Mystical and as Visible is but One however the Members and their Gifts and degrees of grace are many Sixthly It is One way of Faith and Holiness which all must walk in Seventhly And it is One end and happiness which we all expect and in One Heaven that we must meet and live for ever so many as are sincere in the faith which we profess And in Heaven we shall have one Mind and Heart and One employment in the Love and praise of our Creator and Redeemer and one felicitating fruition of his Glory for evermore Therefore he that seeth not the necessity of Unity knoweth not the Nature of the Church or Faith or true Religion The Honours and Benefits of Unity and the shame and mischiefs of Divisions may appear to him that further considereth the instances which follow First Our Union with the Church is a sign of our proportionable union with Christ And our separation from the Church doth signifie that we are separated from Christ. He that is United but to the Visible Church is but visibly by Baptism and Profession united to Christ such a union is spoken of in Ioh. 15. 2. Every branch in me that beareth not fruit he taketh away He that is united to the mystical Church of the Regenerate and spiritual is united to Christ by faith and by the spirit For his union to Christ is at the same instant of time with his union with the Church but in order of nature goeth before it He that is divided from this mystical Church cannot possibly at that time be a Member of Christ in the spiritual sense As the member which is cut off from the body is also separated from the Head And he that himself forsaketh the Visible Church as such sorsaketh the mystical Church and Christ himself For to forsake the Visible Church as such is to cease to be a Professor of Christianity One may be a Member of the Visible Church and not of the spiritual but you cannot be a Member of the spiritual Church if you forsake and refuse the visible Church as such For though a man may be regenerate by the Spirit before he make an open profession or be baptized and without baptism in some few cases yet so he cannot be if he refuse to be a Professor It s possible indeed to be a member of the Universal Church both as Mystical and as Visible as spiritual and as professing while we have not opportunity to joyn with any one particular Church or to separate from some particular Church without separating from the Universal But to separate from the Universal Church is to separate from Christ. But then you must understand that the Universal Visible Church is nothing else but all professing Christians in the world as visibly subjected to Christ as their Head And that there is no such thing in being as the Papists call the Catholick or Universal Church that is the universality of Christians subjected to one Vicar of Christ as their Head either Constitutive or Governing Such a pretended Head is an Usurper and no true authorized Vicar of Christ And therefore such a Church as such is nothing but a company of seduced Christians following such a traiterous Usurper And to separate from the Pope is not to separate from Christ or from his Church Secondly Consider also that Union is not only an Accident of the Church but is part of its very essence without which it can be no Church and without which we can be no members of it It is no Kingdome no City no family and so no Church which doth not consist of United members As it is no house which consisteth not of united parts And he is no Member which is not united to the whole It is the great course of mens boldness in dividing ways that they take union to be but some laudable accident while it may be had which yet in some cases we may be without and think that separations are tollerable faults even when they are forced to confess them faults But they do not consider that Vnity is necessary to the being of the Church and to the being of oâ—r own Christianity Read 1 Cor. 12. Ephes. 4. Thirdly Remember also that our Vnion is necessary to our Communion with Christ and with his Church and to all the blessings and benefits of such communion Ioh. 15. 4. Abide in me and I in you As the branch cannot bear fruit of it self except it abide in the Vine no more can ye except ye abide in me for without me ye can do nothing If a man abide not in me he is cast forth as a branch and is withered and men gather them and cast them into the fire and they are burned And Col. 2. 19. From the Head all the body by joynts and bonds having nourishment ministred and knit together increaseth with the increase of God The member that is cut off from the body hath no life or nourishment from the head or from the body but is dead He that is out of the Church is without the Teaching the holy worship the prayers and the discipline of the Church and is out of the way where the spirit doth come and out of the Society which Christ is specially related to For he is the Saviour of his body And if we leave his hospital we cannot expect the presence and help of the Physician Nor will he be a Pilot to them who forsake his Ship Nor a Captain to them who separate from his Army Out of this Ark there is nothing but a deluge and no place of rest or safety for a soul. Fourthly The Unity of Christians is their secondary strength Their primary strength is Christ and the Spirit of grace which quickeneth them And their secondary strength is their Vnion among themselves Separation from Christ depriveth men of the first and separation from one another depriveth them of the second An Army is stronger than a man And a Kingdom than a single person A flame will burn more strongly than a spark And the waves of the Ocean are more forcible than a single drop A threefold Cord is not easily broken Therefore it is that weak Commonwealths do seek to strengthen themselves by confederacies with other States The Church is likened to an Army with Banners both for their Numbers their Concord and their Order And therefore Christ saith that a Kingdom divided cannot stand Union is the Churches strength And what good soever they may pretend Dividers are certainly the weakeners and destroyers of the Church And as those means which best corroborate the body and fortifie the spirits do best cure many particular diseases which no means would câ—re whilst nature is debilitated So are the Churches diseases best cured by uniting fortifying remedies which will be increased by a dividing way of Reformation Dividing is wounding and uniting is the closing of the wound There is no good work but Satan is a pretender to it when he purposeth to destroy
