partyes must build up the Church in Love and Peace And therefore the interest of the Protestant Religion must be much kept up by the means of the Parish Ministers and by the doctrine and worship there performed and not by the Non conformists alone And they that think and endeavour that which is contrary to this of which side soever shall have the hearty thanks and concurrence of the Papists Him therefore that is weak in the faith receive ye but not to doubtful disputations Let not him that eateth despise him that cateth not And let not him which eateth not judge him that eateth For God hath received him Who art thou that judgest another mans servant The Kingdom of God is not meat and drink but Righteousness and Peace and Joy in the Holy-Ghost For he that in these things serveth Christ is acceptable to God and approved of men Let us therefore follow after the things which make for peace and the things wherewith one may edifie another And blessed are the Peace-makers for they shall be called the children of God THE GENERAL PART OR INTRODUCTION TO THE DEFENCE OF MY CURE OF Church-Divisions Being a Narrative of those late Actions which have occasioned the Offence of men on both Extreams with the true Reasons of them And of these Writings which some account Unseasonable with the true stating of the Case of that Separation which my opposed Treatise medleth with And an Answer to several great Objections Printed in the Year 1671. I. THE GENERAL PART OR INTRODUCTION CAP. 1. The Narrative of those late Actions which have occasioned mens displeasure against me on both sides with the Reasons of them and of my Writing which I am now defending THE number of Books written against me is so great that if I should not be very suspicious of my self lest I had wronged the truth and the Church of God and given men just occasion of all this obloquy I should be very defective in humility and in that care which I am obliged to for the avoiding of such injuries And I find upon examination that if I could have let all sides alone and judged it consistent with my duty to be silent while the envious man sowed his tares and not to have contradicted any that I took to be injuring the Truth and Church nor to have sounded the trumpet against any error which arose before us I could as easily have escaped their wrath as others And I find that whereas our differences both in Doctrine and Worship and Discipline have engaged men of several minds in such writings against me Some Infidels diverse Quakers Papists Antinomians some Arminians some Anti-arminians Anabaptists Separatists Levellers Diocesans c. What one accuseth me of another doth not only acquit me of but ordinarily as sharply accuse me for the contrary and for going no further from the rest So that nothing but silence could put by their fiercest accusations And silence it self will not please the Imperious sect who think me criminal because I serve them not according to their own desire and way And silence was not that which I promised God at my ordination nor is it a doing of that work to which I was then consecrated and devoted But because some men speak in a more Sanguinary dialect than others and because the late charges of Disloyalty ought not to be disregarded by a loyal subject and because for the sakes of their own souls it hath often made me pitty Mr. Durel Dr. Boreman and many others like them who have published ugly falsehoods of me I once thought to have here exercised so much Charity to them as by a full Narrative of all those actions of my life which concern such matters as they accuse me of to have rectified all their mistakes at once and made them understand what it is which they wrote of before they understood it And the rather because this excepter followeth them in telling me how guilty I was of the wars and all the effects of them and also that I wrote a flattering book to Richard Cromwell And in this narrative I purposed to confess so much as had any truth in their accusations and to stop them in their falsifications and calumnies as to the rest But upon second thoâ—â—â—ts I cast it by perceiving by too long experience that they who are engaged against the Truth are unable to bear it and take all for an unsufferable wrong to them which detecteth the falsehood of their reports And when men do as Mr. Hinkley importune me to publish the reasons of my Non-conformity when they know that the Law forbiddeth it and there is no expectation of procuring a Licence or when the old stratagem is so visibly used of drawing us by their challenges into their Ambuscad'es or when I am eagerly provoked to gape against an oven while it is red or flaming hot If I crave their patience and exercise my own till it be grown more cool before I accept of such a challenge and suffer them to use their Art till repentance shall unteach it them and to make my name a stepping stone to those ends which they now aspire after methinks they should be content to talk on without a contradiction and to be free from the light of that Truth which they are not able to endure Or at least should pardon me if I imitate my Lord that was silent even when false accusers sought his defamation and his blood But God â—nabling me I promise them an answer as soon as they will procure me License and Indemnity In the mean time I shall now only 1. Tell you why I offended one side by saying so much against their impositions 2. And why I have since offended the other yea both sides by my late Book called The Cure of Church-Divisions Before the King was restored being then at London I was called to preach two publick sermons tâ—â— one before the Parliament the day before they voted the Kings return The other before the Lord Major and Aldermen on a day of thanksgiving for the hopes of his return In the latter I plainly shewed my sense of the case of the falling party and the Armies actions and gave as plain a warning to the then rising party with some prognosticks thereupon In the former the first that ever I preached to a Parliament and he last I spake some words of the facility of Concord with the sober godly moderate sort of the Episcopal Divines and how quickly Arch-Bishop Usher and I came to an Agreement of the termes on which they might Unite When this Sermon was Printed this passage caused many moderate Episcopal Divines to urge me to tell them the terms of that Agreement And they all professed their great desires and hopes of Concord upon such termes viz. Dr. Gulston Dr. Allen Dr. Bernard Dr. Fuller Dr. Gauden and several others Dr. Gauden desired a meeting to that end of the several parties but none came at the day appointed but he
