and Prelats excommunications which belike doe still runne in your minde were brutish thunderbolts thrown out upon every small occasion presently and like the fooles dagger which is out to stab at every crosse word and makes but a word and a blow yet Gods Word teacheth godly wise Pastors and Presbyters more meeknesse and gravity in proceeding to the utmost censure that is first to reprove admonish and rebuke and if those more gentle meanes doe not prevaile then to suspend from the Sacrament which by experience is often found to humble stubborne offenders and bring them to repentance and so prevent cutting off from the Congregation And all godly Christians doe here see a double warrant of divine Authority First from Gods Word secondly from his blessing of this proceeding with good successe This is my first answer Secondly to your bold assertion That in the Old Testament we reade of no circumcised person ever debarred from the passeover by the Priests that was desirous to eat it I Answer that it is as void of truth as full of boldnesse For Levit. 22. 3. Numb 9. 5. and divers other places Every circumcised person who was legally unclean is forbiden to eate of the passeover or any holy thing under pain of being cut off and might not eat of it till he was cleansed and rightly prepared as appeares 2 Chron. 30. 3 the very chapter by you quoted according to the expresse words of the law Numb. 9. 11. And therefore much more ought baptized persons now under the Gospell who are manifestly unclean with the spirituall defilement of scandalous sin be suspended from the more holy Sacrament of Christs body and blood untill he be cleansed by repentance Thirdly to the instance of Judas whom our Saviour knew to be a devil and a traytour I Answer first that Judas was not admitted to the Sacrament for Judas went out before the Supper was ended immediatly upon his receiving of the sop Joh 13. 30. But our Saviour did not ordaine this Sacrament till after Supper Luk. 22. 20 When he had supped 1. Cor. 11. 25. Secondly if Judas had been admitted it makes nothing to the matter for Judas professed faith in Christ and in his outward conversation appeared so unblameable that when our Saviour told them that one of them twelve should betray him they did not suspect Judas more then themselves but every one asked saying Master is it I And indeed let a man be an hypocrite traytor or devil inwardly the Minister is not to judge of such secret things which belong to God but to looke to the outward profession life and conversation and accordingly deal with them Fourthly S. Pauls admonishing of the Corinthians of the great danger of unworthy receiving namely that it was eating damnation to themselves and making them guilty of Christs body and blood and thereupon enjoyning a strict examination of every one before he eat of that bread and drinke of that cup doth sufficiently instruct the elders to put back all such as did outwardly appeare to be scandalous impenitent sinners and so most unworthy to receive the holy signes and seales of the Lords body and blood Fifthly To that question of yours Whether a Minister hath not discharged his full duty and conscience if he doth admonish his flock of the danger of unworthy receiving and seriously dehort such as he deemes unworthy from receiving the Sacrament till they become more fit to participate under paine of eating and drinking their own damnation and other judgements I answer that this is no full discharge neither doe those Scriptures which you quote Ezek 33. 1 2 c. Act. 20. 16. or ours and French Liturgies prove any such thing in this case For they who suspend scandalous persons doe also admonish all others to examine themselves and mention the danger of unworthy receiving that none unprepared may presume It is a discharge of a Ministers duty when he admonisheth onely of the danger of a sin in which when it is committed the party admonished hath onely an hand But here the Minister is partaker of the sin and as much guilty by giving as the other by receiving I pray you tell me Sir if you have a cup in your hand which will poyson and kill a sick distemperd man if he drinke of it will you give it unto him if he desires it and doe you thinke it enough to admonish him that it is deadly poyson and first dehort him from drinking of it and then immediatly reach it to him with intent that he shall drinke of it I perswade my selfe that as he shall perish so his blood shall be required at your hands and that you shall as guilty hold up your hand at the barre for it Quest 3. The third Question intimates that you conceive unworthy hearing of the Word to be as great as dangerous as damning a sin as unworthy receiving of the Sacrament That Ministers are no more partakers of other mens sins not more guilty of their sins and of giving holy things to doggs and casting pearles before swine by giving the Sacrament of Christs body and blood to unworthy receivers who are openly scandalous then by preaching the Word to unprofitable hearers to whom he is the favour of death unto death And hereupon you would inferre that Ministers may as well refuse to preach the Word unto their people lest it should not profit them as they may refuse to give the Sacrament to scandalous persons who eat their own damnation To this I answer that there is vast difference between these two preaching the Word to unprofitable hearers and giving the Sacrament to persons openly scandalous impenitent and prophane receivers First a