of things between them the foundresse of Mr Simpsons Church set up a Church against a Church consisting but of five persons at the most in the beginning whereof the woman and her husband were two but this Church of Mr Simpsons increased as being extolled for a purer Church and for more ordinances but Mr Bridges Church was cried downe for ould rotten members and for the want of prophecie and so the fire of contention and difference grew more and more between Mr Bridge and Mr Simpson and their Churches Now Mr Ward Mr Bridges colleague sided with Mr Simpson stood for prophesying and though Mr Simpson had left that Church yet Mr Ward in that Church was for Mr Simpsons way whereupon by occasion of that and for exercising his gifts no better but to preach his old Sermons he had formerly preacht at Norwich and believing of tales giving so much way to reports he was deposed by that Church Amongst 17 or 18 Reasons of Mr Wards deposition a godly learned Minister who had seen them in writing told me these were the most materiall And now upon Mr Simpsons rending from the Church and setting up a Church against a Church under Mr Bridges nose and upon Mr Wards deposition from his Ministery and Mr Simpsons Church increasing in fame and number but Mr Bridges decreasing and some others rending themselves away and upon wicked reports raised about Mr Bridge there grew that bitternesse evill speakings deep censurings deadly feauds amongst these Ministers and their Churches as never was more betwixt the Iews and the Samaritans Mr Bridge confessed to me there were no such sharpe tongues nor bitter divisions as these Letters from all three were sent into England both into City and Countrey against each other Mr Simpson dispacht many Letters into England against Mr Bridge as to Mr M. Mr B. Mr H. Mr R. c. and Mr Bridge against Mr Simpson Mr Bridge and Mr Ward writ many Letters one against the other particularly to Norwich and among other many sharpe Letters were sent to a D of Physick about the differences and upon their comming over into England they told sad stories for themselves and each against other Mâ—… Bridge laid these bitter differences and reports so to heart that they were a great meanes of her death and whether Mr Bridges weaknesses and distempers were not occasioned by the divisions and the wicked scandalls unjustly I beleeve raised upon him as well as by the aire of Rotterdam Mr Bridge knowes best And thus much for the particular relation of the scandall and offence that fell out in that Church of Rotterdam as it hath been related to me from good hands from some who have lived in Holland and as I had part of it from Mr Bridges own mouth and some of it from Letters of Mr Simpsons written into England and from other men of credit who have seen Letters and relations written from thence Now from the relation of this story and your practise upon it I shall propound these queries which will give some light to judge whether there was any sufficiency in your course to remedy and redresse things amisse in Churches and betwixt persons offending 1. Whether your Churches did agree upon and tye your selves to this principle of submission and the sentence of non-communion at your first setting up and comming into that place of exile or did you first acknowledge it and were willing to submit upon the occasion of the scandall of Mr Wards deposing and that great clamour upon it both in Holland and England 2. Whether did you then or doe you now acknowledge that principle of submission to all other neighbour Churches as well as to them of your own way as namely to the Presbyterian Churches those English Churches at Amsterdam Hague Utrich c. and would you have submitted to those Churches to have so proceeded upon offences and differences amongst you 3. How long was it was it not for the space of betweene a yeare and two that Mr Ward stood deposed and laid aside from his Ministery and maintenance before he was restored and if so was not this a late remedie and iâ—… it so in Presbyteriall government 4. When and at what time was this principle of sâ—…bmission and your solemne practise both of â—…equiring the Church offending to give an account with their châ—…arfull submitting
which is imply'd by you in the close of this Section as also that you might have some maintenance by the people that went over with you and still hoped upon the bad times in England to draw over more which according to the good old non-conformists principles you could not doe As also that you might secure your selves from all possibility and feare of persecutions be certainely safe upon the shore whilst your brethren were at sea sea in the storme This being our condition we were cast upon a farther necessity of enquiring into and viewing the light part the positive partof Church-worship and government And to that end to search out what were the first Apostolique directions patterne and examples of those Primitive Churches recorded in the New Testament as that sacred pillar of fire to guide us And in this enquire we lookt upon the word of Christ as impartially and unprejudicedly as men made of flesh and blood are like to doe in any juncture of time that may fall out the places we went to the condition we were in the company we went forth with affording no temptations to byas us any way but leaving us as freely to be guided by that light and touch Gods Spirit should by the word vouchsafe our consciences as the Needle toucht with the Load-stone is in the Compasse And we had of all men the greatest reason to be true to our own consciences in what we should embrace seeing it was for our consciences that we were deprived at once of what ever was deare to us We had no new Common-wealths to reare to frame Church-government unto whereof any one piece might stand in the others light to cause the least variation by us from the Primitive pattern we had no State-ends or Politicall interests to comply with No Kingdoms in our â—…ye to subdue unto our mould which yet will be coexsistent with the peace of any forme of Civill Government on earth No prefenment or worldly respects to shape our opinions for we had nothing else to doe but simply and singly to consider how to worship God acceptably and so most according to his word This being our condition must relate to what goes before which I judge from the literall and gramaticall sense can be no other but this That falling from the Ceremonies which was enough to deprive you of your Ministeries and the participation of some Ordinances and further exposed you to violence or exile to avoide it which latter of exile you chusing rather for the ends specified that put you upon a necessity of enquiring into and viewing the light part the positive part of Church-worship and Government Which words seeme to carry this sense that upon your chusing exile you fell upon enquiring into the light part and not before and all the understanding Readers whom I have spoken with about this passage take them so But because you doe not positively say so and your words may have some evasion and I would not fasten any thing on you as said by you in this book that you affirme not Let me put to you for the understanding your minds this question Whether you take chusing an Exile for your resolution and purpose when you should see convenient time to leave the Land and not for your actuall leaving the Kingdome and so fell upon enquiring and viewing the positive part of Church-worship and Government and to that end to search out what were the first Apostolique directions recorded in the New Testament whilst you were in the Kingdome Or else Whether after you were come into Holland and so actually were Exiles then you were cast upon the enquiring into the light part Now if you meane these words in the first sense and that the Reader must understand them so which I must tell you as it is a very harsh sense and for a Narration to speake so doubtfully is not faire so all your discourse following upon it in the 3 4 5 6 7 page is vaine and to no purpose to work that in the minds of the Reader which you drive at Besides there are many passages in those pages cannot admit of such a sense but plainely referre to your being in Holland as those words The places we went to the condition we were in the company we went forth with and we had of all men the greatest reason to be true to our own consciences in what we should embrace seeing it was for our consciences that we were deprived at once of what ever was deare to us with many other like passages But if you meane the words in the second sense as the coherence and scope of the discourse going before and following carry it namely that when you were in Exile then you began to search out the positive part of Church-worship and Government let me propound my reasons why I doe not beleeve it but doe judge that most of you if not all were upon the light part and in the Church-way in your judgements before your leaving England and so when you came over needed no great search into it In the sixt page you speake expressely that some of you were actually in this way of communion and after that baptized your children in Parishonall Congregations which words there exprest must of necessity referre to England before your going over and cannot be understood whilst you were in Holland or since your returne into England unlesse you meane things quite otherwise then you speake And that you were beyond the darke part the evill of those superstitions adjoyned to the worship of God which have been the common stumbling-block of many thousand tender consciences which cannot be understood but of the Ceremonies and some corruptions in the Lyturgy let me besides your own confession in the sixt page put these questions to your consciences and in your answer deny them if you can 1. Whether some of you whilst you were in England did not for a long time wholly forbeare comming to the Lyturgy and comming to the Lords Supper at all in our Congregations because of the prescribed forme of Prayer and mixt Communion 2. Whether one of you five told not some friends that he had found out a forme of Church-government as farre beyond M Cartwrights as his was beyond that of Bishops 3. Whether another of you had not so much declared his judgement against the lawfulnesse of set formes of prayer prescribed as thereupon at the request of some great persons of worth Mr Ball now with God had not a conference and dispute with him at Mr Knightlyes upon it And whether the same person residing near Banbury did not both by preaching and otherways vent many things against prescribed formes of prayer and Communicating in our assemblies so that the Countrey thereabouts was much disturbed and that painfull preacher Mr Wheateley now with God much grieved by the falling off and withdrawing of some 4. Whether also one of these Apologists was not so farre gone in the principles of the