if they that hold more things to be lawful must agree in practice with them that hold the fewest lawful than such must 1. Forsake their own understandings and live in many sins and 2. They must be alwayes at an uncertainty in their practice because some may yet arise that may count more things unlawful And so the whole party may change their practice every year as new scruples or errors arise in any 3. And so the most scrupulous though the most erroneous must be the Standard and Rule of all the rest 4. And so we should tempt others still to new scruples and to make more and more things sinful that so they might obtain the Rule of all I ever thought therefore that without any combinations our way is every man to know the truth as well as he can and practice accordingly and live in Love and Peace with those that differ from him in tollerable things And thus I hope most Non-conformable Ministers do In the year 1663 divers learned and reverend Non-conformists of London met to Consider how far it was their duty or lawful to Communicate with the Parish Churches where they lived in the Liturgie and Sacrament and we agreed the next day to bring in our several judgements in writing with our reasons Accordingly I brought in mine in which I proved four propositions 1. That it is Lawful to use a form of prayer 2. That it is Lawful to joyn with some Parish Churches in the use of the Liturgie 3. That it is lawful to joyn with some Parish Churches in the Lords supper 4. That it is to some a duty to joyn with some Parish Churches three times a year in the Lords supper They being long I read over to them the last only which being proved by 20. Reasons included all the rest Upon Consideration whereof no one of the brethren seemed to dissent but to take the reasons to be valid save only that one Objection stopt them all to which I also yielded and we concluded at the present to forbear Sacramental Communion with the Parishes And that was because it was a time when great severities were threatned against those that could not so far Conform and most of the Independents and some others were against it And our brethren verily believed that if we should then Communicate those that could not yield so far would be the sharplier used because they yielded not as far as we I yielded to them readily that God will have Mercy and not Sacrifice and even Gods worship otherwise due as prayer or preaching or sabbath-keeping may be omitted for an act of Mercy even to pull an Oxe or Ass out of a pitt And therefore pro tempore I would forbear that sacrament which was like to cause the imprisonment or undoing of my neighbour In mentioning this these three things are my end 1. To tell the world the judgement of these Ministers who are misjudged by their actual forbearance of publick Communion that they take it for a thing unlawful whereas they are thus accidentally hindered from it Besides many other accidents not here to be mentioned this before named is one 2. To shew the Prelates who and what it is that hath hindered mens nearer Communion with them And that while rigor and severity is trusted to as the only means to further it it proveth the principal means of hindering it 3. To shew the Independents that we have been so far from dealing hardly or uncharitably with them that we have forborn that Communion which else our own judgements would have charged on us as our duty either only or chiefly for fear of being the least occasion accidentally of their sufferings And if yet they are impatient with us for obeying our Consciences who can help it What the rest did after this consultation in their practices I enquired not But for my own part on the same argument I forbore Communion with the Parish Churches in the sacrament a long time till at last I saw that the Reason seemed to me to cease and I durst not for I knew not what go against my judgement But lest it might possibly have any such hurtful consequents I chose a very private Country Parish to Communicate with where I sometime sojourned and where there was neither that nor any other reason to hinder me But yet after many years further observation lest men that know not of my practice should be scandalized or insnared to think that I forbore Parish Communion as unlawful and so to do the like themselves I once chose an Easter day to Communicate in a very populous Church in London purposely that it might be the further known But having some reasons to forbear at the Parish where I lived most constantly it so far provoked the Parson that I may suppose no Independent suffered so much through my Communicating as I have done by forbearing for their sakes At last in the year 1667. observing how mens minds grew every day more and more exasperated by their sufferings and whither all this tended and what was like to be the issue I wrote this book called The Cure of Church-Divisions the Reasons whereof I am next to give you But being not used to publish any thing unlicensed nor thinking it fit to break the Law of Printing without necessity nor knowing how to get it Printed unlicensed if I would I knew that if I put any thing into it very provokingly it would not be licensed and would frustrate all the rest And yet my Conscience told me that it looked so like partiality to tell one party of their faults and call them to their duty and not the other that I resolved to say as much to the Bishops and Imposing Clergy as should signifie my judgement plainly to any intelligent man and tell them what sense I had of narrowing Impositions and Severities and what is the way of Unity and Peace though not to cloath it in exasperating language And if they would not not license it all together I purposed to cast it all aside And to confess the truth the deep sense of the sin and infatuation of this age hath long made me desirous to have written one Book with the Title in dying Bradfords words REPENT O ENGLAND and that in several parts professing first my own Repentance in several Particulars then calling severally the Bishops and Conformable Clergy the Presbyterians the Independents and the Sectaries Corporations and Country to Repent But I knew the Bishops would not endure it and I could not get it Licensed or Printed and I had greater things to write and many wise men whose judgements much rule me disswaded me and laughed at my weakness that I should think that such men would regard what I said or that it would have any better effect than exasperation And I long purposed not to speak to one sort till I might speak to all to avoid partiality and evil consequents But at last considering that by this rule I might