Minister preacheth the Word to many that are unprofitable hearers not knowing them to be such and in hope to convert and profit them if there be any such in the auditorie and so also he gives the Sacrament to some unworthy receivers unwillingly not knowing them to be such and in such cases he is blamelesse but if he gives the holy seales of Christs body and blood to scandalous impenitent persons he knowes that he gives them damnation to eat and drink and he is halfe sharer with them in the sinfull act And therefore though the sin of unworthy hearâ—â—â— of the Word is as dangerous and damning as unworthy receiving of the Sacrament to the hearen and receivers yet to the Minister in the one to weet preaching without knowledge of the hurt which some receive by it there is no fault but in giving to the scandalous receiver he wittingly acts and partakes of the profanation of the holy ordinance Secondly The Lords holy Table in the holy communion is for the time a place of Gods more speciall presence then the common Auditory and there we come neerer to God and receive with the word and promises particularly applyed to us the seales of our communion with Christ and of our right and interest in him and all his benefits But preaching
encouragement of men to live in scandalous sins without feare of suspension from the Lords table and to intrude boldly thereunto which is a power of grand tyranny and oppression of the Consciences of Ministers may in any but an evil sense be called a matter of grand importance Thirdly I wish with all my heart though now too late that these questions as in the title is pretended had first been propounded to the venerable Assembly For I doubt not but they then should have received such a solid and satisfactory Answer as would have staid the publishing of them in print and prevented the infection of the mindes of the vulgar people of weak judgement and saved us the labour of composing Antidotes against them Fourthly I pity the Author in that he hath so erred from his intended scope of these questions for his handling and carriage of them is so farre from preventing Schismes and setling unity among us in those divided times that on the contrary we finde by experience to our griefe that they worke strongly in corrupt and perverse mindes to the breeding and increasing of Schismes to the disturbance of the desired reformation in a point of greatest concernment and to the raising up of divisions and dissensions not onely among others but also betwen the Parliament and Assembly which is a strange practice in a lover of peace and truth The Preface The businesse of Excommunication and Sequestration from the Sacrament c. The Answer to the Preface before the questions 1. The businesse appeares plainely to be of no difficulty unlesse men will be difficult and through their owne averseness hardly perswaded to grant and establish that which Gods Word expressely holdeth forth and commendeth and which we hope and humbly pray that the Honourable Houses of Parliament will be willing to doe without difficulty You your selfe doe quote divers texts of Scripture which establish Excommunication and you presuppose it in this your paper severall times where you say none is to be suspended from the Sacrament but such as are excommunicated and in your Excommunication for which you cite Tertullian Schoolemen and Canonists you are more rigorous then any Presbyterians whom you closely intimate to be indiscreet passionate oversevere and revengefull which is a point of unchristian jealousy and uncharitable surmise For they dare not by excommunication exclude obstinate offenders from all ordinances but suffer them to heare the Word though not in communion as members of the Church but as infidels may doe or else what hope can we have of an illiterate person excommunicated that he will ever repent and be restored As for suspension from the Sacrament it is a thing more easy in it selfe and may be done orderly with lesse labour then excommunication and with great ease and facility and more frequently and with good successe is practised in all the best reformed Churches which also our late abolished liturgy did allow largely to all Pastors and Church-wardens and it had been more easy to them that were godly and also more usuall in our Congregations if the proud Prelates fathers of prophanenesse had not taken that power wholly to themselves Which intolerable usurpation of theirs we hope is with themselves quite taken away but not the power from the Church nor the lawfull exercise of it according to the rules of Christ Secondly Whereas you make no medium between prophanation and scandall on the one side and Arbitrary tyrannicall papall domineering over the Consciences and spirituall Priviledges of Christians on the other herein passion and partiality seem to blinde you For there is a plain open way between the two extremes that is the lawfull power which Christ hath given to Ecclesiasticall rulers Pastors and Elders in his Church which all godly Ministers and all orthodox members of the Assembly stand plead and petition for that it may be backed and confirmed to them by civill sanction even power to prove and try who are fit and who are unworthy to come to the Lords Table and by admitting the one and puting back the other after strict triall and due proofe and examination prophanation and scandall may easily be prevented and Arbitrary tyranicall papall domineering over the consciences of Pastors and godly Christian people shall have no place in Gods Church Scandalous proud impenitent sinners shall not come desperately to out-face Christ and his Ministers at his own table nor have an action against Ministers who out of tender conscience and fear of God refuse to reach to them judgement and damnation and so to partake with them in the guilt of Christs body and blood The Congregation of the godly shall not be scandalized nor tyrannically forced either to countenance and harden the impenitent in their open wickednes by communicating with them or to separate from our Congregations and abhor the ordinance of the Lord as men did in old Eli's daies when his wicked sons made them to abhor the offering of the Lord 1 Sam. 2. 