State-ends and politicall interests namely â—…at when some great persons Lords and others should be forced through the badnesse of the times as was expected and feared to seek for shelter in Providence and Hispaniâ—…la you might be there ready to remoove with them and be taken along into those Countreyes where you hoped to set up new Churches and subdue those Countreyes and people which should come over into your mould Or if otherwise things in England should come to have a great turne as they had by this Parliament then also by being in Holland rather then new-New-England you were nigh hand and your estates more at command quickly to returne to England having this Kingdome in your eye hoping you might either subdue England into the way of your Church-goverâ—…ent or else gaine a great party to you 〈◊〉 the Kingdome which we see is unhappily fallen out And 〈◊〉 all the State-ends and interests to come which you might loâ—…ke upon in your remooving to Holland there were worldly râ—…spects and interests for the present to make you goe in the Churâ—…-way as I have before observed And to all these whereas yoâ—… make the having no new-Common-wealths no Kingdomes to eye to frame Church-government unto as the ground of falling upon the right way Let it be considered by you and the Reader that the framing of a Church-government according to the conjunction of a few godly persons either in a Plantation or as strangers in a Common-wealth and not considering of a Church-government for Nations and Kingdomes that when Kingdomes and Nations doe receive the faith and the Magistrates are Christians and Orthodox that there must be a Church-government as for a Nation and Kingdome is that very thing that deceives you there being alia ratio urbis ac orbis and so a great difference of governing a family two or three or of a Towne and of governing a Nation and Kingdome But as for that Parenthesis you make before you end this Section That your Governement will bâ—… coexistent with the peace of any forme of Civill Governmeâ—… on earth out of the great care you have least your Church-gâ—…nment should suffer in the thoughts of many that it is not consistent with the peace of Civill-government 't is so farre from truth that your Government and Church-way cannot stand with the peace of any forme of Civill government no not with Democraticall government much lesse Aristocraticall or Monarchicall but should it be but tolerated much more established as the government in a Kingdome and Nation we should quickly find the contrary with a witnesse In this Intervall of Church-government we feele without a formall toleration of it woefull effects opposite to the peace and good of civill government And I desire to know from you how you will proove it and we shall be assured of it for we dare not take your bare word seeing that never yet any Kingdome or Nation entertained your Church-way and government there being yet no experiment of it which of the Presbyteriall goverment hath been in Kingdomes and Common-wealths this fourescore yeares And I must tell you that in New-England which yet was farre from being a Kingdome and Nation when they began to multiply and encrease this government had like to have ruined them both in Church and Common-wealth and had they not enterposed and since doe daily the power of the Magistrate and many suitable principles to the Presbyteriall way they had been ruined before this and what yet will be the issue unlesse they fall off more and more from their Independency a little time will shew and there are Letters from thence complaining of the confusions of necessity depending on that government We were not engaged by Education or otherwise to any other of the Reformed Churches And although we consulted with reverence what they hold forth both in their writings and practisâ—… yet we could not but suppose that they might not see into all things about worship and Government their intentions being most spent as also of our first Reformers in England upon the Reformation in Doctrine in which they had a most happy hand And 〈◊〉 had with many others observed that although the exercise of that Government had been accompanied with more peace yet the practicall part the power of godlinesse and the profession thereof with difference from carnall and formall Christians had not beeâ—… advanced and held forth among them as in this our Island as themselves have generally acknowledged We had the advantage of all that light which the conflicts of our own Divines the good old Non-conformists had struck forth in their times And the draughts of Discipline which they had drawn which we found not in all things the very same with the practises of the Reformed Churches And â—…hat they had written came much more commended to us not only because they were our own but because sealed with their manifold and bitter sufferings We had likewise the fatâ—…ll miscarriages and ship-wracks of the Separation whom ye call Brownists as Land-marks to forewarne us of thâ—…se rocks and shelves they ran upon which also did put us upon an inquirie into the principles that might be the causes of their divisions Last of all We had the recent and later example of the wayes and practises and those improved to a better Edition and greater refinement by all the fore-mentioned helps of those multitudes of godly men of our own Nation almost to the number of another Nation and among them some as holy and judicioâ—… Divines as this Kingdome hath bred whose sincerity in theâ—… way hath been testified before all the world and will be to all generations to come by the greatest undertaking but that of our father Abraham out of his own Countrey and his sâ—…ed after him a transplanting themselves many thousand miles distance and and that by sea into a wildernesse meerely to worship God more purely whither to allure them there could be no other invitement And yet we still stood as vnengaged spectators free to examine and consider what truth is to be found in and amongst all these all which we looke upon as Reformed Churches and this nakedly according to the word We resolved not to take up our Religion by or from any party and yet to approve and hold fast whatsoever is good in any though never so much differing from us yea orposite unto us It may be if you had been engaged by Education or otherwise to any other of the Reformed Churches that you had seen the order and peace in some of the Reformed Churches and had you conversed with them before you drunke in these opinions you had never been transported with them in opposition to so many most worthy Churches but to what end is this brought in with all those particulars newly mentioned in the foregoing page We had we had with that passage in the close of the last Section We had nothing else to doe but simply and singly to consider how to
beleeve as if you had and that you declined the rocks and shelves they ran upon But if you did discover those principles of the Brownists which were the causes of their divisions why doe you passe them over in silence In this Apologeticall Narration you make many a parenthesis and addition to what you are speaking of nothing so materiall nor proper to the points in hand for example In that passage immediately following these words you lanch out into the high praises of new-New-England in many lines as the laying downe those principles which are the causes of the Brownists divisions would have been So that I much wonder if you found them out that you past them over in silence for these might have been of great use to the Separatists themselves for the time to come and of great use to have preserved others from Brownisme who are inclining that way besides the benefit to your own party by looking upon them to prevent the like fatall miscarriages and ship-wracks in their way so that I know not how this omission of yours can be excused Besides how came it to passe that you who are the Authours of this Apologie and your Churches made no better an use of all your enquiry and discovery but in the time you were abroad to fall into the same fatall miscarriages and ship-wracks namely the same divisions and sins nay greater and worse then some of the Separatists Churches did as ever I heard For proofe whereof I have been informed both by word of mouth and Letters from good hands of these following particulars In Holland there were but two Churches of your way and communion one of which was at Rotterdam where Mr Bridge and Mr Sympson were members and afterwards Mr Burroughs which Church of Rotterdam like the old Separatists at Amsterdam split into two Mr Sympson at first and some others after him renting themselves from Mr Bridges Church to the great offence thereof Mr Sympson setting up a new-Church Mr White the Merchant and his wife only at first joyning with him Mr Sympsons Church being founded by a woman Mr Bridge himselfe heretofore telling me so and calling Mrs White the Foundresse of that Church And after this great rent and setting up a Church against a Church under Mr Bridges nose Mr Ward Mr Bridges colleague and old friend at Norwich was deposed from his Ministery and office for frivolous matters and some differences by Mr Bridges Church And here if I should but relate all the maine passages that fell out between these Ministers and their Churches after this Renting and Deposition within the space of a yeare following namely the Letters sent into England each for themselves and against each other all the stories told of one another and all the bitternesses and revilings between the Churches of Mr Bridge and Mr Sympsons with the desperate scandalls and reproaches cast out especially upon Mr Bridge the Readers eares would tingle and I should be too long especially because I must touch upon this string againe when I come to that story related in the Apologie page 16. The other Church was first at Viana then at Arnhim of which Mr Goodwin and Mr Nye were Teachers concerning which Church if I should but relate all the strange conceits and opinions held and practised in that Church besides some preach't even before Mr Goodwins and Mr Nye's comming back to England with all the differences and divisions that fell out I should make this answer too large I will for the present relate these few passages reserving the rest till I put out aâ—… Rejoinder upon their Reply to this Answer Anointing the sick with oyle was held in that Church of Arnhim as a standing ordinance for Church members for others had no right to that ordinance as laying on of hands was a standing ordinance for Church Officers There was a writing amongst them in many hands prooving it to be so and there were some cases propounded with what oyle the sicke members of the Church were to be anointed and there was a resolution of the case namely with Olive oyle A copy of this writing some Ministers of the Assembly have perused and one of them hath it amongst his papers in the Countrey Mr Goodwin did anoint a Gentlewoman whose name I conceale when she was sick and she recovered after it they say A Gentleman of note in that Church one of those two so much commended in the twentieth page of this book for wisedome and piety did propound in the Church that singing of Hymnes was an ordinance which is that any person of the Congregation exercising their own gifts should bring aâ—… Hymne and sing it in the Congregation all the rest being silent and giving audience now upon the propounding of this another Gentleman did oppose it as not judging it an ordinance to whom the former Gentleman replied that he destroyed in opposing this what he had built up whereupon words passing between them a difference grew between these two Gentlemen and this second Gentleman was complained of to the Church by the first and upon hearing the whole businesse and all words that past between them this second Gentleman was censured by the Church and Mr Nye charged sin upon him that was the phrase in many particulars and still at the end of every charge Mr Nye repeated This wis your sin After this censure so solemnly done the Gentleman censured brings in Accusations against Mr Nye in severall Artiles charging him with pride want of charity c in the manner of the censure And this being brought before the Church continued in debate about halfe a yeare three or foure dayes in a weeke and sometimes more before all the Congregation divers of the members having callings to follow they desired to have leave to be absent Mr Goodwin ofâ—… profest publikely upon these differences if this were their Church-fellowship he would lay downe his Eldership and nothing was more commonly spoke among the members then that certainely for matter of Discipline they were not in the right way for that there was no way of bringing things to an end At last after more then halfe a yeares debate not being able to bring these differences to an end and being to come into England they had their last meeting about it to agree not to publish it abroad when they came into England hoping that God would give some opportunity when they came into England to make an end of it which whether it be ended yet I doubt much because of some speeches reported to me spoken by one of these persons concerning the other two Now if this Church of Arnhim consisting of Ministers moderate and wise standing upon their credits and reputations and of prime Gentlemen and pick't Christians being in exile and leaving all for their consciences as they say doe yet run into such strange conceits and breake among themselves thus what can be expected of Independent Churches here that may consist of raw and fiery
