God the Father Son and Holy Ghost Let us therefore take up with this Description in our future Agreements and in the practice the Prudent and Charitable will not presume to censure any Mans Profession as Incredible coram Ecclesiâ without proof Let us therefore unanimously set up Confirmation or if you dislike the Name the Tryal and Approbation of the Profession of all that are entered among the Adult Church Members And if any are too loose on one side or too rigid on the other in the practical part the judging and accepting or refusing of the tryed let the Matter be debated at the Synods of the Consociate Pastors if there be any Accusatio◠put in 2. We are Agreed that Consent is necessary to Church-Membership And that it must be a signified consent And that the most express consent is best to the well being of the Church caeteris paribus but yet that a darker way of signifying may serve to the Being of the Church Let us therefore thank God that we live in days of Liberty wherein we may all use the most edifying way and accordingly let us Agree to call our people to an express consent But if any deny this let them not be thereupon disowned but forborn so be it they will perform the whole work of their Ministry faithfully towards all that they take for their Charge 3. We are Agreed that it 's lawful for a particular Church to consist of no more than can meet in one place And yet that it is not necessary to its Being that actually they do all meet in a place Let us therefore resolve to confine our particular Churches ordinarily to a Parish Unless it be where Parishes are so small or fit persons so few that it is fit to lay divers of them together as to Church ends Yet so that if any refuse this Agreement and will needs take four or five Parishes for distinct worshipping Churches and yet but one Governing Church in the Officers we bear with them and allow them the liberty of their way so be it they will faithfully perform the work both of Worship and Discipline to them all 4. We are Agreed that it is lawful and meet that Neighbour Pastors be advisers and helpers in the Ordinations of Presbyters and yet that they are truly Presbyters if they be Ordained but by the Presbyters of a particular Church And in cases of Necessity if unordained Let us therefore Agree in practice that Ordinations be ordinarily performed by the Advice and Assistance of the Synod of the Associated Pastors or some deputed Members of it The case of Ordination by Bishops I handle elsewhere and not here And if any refuse this let them be forborn so be it they be Ordained by Lawful Presbyters of their own Church or any other with whom we be not bound to avoid Communion And if any Congregation through Error have no true Officers in the judgment of the Synod for want of true Ordination yet let us hold such Communion with that Congregation if other things correspond as is due to a Neighbour Community of Christians though not as is due to a Political Society 5. We are Agreed that the Pastors are by Commission from Christ appointed to be the Rulors of the Churches and the people commanded to obey them And that it is they that are the Authorized Teachers of the Flocks and are to Administer the Sacraments and Ministerially to bind or loose And yet that the people are to be Governed as Freemen and are not to obey apparently unrighteous censures and therefore are by an Obediential Judgment to discern what is fit to be obeyed and what not Let us therefore practise according to this Agreement and let the Pastors Rule and let the people Obey but not Obey against Gods Word And therefore let the people have so far cognizance of the Cause and their conse be required as is necessary to their free discerning safe Obedience and to the Churches Peace And if any Pastors will make more use of the peoples consent and others less let us forbear each other till some ill consequents produce an accusation at the Synod and then let the case be heard and judg'd 6. We are Agreed that a Pastor of one Church may Exercise divers acts of the Pastoral Office in another if he be called to such Exercise pro tempore We need not therefore mention this in our further Forms of Concord but leave each Man to his Liberty If any Pastor think he may not Exercise his Pastoral Office abroad let him stay at home But let them have Liberty that are otherwise minded 7. We are Agreed that a particular Church that hath a Presbytery may Exercise all Acts of Worship and Government within it self that are appertaining only to it self And that Synods should be used for Communion of Churches where things that concern the Churches in common or their Communion with one another should be heard and judged Let us therefore give way to particular Churches to enjoy their Liberty and let all the Churches be link'd together and the Pastors associate and meet in Synods for such Communion Yet so that if any one in weakness shall refuse to Associate or be an Ordinary Member of such Synods being caetera sanus we shall not therefore withdraw our Brotherly