of which difference of knowledge and grace differences are apt more or less to arise among them The weak are apt to be more scrupulous than the strong as being more in the dark and so apter to stumble Whereupon the strong if they be not restrained by Humility and Charity are apt to despise them when they cannot make them understand what is plain and evident to them themselves And the weak again if they be not restrained by Humility and Charity are apt to judge and censure the strong as if they were not so conscientious because not so scrupulous as themselves And upon this despising and judging one another the bond of peace is broken and a way prepared for dividing For when the weak see themselves neglected slighted not regarded and set at nought by the strong it discourages them and takes off the pleasure of their Society and Communion and makes them weary of it and becomes a temptation to them to forsake it and to follow any opposite party that will head them And when the strong again find themselves judged and censured by the weak as if they were Men of little Conscience they are apt to look upon themselves as being by such prejudice taken up against them put out of a capacity of serving them which becomes a temptation to them to neglect them and somewhat to estrange themselves from them Or however though that temptation should not prevail so far upon them yet all endeavours of the strong to help and cure the weak are by the prejudice which the weak have against them when they once fall to judging them made very much ineffectual so mischievous and baneful to the Churches peace and Unity is proud despising and uncharitable censuring one another This was the case between the believing Jews and Gentiles upon which the first considerable breach we read of brake out in the Christian Church of which we have an account in Act. 15. and Rom. 14. and other places The believing Jews durst not use such liberty in meat as the believing Gentiles did nor did the believing Gentiles think themselves obliged to be circumcised and to observe Jewish Festivals as the believing Jews thought they were Hereupon the believing Gentiles which understood their Liberty despised the believing Jews when they could not make them understand it too And the believing Jews on the other hand fell to judging the believing Gentiles as looser than themselves and as Men of no Conscience because they did not make Conscience of Meats and days of Circumcision as well as themselves And upon this unchristian carriage of one towards another under their different apprehensions in these things great divisions sidings and disturbances among them did ensue Now that all such despising and judging one another and dividing from one another about their difference in lesser matters of doubtful disputation should be forborn by Christians so long as they agree in the essentials of Christianity St. Paul declares upon these two grounds among others 1. Because upon the Common Faith wherein they were both agreed they were at the first received by the Lord into his Church and so into a near Relation to himself And therefore their after-differences which did not destroy that Foundation upon which that Relation was first built were no sufficient ground of despising or judging one another or of dividing or withdrawing one from another This is plainly set down in these words Let him that eateth not despise him that eateth not and let not him which eateth not judge him that eateth for God hath received him Rom. 14.3 And this reason is farther backed and urged again Chap. 15.7 Wherefore receivere one another as Christ also received us to the glory of God Those whom God hath received into his Church upon such and such grounds we may not we ought not to discourage or reject by despising or judging or withdrawing so long as that remains in them upon which God at first received them Which holds in all other cases of difference between Christians that agree in the main as these did as well as in this between the believing Jews and Gentiles It is upon the like reason and ground that our Apostle in the words upon which I found my discourse and those following Ephes 4. presseth upon Christians the great duty of endeavouring to keep the Unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace viz. because they were at first incorporated into one Body by a profession and acknowledgment of one God and Father of all of one Lord Jesus Christ of one Holy Spirit of the Father and the Son of one Doctrine of Faith of one Hope of one Baptism Which fundamental points believed and lived to are sufficient to Salvation And if so they are sufficient bonds of Union and boundaries of Communion whatever difference in lesser things may otherwise occur For more in profession cannot be absolutely necessary to Church-Communion then what in reality is absolutely necessary to Salvation For as the one doth constitute the Church as invisible so doth the other the Church as visible And the same thing which constitutes the Church as visible must needs invest the Members thereof in a right to its external priviledges And if the Church had kept this her ground upon which she was first built and not made more conditions of Communion she had never been cut mangled and torn into I know not how many pieces as she hath been and at this day is And I see not any probability of her