a Heretick or an impenitent sinner and to be excommunicated or not and the Church where he liveth is divided about it if the matter be but referred to the Pope as the supream Judg it is but going to Rome and sending thither all the parties and witnesses on both sides and the Pope can decide it much more judiciously than those that are on the place and know the persons and all the circumstances And all this may be done in three years time or less if wind and weather and all things serve And if all the persons die by the way the controversie is ended If one part only die let the longer liver have the better and be justified Or if the Pope will rather send Governours to the place to decide the controversie whether the next Lords day you shall hold communion with such a man or not and so forward its like in a few years time some of them may live to come thither And if you must still appeal to the Pope himself for fear lest a Priest be not the infallible or final Judg and can do no better than other folks Priests you may after all have the liberty of the voyage And if you cannot in that age get the case dispatched yet you must believe that you have appeared to the only center of Unity This cheating noise and name of Vnity hath been the great divider of the Christian world And under pretense of suppressing Heresie and Schism and bringing a blessed peace and harmony amongst all Christians the Churches have been set all together by the ears condemning and unchurching one another and millions have been murthered in the flames inquisition and other kinds of death and those are Martyrs with the one part who are burnt as Hereticks by the other And more millions have been murdered by wars And hatred and confusion is become the mark and temperament of those who have most loâ—dly cried up Vnity and Concord Order and Peace It is a common way to set up a sect or faction by crying down schism sects and factions And a common way to destroy both Unity and Peace by cryâ—ng up Unity and Peace Therefore let not bare Nâ—mes decâ—ive you Remember that one of the old sects or factions of carnal Christians cried up Cephas that is Peter and said we are of Cephas which I know not how they could be blamed for if he was the Churches Constitutive or Governing Head 1 Cor. 1. 12. and 3. 22. And remember that the Church is not the body of any Apostle but of Christ and that all the Apostles are but the nobler sort of members and none of them the Head 1 Cor. 12. 27 28. Now ye are the body of Christ and members in particular and God hath set some in the Church first Apostles secondarily Prophets thirdly Teachers c. But Bellarmine aware of this hath devised this shift that the Pope succeedeth Peter in more than his Apostle-ship even his Head-ship But when he hath proved Peter more than an Apostle and the Pope his successor he will do the business Till then we must say that if the Pope were but a good Priest or Bishop below an Apostle we should give him more honour than his treasonable usurpation of Christs prerogatives is like to procure him For he that will needs have all shall have none and he that exalteth himself shall be brought low and he that will be more than a man shall be less than a man DIRECT LVIII Take heed of Superstition and observe well the circular course of zealous superstition malignity formality and peevish singularity and schism that you may not be misled by respect of persons I mean that First Indiscreet zeal and devotion hath been the usual beginner of Superstition Secondly Malignity in that age hath opposed it for the Authors sake Thirdly In the next age the same kind of men have adored the Authors and made themselves a Religion of the formal part of that superstition and persecuted those that would not own it Fourthly And then the same kind of men that first made it do oppose it in enmity to those who impose and own it and suffer and divide the Church in dislike of that which was their own invention IT is marvellous to observe this partial dance But Church-History may convince the understanding Reader that so it hath been and so it is First the zeal of some holy persons doth at first break forth in some lawful and in some indiscreet and unwarrantable expressions Secondly the malignant enemies of Godliness hate and oppose these expressions for the sake of the persons and the zeal exprest 3. When they are dead God performing his promise that the memory of the just shall be blessed Prov. 10. 7. The carnal party of that age as welâ— as others do honour those whom their fore-fathers hated and murthered Math. 23. 29 30. Wo to you scribes and Pharisees hypocrites because ye build the tombs of the Prophets and garnish the sepulâ—hres of the righteous and say If we had been in the dayes of our Fathers we would not have been partakers with them in the blood of the Prophets Wherefore ye be witnesses to your selves that ye are the children of them which killed the Prophets Fill you up then the measure of your fathers The wicked of one generation kill Gods servants and the wicked of the next Generation do honour their names and celebrate their memorial The reason is because it is the Life of Godliness which the sinner is troubled with and hateth And therefore it is the living saint whom he abhorreth But the name and form of Godliness is less troublesome to him yea and may be useful to make him a Religion of to quiet his conscience in his sin And therefore the name of dead saints he can honour and the form of their worship and corps of piety he can own And having become so Religious both his former enmity to living holiness and his carnal zeal for his Image of Religion engage him to make a stir for it and persecute those that are not of his way And when the zealous and devout people of that age see this they loath that carkass or Image which the formalist contendeth for and many â—lye from it with too great abhorrence for the persons sake who now esteems it forgetting its original and that it was such as they that set it up and were the first inventers For instance The most of the persons whom the Papists now keep holy dayes for were very religious godly people And the zealous Religious people of that age did think that the honouring of the memories of the Martyrs was a great means to invite the infidels to Christianity and to encourage the weak to stick to Christ And therefore they kept the dayes of their martyrdome in thanksgiving to God and in honour of them The wicked of that age hated and persecuted both the Martyrs and them that honoured them In the next age Religion