Love nor that distant sort of Communion of which he is capable Though we must disown his way lest others be tempted to the like Division 8. We are Agreed that no Men should bury their Talents and that the Gifts of our people that are suited to the profiting of others should be used to as publick benefit as may be so it be orderly regularly in their Callings in a due subordination to the Ministry and under their direction for the helping and not the hindering of their Work according to the forementioned limitations There is no Difference therefore among us here that is needful to be taken notice of in our Form of Concord it being between particular persons and not parties that the difference lyeth And actual miscarriages are to be enquired after as other Crimes in the several Churches and Associations 9. We are Agreed that all Parishes that have in them a people professing Christianity and consent to live as particular Churches in Communion for Gods Worship are true Churches as that word doth signifie a Community of Christians And if they have true Pastors they are true Churches as the word Church doth signifie a Political Society of Christians capable of the ordinary actual worshipping of God in the publick use of all Church Ordinances But because it is not to be expected that we should all be acquainted with the qualifications consent or practice of the people in all the Parishes of the Land nor of the Ministers call it is not therefore to be expected that we be made Judges of the state of all Parishes nor that we put our judgment of all or any of them by Name into our Form of Concord
of a further Agreement with those that have been their Ejecters They have agreed to take no Members out of any of your true Pastoral consenting Churches without a just hearing and satisfactory Reasons to them But I hope you take not all your Parishioners even Atheists Papists and Infidels for your Church Members Noâ— yet all your Auditors and Catechumens but only your Communicants And is it not better that they be Members of Nonconformists Churches than of none I have elsewhere cited you the Canons of a Council decreeing That if the Bishop of the place convert not any Heathens or Unbelievers and another convert them they shall be his Flock that did convert them in my Hist. of Councils Would they but first admit the Excluded to Publick Lectures where the Incumbent consenteth it would prepare the way for further Concord The Great Reconciler will in due time reconcile and closely Unite his own Amen Apr. 11. 1691. Ri. Baxter To the UNITED Protestant Nonconformists IN LONDON THough I was by the Confinement of decrepit Age and Pain hindred from having any part in the Form or Contract of your Agreement I think it my Duty to signifie my Sence of what you have done and by the Publication of my old Endeavours of that Kind to promote the Execution I greatly rejoyce in your very Attempt That God exciteth you to a practical desire of speedy healing our pernicious shameful Strifes Much more that you have so Skilfully made the present Plaister for the Wound No man doth any thing so well but it might be better done You must look that it should be assaulted by Cavil and Reproach Those that these Thirty Years have denied you Brotherly Communion with them will be loth you should be thought to have any Union among your selves And the Potent Schismaticks that to divert the Infamy from themselves have Stigmatized you with their own Name will be loth that your Concord should confute them while you offer your Reasons to prove that what they make necessary terms of Ministration and Communion would be to you if obeyed not medling with them no less than deliberate Covenanted Perjury or Lying and renunciation of repentance and amendment of Church-Corruptions and of the Law of Nature and Nations and the Kingdoms Self-defence they must stretch their Wits and gift of Tongue to make all this seem but a melancholy or feigned Fear and that it is but things indifferent that you refuse As they call me Antiepiscopal and against the Church because I would have more Bishops over a Thousand or many Hundred Churches than One and would have as many hands to do the work at least as are necessary to the Hundredth part of it and would have more Churches in a Diocess than one and would have Incumbents to be Pastors and Rectors But dreaming Men that build Cities or Travel in their Sleep can build more or go further in an hour specially if they lye soft in a University or a Great man's House than a waking Man can do in a Year or in his Life My own Judgment of Episcopacy and Church Constitution I have oft Published and you may see it in Lascitius and Commenius Books of the Bohemian Waldenses Church-Government Brethren I hope you fix not your Bounds of Pacification in the words or limits of this Form of Concord with a ne plus ultra Either when I am dead the Publick Church Doors will be unlock'd to your lawful Communion or not If yea it will be so great a Mercy that the Prospect of a Possibility of it will