Common-wealths suffer In troublous times the walls and temple of Jerusalem went but slowly on Though Jesus Christ the head be the only fountaine of spiritual life yet the usual way of Christs strengthning it and perfecting thereof is the fellowship of the body that by what every joynt supplies the whole may be encreased when Church-members are put out of joint they are made unserviceable and unfit to perform their several offices They who were wont to join in prayer sacraments fasting and were ready to all mutuall offices of love are now fallen off from all 4. It s opposite to the future estate of the Church in glory In heaven the faithful shall be of one mind wee shall all meet saith the Apostle in the unity of the faith Eph. 4.13 when we are come to our manly age Wrangling is the work of child-hood and folly and a great peice of the folly of our child-hood Lutheâ— and Calvin are of one mind in heaven though their disciples wrangle here on earth OBSERVATIONS 1. Naturally men love to be boundlesse Obs 1. they will not be kept within any spiritual compasse nor endure to bee held in any bounds This according to one signification of the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Apostle Jude aimes at in this place Wicked men are sons of Belial they cannot endure the yoke of Christ though it be sweet and easie They break his bonds asunder and cast away his cords from them Men love to have liberty to damn their own souls Psal 2 3. Hos 4 16. They back-slide like a back-sliding heifer Though men account it no unwelcome streightning to them to have a fence between them and their bodily enemyes yet they cannot endure those limits and bounds of Gods law or corrections which stop them from sin their fear of hurt makes them love preservation their love of pleasure makes them desirous of sinful liberty How good a sign of a gracious heart is it rather to desire to be in Christs inclosure then in Satans champain to account Christs service our liberty and Satans liberty our bondage How just also is God in suffering sinners to take their course and swinge in the wayes of sin and destruction They who wil not be kept within Gods compass are deservedly left to Satans disposall They who are back sliding heifers who will not endure the yoke are justly threatned to be suffered to be as a lamb in a large place without a keeper or preserver They shall have their fill of liberty but their liberty is like that of the Deer which though it were gotten out of the park-pale yet it was at the cruel curtesie of the hounds On the contrary God is very gracious in stopping up his churches way though with a thorny hedge Oh happy thorns that stop us in our waies to hell Such thorns are better then roses The setting up of the thorny hedge Hos 2.6 is a promise a branch of the Covenant Our separation from Rome cannot be charged with schism Obs 2. This will evidently appear if we consider either the ground or the manner of our separation 1. For the ground and cause thereof our separation from Rome was not for some slight and tolerable errours but damnable heresies and grosse idolatries The heresies fundamental and idolatries such as those who hold communion with her cannot but partake of In respect of both which the church of Rome was first Apostatiz'd before ever we separated nor was there any separation from it as it had any thing of Christ or as it was Christian but as it was Romane and Popish The Apostacy of the Roman church which was the ground of our separation appeared sundry ways 1. In that she did thrust the Lord Jesus the great and onely teacher of the church out of the chair and in it placed the Pope as the infallible Doctor of the church to whom she ties her beliefe and subjects her faith though he alwayes may and oft doth rise up against Christ himself 2. The Scriptures the alone rule of faith the Romanists slight and impiously despise and make them an insufficient rule of faith by joyning their over-fond and false traditions to it by preferring a vitious and barbarous interpretation before the sacred originals by making the holy Scriptures to have neither life nor soul nor voice till the interpretation of the church or rather the Pope be added 3. They have depraved the great and main article of faith concerning the justification of a sinner the nature whereof though the Scripture makes to stand in the remission of sinnes and the application of Christs righteousnesse by faith yet they ascribe it partly to Christs and partly to our own merits and righteousnesse in which respect that of the Apostle sutes with them Christ is become of no effect to you who are justified by the law 4. Though the worshipping of the immortal and invisible God under any visible image or representation or the likenesse of a mortal creature be frequently and