IMPRIMATUR 18 March 1675 6. Rmo D no Arch po Cant. Ã Sacris domesticis Geo. Hooper A Serious and Friendly ADDRESS TO THE Non-Conformists Beginning with the Anabaptists OR AN ADDITION TO THE Perswasive to Peace and Vnity By W. A. Luke 22.32 When thou art converted strengthen thy brethren LONDON Printed by J. M. for Walter Kettilby at the Bishops Head in St Pauls Church-Yard MDCLXXVI THE PREFACE THE design of the following Address is to perswade to the Re-uniting of a divided Church And the unity of the Church is that which our Lord and Saviour earnestly and with reiterated Petitions prayed for to his Father and which his Apostles after him did with the most pathetical expressions they could well take unto themselves perswade the Christians to maintain By which we may perceive That the success of Christs design to be carried on by the Gospel does very much depend upon this Vnion which was the reason why the Heart of Christ and of his Apostles were so much set upon it And if so Then Divisions Sidings Factions and Disaffections in the Church and separation of one part of it from another must needs tend to frustrate and disappoint our Saviour in his design of Grace and to deprive the Church where these take place of the benefit and comfort in great part which he intended them in recommending the Christian Religion to them And then it will follow also That those who are most of the mind spirit and temper of our Saviour and his Apostles are and will be most tender lest they should make any breach in the Church or disturb the Peace of it and most careful to do what in them lies to repair breaches when made But contrariwise that those who are most venturous in making breaches upon pretences that will not abide an impartial tryal and least careful to close up those which are made are to that degree that they are so devoid of a Christ-like frame of mind and temper of spirit All which looks most unpleasantly upon so many as will not do all that they can do to prevent the farther growth of Schism and to heal the Churches wounds already made by it Considering all which and the deplorable state and condition of the Church in this Nation by reason of Schism and what men suffer and are like to suffer thereby in their religious interest I cannot imagine wherein or by what good men can better approve themselves to Christ in any one thing and more answer the Joy of his heart nor better serve their Generation than by endeavouring heartily according to the capacity they are in and the opportunity they have to promote the re-uniting of the divided parts of the Church of God in this Nation And if by endeavours of this nature any think I have acted more than comes to my share in this Address or otherwise it hath been out of the abundance of my affection to so good and necessary a work which will easily obtain pardon from those that are for peace I cannot say but that many attempts of this Nature have been made by others and endeavours used to this end But the reason why so little comes of it is because those who are the Aggressors or many of them would needs make themselves the Center of Vnion and Standard of Communion But how unreasonable it is to expect that an union should be brought to pass upon such terms or to think it fit that our breaches should lie open till it can is easie to apprehend For when will all Presbyterians think you be perswaded to turn Anabaptists or Independents or Independents to turn Anabaptists or Anabaptists to turn Independents or both to turn Presbyterians Or if they should when will those of the way of the Church of England fall in with them So that there seems a necessity of one of these two things either for all the subdivided parts of the Agressors to Re-unite themselves again to the Church of England from which they unduly rent themselves Or else to perpetuate our various Schisms until we have made our selves thereby a prey to the common Adversary And whoever are of the mind to put things on this issue and to run that hazard rather than to come to such terms of accommodation as are not sinful though otherwise not altogether such as they could wish will certainly shew themselves to be persons of but private selfish spirits regarding more their own personal satisfaction and private conveniency than the publick benefit of the Church in general a temper very unworthy a Christian and far from a laying down the life for the brethren It was the true Mother who was for yielding to her Competitrix rather than the Child should be divided Besides by continuing a Schism upon such terms which will not amount to any sufficient or just cause they make themselves accountable for all the dreadful effects of it Since then there is no probability that the Aggressors in their subdivisions will ever settle or unite upon any one of their narrow foundations it will I doubt not be much more becoming them as Christians for them all to reconcile themselves to the Church of England rather than to perpetuate such a complex Schism as we see hath cast both Church and Nation into a Convulsion and threatens its final ruin Do you or can you think that there is at this day after all tryals made any men upon Earth better Christians than many of those who have been bred in the Church of England since the Reformation from Popery and who have lived and died in her Communion I can hardly think that any sober intelligent person will venture to say there is And if not what is the matter then if nothing but the being very good Christians be your design why rather than to make