known to us by their confessions and I never knew till this Apologie came forth that ever the Churches of New-England were stiled the reformed Churches as the Brownists and Separatists never yet were unto whom yet the Parenthesis relates as well as to any of the other Churches And for our own Congregations we meane of England in which through the grace of Christ we were converted and exercised our Ministeries long to the conversion of many others we have this sincere profession to make before God and all the world that all that conscience of the defilements we conceived to cleave to the true worship of God in them or of the unwarranted power in Church Governours exercised therein did never work in any of us any other thought much lesse opinion but that multitudes of the Assemblies and Parochiall Congregations thereof were the true Churches and body of Christ and the Ministery thereof a true Ministery Much lesse did it ever enter into our hearts to judge them Antichristian we saw and cannot but see that by the same reason the Churches abroad in Scotland Holland c. though more reformed yet for their mixture must be in like manner judged no Churches also which to imagine or conceive is and hath ever been an horrour to our thoughts Yea we alwayes have professed and that in these times when the Church of England were the most either actually over spread with defilements or in the greatest danger thereof and when our selves had least yea no hopes of ever so much as visiting our own Land againe in peace and safety to our persons that we both dâ—…d and would hold a Communion with them as the Churches of Christ. And besides this profession as a reall testimony thereof some of us after we actually were in this way of communion baptized our children in Parishionall Congregations and as we had occasion did offer to receive into the Communion of the Lords Supper with us some whom we knew godly that came to visit us when we were in our exile upon that relation fellowship and commembership they held in their Parish Churches in England they professing themselves to be members thereof and belonging thereunto What we have since our returne publikely and avowedly madâ—… declarations of to this purpose many hundreds can witnesse and some of our brethren in their printed bookes candidly doe testifie for us In this Section you come to declare your judgements concerning the Congregations of England and the Ministery of them wherein you apologize for your selves in regard of misapprehensions you might lye under in respect of your judgements concerning them For what good you speake of them now and for owning them as your own in which you were converted and in which you converted many others I thanke you But for the sincere profession you make before God and all the world that all that conscience of the defilements you conceive to cleave to the true worship of God in them or of the unwarranted power in Church Governours exercised therein did never work in any of you any other thought much lesse opinion but that multitudes of the Assemblies and Parochiall Congregations thereof were the true Churches and body of Christ and the Ministery thereof a true Ministery much lesse did it ever enter into your hearts to judge them Antichristian You must pardon me if I believe not this profession Nay I must tell some of you that if Letters and other Manuscripts which goe out under some of your names and are in my hands be yours as I have great reason to believe they are I shall prove this sincere profession of yours to be insincere and shall evidence the contrary to what you professe before God and the world namely that the corruptions which did cleave to our worship and the unwarranted power did not only work thoughts and opinions in you that our Churches and Ministers were not true but that you exprest so much and acted in the vertue of it nay even to judge them Antichristian There are some passages in one Letter more especially amongst others written by Mr Bridge to his loving friends in Norwich Mr Henry King Mr Toft Mr Smith Mr Rayner Mr. Mapp the substance of which Letter to them is Not to be content with the ordinance of hearing but to looke out after the plat-forme of Government left by Christ and his Apostles by Elders Pastours Teachers Deacons and Widdowes and to consider that every Church hath the power within it selfe and is not subject to one Officer or to another Congregation but to the whole body and to that whereof the member is a part And then Mr Bridge falls upon Episcopall government under which these friends of his lived as Antichristian and that their Episcopall government under which they lived was Papall and Romish and then brings in these words And will you then submit unto it what becomes of them that doe worship the beast and what of them that receive his marke Rev 13. 8. Rev. 149 10. It is a worshipping it is a receiving a marke to practise any Canon constitution or order that is framed or injoyned by that government What you have no Elders Pastors c. What you sit stand kneele at the command of that government and in the Postscript of this Letter he adds these words paying a Pepper-corne may acknowledge a Land-lord and the standing up at the Creed may acknowledge the government Now I demand of Mr Bridge and the other Apologists what multitudes of the Assemblies and parochiall Congregations were there in England that were wholly exempt from that Government or whether there was any that did refuse wholy all the Orders injoyned by that Government and if so whether then in Mr Bridges opinion and in his letters all our Congregations and Mâ—…nisters were not Antichristian in worshipping the Beast and receiving his marke let all the world and his owne conscience judge And for further proofe unto one of Mr Bridges letters were seven Questions annexed and propounded concerning the Ministerie worship and constitution of the Church Assemblies in England the usuall questions the Brownists make I have also the copie of a letter written from Mr Simpson to a man of note in London whose name out of respect to him I conceale the substance of which letter is to have him consider Whether he may live without all the Ordinances if they be any where to be had or live in danger of daily defilement and there is one thing which together with these he desires him to thinke upon namely what that state and condition is wherein we should injoy the Ordinances we should call nothing the meanes of salvation or Ordinances but what God hath appointed to his Church A Church is Christs bodie it consists of holy members in show at least joyned together to Christ as to a Head and as there is a bond whereby we are invisibly joyned so is there a bond to him visibly Ceremonies are nothing in regard
true Churches namely your seeing that if you had accounted our Churches no true Churches that by the same reason the Churches abroad in Scotland Holland c. yet for their mixture must in like manner be judged no Churches also I answer 't is no concluding Argument M. Robinson who was quick-sighted and lived in Holland long and seeing their mixture yet acknowledges those Churches true but denies ours to be true upon other grounds besides the mixture and 't is evident your reason is insufficient for if your description of a visible Church were only upon difference in the point of mixture and your grounds of separation only upon mixt communion then your Reason had some weight in it but you know your exceptions were many against our Churches which lay not against the Reformed Churches but it is strange to me if you were so good at consequences that you saw and could not but see when there was no necessitie of seeing you could not see the necessarie consequences of your principles about a Church and Ministerie nay not see even your contradictions For let a man but take your owne Positions and Assertions concerning a true visible Church and the true calling of Ministers and lay together your quarrelling with us and leaving us upon those grounds because we have no such Churches and Ministers and yeâ—… to affirme that multitudes of our Parochiall Churches are true Churches And certainly however you who are Schollars might be such good Logicians to make such distinctions to salve all as you conceited yet your people could not but they from your principles and positions about Church Ministerie Worship and Government have judged us no true Churches nor true Ministers but have wondred at this sincere profession of yours before God and the world concerning our Churches and Ministers saying they understood you otherwise and they were much deceived if you held not otherwise at first though now you expresse your selves after this manner And I can hardly beleeve had you made alwaies and frequently such professions of our Churches and Ministers and of keeping communion with them as the Churches of Christ that ever so many had fallen off to your way But thus 't is in all the way of errours men by sits will expresse things as other men do who are Orthodox but yet in a sence of their own to avoid exceptions and that they may be thought to hold as others do therby the more to draw and work some men off to their way when yet in the common sense and understanding of the points they hold otherwise As the Socinians say they hold Christ God and call him so but in a sence of their own and yet denie it in the Orthodox sense So Pelagians and Arminians will extoll the grace of God and that a man can doe nothing without it and yet in that sence wherein the controversie is they set up free-will above the grace of God And so Antinomians will say they doe not denie the law of God and yet in the sense controverted are flat against it And so the Papists will say they hold and looke to be saved by Christ as well as any Protestant though it 's well knowne there is a great difference betweene them in the point of Justification So you and many of your way in a sense of your owne give us good words and say we have true Churches and true Ministerie and yet in the sense of the controversie you teach flat contrary as doth appeare both by printed Tractâ—…tes and by manuscripts and many practises As to that Profession in this Section That in the times when the Churches of England were most either actually overspread with defilements or in the greatest danger therof that we both did and would bold a communion with them as the Churches of Christ I answer what doe I heare words when I see deeds so contrary How can I beleeve this profession that ye would hold communion with the Churches of England as the Churches of Christ under their greatest defilements when as you have never held communion with any of them in the time of their greatest reformation and puritie In this three yeares last since your comming over wherein we have been so free from pollution in worship and since that in so many Churches in London there hath bin the totall laying aside of prescribed formes of prayer and that great care to keepe away both ignorant and prophane persons Which of you five have received the Lords Supper in any of these true Churches and bodies of Christ I never could learne that any of you five nor any of the members of your Churches have communicated with us I can tell you of the adding to your Church Assemblies great numbers since and of your receiving the Lords Supper at night in private houses and how some of you who have not Churches here in London goe to separated Churches to partake in the Lords Supper But Brethren why doe you deale thus and write thus to make men beleeve as if you held great communion with our Churches now who would have held it with them in such bad times I desire you to speake plaine English and not to speake after this manner as you doe too often in this Apologie and to interpret to us in your Reply to this Answer what you meane by both Did and Would hold communion with the Churches of England as the Churches of Christ I know no communion you did hold or doe with us now though so reformed And if you do and will what means that wall of partition between us your new constituted Churches As for thâ—…â—…aring of Sermons sometimes in our Churches and preachiâ—…g in our Congregations I doubt whether you hold that a keeping communion with our Churches and Ministers but rather preach as gifted men and heare ours as gifted men and how ever if M. Robinson and some of your way may be beleeved they hold hearing of the Word no Act of Communion nor no proper nor peculiar thing of the Church And that you are of the same judgement I have great reason both from your principles and practise to thinke so As for that reall testimonie besides your profession That some of us after we actually were in this way of communion baptized our children in Parishionall Congregations whereby you would inferre you held a communion with our Congations as the Churches of Christ I answer this is no reall testimony thereof because it cannot be understood but in the sense before opened of Churches and Ministery And besides if Mr Sympson were one of this Some who baptized his children in Parishionall Congregations 't is so inconsistent with what he writ in the Letter before quoted of the Church and baptisme that I know not how to reconcile these together And the truth is many of your practises are oft times so in-coherent with some of your principles of Church-fellowship as for instance Pastors are necessary Officers in your Churches and yet according