expresly forbidden in Scripture Ecclesia Romanaeusus admittit basce trinitatis imagines caeque pinguntur non solum ut ostendantur sed ut adorenâ— tur In 3 Aq. 9.29 art 3. yet they set forth and teach the worshiping of the Father under the image of an old man the Son under the image of a Lamb and the holy Ghost of a Dove And Cajetan confesseth that they draw these images of the Trinity not only to shew but to adore and worship them To these I might add their maiming or rather marring the Sacrament of the Lords Supper their denying the cup to the laity Their ascribing of remission and expiation of sin to the sacrifice of the Mass their seven Sacraments their praying to Saints Auge piâ—s justitiam Reisque dona veniam Solve vinela reis Profer lumen Coecis Psalt Rom. and ascribing to the Virgin Mary the bestowing grace and glory pardon of sin c. Their dispensations with the most hideous and bellish abominations as murders incest Sodomy c. for mony c. 2. For the second the manner of our separation it was not uncharitable rash heady and unadvised nor before all means were used for the cure and reformation of the Romanists by the discovery of their errors that possibly could be thought of notwithstanding all which though some have been enforced to an acknowledgment of them they still obstinately persist in them Our famous godly and learned reformers would have healed Babylon but she is not healed many skilful Physicians have had her in hand but like the woman in the Gospel she grew so much the worse By praier preaching writing yea by sealing their doctrine with their bloods have sundry eminent instruments of Christ endeavoured to reclaim the Popish from their errors but in stead of being reclaimed they anathematized them with the dreadfullest curses excommunicated yea murdered and destroyed multitudes of those who endeavoured their reducement not permitting any to trade
and discipline and herein if they shall either be hindred or negligent private Christians shall not be intangled in the guilt of their sin if they be humbled and use all lawful means for remedy though they do communicate 6. Let them search whether there be any Scripture warrant to break off communion with the Church in the ordinances when there is no defect in the ordinances themselves only upon this ground because some are admitted to them who because of their personal miscarriages ought to be debarred The Jewes of old though they separated when the worship it self was corrupted 2 Chron. 11.14 16. yet not because wicked men were suffered to be in outward communion with them Jerem. 7.9 10. nor do the precepts or patterns of the Christian Churches for casting out of offenders give any liberty to separation in case of failing to cast them out and though the suffering of scandalous persons be blamed yet not the communicating with them 1 Cor. 5.11 Rev. 2.14.15.20.24 The command not to eat with a brother who is a fornicator or covetous c. concerns not religious but civil communion by a voluntary familiar intimate Conversation either in being invited or in inviting as is clear by these two Arguments 1. That eating which is here forbidden with a brother is allowed to be with an heathen but it s the civil eating which is onely allowed to be with a heathen therefore it s the civil eating which is forbidden to be with a brother 2. The eating here forbidden is for the punishment of the nocent not for a punishment to the innocent but if religious eating at the Sacrament were forbidden the greatest punishment would fall upon the innocent the godly Now though such civil eating was to be forborne yet it follows not at all much lesse much more that religious eating is forbidden 1. Because civil eating is arbitrary and unnecessary not so religious which is enjoyned and a commanded duty 2. There is danger of being infected by the wicked in civil familiar and arbitrary eatings not so injoyning with them in an holy and commanded service and ordinance 3. Civill eating is done out of love either to the party inviting or invited but religious is done out of love to Jesus Christ were it not for whom we would neither eat at Sacrament with wicked men nor at all To conclude this separation from Churches from which Christ doth not separate is schismatical now it s clear in the Scripture that Christ owneth churches where faith is sound for the substance and their worship Gospel-worship though there be many defects and sinfull mixtures among them And what I have said concerning the schismaticalnesse of separation because of the sinfull mixtures of those who are wicked in practise is as true concerning separation from them who are erroneous in judgement if the errours of those from whom the separation is made be not fundamental and hinder Communion with Christ the head And much more clear