a Schism that will not satisfie you for the attaining to it which hath been so successful for the effecting this end in so many other worthy persons as have left us an example of holy living worthy our imitation Why the matter as I apprehend it stands thus Those whose minds had been influenced and affected with the different principles of the old Non Conformists Brownists and Anabaptists before our late unhappy Civil Wars brake out took the opportunity which it gave them to begin a work of reformation in this Nation as they Notioned it to be And although they all still agreed with the Church of England in doctrines of faith and a holy life and in those doctrines wherein it opposeth the Church of Rome yea and in the substance of Divine worship also Yet they all opposed the Church of England in the external form of worship and in her order and Government But when they had done so they could not agree among themselves what form of worship and Government in opposition to all other is indeed of Divine Right but therein sharply opposed one another So that this so called Reformation produced more divisions and
separations and multiplied more and more monstrous Sects than ever there were in the Nation before Notwithstanding the sad experience of all which and notwithstanding the means used by the Higher Powers to reduce them yet it seems these several divided parts have thought themselves concerned upon one account or other still to carry on their esteemed Reformation in their several different ways and rather to run the hazard of all the ill consequences of their division in common from the Church of England and of their several subdivisions among themselves than to return to our Parochial Communion Now then the endeavour of the following Address is to shew these two things especially The one is That both the Principles and practice in many things wherein this Reformation endeavoured by them doth consist are really corruptions and things which ought themselves to be Reformed The other is that if any Emendation in matters Ecclesiastical shall be found convenient for the peace unity and stability of the Church of England as I will not deny but there may the present genius and temper of many of this Nation considered for Moses for the hardness of the peoples hearts by Gods direction put that into the body of the Law which otherwise would not have been ncessary Yet to seek this by separation from our Parish Churches and by gathering Churches out of them and by keeping assemblies in opposition to them is no good method of proceeding therein but such as tends to hurt the Church of God much more than to do it good and to set people back and not to bring them forward in that wherein the heart and spirit of true Christianity lies And for my Justification in this undertaking I have the old Non-Conformists so far on my side as that as Mr. Baxter saith Such as Mr. Cartwright Egerton Hildersham Dod Amesius Parker Bains Brightman Ball Bradshaw Paget Langly Nicols Hering and many such wrote more against separation than the Conformists did And the former writings of the present Presbyterians abound also with invectives against the practice of gathering Churches out of our Parish Churches Yea those who have been chief in the Congregational way have in their Apologetical Narration told the World That all that Conscience of defilement they conceived cleaved to the worship of God in our Parish Churches or of the unwarrantable power of Church Governours exercised therein did never work in any of them any other thought much less opinion but that multitudes of the Parish Congregations were the true Churches and body of Christ and the Ministry thereof a true Ministry And again We have always profest say they and that in these times when the Churches of England were most either actually over-spread with defilements or in the greatest danger thereof that we both did and would hold a Communion with them as the Churches of Christ I shall not offend you by making that improvement of these Concessions by reflections which the matter is capable of Only I heartily wish That for the honour of our Religion we may all be careful to do that which is good and commendable not only in the sight of God but also in the sight of men and that nothing may be done but what we can give some competent account of unto men A thing wherein you have left even such as wish you very well much to seek as not knowing how to reconcile your principles and your practice What hath been offered by some in order to it from the consideration of the different circumstances of former and present times Doctrine of Schism opened and applyed to gathered Churches A stop to the course of separation I must needs say falls very short of it and hath met with such a return from other some as hath even left it without any strength at all especially in that which relates to Lay Communion Now the God of love and peace at last lead us out of all those distractions and confusions into which our own weakness and folly hath betrayed us into paths of purity peace and love and bestow upon us all a spirit of love and of a sound mind that so we may all come to keep the unity of the spirit in the bond of peace A Serious and Friendly ADDRESS TO THE Non-Conformists Beginning with the Anabaptists SIRS NOW I am upon leaving the World by reason of Age some reasons have prevailed with me to leave behind me for you a few words not of bitter Contention but of Peace and to Edification and such only as are agreeable to a following the Truth