17. But on the contrary let scandalous obstinate sinners have liberty to intrude and come boldly to the Lords table and the Pastors and Elders have no power to keep back from them the holy signes and scals which belong not to them this is more then arbitrary tyrannicall papall domineering over the consciences of Pastors Elders and godly people 3. But here me thinks you speak very untowardly to the great offence of all godly people against all Christs Ministers and ecclesiasticall rulers for in these words If it fall into indiscreet over-severe ambitious passionate or revengefull hands you either suppose that generally the hands of Ministers and Elders of Christs Church are such and therefore they ought not to be trusted with power of Suspension and Excommunication which if you do your heart is not fâ—ee from malignity against their holy calling and the Lord Christ who hath trusted them will finde you out Or else your meaning is that as in the daies of the Papacy and Prelacy so now it may again under Presbyteriall Church-government happen that some of the rulers Ecclesiasticall may act with such hands What then Do you infer thence that all of that high calling are to be abridged of that power A desperate inference striking at the prerogative and power of Parliaments and all civil Judges and Courts of Justice For upon the same grounds viz. because under the Papacy Parliaments made Laws for suppressing true religion and establishing Idolatry and superstition you may go about to abridge them And under the late domineering Prelacy and tyranny Judges wrested laws to take away the Subjects birth-right and liberty and to maintain oppression and they made you know whose will and lust law And Lawyers soothed them and you know when not one in all the bunch could be found nor hired to plead in the just cause of an innocent And even then many Presbyters and Ecclesiasticall persons stood out couragiously and feared no persecutions bonds or losses in the cause both of religion and
to a common Auditory is only a generall propounding of the word and promises to all not a particular applying of it to any especially that hear unprofitably for that were giving holy things to doggs therefore there is more danger and greater sinne in admitting unworthy receivers to the Lords Table A small errour in such an holy ordinance doth provoke the Lord to wrath who will be sanctified in them that come neere to him as appears in Aarons two sonnes Levit. 10. â— 2 3. Vzzaâ— 2 Sam. 6. 7. Thirdly Preaching the Word to such as are openly knowne to be scorners of the Gospell and persecutours of the Preachers and doe more rage and are hardened thereby is a prophanation of an holy thing and a casting of pearles before swine which our Saviour expressely forbids Matth. 7. 6. Matth. 10. 14. Bids his Apostles turne from such and shake off the dust from their feet as a testimony against them and so Paul and Barnabas did Act. 13. 51. Fourthly In preaching the Word the Minister of Christ propounds the truth to many wicked men generally but doth not particularly apply any word of comfort or promise of blessing to any but profitable hearers and upon condition of repentance But in giving the Sacrament to known impenitent persons he preacheth most palpable lyes against his own conscience when he saith The body of Christ was broken for you and his blood wasshed for you And therefore the points urged in this Question are very dangerous and divers Scriptures herein quoted are wrested and grossely perverted Quest 4. The fourth Question upon that received truth That God only knows the secrets of mens hearts which Ministers doe not but mistake hypocrites for worthy receivers and more honest simple weak men for unfit Communicants would inferre That Ministers ought not to have power to judge or censure Iâ— which reasoning First I finde grosse absurdity for what can be more ridiculous then to argue that because Ministers know not secret things which belong to God therefore they know not revealed and manifest things as open scandalous sins and impenitency professed in the face of the Church and by consequent may not judge and censure them by the Word of God which doth plainly reveal their wickednesse to them and the whole Consistory Secondly Observe how the Scriptures which forbid rash judgement concerning mens estate before God which is secret or concerning mens last end and the like as Matth. 7. 1. Luk 6. 37. Rom. 14. 