if clearer can be is the schismaticalnesse of those who separate from and renounce all Communion with those churches which are not of their own manner of Constitution and modeld according to the platform of their own particular church-order To refrain fellowship and communion with such Churches who professe Christ their Lord whose faith is sound whose worship is Gospel-worship whose lives are holy because they come not into that particular way of church-order which we have pitcht upon is a schismaticall rending of the church of Christ to pieces Of this the church of Rome are most guilty who do most plainly 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and circumscribe and bound the church of Christ within the limits and boundaries of the Romane jurisdiction even so as that they cast off all churches in the world yea and cut them off from all hope of salvation who subject not themselves to their way Herein likewise those separatists among our selves are heniously faulty who censure and condemn all other churches though their faith worship and conversation be never so scriptural meerly because they are not gathered into church order according to their own patterns In scripture churches are commended and dignified according as their fundamental faith was sound and their lives holy not according to the regularity of their first manner of gathering And notwithstanding the exactest regularity of their first gathering when churches have once apostatiz'd from faith and manners Christ hath withdrawn communion from them and most severely censured them And this making of the first gathering of people into church-fellowship to be the rule to direct us with whom we may hold communion wil make us refuse some churches upon whom are seen the Scripture characters of true churches and joyn with others onely upon an humane testimony because men onely tell us they were orderly gathered It should be our care to shun separation Obs ult To this end 1. Labour to bee progressive in the work of mortification the lesse carnal we are the lesse contention and dividing will be among us Are ye not carnal saith the Apostle and he proves it from their divisions separation is usually but very absurdly accounted a sign of an high grown christian we wrangle because we are children Jam. 4.1 and are men in malice because children in holinesse wars among our selves proceed from the lusts that war in our members 2. Admire no mans person the excessive regarding of some makes us despise others in respect of them when one man seems a gyant another will seem a dwarfe in comparison of him This caused the Corinthian schism Take heed of man-worship as well as image-worship let not idolatry be changed but abolish't Of this largely before upon Having mens persons in admiration 3. Labour for experimental benefit by the ordinances Men separate to those churches which they account better because they never found those where they were before to them good Call not Ministers good as the young man in the Gospel did Christ complementally only for if so you wil soon cal them bad Find the setting up of Christ in your hearts by the Ministry and then you will not dare to account it Antichristian If with Jacob we could say of our Bethels God is here wee would set up pillars nay bee such for our constancy in abiding in them 4. Neither give nor receive scandals give them not to occasion others to separate nor receive them to occasion thine own separation watch exactly construe doubtfull matters charitably Look not upon blemishes with multiplying glasses or old mens spectacles Hide them though not imitate them sport not your selves with others nakednesse Turn separation from into lamentation for the scandalous 5. Be not much taken with novelties New lights have set this church on fire for the most part they are taken out of the dark-lanthorns of old Hereticks They are false and fools fires to lead men into the precipice of separation Love truth in an old dresse let not antiquity be a
every way to remove punishment but the right so that they pine away in their iniquity Lev. 26.39 and though their books were torn yet their lessons not learned 2. These seducers are compared to dreamers in sleep in regard of their dreaming that is their vain false empty imaginations dotages doctrines which in the end like dreams deceived themselves and their followers A dream when a man sleepeth seems to have truth and reality in it but when he awaketh it quite vanisheth away he who utters his own foolish conceits and vain delusions is in common speech said to dream and to speak his own dreams and thus these seducers in stead of the truths of God vented their own fables and groundlesse fictions fancies and dreams In this sense Epiphanius understands the Apostle Jude 