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.
praying by habit Marvel not if it burn you within and without and when your own passions have scorched you other mens hatred of your prayers as you hate theirs do trouble you also And if you hate the quenching of these fires even when the Churches by them are all on a flame as sober men as you will be of another mind I tell you again brother you greatly wrong and dishonour God if you think that he layeth so much upon that which he never gave any law about or spake one word for or against as to tell the World that he hateth all prayer that is put up by a form or book And that he that denyeth this speaketh meanly of prayer The Lord teach you to know what manner of spirit you are of which request I shall reitâ—rate for you instead of praying with your earnestness The Lord rebuke him Have you the bowels of a Christian and the spirit of Christian Love and Unity and can you think that God hateth for that was my word all the prayers of all the Churches and Christians in the World that use a form Even of all the Greek Churches the Armenians Abassines Jacobites Syrians Copâ—ies Lutherans and Calvinists of all the English publick Churches and the prayers of such holy men as Dr. Preston Dr. Sibbes Mr. Perkins Mr. Hildersham Mr. Cartwright Dr. Stoughton Mr. Whateley Mr. Bolton and all such as they that used some the Liâ—urgie and some other forms And that God hateth the prayers of all Christian Families and Christians that use a form Do you dislike adding to God's word and will you adde to it so boldly as to say he hateth that which he never once forbad If you would make your reader think that I make God indifferent to all modes and words in prayer you would abuse him For though I never heard a man swear in prayer I think you curse in prayer a little before and I have heard many rail in prayer and traduce men for truth and duty and vent their own errors But I beseech you promote superstition no more and feign no Divine Laws which you cannot shew us And teach not this unhappy age to feign things necessary that are not and paint out the most holy gracious God as the patron of every one of their fancies Your words Doth not God regard the manner of our addressing our selves to him Must we not pray in the spirit Do still make me pray that you may know your spirit Do you well to intimate that I say the contrary When I maintain that God so far accepteth them that worship him in spirit and truth that he will accept their prayers with a form or without and hateth neither yea hath left both indifferent to be varied as mens occasions and use for either vary as he hath done a form or notes in preaching It is an easie thing to turn formalist either way by thinking God loveth our prayers either because they are in the same words or in various words The second part of this Exception calleth me a trifler that doth neither believe the Scripture nor himself but tries to abuse c. Because I say about a Liturgie 1. Certainly in Christs time both Liturgies by forms and prayers by habit were used 2. That it is like that the Pharisees long Liturgie was in many things worse than ours And yet Christ and his Apostles oft joyned with them and never condemned them Answ. 1. Let the Reader observe whether ever Christ his Apostles or the Pharisees medled with the Controversie about the lawfulness of forms Whether ever Christ condemned them 2. Let the Reader note that when I say that Certainly forms were used I say not whether in the Synagogue or Temple or House nor do I say that they were other forms than Divine But when I say that it is like in many things the Pharisees Liturgie was worse than ours I mean that it is like though not certain that part of it was of humane invention and used publickly And 1. The word Liturgie as Martinius and other Etymologists agree hath three significations 1. The largest is for any publick office of ministry and specially of distribution 2. For the publick service of God in reading teaching praying c. 3. For stated orders and forms of that publick service To which Bellarmine addeth a 4th as the narrowest sense of all viz For the sacrificing offices only which is no usual sense Now the second and third being the now-Common sense I thought there had been no question about them That the Jews had a Divine Liturgie in both senses as a service and as a prescript form I proved in my 5th Disput. of Liturgies many years ago 1. In the Temple they had most punctual prescripts for their sacrifices of all sorts and their offerings and the manner of performance and the actions of Priests and people about them In the Synagogues Moses and the Prophets were read every Sabbath day And the Psalms were purposely penned many of them and recorded to be Prayers and Praises for the publick and private worship and were committed to several Church-officers to be publickly used And David and Solomon appointed the Instruments Singers and order manner in which they should be used A form of prayer for the Priests is prescribed in three benedictions Numb 6. 