light kept close unto Wherefore I beseech you by the tender mercies of Jesus Christ and by the glory of those many talents given unto you the strength wherof methinkes should so worke as to breake through a napkin and disdaine so weake and contemptible an inclosure once more to survey with a single unpartiall and disingaged eye your present thoughts and apprehensions concerning these things which have removed you from off an English Table and put you under a Holland Bushell Confident I am that there is a light beyond your light in these matters and which you are very capable of if your eye by your long slumber be not over heavy to open I professe in the sight of God in as great singlenesse and simplicity of heart as ever man in this world spake word unto you that I doe as clearely apprehend error and mistake throughout the greatest part of your way as I doe in this conclusion that twice two makes foure The necessity of your Covenant Prolix confession of faith putting men to deliver their judgements in points of doubtfâ—â—â— disputations upon and before their admission into your Churches the power of the Keyes and of ordination of Pastors to be the right and inheritance of the whole body of the Congregation and of every member indifferently and promiscuously the divine institution or peremptory necessity of your ruling Elders the necessity of widowes as Officers in the Church the absolute necessity of one and the same government or discipline in all particulars whatsoever for all Churches in all times and places a full and peremptory determination of all things whatsoever appertaining to the worship of God with divers such like positions which are the very life soule and substance of your way I am at perfect peace in my thoughts that you will never be able to demonstrate or prove from the Scriptures to any sober minded or considering man I am loath to overcharge you with words or writings To desire you to returne and to repaire the breach you have made upon us I confesse were a hard mention and of slender hope to be obtained were it not made to a truely great and noble spirit and Caeteris paribus the request were more reasonable from you to me and others with mee to goe over to you then that wee should desire you to returne back unto us because you have suffered already at least in the thoughts of many under the disparagement of some inconstancy and equall it is when there is not some over-ruling reason to the contrary that burdens should not be doubled but rather divided But herein I beseech you consider your advantage is the greater you have by this meanes {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} a greater and better sacrifice to offer upon the service of the truth and Gospell of Jesus Christ then wee if you can apprehend the truth with us and deny your selfe the second time in comming over to us And yet give me leave to say this unto you though your restitution to us be one of the first borne of my joy in this worlds wishes the dayther of would be unto me above the dayes of the yeare yet had I rather mourne over your absence still then bring you hither any other wayes then by an Angell of light I relish no satisfaction to any my requests from any but what I purchase more by reasoning then by requesting and for your part I know that innovations of this nature a friend and a feather are alike except reason make the difference I have made upon some words of encouragement from your mouth related unto me by D. P. and propound a Quere unto you concerning the head of your way your Church Covenant with some reasons hereof If you be willing to treat with your old friend in a way of this commerce I shall hereafter God willing as health and liberty agree desire like satisfaction of you in some other particulars of your way if the motion dislike you neither have I any further pleasure in it if you shall suspend your answer give mee leave so farre to please my selfe as to interpret your silence a ground of hope that your owne comming is not farre off or otherwise if your answer bee too strong for me and able to remove my mountaines out of my way they are not Seas that shall keepe friends asunder any longer I am yours if you care to owne me send mee over the silver and bright shining wings of truth and upon these I come flying over to you out of hand I would be as glad of a bargaine of truth at any rate whatsoever as another God having taught me how to drowne the world in the least drop of the water of life onely this I desire may be the Law of dispute betweene us that since the strength of the confidence of your way is such as to breake out into a departure from us and I conceive double light is required for separation in any kind whereas single light sufficeth for any man continuing in his standing you will goe to worke as a Prince and not as a begger and command the truth which you hold and practise in opposition to us by a high hand of pregnant and expresse Scriptures and not beg any thing by any loose or faint interpretation or supposition wee looke for letter for letter word for word and little for little to the proofe of all you maintaine against us and judge it somewhat hard to be forsaken in such a manner onely because our logique is more dull and lesse piercing then yours I have used the more libertie of speech unto you because I know you are able to beare it and pity it is but a good paire of shoulders should now and then bee ballanced The mightie God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ teach us how to make something out of nothing and by the use of a miserable distracted and broken world how we may compasse and setch in the dayes of Eternitie Grace Peace and Truth be multiplyed unto you and yours from the great fountaine of these heavenly treasures Yours in the Lord for the greatest services of Christian love and acquaintance J. G. FINIS