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Epiphan adv haer cap. 26. p. 96. when he call's these seducers dreamers Jude speaks not saith he of them who dream'd in bodily sleep but of such who utter their words like them who dream and not like those who speak with the sobriety of such who are awake To the same purpose speaks Irenaeus likewise lib. 1 cap. 20. They put off sath he their own dreams for divine oracles And such have been the dreams of Enthusiasts and of the Anabaptists in Germany one of whom as Sleidan reports cut off his own brothers head in the presence of his parents pretending that he did it by an immediate revelation and command from God The false Prophets are in Scripture oft call'd dreamers because they delivered not the truths of God but the vaine figments of their own deluding and deluded fancies As Deut. 13.3 Jer. 23.25 where the Prophet who saith I have dreamed I have dreamed is by Jeremiah said to be a Prophet of the deceit of his owne heart These seducers of whom Jude speaks being asleep in sin Irenaeus vocat Gnosticos Oniro pompos sua somnia quasi oracula Dei ventilantes lib. 1 cap. 20. deceived themselves and hearers with dâ—ctrines vain opinions and especially false hopes of pleasure and liberty in sin though when their consciences awaked they found themselves miserably deluded by Satan and their own sensual hearts Thus Zophar speaks Jâ—b â—0 8 that the hypocrite shall flie away as a dream that is as the good dreamed of or the joy of a dream which is short vanishing and deceiving so Psal 73 20. As a dream when one awaketh so O Lord when thou awakest shalt thou despise their image Isa 29.8 and thus the Prophet compares the temper of the people under all the judgments of God unto that of a deluded dreamer who pleaseth himself with dreaming of food and fulnesse and when he awakes in stead of a furnisht table and a fill'd stomack finds and feels himself more indigent and nearer famishing then ever he was before Thus the fond sinner is dreaming of a kingdome when he is going to execution and when Jael's nail is nearer his temples then a crown He blessing himself in his heart and saying that he shall have peace though he live in a way of warring against God And sundry ways may sinners delude themselves like dreamers by their vain and groundlesse conceits as 1. in dreaming of their persons 2. of their actions Of their Persons 1. dreaming that they are not so bad as others because they abstain from gross apparent and notorious abominations thus the Pharisee deluded himself Luk. 18.11 Some dream that they have not such and such corruptions because God restrains them from the outward acts of sin as if the rest and silence of corruption alwaies came from the renovation of the spirit whereas it comes not from the want of a mind disposed to sin but of an object proposed to draw forth corruption Others dream that if they had lived in the daies of Christ the Prophets and Maâ—tyrs they would not have persecuted them Though they bitterly oppose those in whom the Image of Christ shines and they who cannot endure that spaâ—k of holinesse in a Saint how could they have loved that flame which was in Christ and hate those most in whom the piety and zeal of the holy Martyrs and Saints of old is revived 2. Sinners delude themselves in dreaming that they are in a good and happy estate before God Rev. 3.17 Gal. 6 3. being indeed miserable and bad Thus some dream that God loves them Psal 69.22 Heb. 12.6 because he gives them wordly prosperitie whereas the prosperitie of the wicked is their ruin and God oftenest gives it in wrath and denies it in love Some dream that their condition is happy because they are civily honest in the world whereas their irreligious honesty is as bad as unhonest religion and except your righteousnesse exceed c. Matth. 5.20 Others dream they are happy because they have been born in the Church and enjoy its priviledges 1 Cor. 10.5 Matth. 7.22 23 whereas a barren fig-tree is nearer cursing then a bramble and they who received Sacraments every meal were destroy'd in the wildernesse Some dream of happinesse because they have some kind of Knowledg Faith Repentance Obedience whereas their knowledg transforms them not it 's light without heat Their faith applies in a sort Christ to them not themselves to Christ but to their lusts their repentance respects the punishment of sin not the sin to be punished they hate sin for hell not as hell and in their tears sin is rather bathed then drowned their obedâ—â—nce is not a serving of God but of themselves upon God they serve God for by-respects Hos 1.4 and in their obedience they aim not at obedience 2. Sinners delude themselves in dreaming concerning their actions that they are good 2 Sam. 6 7. because done with a goâ—diatâ—ntion not considering that a work may be