23. Hezekiah commanded the Levites to sing Praises to the Lord with the words of David and of Asaph the Sâ—â—r 2 Chron. 29. 30. 1 Chron. 16. 7. On that day David delivered first this Psalm to thank the Lord into the hands of Asaph and his brethren Exod. 15. The song of Moses is a form And Rev. 15. 3. the Saints are said to sing the song of Moses and of the Lamb. Most Expositers think that the Hymne that Christ sung at his last supper was the usual form If not it was a new form Moses form at the moving and resting of the Ark is set down Numb 10. 35 36. Deut. 21. 7 8. There is a form for the people to use Iudg. 5. Deborahs song is recorded so is Hannahs praise 1 Sam. And Ioel 2. 17. there is a form for the Priests in their Humiliation And Iohn taught his Disciples to pray And when Christ was desired to teach his Disciples as Iohn had done his he gave them a form Now let the sober Reader judge whether the Jews had no form or Liturgie of God's appointment If he say I thought you had meant a humane form I answer If you will think that which I say not and choose rather to revile than observe what you â—ead I cannot help it 2. When I speak of a Probability afterward I do mean of a humane Liturgie of which I will now only say 1. That it seemeth very improbable to me that the Pharisees who so abounded with Traditions should not so much as have any humane forms of prayer or praise 2. When Christ speaketh of their long prayers I desire them on both
an exhortation and advice seem injurious or intolerable to you the Lord have mercy on your souls Is the matter of this prayer unlawful Or can he prove that I spake it jestingly when I took it to be the serious prayer of my grieved heart Or may we use no words as Lord have mercy on us c. which others use unreverently Or is it true doctrine that this is the foolish talk and jesting forbidden Eph. 5 What proof is there here of any one word of all this EXCEPT IV. p. 2. He doth very often and needlesly insist on many things that may tend to advance his own reputation The instances are added Answ. 1. I Confess Brother I am a great sinner and have more faults than you have yet found out But I pray you note that all this still is nothing to our Controversie whether we should advise men against Church divisions as contrary to Love 2. If a humble Physitian may put a probatum to his Receipt and say I have much experience of this or that I pray you why may not a humble Minister tell England that I and you have had experience of the hurt of divisions and of the healing uniting power of Love Did all the Independent Church-members whose Experiences are printed in a book take Experience to be a word of pride 3. And is it pride to thank the World for their Civilities to me in mixing commâ—ndations which I disown with their censures What! to confess the remnants of their moderation notorious in matter of fact the truth of which you durst not deny in the midst of their many false censures and calumnies 4. Or to tell you how unable I have â—ound back-biters to prove their accusations in doctrinals to my face 5. Or to tell you that some even Independents perswaded me when I was silenced to write sermons for some of the weaker Conformists such as are too many youths from the University to preach Where lieth the pride of these expressions Is it in supposing that there are any Conformists weaker than my self Whether think you this brother or I think meanlier of them Or set our selves at the greater distance from them 6. When I plead against charging forms with Idolatry I say that for my self it is twenty times harder to me to remember a form of words than to express what is in my mind without them If this be not true why did you not question the truth of it If it be why is it pride to utter it as a proof that I plead for Love and not for my own interest Is it pride to confess so openly the weakness of my memory I never learnt a Sermon without book in my life I think I could not learn an hours speech sufficiently to utter the very words by memory in a fortnights time And is it pride for a man to say that he can easier speak what is in his mind Truly brother I was so far from intending it as a boast that I meant it as a diminâ—tion of the over-valued honour of present extemporary expression and to tell you that I take it to be so far from proving that your prayers only are accepted of God before a form as signifying more grace that I take it to be an easier thing for an accustomed man that hath not a diseased hesitancy to speak extempore what is in his mind than to learn a form without book And that they thaâ— do this do serve God with as much labour and cost as you do Do I boast or do I not speak the common case of most Ministers when I truly say That when I take most pains for a Sermon I write every word when I take a little pains I write the heads but when business hindereth me from taking any pains I do neither but speak what is in my mind which I suppose others as well as I could do all the day and week together if weariness did not interrupt them I seek by these words but to abate their pride that think themselves spiritual because