though as comming out in such a juncture of time wherein the strife is betweene Presbyteriall government and Independent for preeminence and comming from so many heads laid together it cannot be imagined but it should come forth doubly refined and in the most plausible advantagious way and in the best edition that 't is possible such wits and so many could set it out in an Utopia indeed rather then what it can be in common practise this being the third Edition the first that of the Brownists the second of new-New-England and now this the third yet the Reader may observe into what uncertainties labirinths tediousnesse delayes nay absurdities and contrarieties these principles doe leade them that follow them 1. Whereas in Presbyteriall government each part and every particular is ruled by the whole and in common the lesse by the greater in your way an equall part must take upon them cognizance and call to an account an equall 2. Not only so but suppose two or three Churches fall out and have a difference among themselves and there be but one Church free who yet is offended at the others then one must order two or three the lesse the greater and what a rule is this 3. This principle of submission being voluntary amongst the Churches we may well suppose sometimes the Churches challenged to offend or differ will submit and sometimes they will not or at least not yet and when they know themselves faulty they may pretend many things to put it off and to delay the time which time will be both very prejudiciall to the persons wronged and to the spreading of the heresie and schisme and if by delayes they see they cannot have their ends what if for all their principle of submission they flie of and refuse to yeeld to such a full and open tryall before all commers and shall denie other Churches that power of examining deposing Witnesseâ—… c. upon pretence of conscience that there is no primitive patterne for it as you do deny the power of determination and imposition how will you bring them to it whereas in Presbyteriall government times of meeting being fixt and agreed upon men cannot evade but matters will be quickly heard and remedied 4. As in reason and by experience amongst wise men it is held a vaine course which no publicke company of men will yeeld to but such practises are rather accounted ridiculous to raise such dust and make such 〈◊〉 doe to call others to account to depose Witnesses spending many daies in a judiciarie way and yet have no power to end things to be never the nearer but that Delinquents may doe neverthelesse what they please so it cannot be conceived that the wise God hath ordered in the Government of his Churches such a kind of way for Churches who are of a publike capacitie and have a power as you grant to call Churches thus to an account c. and yet nothing to be done to the offenders Churches offended either have not power to doe thus much as you grant or else they have a greater power namely to bring about the ends which these meanes tend unto namely determination and decision the righting persons injured and the censuring the offending parties But it will be said by you that if the Churches offending take not the counsell and advice of their sister Churches about them but persist in their errour and miscarriage that censure of the sentence of Non-communion will be a sufficient remedie and an effectuall meanes to reduce them and remedie all as well as that of the Presbyterians I will not here enter into comparison between these two but do reserve it to it 's proper place The 5 t and last generall head though besides Excommunicaon there are other things in the Classicall Synodicall way both to preserve and reduce Churches which are not in the Independent way But I answer this is no likely meanes nor way for which I shall give these following reasons 1. One Church may not be able to convince another of their errour or evill much lesse one Church two or three Churches offending and differing 2. The Church offending may stand upon it that what they doe is according to their light it is according to their conscience to hold such an opinion or to doe such a fact as to depose their Minister because he hath no better gifts of preaching and whether may another Church passe the sentence of Non-communion against whole Churches and declare and protest this to all other Churches of Christ that they may doe the like for opinions or practises that are not against the Churches knowne light For if no other kind of sins then may evidently be presumed to be perpetrated against the parties knowne light may be the subject of excommunication in particular persons may they be the subject of Non-communion of whole Churches 3. In reason this seemes not a powerfull meanes or probable way for if this one Church offended shall renounce the Churches challenged to offend they may and will renounce that Church also passing the sentence of Non-communion c. against that and how shall the matter now be healed and remedied 4. That Church or Churches thus sentenced may be care not for the Communion of this Church that cast them off nor of no others as long as they can have communion amongst themselves These kind of Churches that hold such principles of entire compleate power within themselves with that principle of sufficiencie of all gifts and all ordinances within themselvs will goe on in their errours and sinfull practises for all that 5. The Churches renounced and cast out may challenge the Churches casting them out for injuring of them and thereupon both Churches may declare and protest against each other to all other Churches of Christ which will prove as great a rent-difference nay worse then the first and this will produce a great deale of defending and proving for if the Churches on both sides doe declare against one another unto the other Churches which of them now shall be beleeved and what if the Churches protested and declared unto will not upon the Protestations withdraw and renounce all Christian communion with them must they then protest against them also and what the Churches protesting may account matter of Non-communion other Churches declared and protested unto may not judge so so that here will be worse matter of difference and divisions in the Church of God then before and I suppose you would not have those Churches declared and protested unto to condemne the rest sentenced without a hearing especially where there is but one to one or where one may declare and protest against two or three so that then there must be sending for all these Churches and meetings appointed for the Churches protested unto to heare the Churches on both sides and what now if the Churches declared unto upon the hearing the Churches on both sides both censuring and censured shall acquit the Churches condemned
complaints and appeals now the Presbyterians in that give the Magistrate a power about the use and abuse of Ecclesiasticall discipline and Ecclesiasticall Causes and businesses yea and definitive to namely a politicall objective consequent power which may be diversly exercised both ordinarily and extraordinarily in a Church constituted and in a good estate and in a Church fallen and corrupted Voetius in his disputations upon that question In whose hands the Ecclesiasticall power is a great Presbyterian in that question grants and gives to the Magistrate a publick judiciall power of judging not onely with the judgement of knowledge but definitive in causes and matters Ecclesiasticall which judgement is consequent not antecedent because the ultimate disquisition is not in that whether that be true but whether they will by publicke Authoritie maintaine and execute that So * Apollonius in his Answer to Vedelius where he strongly pleads for the Presbyterians in that point of Ecclesiasticall power yet gives much to the Magistrate ordinarily in a Church constituted and well reformed in the point of this part of power and extraordinarily in the state of a Church corrupted and greatly disordered when the doctrine is corrupted and the Sacraments contaminated with idolatrous rites and discipline turned into tyrannie and when the Ministerie and all Ecclesiasticall meetings both inferiour and superiour conspire to oppresse the truth of God and to establish tyrannie in the Church in such cases the Magistrate may do many things besides the ordinary way now let me entreate you to consult the books of the Presbyterians and especially Apollonius answer to Vedelius of the severall particulars of the power of Magistrates about the use and abuse of discipline in a constituted Church besides the power given them in extraordinarie cases and in your Reply to this Answer satisfie me what you give more But let me tell you whatever power you five may have found out for the Magistrate which the principles of Presbyteriall government will not suffer them to yeeld some new power may be like that devise of Non-communion of Churches and Protestation to all Churches that they may doe the like yet your Churches may not grant it and so the Magistrates shall be never the nearer the power you give the Magistrate in the 17. and 19. pag. is not yeelded by many of your own Churches whereof you are Ministers A Gentleman a prime member of one of your Churches immediately after the comming forth of your Apologeticall Narration disclaimed and renounced that power of the Magistrate exprest by you in the hearing of a Minister a member of the Assembly who related it to me But what is it wherein you give more to the Magistrates sure there is something you meane and aime at in it if we could find it out suffer me to guesse at it and you shall see though you doe not formally expresse so much yet I have some reason to judge so First Doe you not meane in this phrase the Magistrates power to which we give as much and as we thinke more then the principles of Presbyteriall government will suffer them to yeeld that your Church-way consisting all of particular Congregations and not growing into great bodies by combinations and Synods the Magistrates power is greater over you in that he may easily deale with you and dissolve you at pleasure but for a power to grow into so great a body an Ecclesiasticall power as large as the civill so combined this may be formidable and dangerous to the State and too great for the Magistrate hereafter to rectifie this hath been by an active Independent upon discourse of these points suggested to me and how farre one of you hath reasoned thus in the hearing of many against Presbyteriall government and for Congregationall you can remember Or secondly Doe you understand by this phrase that when heresies schismes or strange opinions are broacht in your Churches and you cannot tell what to doe with them nor how to suppresse them nor how to have the persons censured being so powerfull in particular Congregations whereof they are members in such a case you give the civill Magistrate a power to question them for these heresies schismes and to imprison banish c. if they doe not revoke them New-England practising the way of Independencie and not having Classes Synods that have authoritative power to call to account and censure such persons were necessitated to make use of the Magistrates and to give the more to them a power of questioning for doctrines and judging of errors and punishing with imprisonment banishment and they found out a prety fine destinction to deceive themselves