not intâ—ressed in their discipline or is no stated member is not only lawful but for the ends sake is a duty when our never communicating with them is scandalous and offensive to our Rulers and tendeth to make people think that we hold that to be unlawful which we do not and when our actual Communion is apt and needful to shew our judgement and to cherish love and Christian Concord On which account as I would statedly communicate with the Greek Church if I were among them and had no better and would sometimes communicate with them in their Prayers and Sacraments if I did but pass through the Countrey as a stranger or if I could have better even so would I do with a Parish Church if as faulty as you can justly charge it with the foresaid limitations or with a Church of Anabaptists or Independents if they did not use their meetings to destroy either Piety or Love This is my judgement This is the summ of all that I plead for as to Communion If the Excepter deny not this he talketh not at all to me If any that have passionately reviled my Book and me do say We thought you had gone further and pleaded for more I answer them that we should not speak untruths and revile things before we understand them and then come off with I thought you had said more It is this with other Love-killing distempers that I strive to Cure And again I tell you that it is 1. Ignorance 2. Pride or overvaluing our own understandings 3. And Uncharitableness generated of these two which is the Cause of our CRUELTIES and our unlawful SEPARATIONS and which breed and feed our threatning Divisions among the parties on both extreams And it s the death of these three that must be our Cure CAP. 3. Some Objections or Questions about Separation answered AS to that party who think Anabaptists and Independents unfit for their communion I am not now dealing with them and therefore am not to answer their Objections Only on the by I shall here mind them 1. That it is not such as the old German Anabaptists who denyed Magistracy to Christians c. that I speak of But such as only deny Infant Baptism And that many of them are truly Godly sober men and therefore capable of communion And that the ancient Churches left it to men liberty at what time they would have their Children baptized 2. That many Independents are downright against Separation Mr. Iacob hath notably written against it Therefore those that are but meer Independents refuse not communion with the Parish Churches And why should you refuse communion with them 3. That many that separate secundum quid or pro tempore from some part of Worship only and for a season yet separate not simply from the Churches as no Churches nor would do all as they do in otheâ— circumstances For instance when they come not to the publick Assemblies yet they will not refuse you if you will come to theirs Go to their meetings and see if they so far separate as to forbid you Nor perhaps to their Sacraments if you will submit to their way as you expect they should do by yours Now seeing we are all agreed that the Magistrate doth not make Ministers Churches or Sacraments but only encourage protect and rule them I desire you but to be so impartial as to consider that 1. You count not your selves Separatists because you never go to one of their Meetings in their houses or other places Why then should you call them Separatists only for not coming to yours 2. But if they are guilty of Separation for holding either that your Churches and Ministry are Null or that Communion with you is unlawful by Gods Law enquire how far you also are Separatists if you say the same without proof by any others Though their lawfulness by the Law of the Land I justifie not no nor the regularity of their Church Assemblies 4. And I would here note how partial most men are They that think an Independent or Anabaptist yea or a Presbyterian intolerable at home in their several Churches yet if they would but come to their communion they would receive them as tolerable members And they that think it unlawful to hold communion with the Prelatists and give the reason partly from their unfitness yet would receive them in many Churches if they did but change their Opinions and desire communion with them in their way But it is those that judge Parish communion where there are godly Ministers unlawful that I am here to speak to And their principal doubts are such as many good and sober persons need an answer to QUEST I. Quest. 1. DOth not the second Commandment and Gods oft expressed jealousie in the matters of his Worship make it a sin to communicate in the â—â—turgiâ— Answ 1. The meaning of the second Commandment mistaken by many is directly to forbid Corporal or Interpretative Idolatry and worshipping God by Images as if he were like â— Creature And scandalouslâ— symbolizing with the Idolaters or Worshippers of false Gods by doing that which in outward appearance is the Worshipping of a false God though the mind be pretended to be kept free Now the Worshipping of the true God in the words of the Liturgie hath none of this nor will any but a sinful Câ—nsurer think that it is the worshipping of a false God Nor is every use of the same places words or other things indifferent a symbolizing with Idolatry But the saying those words or the using those Acts or Ceremonies by which their false Religion in specie is notified as by a tessera or badge to the world Or using the Symbols of their Religion as differing from the true Even as the use of Baptism and the Lords Supper the Creed and the constant use of our Church-Worship are the Symbols of the Christian Religion So their Sacraments Incense Sacrificings and Worshipping Conventions were the Symbols of Worshipping false Gods which therefore Christians may not use But they that say that all false Worship of the true God is Idolatry add to Gods word and teach doctrines which are but the forgeries of their own brain Though more than Idolatry be forbidden by Consequence in the second Commandment that proveth it not to be Idolatry because it s there so forbidden 2. I have after distinguished of false Worship and told you that if by false you mean forbidden or not commanded or sinful we all worship God falsly in the Manner every day and in some part of the matter very oft Our disorders confusion tautologies unfit expressions are all forbidden and so false worship And if God prohibit any disorder which is in the Liturgie he prohibits the same in extemporate prayers in which some good Christians are as failing as the Liturgie And as the words of the Liturgie are not commanded in the Scripture so neither are the words of our extemporate or studied Sermons or Prayers 3.