justifie my Publishing my old Reasons against unnecessary Antichurches or Militant contentious Gatherings But if God have not so much Mercy for this Land but that the Doors be lock'd up against desired Concord or Venient Romani our Foreign Jurisdiction men will prevail to deliver up the Land to a pretended Universal Foreign Power and make all believe that it is Treason to resist either a French or Irish Army if they be but Commissioned to perform it Then your Concord with such as are not Enemies to Peace will be a comfortable help to your patient Sufferings and may keep up some sparks of the Reformed Religion from being utterly extinguished And while you dwell in the Secret of the most High you may lodge under the shadow of the Almighty And may enter into your Chambers and shut the Doors on you for a little moment till the indignation be over-past and God be known by the Judgments which he executeth when the wicked are insnared in the work of their own hands Thus praying God to save you from violating the Concord you consent to and from being perverted by the ignorant Dividing sort of Teachers or People and that you will study Mr. Meade's Reasons against Division well and seasonably urged I bid you Farewel Your Quondam Fellow-Labourer Ri. Baxter London April 23. 1691. The Contents of the First Part. Chap. I. THe Necessity of Concord and Mischief of unnecessary Separations manifested in Twenty of the ill Effects Pag. 1. Ch. II. What is Incumbent on the Pastors for the Prevention and Cure hereof p. 13. Ch. III. The first Difference with the Independents Reconciled viz. Of the necessary qualification of Church Members p. 15. Ch. IV. The second Difference reconciled Of a Church Covenant p. 19. Ch. V. The third Difference reconciled Of the extent of a particular Church p. 21. Ch. VI. The fourth Difference reconciled whether a particular Church hath Power in it self to Ordain and impose hands on their chosen Pastors p. 23. Ch. VII The fifth Difference reconciled Of the first subject of the Power of the Keys Or of Right to Govern and Censure p. 25. Ch. VIII The sixth Difference reconciled Whether a Pastor of one Church may do the work of a Pastor in other Churches for that time being called to it p. 32. Ch. IX The seventh Difference reconciled Whether each particular Church hath Power to exercise all Government and Church Ordinances within it self without subjection to Synods or any other Clergy Governours as over them p. 33. Ch. X. The eighth Difference reconciled Whether Lay-men may Preach in the Church or as sent to gather Churches p. 38. Ch. XI The ninth Difference reconciled Whether the Parish Churches are true Churches p. 41. Ch. XII The tenth Difference reconciled Of taking Members out of other Churches and of Gathering Churches in other mens Parishes p. 42. Ch. XIII The sum of this Agreement reduced to Practice p. 55. The Contents of the Second Part. Q. 1. VVHat are the necessary terms of Communion of Christians as Members of the Universal Church p 62. Q. 2. What are the necessary terms of the Communion of Christians personally in a particular Church Q. 3. What are the terms on which Neighbour Churches may hold Communion with one another Q. 4. What are the terms of Communion between the Churches of several Kingdoms Foreign Iurisdiction is confuted in another Book Q. 5. What is the Magistrates
agreed that the Pastors a the Rulers and the people the Ruled that must obey and that the peop must be governed as rational free Agents and have a Freedom from Arbitraâ—â— Government and from all Commands or Sentences that are contrary to 〈◊〉 Word of God but not a Freedom from Obedience nor from the Blessing of P storal Conduct And we are Agreed that in order to Unity the Major Vo in lawful things must be submitted to and that a Minister having enterâ—… his dissent may forbear such reproofs or censures of a Heretick or Impious ma as would break the Peace of the Church and do more harm than good becau of the peoples sinful adhering to him so be it they own not the sin it seâ—â— nor do thus ordinarily to the excluding of Discipline For then I would leaâ—… that people What farther need then of a Reconciliation in order to our Coâ—…munion If any will not take in or cast out a Member without the peopâ—â— Major Vote let them take their Liberty And if any people had rather trâ—… their Pastors and Delegates with this Care and will more acquiesce in thâ—â— Judgments till they see cause to suspect them let them also have their Libâ—â—ty we can do nothing against the peoples wills but by proposal And if the pastors and people consent in these modal or circumstantial things it little concerneth Associated Churches Let this therefore be unmentioned and we are Agreed Chap. VIII Difference VI. THE sixth Difference is whether a Pastor of one Church may do the work of a Pastor in other Churches when he hath their consent and call Some have made a stir about this and dream'd that a Pastor may Preach out of his own Church but only as a private man and therefore may not Baptize