in Love And in doing so methinks I might promise my self that what shall be thus offered will with a like mind be pondered and weighed by all such among you as in whom passion prejudice and partiality do not prevail more than that wisdom which is from above which is first pure then peaceable and easie to be intreated How unfit soever I may in other respects be thought for this undertaking yet my former experience in your way and the many serious and impartial considerations I have had about it may possibly have given me so much advantage for it as may excuse my present undertaking And besides if he that digged a pit Ex. 23.33 was to cover it no man need to wonder if I concern my self more than many others by endeavouring what in me lies to Cure the almost Epidemical Disease of Schism in some and to prevent it in others For however the general prevailing of it seems to have worn out that sense of the hainousness of it which the Church of God and all the famous Guides in it anciently had of it and to have changed its name and to be now adopted into the number of Virtues and to be esteemed an Ornament among too many yet I assure you it is not so with me who have seen and observed the dismal effects of it And doubtless it is not grown any whit the less hainous by prevailing so much as it hath done unless a thing becomes the less evil by how much the more mischief it does This evil took place presently after the Reformation from Popery and became a clog to it then as it hath been ever since And I know nothing so like to subvert the Reformation and at last to deliver us up again unto a Papal Power as this Sin of Schism Therefore blame me not if you find me endeavouring to awaken you into the same sense of it which I my self have If you will but take your measure of what it is like to produce among the whole Protestant party in the end if a stop be not put to it by what the divisions among your selves in the greatest part of your Congregations in this Nation hath brought forth especially in the West the prospect will be sad enough and such as one would think should create in you a great jealousy touching the practice of separating from other Protestant Congregations I should think it might well
fact it is true that more may and sometimes is made the condition of Communion than is necessary And when it is so it usually becomes a temptation to more or less to run into Schism and it likewise furnisheth such with some pretence to draw Disciples to themselves who are ambitions of Heading a Party In which respects it may be matter of great Prudence in order to the Churches Peace and Unity to make no more than is necessary the condition of Communion But although more should be imposed as the condition of Communion than is necessary yet if it be not so much more as makes it sinful to hold Communion on those terms Then they must needs be guilty of the sin of Schism who separate upon account of such an imposition And the reason is because such a Schism is without sufficient cause or just ground which just ground is when one cannot do otherwise than separate without a necessity of sining Things may be ill imposed as when they are inadequate to their end and yet well observed by them on whom they are imposed as when not sinful in themselves and when by that means they and the Church suffer less in point of inconvenience and enjoy a greater benefit in preserving Peace in the Church than could be obtained in a way of opposition If we should allow a liberty much more if we hold it a duty for inferiours under Government to oppose and withstand the Commands of their Superiours as oft as they think they Command things inconvenient though they should think right so long as they do not Command things which they know to be unlawful for them to observe we should soon bring intolerable confusion into Church and Common-wealth into Families and all Communities of men where Government is exercised Inconveniencies in such cases must be yielded to rather than greater mischiefs drawn on us and on the Community by not yielding But you at least many of you think that it is an infringing of your Christian liberty for men to determine and impose upon you where God hath not determined and imposed and that in such cases it would be a betraying of that liberty should you not withstand such impositions To which I answer that thus far 't is true that when any thing is imposed by men under the notion of being commanded of God of Divine Institution or of necessity to Salvation which is not so as this would be a teaching for Doctrines the Commandments of men so a yielding to them so imposed would be a betraying of our Christian liberty and more than so it would be a betraying of the Prerogative of our Lord unto the usurpation of men and a making to our selves other Masters than Christ and our selves servants of men in the prohibited sense and all contrary to the express Doctrine of our Saviour and his Apostles But though this be the case in the Church of Rome in many things and in some respects among your selves also yet this is not the case touching the things in dispute between you and the Church of England The things imposed at which you most stick are not at all imposed under the notion of Divine right but only upon a prudential account being things mutable in their nature and alterable at the pleasure of them who impose them and are so declared in the Preface before the Book of Common Prayer So that your Conscience is not imposed upon to take the things themselves for any other than