recovery to her primitive Union and Communion till she return to this her first Foundation of Union and boundary of Communion But a return to this would quickly do it if all Christians would acquiesce therein And why they should not as well as the primitive Christians the best Christians that ever the World saw did I understand not nor ever could hear any good reason to make me understand it 2. St. Pauls other reason why Christians that agree in the main as aforesaid should not despise or judge or withdraw from one another for their differing in lesser things is this because both parties differing but only so are to be presumed in the judgment of Charity to aim at the pleasing of God in what they differently hold and do For Charity according to which we are to guide our selves in all such cases of difference thinketh no evil but believeth and hopeth all things concerning others in the best sence and construction their Actions are capable of This was the case of the believing Jews and Gentiles they both aimed at the pleasing of God even in those things wherein they differed He that regardeeh the day regardeth it to the Lord and he that regardeth not the day to the Lord he doth not regard it He that eateth eateth to the Lord saith he for he giveth God thanks and he that eateth not to the Lord he eateth not and giveth God thanks Rom. 14.6 Both aimed at the approving themselves to God in
considerable hath betrayed many a one into that which St. Paul calls vain jangling 1 Tim. 1.5 6. The end of the Commandment saith he is Charity from which some having swerved or not aiming at as it is in the Margin have turned aside to vain jangling VIII Direction To the keeping of the Unity of the Spirit in the bond of Peace it s greatly necessary to take heed of dividing Principles Because these especially are the spring of irregular motion of breaking asunder instead of Uniting There are indeed other causes of unlawful divisions and separations but they scarce ever proceed to any height in producing such effects without this Pride Self-conceitedness Uncharitableness and affection of singularity are also causes of this evil but these usually Act under the colour of some one or more mistaken Principles I shall instance in some of them and insist the longer upon them because they are the Weapons in which Church-Dividers do usually put their trust Some of them relate to the qualification of Church-Members and the constitution of Churches some to the Worship performed in Churches and some to the Magistrates Authority enjoyning that Worship I shall begin with what concerns the qualification of Persons of which Churches are constituted I. Dividing Principle to be avoided That Churches Founded in Infant-Baptism are not to be held Communion with This tenet is built upon a supposition that Baptism administred to Infants is a Nullity is invalid and no Baptism and that therefore Churches made up of Pedobaptists are no true Churches To this I have two things to say 1. That they of this way will never be able to prove Infant-Baptism a Nullity 2. That if they could prove it an errour yet they cannot prove it to be an errour of that Nature as will be a sufficient ground of separation First they will never be able to prove it a Nullity and till they do prove it to be so they will never be able to justifie separation upon account of it For if they pronounce them no true Churches and renounce Communion with them upon that account they must prove their charge or lye under the blame of a false accusation and an unjust separation It lyes on their part to prove their refusing Church-communion with such to have a sufficient ground to justifie their practice If ever they prove Baptism administred to the Infants of Believers to be a Nullity it must be 1. By disproving their Church-Relation And 2. By proving their exclusion out of Christ's Commission to Baptize and thirdly by proving that the ends of Baptism are not attained when administred to them And that they are never like to do this consider what I have to offer to make you think so 1. That they cannot disprove such to be of the Church if they should atempt it I have two things to lay in their way First that the same Jewish Children which were visibly of the Church immediately before their Parents became Christians at the first ☞ continued to be so after The reason of which affection is this Because they were not under the dischurching cause of as many of the Jews as were dischurched and that was unbelief and wilful disobedience in rejecting the Gospel of which they could not be guilty by any Act of their own or of their Parents as imputed to them Because of unbelief saith St. Paul they were broken off Rom. 11.20 See also John 8.35 If it be said they were dischurched in the dissolution of the Jewish Church-state in general it is but an evasion which will not help them for the fore-cited Text is flatly against them For all that were not broken off by unbelief did continue unbroken off that is they still kept their place and standing in the Church of God And therefore to assign any other cause of dischurching any than the Scripture hath assigned or at least any other without this here assigned and determined by the Apostle is too great presumption and such as will not satisfie an impartial mind Secondly our Saviour hath declared little Children to be of the Church when