fellowship with it But many instances there are wherein onely upon a sober profession of their faith in Christ and entertainement of the Gospell men have beene received into Churches without the least noise or mention of any such Covenant Act. 2. 41. They that gladly received his word were Baptized and the same day there were added unto the Church about three thousand soules some of your judgements strongly conceite that they espy their Covenant in these words were added but surely if they were assisted by the same imagination they might as soone discover it in those words Gen. 1. In the beginning God made Heaven and Earth for to any reasonable and disingaged apprehension that word were added with the number of converts joyned with it onely expresseth the exceeding great worke of God in making so great an enlargement or addition to his Church in so short a time and doubtlesse a man must get a dispensation for his understanding to enable him to thinke or beleeve that within the compasse of halfe a day or little more at the most perhaps somewhat lesse for the former part of the day was well spent before Peter began his Sermon vers. 15. and how long he continued the Preaching is uncertain it seemes he was not very briefe vers. 40. three thousand persons should particularly and distinctly one after another in the same place and before the same persons being examined and tryed take a solemne Covenant repeating the Contents and words thereof doubtlesse the art and method of such dispatch is utterly lost and perished at this day either the Covenant they made was very briefe and but an act to yours or else the motion of their tongues in speaking was much swifter then our thoughts you must favour your selfe beyond al reason in both these suppositions or else suppose no longer your Covenant here Besides evident it is that these that were added to the Church were baptized before this is affirmed of them Now being baptized and that in an orderly and right way as you will not deny this did immediately qualifie them for Church fellowship according to your owne grounds and the truth it selfe therefore they needed not the mediation of a Covenant to make them capable hereof so that you see an impossibility of any Covenant to be emplyed here And if you be not relieved at this doore there is little hopes to find more charity in this kind at others Philip required no other Covenant or condition of the Eunuch to qualifie him for baptisme and thereby to give him entrance into the Church but onely to beleeve in the Lord Jesus with all his heart and to professe it to him Act. 8. 37. When Saul assayed to joyne himselfe with the Disciples at Hierusalem Act. 9. 26. the reason why they declined him for a time was not because they tendered a Covenant to him and he refused it but because they were all afraide of him and beleeved not that he was a Disciple implying that had they beleeved this concerning him that he had beene a Disciple a beleever they would have received him without any more adoe yea upon Barnabas his meere Testimony of him without any Covenant subscribed confession made or word spoken by himselfe he was received vers. 27. 28. So againe Act. 11. 24. there is mention made of many that were added or joyned to the Lord i. e. were immembred into the Church but no more words of any such Covenant as you urge then a deafe man may heare If you peruse the passages of the New Testament further you will espie many more Starres of the constellation neither can you here have recourse to those Covenants mentioned in the Old Testament Ezra 10. 3. Nehem. 9. 38. to patterne you withall for then you flee to a Sanctuary which your selfe have polluted by destroying all sympathy and agreement betweene a nationall Church and that which you call instituted or particular and besides to forsake the guidance of the Spirit of God under the New Testament to seeke to make out our thoughts by the old is to aske the twilight in the Evening whether it were light at noone day Moreover if desire of brevity for the present did not binde my hands it were easie to demonstrate unto you what a solemne disagreement there is many wayes betweene these Covenants and yours and particularly in that precise circumstance which must have relieved you 3. To me there is no imaginable use or necessity of this your Covenant because beleevers willing or agreeing to live together in the same body are bound by greater bonds a thousand fold then any Covenant they can make betweene themselves to performe mutually all and all manner of love service and Christian duties whatsoever Christ himselfe is the greatest of bands and of all manner of obligements or ingagements whatsoever both to knit and hold Christians together and to make them of one heart and of one Soule and to keepe them so by whom by Christ all the body being coupled and knit together by every joynt c. Ephes. 4. 16. And where the Scripture speakes of other bands with him and besides him yet all relating to him indearing and binding Christians together as close as ever their hearts and soules will packe or worke into one amongst them all your Covenant commeth not into any mention or remembrance There is one body one Spirit even as ye are called in one hope of your vocation There is one Lord one faith one baptisme one God and Father of all surely if they had beene joyned and joynted together by any such Covenant as you speake of and this Covenant beene of divine justification and of that high and Soveraigne consequence as to give them their very life being and subsistence as a Church or body the Apostle could not have so farre forgot himselfe as not to have inventoried it amongst its fellowes especially there being no place that I can readily call to mind more commodious throughout all his writings to have made a particular and an expresse mention hereof then here And for my part I freely and ingenuously and in the simplicity of my heart professe unto you that I neither know what further or greater duty or service of love in any kind I can desire or wish of those my brethren in Christ upon whom the providence of God together with my owne voluntary election either hath or hereafter shall cast me in Church-fellowship then what they stand bound by the common band of our mutuall interest in the same God in the same Lord in the same baptisme in the same faith in the same hope c. to exhibit tender and performe unto mee without the expresse of any such covenant made with or unto me nor yet can I conceive how possibly I should have any better richer or stronger assurance from them for the performance hereof unto me by the vertue or aide of any such covenant above what I have by the power of that grace and godlinesse