they are in their own nature things left undetermined by God one way or other But then there is a sense in which it is not true that our Christian liberty is unduly infringed by the imposition of men although we were at liberty to do or not to do the things enjoined us before such an imposition was laid upon us Our Christian liberty does not exempt us from the duty of obedience to our Superiors in things which in their own nature are but indifferent and out of such circumstances might be done or let alone The same Divine authority which enjoins us to call no man on Earth Master nor to be servants of men enjoins Children also to obey their Parents Servants their Masters Church-members their Spiritual Guides and Governours and Subjects their Princes and that in all things in which they shall not disobey God in doing contrary to his Commands So that when things indifferent or undetermined by God are imposed by our Governours Domestick Politick or Ecclesiastick only as their Commands our Christian liberty is no bar nor plea against them And whoever pretends that it is draws too near the wicked Gnosticks who pretended exemption from being commanded and governed by men by their being Christs freemen Against which abuse of Christian liberty St. Peter cautioned the Christians then For after he had exhorted them to submit themselves to every Ordinance of man for the Lords sake 1 Pet. 2.13 14. he presently adds in ver 16. as free and not using your liberty as a cloke of maliciousness not to pretend Christian liberty to cover their disaffection to Government as the Gnosticks did Our Christian liberty is so far from being a bar to our Obedience to our Governours in all things not otherwise ordered by God as that it is a great accommodation to us in yielding obedience to them without scruple of Conscience For when circumstances in the external administration of holy things are left so much undetermined by God as they are we are at the greater liberty to yield obedience to the prudential determinations of our Governours either one way or other so long as they do not determine any thing against what God hath determined In things even of this nature we are to be subject to our Governours for Conscience sake Rom. 13.5 that is out of Conscience to God who commands our obedience to our Governours but not out of Conscience to the things commanded by them as if by any inherent holiness in them our Consciences were ingaged unto them And here lies the difference between superstition and lawful obedience to authority In the Case of Superstition the act is done out of Conscience to the thing done as if sacred though but indifferent in its own nature But in the case of lawful obedience in indifferent things the same act is done out of Conscience to God not as commanding the thing but as commanding my obedience to him in all lawful things who commands me to do it and commands it under no other notion but as a thing indifferent in its own nature and not made sacred by any command or institution of God Let me say this further to you There is more of real Religion and true Christianity in thus obeying the lawful Commands of our Governours out of Conscience to God who would have it so than I fear is well considered and more of Irreligion Profaness and Hypocrisie in slighting Gods express command in this while we seem so very fearful and scrupulous to
account of our divisions so as it never would have done if they never had been begun besides the hazard we run of exposing our posterities to lose the substance by our contending for circumstance and besides the temptation we have thereby put upon men to call the whole of Christianity into question and thereupon to give reins to their lusts more than ever before since the Reformation was first made I pray God so to bind the consideration of these things upon your minds that you may be awakened thereby out of I know not what dream into which a great many of the good people of this Nation have fallen There is nothing hardly in Christianity more evident than that matters of less moment are to give way to those of greater circumstance to substance conveniencies to necessaries a less convenience to a greater a greater inconveniency to a less duties only by Positive Institution to those which are morally or naturally such as might be shewed in many other Scriptures Hos 6.6 Mat. 12.4 5 6 7. besides those now touch'd on about Christian liberty And I think nothing gives a more direct contradiction to all this than the Schism that is made among us or the things by which it is made because by this you make matters of greater moment to truckle and yield to those that are less circumstance to substance matters necessary to those of conveniency a greater convenience to a less and so on For I appeal to the light of your own reason and to your Conscience whether the affairs of Religion in reference to the Church of God and to the World are so much concerned in having Gods worship and Ordinances administred in your way rather than in the way of the Church of England as they are in the peace and unity of the Church and in what depends upon them Whether the Souls of men in general both of those which adhere to you and of those which do not are advantaged by your way of administration above what they are and would be in the way of the Church of England more than they are hurt by the division and separation that is made about that difference Whether the Christian Religion be more honoured abroad in other Nations among Christians and Infidels by