good in a maâ—s own eyes Pâ—ov 16 25. and the issues thereof the waies of death or that they are warrantable because of the example of the multitude whereas the most are the worst and the whole world lies in wickednesse Some dream that small sins are as none as vain thoughts idle woâ—ds whereas the least sin is the bâ—each of a great and royoll Law and an offence against a great God and thoughts and words shall be both brought into judgment Some dream that the outward works of the Law are sufficient whereas the Law in every command is spirituall and binds the heart as well as the hand and they who made their Philacteries broad made the expositions of the Law too narrow Some dream that their actions are good because followed with successe whereas the goodnesse of the action is not to be judged by the goodnesse of the successe but the goodnesse of the successe by the goodnesse of the action plenty could not justifie sacrificing to the Queen of heaven Jer. 44.11 Some because of the corruption of their natures dream of excusing their actions they are but men say
reverence the godly who are departed this life is to be led by that spirit whereby they were led while they lived 2. Observ 2. Threatnings denounced by divine warrant should deter us from sin If Enochs prophesie which was of divine authority foretell judgments they must not be slighted As divine promises should uphold and comfort us in our lowest and weakest estate so should divine threatnings make us tremble and affright us from sin in our greatest strength and highnesse The Ninevites by fearing evils foretold by Jonah against them prevented the feeling of them Josiah holily feard and his heart was tender and he humbled himself when he heard what the Lord spake against Jerusalem 2 Kings 22.19 when Micah the Morashite prophesied in the dayes of Hezekiah King of Judah saying Zion shall be plowed like a field c. Hezekiah feared besought the Lord. Jerem. 26.19 A judgment denounced by God cannot be kept off by power there 's no might or strength against the Lord. The hand of the Lord is not weakned nor is his arme shortned when he minds to deal with his most potent adversaries As God can Create deliverances when he intends to shew mercy so can he create judgements when he purposeth to punish The truth of a threatning will break through the greatest improbabilities of its approaching Though the Caldeans were all as wounded men if he threaten to punish by them Jer. 37.10 they shall be victorious against the unrepenting Jewes There 's no way of flying from God but by flying to him the way to get out of the reach of judgments threatned is to repent by the threatning of them nothing but our repenting sincerely can make God repent mercifully Oh how foolish a madnesse is it by politique endeavours to imagine a prevention of judgments divinely threatned or by persecuting the prophet to think to overthrow the prophesie The Prophets d ee they live for ever yet my words and my statutes which I commanded my servants the Prophets did they not take hold of your fathers Zech. 1.5 Paul suffered trouble even unto bonds but the word of God saith he is not bound 2 Tim. 2.9 3. Obs 3. Sinners should look upon the threatnings denounced against others for sin at belonging to them without repentance The wicked against whom Enoch immediately prophesied were such as lived ungodlily in his time and yet the Apostle saith that he prophesied against these seducers The reason is because these lived in the same sins with those wicked ones of old As the promises made to the godly who lived in former times belong to those who imitate them in succeeding ages so the threatnings denounced against former sinners are denounced also against those who follow them in sin and that by the constant analogy and proportion of justice unlesse these repent they shall likewise perish Luk. 13.3 Strong is the inference of the Apostle Rom. 11.21 If God spared not the naturall branches take heed lest he also spare not thee Threatnings denounced against and inflicted upon those who lived in former times manifest Gods equall dislike of those who shall live in the same sins in succeeding ages he shewing thereby that he is prepared if they will also sin to doe what he hath done against those who lived before them Though Gods forbearance towards some shews that sometime he can spare sinners yet his punishing of others shews that he never loves sin In all ages God is the same he abhors sin in all the ages of the world Psal 7.12 Obs 4. Psal 119 100 Mibi pro archivis est Jesus Cristus Ignat. Mos diabo licus est ut per antiquitatis traâ—ucem commendetur fallacia Aug. qu. 114 nov et vâ—t Test nor will he goe out of his way to gratifie mens lusts changing is not Gods property but the sinners duty If he turn not he will whet