4. are wrested to overthrow all judging and censuring in generall both civil and ecclesiasticall Thirdly How vainly the power of God is abused to prove that he will in the midst of a profane wicked act change notorious sinners hearts in a moment which if he should doe how shall these sinners manifest their repentance in a moment to the Church which they have offended that they may he admitted orderly and not rashly without just ground or satisfaction Fourthly The breaking of a bruised reed and quenching of smoking flax is most miserably applied to the suspending of proud refractorie impenitent sinners from the holy Sacrament between which two sorts of persons and actions there is as vast a difference as between heaven and hell light and darknesse For the bruised reed signifies men of broken heart and contrite spirit groaning under the burden of their sins and fleeing to Christ for ease And smoking flax signifies such as have a weak but true faith which like a spark in flax sheweth by smoking that there is fire striving to break forth and to shew light of holy life Now how contrary these are to proud scandalous impenitent sinners let reasonable men judge the first are such as the Publicans and sinners who came to Christ repenting and confessing their sins and by him were received cherished and comforted the latter are like those trees which brought forth no good but bad fruit unto the root of which the axe was laid to hew them down and cast them into the fire The not breaking nor quenching the first is a point of mercy and a work of Christ the tolerating of the other and cherishing and encouraging them in their scandalous sins by admitting them to the holy Communion of Christs body and blood is a point of great impiety and a diabolicall act of profanation Here therefore the Scriptures are dangerously abused and wrested where scandalous impenitent and refractory persons are confounded with humble penitent sinners breathing after comfort and communion with Christ Fifthly Here is a strange supposition that all bearing the name of Christians even scandalous impenitent sinners are invited to the Sacrament and are bound to come and receive it under pain of sin and contempt I am sure the French and our Liturgies before cited doe admonish all impenitent persons to abstain lest they eat and drink their own damnation And the Scriptures here quoted 1 Cor. 11. Heb. 10. 29. do shew that unworthy wicked sinners doe by unworthy receiving count the blood of the Covenant an unholy thing Therefore to inferre that no Minister in point of conscience can refuse to give the Sacrament to such is to conclude quidlibet ex quolibet But whereas it is added that Ministers may not refuse any Christian not actually excommunicated the Sacrament if he desires to receive it in case he professe sincere repentance for sins past and promise newnesse of life for the time to come this we embrace with all our hearts and if he obtrude on us no other but only such we will not be so uncharitable as to judge them unworthy neither need we fear to partake of their sin or suspect their unworthy receiving For our rule is to proceed with men according to that which manifestly appears whether it be in truth or in hypocrise if any so professing doth eat unworthily he eats damnation to himself not to the Ministers who therein doe nothing against their consciences but proceed according to the judgement of charity and he shall bear his own burthen The Ministers act of administration to them who professe sincere repentance is an holy and divine institution but to open scandalous impenitent persons it is a manifest profanation and they are partakers in the guilt and punishment The Conclusion being the result of the former arguments which are plainly shewed to be weak and of no strength doth of it self fall to the ground and vanish For I have shewed that unworthy hearing and unworthy receiving are equally sins in the hearers and receivers but in the Preachers of the Word and the givers of the Sacraments it is farre otherwise the Preacher doth onely propound the Word generally and not falsely apply the promises of blessing and life to any particular scandalous persons but upon condition of their beleeving repentance and obedience If he knows any in the auditory who are scorners of the Word and haters and persecutours of him and his doctrine he denounceth a curse from God against them and desires them to keep away and holds himself guilty of sin if he should cast the pearl of the Gospel before such swine when they are alone and separated from other hearers he will not wittingly be to any the savour of death unto death But the Minister who gives the Sacrament to open scandalous sinners in their impenitency doth wittingly profane Gods holy ordinance and lyeth against his conscience in saying that Christs body was broken and his blood shed for them and makes himself guilty of their blood while he gives them wittingly to eat and drink their own damnation as is before shewed Whatsoever power takes from Christs Ministers the lawfull and necessary liberty to exclude from the Lords table scandalous sinners openly impenitent that is such a transcendent arbitrary unlimited power as lordly Prelates sometimes exercised and no lesse then tyrannie and oppression of the consciences both of Ministers and their godly people And therefore here the Divines of the Assembly are charged most unjustly and calumniously who have humbly desired by way of Petition to both the honourable Houses of Parliament that their consciences may not have this yoke of oppression laid on them which will force them either to profane the Sacrament of Christs body and blood by giving it to unworthy persons or to decline their Ministery and administration of that holy ordinance chusing affliction rather then iniquity FINIS