the one than hurt by the other Whether the Protestant Cause both at home and abroad gains more by the one than it is hurt by the other and whether more secured to posterity by the one than endangered by the other Whether error and heresie be more supprest by the one than propagated by the other and lastly whether Charity Humility and other Christian vertues or graces wherein the substance and power of Religion consists are farthered in your way above what they are and would be in the way of the Church of England more than they are hindered by Schism and separation Now if the affairs and concerns of Religion among men do in these and many other respects lose more by your Schism than they get by having the worship of God administred in your way rather than in the way of the Church of England as doubtless they do and the thing is too manifest to be denied Then you must needs be as certainly guilty of making matters of greater moment to stoop and submit to those of less as ever the Pharisees were of passing over the weightier matters of the Law and contenting themselves that they tithed Mint Anise and Cummin There is no such proportion of value in your way of external administration of holy things as different from that of the Church of England as makes it worthy to be put in competition with the peace and unity of the Church and what depends thereon For the Scripture no where lays any such injunction upon us to observe one way or manner of external administration of the right substance of worship supposing it to be done in common language as it does for the keeping of the unity of the spirit in the bond of peace nor gives any such caution against any external form of administration except that which is made in an unknown tongue as it does against the breach of the peace and unity of the Church and the many consequent ill effects thereof Nor is there any such utility in your way of administration as different from that of the Church of England as makes it worthy to be put in competition with the peace and unity of the Church I presume there is no sober serious Christian among you will say that your way of administration makes any such difference in the hearts and lives of Christians but that there were heretofore and are now Christians in Communion with the Church of England as sober righteous and godly as any among you I know nothing therein to hinder a man from being as holy and as good as he hath a mind to be It is the difference in mens more or less attendance to the substance of Christianity that makes them better or worse Christians and not their using different undetermined circumstances in the administration of worship And if it be so that your way of administration as different from that of the Church of England holds no such proportion of value or utility as makes it worthy to be brought in competition with the peace and unity of the Church Then for you to bring it into competition therewith nay to prefer it above the peace and unity of the Church and what depends thereon as it is apparent you do is a thing altogether unaccountable and a flat contradiction to that vein of Doctrine in the Scripture which I have mentioned above I know you will be ready enough to say that if it be so bad a thing in us to put undetermined circumstances in the administration of holy things into competition with the peace and unity of the Church as you say it is Then it cannot be good in them who by imposing such things upon us as conditions of Communion do put them into competition with the peace and unity of the Church also which is divided upon that account There is I grant little question but that the imposing of nothing as a condition of Communion but what is generally freest from exception is a very good way to preserve peace and unity in the Church But yet the using of some indifferent circumstances in the worship of God upon the first Reformation from Popery in this Nation was doubtless thought as convenient for the bringing people to Church then as ever a complying with the Jews in their usages not sinful in themselves was at the first Conversion of them to Christianity thought convenient to bring them to and to keep them in the Church then And though you think the case is so altered since the Reformation as that what was a reason of their use then to wit the bringing folk to Church is a reason of their dis-use and laying aside now as tending to the same end yet
Anabaptists more true to their principles than they and that then the baptizing of persons may be as well deferred till they have special grace as their particular Church-membership may and so upon that account among others have gone over to them Secondly hereby some who may have no saving grace are in great danger of being betrayed into self flattery and into a being confident that they have because so good and knowing a Congregation as they esteem such a Church to be hath judged that they have and so rest secure in an unsafe condition Which made several of the new-New-England Ministers after their long experience of the effects of this way at last in their joint answer to Mr. Davenports Apologetical Preface p. 43 44. to say thus Indeed when men confound these two and do tie visible Church-membership unto such conditions and qualifications as are enough to salvation this may tend to harden men and to make them conceit that if they be got into the Church they are sure of heaven whenas alas it may be they are far from it Thirdly A guiltiness of a great Schism in the Church and consequently of