he said of such is the Kingdom of Heaven Mat. 19.14 If any by Kingdome of Heaven have a mind to understand it of the Kingdom of Glory yet they may remember that none are of the Kingdome of Glory who were not first of the Church first of the Kingdome of Grace here So that it comes all to one understand it of which you will If they shall say that by Such here is not meant such in age but such in quality such as are like Children in Humility and Innocency The scope of the place and the purpose to which the words are applyed will not suffer them so to understand them For the words of such is the Kingdome of Heaven are our Saviour's reason by which he would take off his Disciples from hindering little Children properly taken from being brought unto him and of justifying their practice that brought them Suffer little Children to come unto me and forbid them not saith he for of such is the Kingdome of Heaven And if we should understand by such not such Children properly but Men like such in quality we destroy the force and sence of our Saviour's reason and render it wholly inconsequent For it doth not follow at all that because the Kingdome of Heaven is of other Persons like little Children in some other things but altogether unlike them in what was the matter of exception against their being brought to Christ which was their minority or infancy that therefore little Children properly understood ought to be suffered and not forbidden to be brought to Christ Such a rendring the sence would fasten a fallacy of four terms on our Saviour's words of putting one thing in the premises and another in the conclusion as you will see if you cast them into a syllogism Besides our Saviour plainly declared the Relation of little Children to himself when at another time he taking a little Child said Whosoever receiveth this little Child in my Name receiveth me Luk. 9.48 For how could a little Child be received in his Name if it were not visibly related to him To receive one in Christ's Name and to receive one because he belongs to Christ is one and the same thing Mark 9.41 1. If such Children then are of the Church and Related to Christ to Baptize them cannot be proved unlawful And the reason is because the same thing which qualifies any Persons for Church-Member-ship qualifies them for Baptism And Baptism is a sacred Rite of Christianity instituted by Christ solemnly to publish and declare such to be of the Church as are Baptized it is a Christian badge to declare to whom they do belong There is one Body and one Baptism for all of that one Body Ephes 4.4 5. 1 Cor. 12.13 2. If the Infants of believing Parents be of the Church it cannot be proved that they are excluded out of Christ's Commission to be Baptized Mat.
did all eat the same Spiritual meat and drank the same Spiritual drink By whose example he would have them take warning and not be flattered into a good opinion of themselves meerly upon account of their Baptism and holding Communion with the Church in Holy Administrations and being numbred among the Saints or Christians 1 Cor. 10. And truly they seem to be much more in danger of being betrayed into such a self-flattery who are not admitted to Church-fellowship upon their Christian profession unless besides that they can give such a satisfactory account to the Church of their conversion after they have been first received into the Church Catholique by Baptism in which there may be great mistake in them that so receive them And therefore the New-England Ministers in their Answer to Mr. Davenport's Apologetical Preface p. 43 44. say thus Indeed when Men confound these two and do tye visible Church-Member-ship unto such Conditions and qualifications as are reputed enough to Salvation this may tend to harden Men and to make them conceit that if once they be got into the Church they are sure of Heaven whenas alas it may be they are far from it But in all this there is nothing against the great usefulness and defirableness of Discipline in the Church for the Cure or Excommunication of the notoriously scandalous But yet a neglect of this in them to whom it belongs is no sufficient ground of separation from that Church where it is so neglected For though Discipline be necessary for the better being of the Church yet it is not of the Essence of the Church it doth not cease to be a true Church for want of it And the neglect of it in a Church is so far from being a reason why the better part in such a Church should separate from the worse as that it is indeed a reason against it why they should not Because where publick Discipline is wanting there is the more need of private application to delinquent Members which separation takes Men off from or at best puts them under a great disadvantage of doing that good among them thereby which otherwise they might Such a separation rather puts those separated from under a temptation of Making a party against them as is frequently seen and the division made and heightened thus on both sides tends more to weaken the Christian Interest in the main then all the exercise of Discipline in separate Congregations tends to promote it It s true if Christians were to mind only the pleasing of themselves it would be a pleasant thing for the good indeed to converse and hold Communion with such only as themselves But it will turn to a better account at last if by denying