which as farre as I am able to judge worketh effectually in them and subjecteth them to all the said bands and obligations nor can I thinke that he whose strength to doe evill will serve to trample under feet the blood of the Lord Christ to cast the Commandements of the glorious God behind his backe to betray the hope of his owne peace and glory will ever be kept in a Christian compasse towards me by any promise band or covenant of his owne I know not how to thinke it a sinne in me not to desire or exact a greater securitie for my portion in the Saints then God himselfe hath given me and established me in I heare your answer bee that your covenant respecteth as well every mans faithfulnesse towards God as discharge of dutie towards one another and therefore in this regard at least there may be a necessitie of it To this I make answer in few words First why is not then the unnecessary part at least of your Covenant which I conceive is the greatest viz. that which concernes the Covenanters dutie towards his fellow struck off Secondly if such a Covenant as this with or towards God bee so necessary a dutie why is the place of it no where to be found amongst all the Commandements of God doubtlesse God requires it not at our hands to be either more provident or zealous for his glory then he is himselfe Thirdly and lastly it is neither lawfull before baptisme nor necessary after therefore the necessitie of it falls to the ground and is not defensible that it is not lawfull before baptisme is evident because it is not lawfull for a Church to receive the unbaptized into fellowship with them as members of that body neither is there example or appearance of warrant in Scripture for such a thing As evident it is that after baptisme it is altogether unnecessary because baptisme doth immediately qualifie for Church fellowship as hath beene sayd your owne principles not gainesaying and the Church it selfe by admitting any to her baptisme ipso facto admits into her fellowship and communion Therefore I adde 4. That the requiring and exacting of such a Covenant of men and the imparting of Church fellowship upon it I conceive it to be an unchristian usurpation upon the consciences of men and a tempting of God by laying such a burden upon his people which he must give strength more then otherwayes were necessary to beare or otherwise they must suffer at least if not fall under it and I beleeve I know some worthy every wayes of the honour according to the line of men who desirous of entrance into some of your Churches were turned back by dislike of that new doore of your Covenant 5. And lastly We conceive the exacting and giving of such a Covenant is not onely a thing unnecessary {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} as something above any thing that is written but of worse inconvenience also at least as many of those that are ingaged in it are wont to interpret and draw the importance hereof for many looke upon a Covenant they have made with a particular Church as a partition wall wholly to separate them in care affection dependance and from all other Churches and the Saints of God throughout the world and take it for an authenticall discharge and release from heaven from troubling themselves any wayes with the affaires of other Churches as ministring unto their necessities at any times It was not much short of this which a great defender of you faith professed plainely unto me not long since and that before some witnesses Calvin well observes upon Rom. 16. 16. that Pauls study and desire was by his carefull remembrance and sending the mutuall salutations and greeting of one Church to another quantum in se est mutuo amoris nexu devincire inter se omnia Christi membra As far as it lay in his power to bind all members of Christ whatsoever in one and the same mutuall band of affection together Now if Paul herein did the will and Commandement of God which I cannot thinke you will deny then as your Saviour charged the Scribes and Pharisees that they had made the Commandement of God of none effect they had taken a course to doe it they had done that which directly tended thereunto by their traditions so we conceive we may justly challenge your Covenant for an ill looke or maligne aspect upon that part of the will of God wherein he desires that all beleevers the world over should desire to maintaine a free intercourse of the dearest love and tenderest affections one towards another A LETTER SENT From I. G. to T. G. My deare Friend WHom I love and honour if not enough yet certaine I am very exceeding much in the Lord I am sorry there being differences betweene us otherwise that in this wee should so perfectly and so long agree neither to send so much as a small peece of his minde to other for a love-token upon which of us the Law of love and Christian acquaintance rather imposed it to have first appeared in breaking this agreement the same Law prohibites to dispute Whether it will ease the burthen on my part or no I leave to your ingenuitie to consider and determine but this I may truely say unto you that I have had many thoughts from time to time since your departure from us that have deerely longed after your bosome and would hardly have beene kept from their longing till now but by a strong hand of some indispensable occasions and imployments otherwise And if my respects unto you did not command me to intreat you more gently in this behalfe I might truely charge upon your selfe in part the occasion of my silence hitherto your authority grace learning parts judgement example have made the stone of separation among us so massie and heavy that we are constrained to be at double paines and labour in removing and rolling it from the consciences of men A great part of our imployment is to stanch the issue of that fountaine of blood which you I presume in simplicity of heart for your part have opened in the wombe of our Churches here wee hoping againe your re-union with us and returne unto us through the power of our Lord Jesus Christ who is is able to give you light to comprehend your darkenesse in those things lying yet under dispute betweene us are willing to save you what sorrow we can against the time of your returne and for this purpose endeavour our selves to make your mistakes as innocent as may be and to keepe as many as we can from falling thereby Deare brother that there were a heart in us to lay our heads together to finde out if possible some course that the Sword may not alwayes thus devoured doubtlesse there are waters to be found that will much asswage the heate if not wholly quench the flames of these contentions and divisions How greatly is it