they can pray or preach without book Like some now neer me that account it formality and a sign that a Preacher speaketh not by the Spirit if he use notes or preach upon a text of Scripture but admire one neer them that cries dâ—wn such and useth neither 7. Is it pride to say that thâ—se darker persons whom I have been â—ain to rebuke for their over-valuing me and my understanding would yet as stiffly defend their most groundless opinions against me when I crost them as if they thought I had no understanding If you do think that you cannot be over-valued or are not so do not I. And I thought my rebuking men for it had been no sign of pride And brother I am confident if you your self did not believe that my understanding and consequently my Writings are over-valued you would never have written this book especially in such a stile against me yea in the end you profess this to be your design to undeceive those that had a good opinion of me If those on the other side had not thought the same my late Auditors at Kederminster had never had so many Sermons and that by persons so high nor would so many books have been written to the same end even to cure the people of this dangerous vice of over-valuing me The matter of fact being so publick invalidateth your exception 8. The last expression of my pride is that I give this testimony even to Christians inclined to divisions that if they think a man speaketh not to the depressing of true and serious religion they can bear that from him which they cannot bear from one that they think hath a malignant end and that on this account in my sharpest reproofs my own auditors have still been patient with me Enquire whether this be true or not Whether I have not preached twenty times more against Divisions to a people that never once quarrelled with it than I have written against it in the book with which you so much quarrel And is this probatum given against malignity a word of pride too You proceed in your Charge that I have great thoughts of my self and have learned little of Christian or moral ingenuity and am unfit to be a Teacher of it to others Answ. 1. Do you not yet perceive that you also have a silencing spirit when you and those that you separate from are agreed that we are unfit to be Teachers because we gainsay you why do you pretend so great a distance even in the point of imperious severity 2. O how hard is it still to know our selves and what manner of spirit we are of Is it pride in me to think that I am righter than you or to express it Why brother do not you think as confidently that you are righter than I and do you not as Confidently utter it I differ no further from you than you do from me And why is it not
you never read 1 Cor. 10. 1. 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12. It 's too long to transcribe Did you never read Heb. 3 and 4 Nor read of the sins of the Polygamy the putting away of wives and other faults of the better sort and the generality of the Jews Did you never read how common the high place-worship was even under godly Kings Nor yet how the Law was neglected till the book was almost unknown Did you never read of the sins of Noah Lot and his Family Abraham Isaac Iacob Moses Aaron and his sons the company of Corah David Solomon Peter c Did you never read of Christs rebuke of his Disciples for their hardness of heart their ignorance their striving who should be greatest And how he took that occasion to warn them by the comparison of a child and by his washing and wiping of their feet Nor yet of his rebuking their common expectation of a temporal Kingdom Are not the errors of the several Religious Sects reproved by the Ancient Writers Irenaeus Tertullian Epiphanius Augustine c. Did you never read any writing counselling men to avoid the errors and sins of the Donatists nor the Novatians the Monothelites the Nestorians Eutychians c The errour of the Religious sort among the Lutherans is Consubstantiation Church-Images Ceremonies c. The error of the Religious Calvinists is too much neglect of the Lords day What those of the Arminians and the Anabaptists and many other sorts are I leave to you Did you never read any man that warned others to avoid these sins and errors Did you never find in the Antimonians writings that the stricter sort of good people went too far in pressing humiliation tears and degrees of sorrow so as to be too dark and sparing in pressing the doctrine of Grace and Love And it was partly true Did you never hear or read how superstition â—remetical and monastical lives excessive fastings and austerities were caused by the strictest people Nor yet of touch not taste not handle not Nor of some lawful things feigned to be unlawful Nor yet that ever Paul wrote to the Corinthians Galatians c. And Christ by Iohn to six of the Asian Churches to know and avoid the sins of Christians together with the hereticks among them Nor yet that Paul said Act. 20. Of your own selves shall men arise speaking perverse things to draw away Disciples after them Nor yet that he said I have no man like minded as Timothy for all seek their