with and to salve the contrariety of this practise to some other principles that the Magistrate questioned and punished for these opinions and errors which now for want of Ecclesiasticall discipline and censure they knew not what to doe with not as heresies and such opinions but as breaches of the civill peace and disturbances to the Common-wealth which distinction if the Parliament would have learned from you and proceeded upon they might long agoe have put downe all your Churches and Congregations and justly have dealt with you as the Magistrates in new-New-England did with Mr Williams and the Antinomians Familists and Anabaptists there and yet have said they punished you not for your consciences nor because of such opinions but because your opinions ways and practises were an occasion of much hurt to the Common-wealth a breach of civill peace a great cause of many people sitting so loose from the Parliament a great hinderance to the Reformation and a ground of much distraction to the publike and of strengthening the enemy whereas the Presbyterians give the power in cases of heresies errors c. that are not remedied in the particular Congregation to Classes Synods Assemblies to question convince judge of censure and to apply spirituall remedies proper to spirituall diseases which I am confident of had such been in New-England in the Presbyteriall way there had never beene so many imprisoned banished for errors nor the Magistrates put upon that distinction Or thirdly Is it that you doe give a power to the Magistrate in Ecclesiasticall things of the ultimate determination of matters purely Ecclesiasticall which the Presbyterians principles doe not as now in matters of doctrine and in matters of scandall and in matters of censures excommunication deposition c. which are brought before and have past in Ecclesiasticall Assemblies to appeale from them to the civill Magistrate and to carry causes from thence to civill Courts to repeale and revoke them Your words and passages about the Magistrates power imply this and I find that many quick sighted men as the Walachrian classis nay a whole Synod after them in their late Letters to the Assembly apprehend you so and therefore I may upon good grounds judge besides the two former that you aime at this third in saying you give more to the Magistrates power then the Presbyterians
and vigour are sensibly increased the Lord be praised And besides these letters the thing it selfe speakes for whereas in England he was not able to preach nor had not hardly three times in three yeares after he came into Holland he was Pastor of the Church at Arnheim and preached constantly and had that strength to beget a sonne whereas he being married many yeares in England never had any child And not only from him but from others also there have been many letters sent to commend the places where you lost your fellow labourers to be so healthfull and pleasant as to resemble them to Bury in Suffolke and Hart ford As for that high praise of those two worthy Ministers as precious men as this earth beares any I thinke it becomes you not they being yours and of your way and cannot be interpreted by the understanding Reader but that you take occasion here as in all other places of your Apologeticall Narration to magnifie and cry up your own party the more to make people to be in love with your way which had as precious men as this earth beares any but I judge it is too high and hyperbolicall for though I dearely loved the men and doe acknowledge they were precious and beleeve they are gone as that great Divine said in his sicknesse he was going where Luther and Zuinglius doe well agree yet I must needs correct that phrase as this earth beares any For I am of opinion that both in learning and piety they were inferiour to some not only in the earth which is wide and spatious containing Churches and Ministers more pretious then you know of but in this earth of England and Scotland and your Encomium of them if you remember what you writ before of some pretious men alive now in New-England as ever this Kingdome bred and granting that New-England is the earth doth amount to this that these two Ministers Mr Archer and Mr Harris were as pretious men as ever were in England which you must pardon me if I doubt it for I beleeve Whitakers Reynolds Baynes Greeneham Dod Brightman with many more were more pretious As for that other instance Your selves comming hardly off that service with your healths yea lives I have not heard of any great sicknesses any of you five had there excepting Mr Bridge who came hardly off with his health Some of you indeed had Agues there which you might have had in England in Suffolk or in Oxfordshire and for Mr Bridges sicknesse I judge it was as well occasioned and strengthened upon the unhappy differences and bitter divisions between him and Mr Simpson and Mr Ward and their Churches and the wicked reports raised upon him which discontented and troubled his spirit as by the distemper of the place or change of the aire and for others of you how fat and well liking you came backe into England and how all of you returned well clad and shining beyond most of us who lived alwaies in England many can witnesse and have spoken of it all which were no great signes either of the many other miseries the companions of your banishment nor of the comming off so hardly with your healths and lives When it pleased God to bring us his poore Exiles backe againe in these revolutions of the times as also of the condition of this Kingdome into our own Land the powring forth of manifold prayers and teares for the prosperitie whereof had been no small part of that publike worship we offered up to God in a strange Land we found the judgement of many of our godly learned bretheren in the Ministerie that desired a generall Reformation to differ from ours in some things wherein we doe professedly judge the Calvinian Reformed Churches of the first Reformation from out of Poperie to stand in need of a further Reformation themselves And it may without prejudice to them or the imputation of schisme in us from them be thought that they comming new out of Popery as well as England and the founders of that Reformation not having Apostolique infallibilitie might not be fully perfect the first day yea and it may hopefully be conceived that God in his secret yet wise and sacred dispensation had left England more unreformed as touching the outward forme both of worship and Church-government then the neighbour Churches were having yet powerfully continued a constant conflict and contention for a further Reformation for these foure score yeares during which time he had likewise in stead thereof blessed them with the spirituall light and that encreasing of the power of Religion in the practique part of it shining brighter and clearer then in the neighbour Churches as having in his infinite mercie on purpose reserved and provided some better thing for this Nation when it should come to be reformed that the other Churches might not be made perfect without it as the Apostle speaks Having Apologized for your selves and way in your principles opinions practises and carriage towards all sorts both before your exile and in your exile here in this section you come to Apologize for your selves and for what you have done since your comming back into England both before the Assemblie and since the Assemblie untill the time of putting forth this present Apologeticall Narration which beginning in this section is continued by you in the following sections to the 30th page But brethren why doe you in the beginning of this part of your Apologie give your selves that name of Gods poore Exiles was it not enough to have said when it pleased God to bring us backe againe into our owne Land but you must call your selves Gods Exiles and poore Exiles I wonder you tearmed not your selves poore pilgrims But the reason why you name your selves so here and in this Apologie take occasion so often to speake of exile and banishment may easily be guest at namely to commend your persons and way the more to the people and for want of better to take them with such popular arguments as suffering a grievous exile Thus in many other passages of your Apologie you bring in and insert many such kind of phrases to worke with the people the more but doe insinuate many things against the Presbyteriall way as of engagements publike interest c. But let me a little examine whether you five can fitly be stiled Gods poore Exiles I thinke to speake properly you neither were Exiles nor poore for you were not banished nor forced out of your owne Laud neither by being brought into the High-Commission Court or by Letters missive and Attachments out against you as ever I heard but excepting M. Burroughes who fled in haste as being in dangers for words spoken you went at your own times over into Holland with all conveniences of your Families and other companie Among the Greekes Fuga was called exilium and so you flying out of the kingdome in that sense may be cal'd exiles but how ever in some sense
and now of later yeares Scotland of old having been troubled with the Separatists and the Churches of France by Morellius against whom Sadeel did write and Beza in his Epistles writes against that principle of the power of the people that nothing is ratified except the people present by their expresse suffrages doe decree it and against private mens prophecying in the Church and of late though the controversie be growne so high yet Divines both in Holland and Scotland as your selves confesse have writ against your way and can see no light Iâ—…m it and in a generall Assembly of Scotland since our Parliament the point being moved and debated there it was concluded against by the whole Assembly nemine contradiconte as a Letter written from that Assembly to many Ministers in the City which I heard read at a meeting testifies neither are any of the Reformed Churches yet satisfied by all that hath been written about your Independent government nor our present Assembly by all they have heard from you after so many dayes speaking for your way So that what the Reformed Churches stand for now is not as comming new out of Poperie and so wanting light as you assert and therefore though they had not Apostolicke Infallibilitie yet they might well be in the right for Church-government and therefore the Reformed Churches and the Church of England too judging of government now after above 80. years comming out of Poperie and after hearing all that hath been said and that you can say now after almost a yeares sitting in the Assembly They yet judge Presbyteriall government by Classes and Synods to be the true forme of Church-government against your Independencie so that now the ground you going upon being taken away you cannot without great prejudice to the Reformed Churches so peremptorily judge them as you doe in this place of your Apologie And as your practise cannot be without prejudice to them and the imputation of Schisme in you from them to set up new Churches and divide from them upon these grounds so this passage of yours here against all the Reformed Churches cannot avoyd the suspition of great arrogancie and pride to proclaime your selves to see more then all the Churches in worship and government and to judge them so 'T is a high presumption that five such young men as you are and no deeplier studied should thus proudly and tanquam ex tripode so magisterially conclude against all the Reformed Churches Certainly had you had the humilitie of many of Gods servants you would rather have feared and questioned whether you might not have been mistaken in your grounds and therefore modestly have propounded your doubts to the Assembly to have resolved them rather then before the points ever came to be debated in the Assembly in such matters where you goe against the common streame of all Reformed Churches to have thus professedly peremptorily and resolvedly both in this Section and in the next pag. 24. determined the questions And brethren let me friendly mind you who are you five of what standing reading graces to take so much to your selves and to be so peremptory that you should see that which all the Reformed Churches doe not nor are not able by any of your Arguments nor what else is extant to see or be convinced of