their inclination in this they help and bring on a worser sort and gain their Master ten Talent There should be more abundant honour given to that part which lacketh that there may be no Schism in the Body 1 Cor. 12.24 Our Saviour himself was chiefly for the bringing home of straying Sheep and as a Physitian to be among the sick rather then the whole Not because he loved them better but because they had more need and because he could thereby be more serviceable as to the main end of his coming into the World He came not to call the Righteous but sinners to Repentance to minister and not to be ministred to And to be this way employed seems to be more acceptable to God then to have to do only with the Righteous There is joy in Heaven over one sinner that repenteth more then over ninety and nine just Persons which need no Repentance And thus much I think may suffice to shew how unlikely yea how impossible it is to prove that the mixture of the bad with the good in the Parishes makes Communion with them unlawful 3. They cannot prove the constitution of parochial Congregations to be bad upon account of that distribution by which the whole Nation is divided into parts into so many Parishes which they are wont to call humane institution For first they are of the same institution in the main as those were which were planted by the Apostles themselves For from what were those called Churches but from the Christians usual Assembling together for Communion in Gospel-Ordinances The Greek word Translated Church properly signifying an Assembly And if the Parishioners in a Parish do usually Assemble together upon the same account are not those Gospel-Churches as well as the other and of the same institution Secondly for the Christians that live within the same Precincts or Parish-bounds to Assemble together for Communion in Gospel-Ordinances and so to be of the same particular Church and not of another is a thing which best answers the ends of particular Church-ship and the primitive patern For vicinity of Neighbour-hood and cohabitation which generally are not to be had so well in any other way as in that of parochial distribution do best accommodate those in Church-Relation with the knowledge of each others Condition and Conversation and with opportunity and advantage to watch over confer with and to admonish exhort and comfort one another and to Assemble together for publick Worship which are the ends of particular Church-association And accordingly the primitive Christians which lived together within the same civil bounds of Cities and Towns as of Corinth Cenchrea c. were constantly of the same Church and as such were still denominated by the places where they did reside And if some such distribution of the Christians in a Nation into several particular Worshipping Congregations as is now made by humane Authority is necessary of it self in reference to the Church-Association though no humane Authority had required it then certainly the command of humane Authority that it should be so cannot make it unnecessary much less unlawful 4. They cannot prove the Worship now used in our parochial Assemblies to be such as may not lawfully be joyned in The Lawfulness of Communion in the Worship of the English Lyturgy is the thing in question And if they cannot prove Communion in it unlawful neither 1. Because it is a set Form nor 2. Because it is such a set Form as it is nor 3. Because it is imposed then I shall take it for granted they cannot prove it unlawful any other way And whether ever they are like to prove Communion in that Worship unlawful upon any of those accounts consider what I have to offer and then judge 1. They cannot prove Communion in that Worship unlawful upon account of its being a set Form because they cannot prove all set Forms of Worship fotbidden We have Prayer several times commanded in Scripture but no where determined that it shall be extemporary that ever I could learn And therefore if the want of an express precept for praying in a set Form made praying in a set Form unlawful the same thing would make extemporary prayer unlawful too When God hath in Scripture plainly
into and more uncharitable in censuring others as carnal as time-servers as Men of the World only because of the National way and not of theirs though otherwise never so worthy Many of these are growing indeed but it is farther and farther into separation till at last they commence Quakers 4. If you prize your comfort prize harmony and good agreement not among this or that sort or party only but among all that do agree in things of absolute necessity to Salvation to all For those that are living and not dead or benumb'd Members of Christ's Body cannot but be pained with the rending of one Member of that Body from another If one Member suffer all the Members suffer with it 1 Cor. 12.26 Was it not a sad sight to see the Man in Mar. 5.5 cutting himself with stones And an Argument that he was possessed with an evil Spirit And I pray you how much less doleful is it to see the People of God Members of the same Body cutting and wounding themselves For so they do when they cut and wound one another For they are Members one of another Rom. 12.5 Alas how unnatural is this For no Man yet ever hated his own flesh Certainly where thus it is they are under a Spiritual phrenzy and madness and are objects of very great