the many sad effects of it some of which I have mentioned before If the separation built upon the principle under consideration had been matter of duty by vertue of that principle they that have engaged in it would not have been accountable for the evils consequent upon it no more than they were of setting Father against Son and Son against Father Mother against Daughter and Daughter against Mother by preaching the Gospel Lu. 12.53 But whosoever hath undertaken a separation from though but part of the Church upon insufficient grounds and mistaken principles must be accountable for the ill effects and consequences of it until they repent and leave off as well as for the Schism it self which caused them But now I have already represented to you why a Judgment in the Church that persons have not saving grace cannot be the rule of non-admission of them to particular Church Communion supposing them to have been baptized into the Church Universal and I have shewed likewise how that in the account of Scripture such have been visible Church-members and externally related to God and to Christ and called by his name and denominated Saints upon another account than that of saving grace or internal holiness Which if truly represented then it cannot be matter of duty but the contrary to ground a separation from such Congregations as are constituted upon other terms and because they are so In that those of the Churches mentioned in Scripture have been stiled Saints it is no argument why none are to be admitted to Church-fellowship but such as are Saints in a saving sense though this principle of separation I now speak of is wont to be grounded on that For some in those Churches which were not Saints in that sense were yet stiled Saints from their being separated and set apart to own and profess the worshipping of the most holy God only and to be of his holy Religion as I have shewed both in this discourse and elsewhere more at large Saints then was the common appellation of those that profest the Christian Religion as Christian is now and was not then used to discriminate the sincere from the unsound Christians as it is now This was a device of a later date and is too like that of the Church of Rome which does appropriate the honour of being Saints unto such only as they esteem to have been eminently Religious The conclusion then is that if the separation of these friends with that of your own be unaccountable from the Scriptures then they and you must needs be accountable for it as an unlawful and naughty Schism and for the many evils produced by it until pardon be obtained by repentance which none can promise themselves but upon reformation THE last thing I shall observe from the foregoing discourse is that it doth afford us a substantial ground for National Churches That is it affords us ground to conclude that the whole body of a Nation who are baptized into the Universal Church and that profess Gods true Religion are in that respect subject matter of a Church though this is indeed a thing which lies cross to your thoughts and which you are wont to oppose with some indignation The whole body of the Nation of the Jews as was shewed before were by Gods call and their profession Abrahams Spiritual Seed and as such were Church matter and a Church inorganically considered And for the same reason if the whole body of a Nation now by Gods call and their profession of the true Religion become Abrahams Spiritual Seed in a sense they must needs be as well National Church matter as the Nation of the Jews were Now that other Nations which have profest Gods true Religion have thereby become Abrahams Spiritual Seed in a large sense as well as the Nation of the Jews ever were we have good reason to believe not only from the nature of the thing it self but also from the Scriptures The Lord said unto Abraham My Covenant is with thee and thou shalt be a father of many Nations a father of many Nations have I made thee Gen. 17.4 5. Which is not to be understood in a restrained sense of his being a father of many Nations by natural generation only but also if not only of his being a spiritual father of many Nations who were to derive their being and what they should be in a spiritual or religious capacity from him from whom the true saving doctrine hath been since propagated first to the Nation of the Jews and then to Nations of the Gentiles And thus St. Paul interprets the aforesaid promise of God to Abraham Rom. 4.16 17. That the promise might be sure to all the seed not to that only which is of the law but to that also which is of the faith of Abraham who is the father of us all as it is written I have made thee a father of many Nations Now if Abraham be hath been and shall be a spiritual Father of many Nations then many Nations must needs be his spiritual Children For Father and Children are corlaretives and in what sense the one is a Father the other must be his Children And when St. Paul saith if ye be Christs then are ye Abrahams seed Gal. 3.29 is true of all that are so and in the same sense in which men are Christs in that sense they are Abrahams Seed whether it be by profession only or by a sound Faith also And in correspondence to all this the Kingdoms of this World are said to become the Kingdoms of the Lord and of his Christ Which must be understood of their becoming professors of the Gospel of Christ or the Christian Religion Revel 11.15 And this hath come to pass according as was foretold by the Prophets as well as to Abraham himself To instance in one instead