But as for the close to this part of the Section concerning the Calvinian Reformed Churches that it may hopefully be conceived that God left England more unreformed as touching Government and Worship then the neighbour Churches were c. It is a strange speech and savours of a strange high conceit of your owne way of Independencie and of your great light and abilitie in this Assembly where the Church of England is to be reformed and to speake plainly the English and sence of all these lines is this That it may be hopefully conceived that God in his secret yet wise and gracious dispensation hath all this long time for above 80. years left England more unreformed and of his infinite mercy on purpose reserved it for this present Assembly that M. Goodwin M. Nye c. might bring a new light in Church government and order and so Scotland and the Neighbour-Churches might be new-moulded into their way But how ever some of you are men of strong fancies and all of high confidences of your owne opinions and wayes yet I beleeve you will be deceived at this time how ever you may comfort your selves and Churches with the hopes of prevailing at another time saying that Presbyterie shall fall as Episcopacie hath done after it's time one of that way for want of arguments having used such words to me and that M. Goodwin M. Nye c. will not be able to effect what they desire and hope for but it may be rather hopefully conceived that in stead of the reformed Churches comming to them these five members of the Assembly at last with others to upon this glorious Reformation will be brought to joyn with other reformed Churches according to the solemn Covenant and oath themselves have entred into We found also which was as great an affliction to us as our former troubles and banishment our opinions and wayes wherein we might seeme to differ environed about with a cloud of mistakes and misapprehensions and our persons with reproaches Besides other calumnies as of schisme c. which yet must either relate to a differiâ—…g from the former Ecclesiasticall government of this Church established and then who is not involved in it as well as we or to that constitution and government that is yet to come and untill that be agreed on established and declared and actually exist there can be no guilt or imputation of schisme from it That proud and insolent title of independencie was affixed unto us as our claime the very sound of which conveyes to all mens apprehensions the challenge of an exemption of all Churches from all subjection and dependence or rather a trumpet of defiance against what ever power spirituall or civill which we doe abhorre and detest or else the odious name of Brownisme together with all their opinions as they have stated and maintained them must needs be owned by us Although upon the very first declaring our judgements in the chiefe and fundamentall point of all Church discipline and likewise since it hath been acknowledged that we differ much from them And we did then and doe here publikely professe we beleeve the truth to lye and consist in a midle way betwixt that which is falsely charged on us Brownisme and that which is the contention of these times the Authoritative Presbyteriall government in all the subordinations and proceedings of it I desire you to resolve me and the Reader how the first sentence in this Section Your opinions and wayes environed about with a cloud of mistakes and misapprehensions and your persons with reproaches can stand with those words in the 24 page We found many of those mists that
godly Protestant party and of much distracting them and of making severall interests Whence have come all the rents and divisions to speake of in the godly Protestant party all the â—…ets stopps and delayes in the intended Reformation but from you and by occasion and meanes of you The authority of your names holding these opinions having the reputation of Schollars and of excellent Preachers whereby you are cryed up of many and so much followed your interest and favour in too many considerable persons have drawne so much had it not been for your sakes these rents and divisions had never come to this head there had not been that connivance nor such delayes of setling governement c. most of the rest of your way were in comparison contemptible both for name and gifts and could not have done that hurt and why then in a time by your own confession of absolute necessity of the neerest union and conjunction and all little enough to effect that Reformation intended and so long contended for against a common adversary that had both present possession to plead for it selfe power to support it and had injoyed a long continued settlement which had rooted it in the hearts of men have you done so much by preaching and acting to rend and divide the godly protestant party there was no absolute necessity just at that time when you did preach and stirre for your way for you to have done so affirmatives though they doe bind semper yet not ad semper there were greater truths in doctrine and in Reformation of government which you might have preached on for that time but there was an absolute necessity of the neerest union and conjunction I heartily with this first Reason and ground deepely layed to heart by you and then I know you must greatly repent for what you have done in this particular since your returne into England and had not God been and were he not the more gracious and better to us then ordinary your carriage and what hath been by your meanes would have spoiled our Reformation and hath done much to keepe the common Adversary in his present possession and long continued settlement but I pray God humble you for it and forgive you and seeing you knew and considered that it was the second blow that makes the quarrell and that the beginning of strife would have been as the breaking in of waters why were you not contented with the giving of the first blow and the first occasion of the quarrell both by your former preaching and practising but to adde this second great blow the writing of this Apologeticall Narration which though it be not on your parts the beginning of strife yet it will prove as the breaking in of waters and as the kindling of a fire not likely to be put out in hast 2. And this seconded by the instant and continuall advices and conjurements of many honourable wise and godly Personages of both Houses of Parliament to forbeare what might any way be like to occasion or augment this unhappy difference They having also by their Declarations to his Majesty professed their endeavour and desire to unite the Protestant party in this Kingdome that agree in fundamentall truths against Popery and other heresies and to have that respect to tender consciences as might prevent oppressions and inconveniences which hath formerly been I judge this ground seconding the former should have been powerfull with you to a deepe silence and forbearance every particular branch of it speaks strongly to you to forbeare what ever might any way be like to occasion or augment this unhappy difference Nay almost every word in it â—…s an argument to command The instant and continuall advices and conjurements of many honourable wise and godly Personages of both Houses of Parliament what might not all these have wrought and then take in also that they had by their Declarations to His Majestie c. and that they would have a respect to tender Consciences Now what could you almost have wished more or what better securitie for your selves and way A man would thinke all these might have commanded you not to have acted for your selves and way and certainly your fault was the greater in doing contrary and you are the more inexcusable had not this seconded the former yet your knowledge of the first was enough to have taken ingenuous spirits but this seconding the first it is too bad that you went contrary to the instant and continuall advices and conjurement of many Honourable wise and godly Personages of both Houses of Parliament As for those passages inserted in this Reason the Parliaments Declarations to his Majestie professing their endeavour and desire to unite the Protestant party in this Kingdome that agree in fundamentall truths and to have that respect to tender Consciences wherein you would insinuate that the Parliament had put you in some hopes of a Toleration and that grounded upon some passages in their Declarations had you named what Declarations speake so I could have perused and examined them and have returned you an answere I question it not from the words and sense but to put it out of doubt that the Parliament intends no Toleration in such words as having respect to tender consciences c. I referre you to the first and great Remonstrance and Declaration of the House of Commons wherein they declare the contrary and ingage themselves to the Kingdome against it answering to that as a Calumnie cast upon them to traduce their proceedings They infuse into the people that we meane to abolish all Church-Government and leave every man to his owne fancy for the Service and Worship of God absolving him of that obedience which he owes under God unto his Majestie whom we know to be intrusted with the Ecclesiasticall Law as well as with the temporall to regulate all the members of the Church of England by such rules of Order and Discipline as are established by Parliament which is his great Councell in all affaires both in Church and State And we doe here declare that it is farre from our purpose or desire to let loose the golden reynes of Discipline and Government in the Church to leave private persons or particular Congregations to take up what forme of Divine Service they please for we hold it requisite that there should be throughout the whole Realme a Conformity to that Order which the Lawes enjoyne according to the Word of God And we desire to unburthen the Consciences of men of needlesse and superstitious Ceremonies suppresse innovations and take away the monuments of idolatry And the better to effect the intended Reformation we desire there may be a generall Synod of the most grave pious learned and judicious Divines of this Island assisted with some from forraine parts professing the same Religion with us who may consider of all things necessary for the peace and good Government of the Church and represent the results of their Consultations
of this Apologie But the Reader may aske what is the plaine English of the streame of publike interest according to which there was so great danger the Assembly would swimme I answer I conceive one of these two things or else it is probable both are meant by the Apologists 1. That the Ministers of the Assembly for themselves and their fellow Ministers would stand for such a government as wherein the power should be in their own hands and not in the peoples to doe with them for maintenance and standing at their pleasure and therefore they would establish Presbyteriall government rather then Independent 2. The Parliament of England upon great Armies raised against them needing help calls in for the Kingdome of Scotland to assist them now the Scots being for Presbyteriall government and against Independent and desirous of uniformity in government between the Kingdomes therefore for gratifying the Scots the Assembly is like to be swayed that way is this the streame of publike interest meant by you oh how unworthy an insinuation is this and how prejudicall this will be to the Reformation in after times I desire you to consider of in coole blood and what the enemies will say of it the government and Reformation of this Church was not free not according to the word of God but what Scotland would have Englands need of Scotland made them at least swayed much to take up their government but how ever this is insinuated for the holding up the credit of your cause against the time the Assembly shall come to reject it as Apocripha yet I must tell you you foresaw that which is no such streame of publike interest nor no cause of disadvantage to you For the Commissioners of the Church of Scotland were not sent hither to put their government upon us but came as well to receive any light and help as to give and to come to us in what should be found upon debate more agreeable to the word as we to come to them and the Covenant of the Kingdomes doth not tye