own things and not the things that are Iesus Christs Nor that all forsook him at his appearing before Nero Nor that all his Disciples forsook Christ and fled Nor that Paul said that the Ministers of Satan transformed themselves into Ministers of Righteousness In a word that beside all other sins the carnal siding and divisions which Paul reproved the Corinthians for most ages have among the stricter sort been guilty of Would you teach your hearers to put their doctrines or practices to a Major Vote of Professors Do you think we know the sincere from hypocrites Or that either hypocrites or sincere are without sin Or that we must take no warning by good mens falls Must we all do over again all the faults that Religious men have done these 30 years You make my heart grieve Brother to think that there should be a man among us that thinketh the Church must be built up by such doctrines and such means as yours You say We are commanded not to conform our selves to the World Answ. Nor to sinning Christians neither But first say you to suppose that the Religious party have generally some common errors among them and then to advise that we should carefully study to escape them This counsel we think Mr. Baxter may be the father of nor do we envy him the honour of it Answ. 1. Have the Religious sort among the Greeks Abassines Nestorians Iacobites Armenians Lutherans Anabaptists Arminians c. no common error among them 2. Are you for more Infallibility and Perfection than the Papists themselves 3. Will any Christian besides you that is sober deny that we should study to escape them 4. Did you ever read any sober Writer of another mind I beseech you take heed of this pernicious flattery of Professors And I beseech all the Religious that love their souls to take heed of being ensnared by such flattery into a proud impenitent state And in the grief of my heart here I must say to the people that which I expect this brother should impute to enmity to godliness You see by this manner of teaching what you have brought your selves and your Teachers to I have oft grieved to observe that many look that Preachers should make it their business to flatter them and extoll them in the highest praises and to prick others as deep and vilifie them as much as may be and this is the preaching that they are best pleased with I know that the precious and the vile must be widely differenced and he is no Preacher of the Gospel that doth not do it But when the Preacher must notifie our party as precious and cast dung on those as vile whom uncharitable men without proof think vile and must hide all our sins as if to touch them were to reproach Religion it self and must aggravate theirs even the greatest that differ from us or else be a flatterer and temporizer O that such knew but what manner of spirit they are of You adde that I make my advice ridiculous by forgetting that I bid men agree with the Universal Church Answ. I said expresly In the necessary Articles of Faith And must we therefore agree with them in all their sins and errors Or may I not say separate not from most or any Christians as to things true and necessary and yet avoid their sins and he followers of them as they are of Christ. Alas poor Christians that ever you should either be instructed at this rate or yet have need to be instructed against it EXCEPT XXIX Answered Why Brother did you never till now hear either Familists Socinians or the grosser Quakers such as Major Cobbet writes against and Smith called by the name of a Sect Had you no greater thing to quarrel with You shall call them how you will Your anger I pass by EXCEPT XXX Answered Yâ—â— say May we not justly suspect that to be bad in the worship of God which the wicked sort do love Answ. I spake not of what they love but what they are for This change of my words is unrighteous I only advised men not to reject a good cause because it is owned by some or most bad persons And why did you not answer my instance of the Pharisees long prayers We have had many Religious persons or sects that have of late been some against Infant Baptisme some against singing Psalmes some against Ministry and Church-meetings and some against Sacraments and instituted Ordinances and some against Tythes
Passions than the Independents both because they are most charged with them and with all our Sects and Confusioâ—â— and because they are not the least in danger of them And that the New England Churches are against the Separation which hath been commonly known by the name of Brownisme I will give you these following evidences 1. Even Mr. Robinson himself a part of whose Church began the Plantation at Plimouth though he was one of those that was called a Semi-separatist yet hath written for the lawfulness of hearing in our English Conformable Parish Churches And in his Letter to his people in New-England in Mortons Memorial he hath these honest observable passages How imperfect and lame is the work of grace in that person who wants Charity to cover a multitude of offences Neither are you to be exhorted to this grace only upon the common grounds of Christianity which are that persons ready to take offence either want Charity to cover offences or wisdom duely to weigh humane frailties or lastly are gross though close hypocrites as Christ our Lord teacheth Mat. 7. 