commisseration as well as occasions of great trouble and disturbance in the Church of God But O the Comfort of Love as the Apostle phraseth it Phil. 2.1 and the pleasantness of Peace and the delight of harmony which is like a well-tuned Instrument where there is no jarring Behold how good and pleasant a thing it is for Brethren to dwell together in Unity Psal 133.1 A great part of the comfort of a Christian in this World lyes in his Communion with Saints David said the Saints and excellent were all his delight Psal 16.3 And therefore a breach in this must needs make a breach in a Christians comfort 5. The Christian cause and interest in in the World calls loudly upon all such as would approve themselves to have any Love for it or to be any Friends to it and not betrayers of it to Unite and to close up the Divisions that are among us and not to persist in separating practises or to do any thing that contributes thereto but the contrary One great means of facilitating the belief of the Gospel and of propagating the Christian Religion and of bringing it into reputation in the World is the Union and good agreement of all Christ's followers And therefore he prayed so earnestly as we heard before that they all might be one as he and the Father are one that they also might be perfect in one and all for this end that the World might believe that the Father had sent him Joh. 17.20 21. That Men might believe that he came from God indeed and that he was no Impostor but that his Gospel is the infallible Truth and that Religion which is taught thereby is the only true Religion For Christ's followers are those by whom the Gospel is upheld in the World and held forth and witnessed to the World They hold forth the Word of Life Phil. 2.16 they are the Pillar and ground of the Truth 1 Tim. 3.15 And the more unanimous these are in judgment affection and testimony the stronger and more authentick will their testimony be the more Men will be drawn to consider it and to lay to heart the import of it But the more they are divided about it the more this Gospel this Religion comes under suspition in the minds of many and from their differing about lesser things the ignorant the weak and unbelieving will draw arguments of suspition and hesitation about the greater and be ready to conclude the uncertainty of the whole by their differing about a part especially when their difference rises so high and becomes so notorious and publick as it does when they separate about it This is lamentably experienced not only in the continued infidelity of Jews and Turks but also in that Atheism and Sceptiscism which hath so exceedingly increased upon us since these sad times of Division and Separation among us Our Divisions unsettle the minds unhinge and distract the Souls of many that they know not whom to follow or where to fix and by this means they are exposed to be practised upon by seducers and carried away Your Divisions encourageth seducers and the Adversaries of our Reformed Religion in their designs against you and invites them to attempt upon you So that as long as you keep up your Divisions they will make an advantage of it grow upon you and get ground and by little and little draw away your strength and in conclusion over-master you if by Uniting you prevent them not Your Adversaries know the meaning of divide them in Jacob and scatter them in Israel if you do not and of those words A Kingdome divided against it self cannot stand It hath been no doubt their practice by all the artifice they could to raise and foment your Divisions as it is still to continue and increase them as designing ruine to the Protestant interest thereby And will you gratifie them herein And become their Instruments to accomplish your own destruction and the destruction of that cause and interest which should be more dear to you then your Lives God forbid And therefore let no lesser interests of worldly advantage be it profit be it honour among Men or reputation among a party tempt you to betray this greater interest of your Lord and Master of Religion and of your Souls Be not herein penny wise and pound foolish Revive not that complaint Phil. 2.21 All seek their own not the things of Jesus Christ Expose not Religion to loss and dammage in the main and in the substance of it by being too tenacious of mutable Circumstances Be not so concerned for your Cabbin as to expose the Ship to sinking through your neglect I have now done Only remember I pray you that the things wherein the divided parties professedly agree are such as carry in them the main of Christianity and will make good Christians indeed if lived up to Whereas the things upon which we divide are but disputable opinions the best of which on the one side or the other will never make a good Christian without the other And you know what account God made of Men's zeal though it were for his own institutions as among the Jews of old when they were greatly guilty of sins against Charity Though Men be never so Orthodox in and zealous for their opinions yet if they have not Charity they are but as sounding brass or a tinkling Cymbal A wise Man will not therefore value himself by that which is proper to such or such a party but by that Charity Humility and Sobriety of mind with other graces which are common to those that are good indeed in each party and by these he will value any man of