his sword 4. Doctrines of greatest antiquity are only to be imbraced as they consent with the testimonies which come from the infallible Spirit of God Enoch though the seventh from Adam and so very ancient yet only is to be believed in what he said as speaking by prophesie and receiving what he delivered from divine revelation Whatsoever doctrines proceed not from or agree not to this are notwithstanding all pretences of antiquity to be rejected as spurious The Papists who have no patronage from Scripture have but a rotten support for their opinions which pretend to greatest antiquity Custome without truth is but the antiquity of error Cypr. Ep 74 The most proudly swelling allegations of the ancients are but like a swoln leg which though it be big is yet but weak and unable to bear up the body Religioâ— is auto ritas non est tem pore metienda Arnob. Contr. Genâ— 2. the authority of religion must not be measured by time We reverence the ancient fathers and hold it our duty to rise up before the hoar head and to honour the person of the aged but still with reservation of the respect we owe to their father and ours that Ancient of daies Non veritas antiquitatis sed antiquitas veritatis Ecclesiae authoritatem confert Riv. contr Q. 7. p. 224. the hair of whose head is like the pure wool Dan. 7.6 In opposition to him we must call no man father Matth. 23.9 Nor yet is this said as if Papists were able to produce better proof out of the testimonie of the ancients for their errors then we can do for the truth but to give the word of God its due which is that rock upon which alone we build our faith The truth is Papists have removed the ancient land-mark which the Father 's set that so they may invade anothers possession Christus veritatem non se consuetudinem coguominavit Tert. l. de vel virg c. 1. their traditions are new boundaries their doctrines of Merits Image-worship Equivocation Transubstantiation Denyal of Priests marriage Power of the Pope are new and upstart not only to the Scripture but even to the writings of the Ancients This for the preface The prophesie it self of the last Judgment followes And in that first of the note of incitement to cause regard to the following description of the judgment in the word Behold EXPLICATION The word Behold is in Scripture used principally these two waies 1. As a note of manifestation of the truth reality certainty of a thing to be observed or believed Thus it s used Mat. 28.20 Behold I am with you to the end of the world Gen 1.29 Apoc. 3.8 9 11 20. Psal 37.36 Zech. 9.9 Matth. 28.20 Gal. 5.2 Behold I have given every herb bearing fruit Gen. 28.15 Behold I am with thee and will keep thee Apoc. 2.10 Behold the devill shall cast some of you into prison Apoc. 9.12 Behold there come two woes more Mat. 26 45. Behold the houre is at hand and the Son of man is betrayd c. Job 5.17 Behold 1.
buy or sell to have either religious or civil communion with them except they received the beasts mark in their hands and forheads All which considered we might safely forsake her nay could not safely do otherwise Since instead of our healing of Babylon we could not be preserved from her destroying of us we did deservedly depart from her and every one go into his own Country and unlesse we had so done Jer. 51.9 we could not have obeyed the cleare precept of the word Apoc. 18. Come out of her my people c. Apoc. 18.4 Timothy is commanded to withdraw himself from perverse and unsound teachers Though Paul went into the Synagogue 1 Tim. 6.3.5 disputing and perswading the things concerning the Kingdome of God yet when divers were hardned and beleeved not Acts 19.9 but spake evill of that way 1 Cor. 10.14 he departed from them and separated thâ— disciples And expressely is Communion with idolaters forbidden 2 Cor. 6.14.17 what fellowship hath righteousnesse with unrighteousnesse what Communion hath light with darknesse what concord hath Christ with Belial what agreement hath the temple of God with idols Come out from among them and be ye separate And Hos 4.11 Though thou Israel play the harlot yet let not Judah offend and Come ye not unto Gilgal neither goe ye up to Bethaven Though in name that place was Bethel the house of God yet because Jeroboams calf was set up there it was indeed Bethaven the house of vanity If Rome be a Bethaven for idolatry and corrupting of Gods worship our departure from it may be safely acknowledged and justified In vaine therefore do the Romanists Stapleton Nic. Sanderus de visib monar eccles praefat ad lect Staplet demonstrat Princ. fid l. 4. c. 10. Sanders others brand our separation from them with the odious imputation of Donatisme and schisme it being evident out of Augustine that the Donatists never objected any thing against nor could blame any thing in the Church from which