1 2 3. As indeed in my own experience few or none have been found which sooner give offence than such as easily take it neither have they ever proved sound and profitable members in societies who have nourished this touchy humâ—ur To these he addeth special Reasons from themselves Mr. Browne accusing the Ministers as being Separatists and would be Anabapists c. The Ministers answered that They were neither Separatists nor Anabaptists they did not separate from the Church of England nor from the ordinances of God there but only from the corruptions and disorders there c. Old Mr. Wilson Pastor of Boston being desired by all the Elders of the Churches assembled at his house that on his dying bed he would solemnly declare to them what he conceived to be those sins which provoked the displeasure of God against the Countrey told them that he had long feared these sins following as chief among others which God was greatly provoked by 1. Separation 2. Anabaptisme 3. Corahisme when people rise up as Corah against their Ministers and Elders as if they took too much upon them when indeed they do but Rule for Christ and according to Christ yet it is nothing for a brother to stand up and oppose without Scripture or reason the doctrine and word of the Elder saying I am not satisfied c. And hence if he do not like the Administration be it Baptisme or the like he will then turn his back upon God and his Ordinances and go away c. And saith he for our neglect of baptizing the children of the Church those that some call Grand-children I think God is provoked by it 4. Another I take to be the making light of and not subjecting to the Authority of Synods without which the Churches cannot long subsist And so for the Magistrates being Gallio like not caring for these things or else not using their power and authority for the maintenance of the Truth and Gospel and Ordinances c. Morton p. 133. 184. And among the Poems there recorded of him this is part Firm stood he 'gainst the Familist And Antinomian spirit strong He never lov'd the Separatist Nor yet the Anabaptists throng Neither the Tolerators strein Nor Quakers spirit could he brook Nor bow'd to the Morellian train Nor childrens right did over-look p. 186. And Pag. 195. in the Poems on their famous Mitchell it followeth The Quaker trembling at his thunder fled And with Caligula resum'd his bed He by the motions of a nobler spirit Clear'd men and made their Notions swine inherit The Munster Goblin by his holy flood Exorcis'd like a thin Phantasma stood Brown's Babel shatter'd by his lightning fell And with confused horror pack'd to Hell Let not the brazen Schismatick aspire Lot's leaving Sodom left them to the fire But the fullest evidence is the work of the New-England Synod 1662. who determined of two great points of Church-practice so as greatly tendeth to reconcile them to all the moderate Presbyterians and other peaceable Christians The one is 2. That Members of the visible Church according to Scripture are confederate visible believers in particular Churches and their Infant-seed that is Children in minority whose next Parents one or both are in Covenant The Case of Christians that are of no particular Church is not here medled with 3. And that The Infant-seed of such when grown up are personally under the Watch Discipline and Government of the Church 4. That these adult persons are not to be admitted to full Communion meerly because they are and continue members without such further qualifications as the Word of God requireth thereunto 5. That Church-Members who were admitted in minority understanding the doctrine of Faith and publickly professing their Assent thereto not scandalous in life and solemnly owning the Covenant before the Church wherein they give up themselves and their Children to the Lord and subject themselves to the Government of Christ in his Church their children are to be baptised As to the points themselves having written a Treatise on the subject under the name of Confirmation and therein distinctly shewed my Opinion in reconciling terms though it may seem stricter than these propositions and more inclining to the dissenters in some things I shall say nothing of it here But by this it is visible that the New-England Synod do not only exclude the practice of Gathering Churches out of Churches which was the great contest in England between the Assembly and the Congregational party but they provide that not so much as any particular persons that were Baptized in their Churches in Infancy shall be made Church-members de novo unless by removing from one Church to another but shall be accounted members till they apostatize notoriously or are Excommunicated And so shall their children after them succeed by the way of Baptism into the Church and they will have no other ordinary Church-door but Baptism And so gathering Churches of Baptized