your foul back-biting reviling censorious contentious tongues do not prove the contrary 13. who is a wise man and endued with knowledge among you Let him shew out of a good conversation his works with meekness of wisedome that is Let him that would be thought more knowing and religious than his neighbours be so much more blameless and meek to all men and excel them in good works v. 14. But if ye have a bitter zeal for so is the Greek word and strife in your hearts glory not in such a zeal or in your greater knowledge and lie not against the truth 15. This wisdome descendeth not from above as you imagine who father it on Gods word and spirit but is earthly sensual or natural and devillish O doleful mistake that the world the flesh and the Devil should prove the cause of that conceited spiritual knowledge and excellency which they thought had been the inspiration of the spirit v. 16. For where zeal and strife 〈◊〉 that is a striving contentious zeal against brethren there is confusion or tumult and unquietness and every evil work O lamentable reformers that set up every evil work while they seemed zealous against evil v. 17. But the wisdome that is from above is first pure then peaceable gentle and easie to be intreated full of mercy and good fruits without partiality or wrangling and without Hypocrisie And the fruit of righteousness is sown in peace of them that make peace when peace-breakers that sow in divisions and contention shall reap the fruit of unrighteousness though they call their way by the most religious names Thus I have briefly shewed you what Vâ—nity and Division are that wrong apprehensions draw you not to sin DIRECT VIII When any thing needeth amendment in the Church remember that the best Christian must be the forwardest to reformation and â—he backwardest to Division and must search and try all means of Reforming which make not against the concord of the Church I Do not here determine in what cases you may or may not separate from any company of faulty Christians I only say that you must never separate what God hath conjoyned the Holiness and the Vnity of believers If corruptions blemish and dishonour the Congregation Do not say Let sin alone I must not oppose it for fear of division But be the forwardest to reduce all to the will of God And yet if you cannot prevail as you desire be the backwardest to divide and separate and do it not without a certain warrant and extream necessity Resolve with Austin I will not be the chaff and yet I will not go out of the floor though the chaff be there Never give over your just desire and endeavour of Reformation And yet as long as possibly you can avoid it forsake not the Church which you desire to reform As Paul said to them that were ready to forsake a sea-wrackt vessel If these abide not in the ship ye cannot be saved Many a one by unlawful flying and shifting for his own greater peace and safety doth much more hazard his own and others DIRECT IX Forget not the great difference between casting out the wicked and impenitent from the Church by discipline and the godlies separating from the Church it self because the wicked are not cast out The first is a great duty The second is ordinarily a great sin THe question is not Whether the impenitent should be put away from Church-Communion That 's not denied But whether you should separate from the Church because they are permitted This is it which we call you to beware Not but that in some cases a Christian may lawfully remove from one Church to another that hath more light and purity for the edification of his soul. But before you separate from a faulty Church as such as may not lawfully be communicated with you must look well about you and be able to prove that thing which you affirm Many weak Christians marking those Texts which bid us avoid a man that is an Heretick and to have no company with disorderly walkers and not to eat with flagitious persons do not sufficiently mark their sense but take them as if they call'd us to separate from the Church with which these persons do communicate Whereas if you mark all the Texts in the Gospel you shall find that all the separation which is commanded in such cases besides our separation from the Infidels or Idolatrous world or Antichristian and Heretical confederacies and no-Churches is but one of these two sorts First either that the Church cast out the impenitent sinner by the power of the Keyes Secondly or that private men avoid all private familiarity with them And both these we would promote and no way hinder Thirdly but that the private members should separate from the Church because such persons are not cast out of it shew me one Text to prove it if you can Let us here peruse the Texts that speak of our withdrawing from the wicked 1 Cor. 5. Is expresly written to the whole Church as obliged to put away the incestuous person from among them and so not to eat with such offenders So is that in 2 Thes. 3. and that in Tit. 3. 10. A man that is an Heretick after the first and second admonition avoid Unless it be a Heretick that hath already separated himself from our communion And then it can be put private familiarity which we are further to avoid In brief there is no other place of Scripture that I know of which commandeth any more I have before shewed that abundance of Church corruptions or of scandalous members were then among them and yet the Apostle never spake a syllable to any one Christian to separate from any one of all those Churches Which we cannot imagine that the Holy Ghost would have wholly omitted if indeed it had been the will of God Obj. But then why did Luther and the first Pretestants separate from the Church of Rome and how will you justifie them from Schisme Ans. Its pity that sloth and sortishness should keep any Protestant or Papist either in such ignorance as to need any help to answer so easie a question at this day Let not equivocal names deceive us and the case is easie By the word Church the Scripture still meaneth first either the Universal Church which is the body or Kingdome of Christ alone Secondly or particular Congregations associated for personal communion in Gods worship But the Pope hath feigned another kind of thing and called it The Church That is The Vniversality of Christians as headed by himself as the constitutive and governing head Whereas first God never instituted or allowed such a Church Secondly nor did ever the Universality of Christians acknowledge this usurping Head Shew me in Scripture or in Church-History that either there ever was de facto or ought to be de jure such a thing in the world as they call the Church and I profess I will immediately turn