they separated either for faith or worship whereas we have unanswerably proved the pseado-Catholick Romane-Church to be notoriously guilty both of heresie and idolatry and our adversaries themselves grant in what ever Church either of those depravations are found Communion with it Schisma aliud malum aliud bonum Malum quo bona bonum quo mala scinditur unitas Musc de schism is to be broken off I shall conclude this discourse with that passage out of Musculus concerning schisme There is saith he a double schisme the one bad the other good the bad is that whereby a good union the good that whereby a bad union is broken asunder If ours be a schisme it is of the later sort 3. Obs 3. The voluntary and unnecessary dividing and separation from a true Church is schismaticall When we put bounds and partitions between it and our selves we sin say some as did these seducers here taxed by Jude If the Church be not hereticall or Idolatrous or do not by excommunication persecution c. thrust us out of its Communion If it be such an one as Christ the head hath communion with we the members ought not by separation to rend and divide the body To separate from Congregations where the word of truth and Gospel of salvation are held forth in an ordinary way 1 Tim. 3.15 as the Proclamations of Princes are held forth upon pillars to which they are affixed where the light of the truth is set up as upon a candlestick to guide passengers to heaven To separate from them to whom belong the Covenants and where the Sacraments the seals of the Covenant Rev. 1.13 and for substance rightly dispensed where Christ walketh in the midst of his golden Candlesticks and discovers his presence in his ordinances whereby they are made effectuall to the Conversion and edification of soules in an ordinary way where the members are saints by a professed subjection to Christ and his Gospell and haply have promised this explicitely and openly where there are sundry who in the judgement of charity may be conceived to have the work of grace really wrought in their hearts by walking in some measure answerable to their profession I say to separate from these as those with whom Church Communion is not to be held and maintaind is vnwarrantable and schismaticall Pretences for separation I am not ignorant are alledged Frequently and most plausibly that of mixt Communion and of admitting into Church-fellowship the vile with the pretious and those who are chaff and therefore ought not to lodge with the wheat Answ 1. Not to insist upon what some have urged viz. that this hath been the stone at which most Shismaticks have stumbled and the pretence which they have of old alledged as having ever had a spiritum excommunicatorium a spirit rather putting them upon dividing from those who they say are unholy then putting them upon any godly indeavours of making themselvs holy as is evident in the examples of the Audaeans Novatians Donatists Anabaptists Brownists c. 2. Let them consider whither the want of the exact purging and reforming of these abuses proceed not rather from some unhappy obstructions and politicall restrictions whether or no caused by those who make this objection God knowes in the exercise of discipline then from the allowance or neglect of the Church it selfe Nay 3. Let them consider whether when they separate for sinfull mixtures the Church be not at that very time purging out those sinfull mixtures and is that a time to make a separation from a Church by departing from it when the servants of Christ are making a separation in that Church by reforming of it But 4. Let it be seriously weighed that some sinfull mixtures are not a sufficient cause of separation from a Church Hath not God his Church even where corruption of manners hath crept into a Church if purity of doctrine be maintained and is separation from that Church lawful from which God doth not separate did the Apostle because of the sinful mixturess in the Church of Corinth direct the fuithful to separate Must not he who will forbeare communion with a Church till it be altogether freed from mixtures tarry till the day of judgment til when we have no promise that Christ will gather out of his Church whatsoever doth offend 5. Let them consider whether God hath made private Christians stewards in his house to determine whether those with whom they communicate are fit members of the Church or not or rather whether it be not their duty when they discover tares in the Church in stead of separating from it to labour that they may be found good corne that so when God shall come to gather his corn into his garner they may not be thrown out Church-officers are ministerially betrusted with the ordering of the Church and for the opening and shutting of the doors of the Churches Communion by the Keyes of doctrine