Administer the Lord's Supper or exercise Discipline in any other Church But the Learned and Sober part of the Dissenters are become Consenters in the most of this so that here is little work for a Reconcilement For they confess that Ministers may as Ministers Preach and Administer the Sacraments to other Churches Indeed they say that this is only Charitativè not Authoritativè Herein they mistake For though such have not a stated Authority over another Church yet have they a temporary Authority as they are called For he that hath the Call and Power of Office and a Call pro tempore to exercise that Office hath Authority to exercise it and doth exercise an Authority for the Office essentially is an Authority But every true Minister of Christ that pro tempore is called to the Ministerial work in another Church hath an Office which is Authority and a call to exercise it Therefore But saith Mr. Norton p. 83. Hence it would follow either that there are occasional and partial Ministers pro tempore or that the same man is the fixed Minister of many Churches at once or that he is not the Minister of that Church where yet he hath Ministerial Authority Ans. None of all these will follow But only this that he that is either a stated Minister in the Church Universal or also a fixed Pastor of a particular Church may also be the temporary Pastor of another particular Church As a fixed Physicion of one Hospital or Schoolmaster of one School may upon a Call both Charitativè Authoritativè be for a Day or a Week the Physicion of another Hospital or the Schoolmaster of another School It is a contradiction to say He may exercise his Office and not Authoritatively Obj. But saith Mr. N. the Minister of this Church is not the Minister of another Church by the constitution of the Holy Ghost by whom every Minister is tyed to one certain Flock Ans. 1. A great Errour There should yet be general Ministers in the Church that should be itinerant and no more fixed where the Churches state so requireth it than Paul Barnabas Apollo Titus Timothy and abundance more then were Your own Argument is Pag. 80 81. Ex analogia Potestatis Ministrorum erga alias Ecclesias cum Potestatè Ministeriali erga omnes gentes sive omnem Creaturam Si Ministri Ordinarii virtute instituti habent Potestatem Ministerialem non Ecclesiasticam modo debito erga omnem creaturam habent aliquam Potestatem Ministerialem Ecclesiasticam modo debito erga omnem Ecclesiam At c. What need we more Is not Potestas Ministerialis Authority Then I know not what Authority is Authority is either Rational ex virtute aestimatione donorum or it is Imperial or Official which in all subordinate Officers is Ius agendi actus ejus Officii Ministerial Power is Ius Ministrandi Ministerial Authority is Ius Ministrandi Therefore he that hath Ministerial Power hath Ministerial Authority 2. No Minister is so tyed by the Holy Ghost to one certain Flock any more than one Schoolmaster or Physicion as not to exercise his Office by Authority pro tempore in another Flock when he hath a Call Charity and Authority go together Charity obligeth him to exercise his Office that is his Authority The rest of the Objections there an ordinary Reader may answer without help But yet here is nothing to hinder our Communion For 1. They grant us in Substance what we desire that is the temporary exercise of the Ministerial Office to the World or to other Churches according to their Capacities 2. If yet there be any difference in Principles let them that think Ministers have no Power out of their Congregation practice accordingly and stay at home Let them give us our Liberty in this and take theirs and the matter need not hinder our Communion Chap. IX Difference VII THE seventh Difference is about the Power of a particular Church to exercise all Government and Church Ordinances within it self without Subordination to Synods or any other as extrinsick Ecclesiastical Superiour Governours This is Pleaded for by the Independents in ordinary cases whence Mr. Cotton owns the Name of Independency Keys P. 29. 53. saith he A Church of a particular Congregation consisting of Elders and Brethren and walking in the Truth and Peace of the Gospel as it is the first subject of all Church Power needful to be exercised within it self So it is Independent upon any other Church or Synod for the exercising of the same Some of the Episcopal and Presbyterians deny them this and affirm that Synods are a Superiour Power and that particular Congregations without the lower sort of Synods called Classes may not Excommunicate and that in an ordinary Regimental order Congregations are under the Government of Synods and consequently say the Episcopal of the Heads of those Synods But the more moderate both Episcopal and Presbyterians hold that Synods oblige directly but gratia Unitatis Communionis Ecclesiarum and not directly by a Superiour Governing Power So Bishop Usher profest his Judgment to me and that a particular Bishop or Church was not subject to a Synod as their Superiour Governour