us to the Reformation of the Church of Scotland but binds us to Reformation according to the word of God and the example of the best reformed Churches and then requires both of us and them an uniformity according to the word of God And indeed the Assembly consisting of so many able learned and grave Divines where much of the wisdome piety and learning of two Kingdomes are met cannot well be thought to be carried away from the word by the streame of publike interest especially most of the Assembly being men not engaged by education or otherwise to any other of the reformed Churches or by former declarations of their judgements nor appointed by the Parliament to Presbyteriall government but left freely to be guided by the light of the word in this way of God communicated to them besides that the Commissioners of the Church of Scotland however they be present in the Assembly to heare debates and to give their Reasons yet never gave their voices in any point that hath passed the Assembly As for the close of this Section trusting God both with your selves and his own truth as he shall be pleased to manage it by us Had you in adventuring your selves upon this Assembly and therein really beleeving all the sorts of disadvantages as you here speake trusted God both with your selvs and that you call his own truth some of you would never have brought such arguments for your way as you have done And certainely if some of you did trust God as you ought with your selves c. you would not trust so much to your wits and policie nor be so full of reservations fetches doubtfull expressions as you are And brethren let me deale with you plainely I hope it may doe you good many speake of your policie and subtiltie some who are strangers to you yet being members of the Assembly and beholding your managing of your opinions and way there wonder that good men should be so politick and subtill as you are especially if the cause were good Moreover if in all matters of Doctrine we were not as orthodox in our judgements as our bretheren themselves we would never have exposed our selves to this triall and hazard of discovery in this Assembly the mixture of whose spirits the quick-sightednesse of whose judgements intent enough upon us and variety of debates about all sorts of controversies afoot in these times of contradiction are such as would be sure soone to find us out if we nourished any monsters or serpents of opinions lurking in our bosomes And if we had carried it so as that hitherto such errours were not afore-hand open to the view and judgement of all yet sitting here unlesse we would be silent which we have not been we could not long be hid But it is sufficiently known that in all points of doctrine which hitherto in the review and examination of the Articles of our Church or upon other occasions have been gone through our judgements have still concurred with the greatest part of our bretheren neither doe we know wherein we have dissented And in matters of discipline we are so farre from holding up the differences that occurre or making the breaches greater or wider that we endeavour upon all such occasions to grant and yeeld as all may see and cannot but testifie for us to the utmost latitude of our light and consciences professing it to be as high a point of Religion and conscience readily to own yea fall down before whatsoever is truth in the hands of those that differ yea though they should be enemies unto us as much as earnestly to contend for and hold fast those truths wherein we should be found dissenting from them and this is in relation to peace so also as a just due to truth and goodnesse even to approve it and acknowledge it to the uttermost graine of it though mingled with what is opposite unto us And further when matters by discussion are brought to the smallest dissent that may be we have hitherto been found to be no backward urgers unto a temper not only in things that have concerned our own consciences but when of others also such as may suite and tend to union as well as searching out of truth judging this to be as great and usefull an end of Synods and Assemblies as a curious and exact discussion of all sorts of lesser differences with binding determinations of truth one way Whether in all matters of Doctrine all of you be as Orthodox in your Judgements as your brethren themselves I question it though in the most Doctrines and in the maine I grant it I have been told of some odd things in matter of Doctrine preached by one of you five both in England and Holland and of some points preached in the Church of Arnheim never questioned there and since printed not very Orthodox as for instance amongst others that the soules of the Saints
are sufficiently knowne And however all these things of no other interest but a subsistance in our own land and of enjoying the ordinances of Christ and not knowing where else with safety health and livelihood to set our feet on earth be held forth as specious pretences to the Parliament and Reader to perswade and to allure them yet the bottome of all this desire of a toleration in England though concealed is that there is no other place on earth where you are like to propagate your way to gaine so great a party to enjoy such full and rich Congregations and to have that respect and applause in your way as in England and in England as London and the adjacent parts or where you can have those faire hopes and probabilities of drawing so great a part of a Kingdome to your Church-way as here and where if you goe on to act as diligently and politickly as you have done in these three yeares last past and the Ministers be as generally silent and the common people of the Kingdome come a little more to understand your principles and have time to digest and consider of the great liberty and power they have thereby the rest of the Kingdome may in time come to be beholding to you for a toleration of Presbyterie if it be established which you will as soone grant if you come to have power in your hands as you will Episcopacy and Popery many of your Church-way ordinarily affirming they had rather have Episcopacie then Presbyterie and it hath been affirmed to me by a Minister of note that a Minister of the Church-way preferred Popery in this Kingdome before Presbyterie for if Popery should come in it would be but short lived but Presbyterie was like to be long lived The Arminians in the Netherlands at first desired but a toleration no more but to be permitted to enjoy in some Churches of their own their consciences with peaceableneâ—… but afterwards that by the connivance and favour of the Magistrates they were in some Cities and places as Amsterdam c. grown to a great number and had a great power then they would not suffer noâ—… tolerate the orthodox Ministers but persecuted them and some were forced to flie as in the stories of the Netherlands is at large recorded And if ever the Independents by connivance or a toleration should come to have a power and strength considerable if they serve not us so I am much deceived All Sectaries and erroâ—…eous spirits who are but tolerated and not owned will watch all advantages to set up their own way as chiefe and when they have a power will be impetuous and violent to effect it as the Anabaptists in Germanie were the Arminians in Holland and the Antinomians and Familists in New-England As women out of their weakenesse and feare when they have power over any are most cruell so Sectaries out of their feare least a State may one time or other cast them out and not tolerate them will upon an advantage suppresse and destroy the orthodox and stablish their own 2. As for the matter it selfe contained in the close of your booke a Toleration of Independent Churches and government the scope and last end of this Apologie whereunto tends all the artifice and fallacies in the composure of it I shall lay downe some Reasons and grounds against it I cannot stand to handle the question at large about tolerations of different Religions or of divers Sects and opinions in one and the same Kingdome this answer being already a great deale longer then I intended it I cannot now open the tearmes and premise the distinctions as distinguishing concerning the nature and kind of errors concerning the persons erring concerning the kinds and degrees of toleration and coaction c. I shall reserve the full handling of this point whether toleration be lawfull to a particular Tractate I intend upon that subject In the meane time upon occasion of what you present here to the Parliament I shall humbly submit to their considerations these following particulars 1. A Toleration of Independent Churches and government with their opinions and practise is against the Magistrates duty laid downe in Scripture but for Magistrates by good lawes to command and require obedience to the government and Reformation upon good grounds judged to be according to the word of God and so established is lawfull and their duties For the clearing of which I premise two things which I suppose must needs be granted 1. That the Magistrate is custos ac vindeâ—… utriusque Tabula as is confessed by all orthodox Divines that the care of Religion belongs to him and that he is to looke to it that the Church of God and the Government of it be constituted and setled according to the Word and that the people may lead a peaceable and quiet life in all godlinesse and honestie for which end Princes and Magistrates are to make Lawes for the observing of the Worship and Government of Christs Church forbidding and punishing with religious severitie those things which are practised against the Word of God but commanding what is according to it this is one of the great services they yeeld to Christ as they are Magistrates and I find Augustine and other Divines giving that sense of Psal. 2. 10 11. of Kings and Iudges serving the Lord with feare and of Deut. 17. 19. of God commanding the King to read the booke of the Law that he may learn to observe the things which are written in it not onely as private men practising these and ordering their lives according to the Word but as Kings they should order their Office by the Word not onely by living holily for so they serve God as men but as Kings and Magistrates by making Lawes for the Worship of God and prohibiting the contrary 2. That the Reformation in Worship Government c. which shall be setled and established by the Parliament is judged and taken for granted by them to be according to the minde of Christ else why have they called so many able godly and learned Divines to consult with for that purpose and stood so much for a Reformation according to the Word and why else will they establish it if there be any other more agreeable to the Word so that whatsoever other Government after all debates and Reasonings is rejected and refused must be thought not to have such a ground in the Word for if it had why was it not established and owned but comes to seeke for a Toleration and Connivance Now then by vertue of many Scriptures both in the old and new Testament the Examples of the Kings of Judah in commanding and requiring all the people to yeeld to the Reformations made by them and in particular the Spirit of God commending Iosiah for making all Jerusalem and Benjamin to stand to the Covenant which he had made with God the fourth Commandement requiring of the Father of the Family that he see
to Communion by the force of any sâ—…cular powâ—…r and gives his reasons there of the change of his judgement from what he formerly held because now he had experience how much evill the Toleration and suffering of them did as also how much the diligence of Discipline would conferre to the making of them better Beza in his Epistles and other writings speakes much against Tolerations and the libertie of Conscience pleaded for and answers to that whether libertie of Conscience is to be permitted No as this libertie is understood that is that every man may worship God after what manner he will himselfe For this is a meere diabolicall opinion That every one is to be suffered that if he will he may perish And in the same Epistle he saith of Tolerations This is that diabolicall libertie which hath filled Polonia and Transylvania with so many plagues of opinions which otherwise else no countries under the Sun would have tolerated And in this Epistle he tels him to whom he writes that which I perceive you call libertie of conscience but I on every side call an open destruction and ruine So in his Confession of Faith under that head of the office of the Christian Magistrate he speaks thus His office is to preserve the publike peace and quietnesse now whereas that cannot be rightly done but the true worship of God must flourish in the first place from whence flowes all happinesse it followes that nothing ought to be more looked to by the Christian Magistrates theÌ„ to have the Church ordered according to the rule of Gods Word whose authoritie they may defend and vindicate against all contemners and disturbers neither are they here to be hearkned unto who under the maske and colour of false pitie and mercie and not only by vaine and foolish arguments but arguments joyned with a great deale of impietie doe exempt false prophets and heretiques from the sword of Princes when as on the contrary no kind of men are to be compelled with greater severity as the expresse word of God commands and religious Princes have alwaies done And upon that subject that Heretiques ought to be punished by the Civill Magistrate he hath writ a book at large answering all the objections for Tolerations and pretended liberty of conscience And to the judgement of the Fathers and the Moderne Writers in this point I will adde the judgement of the Divines of New-England who are against the Toleration of any Church-Government and way but one For the Discipline appointed by Iesus Christ for his Churches is not arbitrary that one Church may set up one and practise one forme and another another forme as each one shall please but is one and the same for all Churches and in all the Essentials and Substantials of it unchangeable and to be kept till the appearing of Iesus Christ. And if that Discipline which we here practise be as we are perswaded of it the same which Christ hath appointed and therefore unalterable we see not how another can be lawfull And so in new-New-England they will not suffer Brownists Anabaptists Antinomians Mr Cotton the greatest Divine in New-England and a pretious man is against Tolerations and holds that men may be punished for their consciences as will appeare by his Letter to Mr Williams and Mr Williams answer both printed and his Exposition on the Vials wherein he answers an objection But you will say conscience should not be forced c. he answers Why doe you thinke Heretiques were not as conscionable in the old Testament as now if any man had a conscience to turne men from God he would have men of as much conscience to cut them off 5. The Magistrates Toleration of errours and new opinions is a kind of Invitation to them a Temptation and occasion of many falling who otherwise never would a snare to many a stumbling block laid before the weake the leaving a pit or well uncovered an opportunitie for Sathan a mans owne corruption or seducers to worke upon and to draw away by when men may broach opinions and vent them hold and practise what they please without any danger nay with the leave and countenance of the Magistrate what advantage will not Satan and wanton witted men take by this opportunitie makes many a thiefe and impunitie makes many venture and as 't is a shroud temptation to make many fall so a Toleration is a meanes of confirmation in the way of errour a great block to stop up the way of many who might be gained for ever returning when men know they may have their own way and are at their libertie they will goe oâ—… the engagement of credit c. is much being in a way to continue in it they have no necessity of harkning to Councell or waighing arguments But the deniall of a Toleration and by positive Lawes commanding the contrary as 't is a great Preservative so 't is a Restorative and a meanes of recovering many when men see they cannot have their wils they will consider a little better what they doe as also review their former thoughts and so may be reduced yea multitudes have blessed God they have not been left to their owne libertie but that by severity of Discipline meanes have been used This evill of Tolerations and good of Coactions by Lawes hath been seen and approved of by long experience Augustine that holy and learned Father from the experience of this changed his judgement about Tolerations whereas it was his first judgement and he had in a former Book writ that it did not please him that Schismaticks should be compelled and forced to communion by the force of any secular power afterwards he was of another mind and writes that the grounds of his change were these 1. The great evill of Tolerations the great evill that impunitie made many run into 2. The great good compulsion conferred to the making of many better which he saw by many Examples of whole Cities converted from Donatisme and comming to the Unitie of the Church In the 48. Epistle formerly quoted he writes thus to Vincentius That it was his opinion at first that no man was to be compelled to the Unitie of the Church all was to be done by perswasion we were to strive by disputation and to overcome by reason lest we should make those fained Catholiques whom we knew to be open Heretiques but this my opinion was overcome not by words but by demonstrative examples for first of all my owne city was brought to me for an Example which being wholly for Donatus was converted to the Catholike Unitie by the feare of the Imperiall Lawes so many other cities were named and reckoned up to me to these examples brought me by my Colleagues I gave place we see not 〈◊〉 few men but many cities who were Donatists to be now Catholiques and vehemently to detest that diabolicall separation and zealously to love unitie which persons were by the meanes
and the temptations of company place condition draw you strongly though you thought it not But before I passe to other Reasons exprest by you in this page I cannot passe over the high and great words of your selves namely In this enquiry we lookt upon the word of Christ as impartially and unprejudicedly as men made of flesh and blood are like to doe in any juncture of time that may fall out the places we went to the condition we were in the company we went forth with affording no temptation to by as us any way but leaving us as freely to be guided by that light and touch Gods Spirit should by the word vouchsafe our consciences as the Needle toucht with the Loadstone is in the compasse Brethren it had been more humility and modesty to have suspected your selves and to have prefer'd in honour others before your selves and it had been more agreeable to the counsell of the Holy Ghost not to have thus extold your selves Who are you And what are you that you should affirme all this of your selves The Apostles St Paul Peter Iames and Iohn would not have spoken these words of themselves and indeed some of the words doe more suite the condition of Angells and the spirits of just men made perfect then men on earth subject to like passions as other men What! your condition c. afford no temptation to by at you any way but leaving you so freely c. 'T is such a piece of selfe-flattery and pride that hardly the Popes-parasites have in the sense of these words exceeded The great lights of the Church in the first Reformation Luther Calvin Knox c. would have blusht to have had these lines affirmed of them much more to have been spoken by themselves but how meanely soever you may think of the Reformers before you in comparison of your selves as some passages in your Apologie imply yet how know you who may come after you to excell you as much in light as you judge you doe the Reformers that went before you that you speake of the time that may fall out and is yet to come can you foresee what men are like to doe in aftertimes As for that expresse reason You had of all men the greatest reason to be true to your own consciences in what you should imbrace seeing it was for your consciences that you were deprived at once of what ever was deare to you In which passage you intimate your great sufferings above other men as if you above others had the greatest reason to be true to your consciences they not suffering like you I must tell you I know some men that for God and his truth suffered more in England then all you five and all your Churches put together did in Holland who yet were against your Church-way And for this reason there is little strength or truth in it and the former part of it is as likely to be true as the latter Let me sadly put the question to you How dare you affirme that for your consciences you were deprived at once of what ever was deare to you I Were not your wives children estates friends and lives deare to you Had you not all these with you 〈◊〉 and did you not in the Netherlands live in the best places in much plenty ease and pompe But what great deprivation at once is this of what ever is deare for men to take their own times and to goe in Summer time with Knights Ladyes and Gentlewomen with all necessaries into Holland and there to take choice of all the Land where to reside and with wives children in the midst of friends and acquaintance free from the feares and possibilities of vexations of the Spirituall Courts and Prisons to injoy all plenty and freedome as you did There are many would have been glad and still would be of such a deprivation at once as to be so Exiled into Holland to be able to spend two or three hundred pounds per annum there And I must here mind one of you in whose Name this reason is brought that this cannot be affirmed of him that for his conscience he was deprived at once of what ever was deare to him seeing he fled into Holland for words about State matters As for those other Reasons following You had no now Common-wealths to neare to frame Church-government unto you had no State ends or poloticall interests to comply with no Kingdomâ—… in your eye to subdue unto your mould no preferment or worldly respects to shape your opinions for Suppose all this to be true which you say which yet I for my part upon good reasons doubt what will you build upon it What followes that therefore you must alone be in the right for Church-government 't is denied it no way followes for many of the poore Anabaptists and Brownists had no new Common-wealths to reare not so many State ends and politicall interests to comply with as you as upon good reason and the experience of you here all men will grant and yet you confesse the Anabaptists and rigid Brownists are out of the way And besides had not many of the first Reformers as the Commissioners of the Church of Scotland well observe as few Common-wealths to reare as few State-ends or policicall interests to comply with as you Nay are not some of you greater States-men and polititians and looke more to preferment and worldly respects then ever they did And are there not amongst us in these times men differing from your Church-way that eye Common-wealths State-ends and politicall interests as little as you doe why then is all this brought in by you quorsum haec to what end is all this with the preceding passage but to insinuate with the people as if you alone were the men that lookt so impartially and â—…prejudicedly on the word as if you alone had no State-ends nor politicall interests noâ—… 〈◊〉 preferments in your eye and therefore in searching into the word have found out the right way but other men not having suffered as you and having State-ends and worldly preferments to looke to c. they are out of the way But as I said I doubt concerning all these grounds given by you You had new Common-wealths to reare to frame Church-goverment unto when you first fell to these principles namely the new Common-wealth of New-England to frame your Church-government unto where some of you were first bound in your thoughts and purposes as you well know and I shall make more evident in a following page And therefore the Church-government there might stand in your light when you first enquired into the Church-way and might cause some variation by you from the Primitive patterne namely to looke too much to that where you thought to have Ministery and Subsistence You had also some ends and interests and worldly respects to comply with in your going into Holland rather then new-New-England which you first intended and these may fitly be termed