persons will cease unless it be in a ravelled state when the old Churches being dissolved believers are to embody themselves anew And Mr. Davenport and a few more seeing that by this way their Churches would fall into the way of England and other Churches by a succession of Members growing up from Infancy and not by making them up of new Adult enterers as the Anabaptists do did oppose himself by writing against the Synod which by some of them is largely Answered Wherein they tell us that there were nâ—t ten in a Synod of above seventy that did in any thing Vote on the Negative and not above three against the third Proposition which carryeth the Cause They frequently disclaim Separation They cite Allen and Shephard p. 33. as advising for the Reformation of such Churches as our Parishes that they be acknowledged true Churches and then called to Repentance and Reformation and a select number of those that agree to it
consented not to this at all Are we made by it the by-word and hissing of the Nations and the shame and pitty of all our friends And yet is all this to be justified or silenced and name of it at all to be openly repented of I openly profess to you that I believe till this be done we are never like to be healed and restored and that it is heinous gross impenitence that keepeth Ministers and people under their distress And I take it for the sad Prognostick of our future woe and at best our lengthened affliction to read such writings against Repentance and to hear so little open profession of Repentance even for unquestionable heinous crimes for the saving of those that are undone by these scandals and for the reparation of the honour of Religion which is most notoriously injured To see men still think that their Repentance is the dishonour of their party and Cause whose honour can no other way be repaired To see men so blind as to think that the silencing of these things will hide them as if they were not known to the World That man or party that will justifie all these heinous Crimes and still plead Conscience or Religion for them doth grievous injury to Conscience and Religion I have told you truly in the book which is bitter to you that Gods way of vindicating the honour of Religion is for us by open free Confession to take all the shame to our selves that it be not injuriously cast upon Religion And the Devils way of preserving the honour of the Godly is by justifying their sins and pleading Religion for them that so Religiousness it self may be taken to be hypocrisie and wickedness as maintaining and befriending wickedness For my own part I thought when I wasted my strength and hazarded my life in the Army against these fore-named Crimes and afterwards preached and wrote against them so openly and so many years that I had not been so much guilty of them as you here affirm But if I was I do openly confess that if I lay in sackcloth and in tears and did lament my sins before the World beg pardon both of God and man and intreat all men not to impute it to Religion but to me and to take warning by my fall which had done such unspeakable wrong to Christ and men I should do no more than the plain light of nature assureth me to be my great and needful duty EXCEPT II. ib. There is daily much greater prophaneness and the Consequent of prophaneness Immorality acted by those 4 whom yet Mr. Baxter never mentioneth but with honour As if no sins or miscarriages were to be blamed but theirs who are unable to defend themselves Answ. 1. IF this were true I were much too blame it being the very usage of others against my self which I have great reason to complain of 2. But if it was possible for you to believe your own words that I never mention them but with honour I shall think that there are few things that you may not possibly believe Reader if thou peruse the book and yet believe this Author I am not capable of satisfying thee in this nor will I undertake it in any thing else Are these terms of honour Pref. p. 18. How long Lord must thy Church and Cause be in the hands of unexperienced furious fools c. Do I honour them when I so much display their sin And when in the scheme in the conclusion I describe it And when I tell you of many of such Ministers and that it is a duty to separate from them or disown them And when in the history of Martin I tell you how neer it I am my self as to such as Martin separated from And when I cite Gildas calling such no Ministers but enemies and traytors c. Were you not very rash in this 3. But what if in this book I write neither against the prophane nor the Iews nor the Mahometans Is it nothing that I have written the greater part of above fifty books besides against them 4. What if there be Prophaneness to be reproved doth it sollow that we must not be reproved also Must we not repent because they must repent 5. O how hard is it to please all men What man in Eagland hath been less suspected to be a flatterer of such as he moaneth than my self or more accused of the contrary that hath any reputation of ministerial sobriety Ask the Bishops that Conferred with us at the Savoy 1660 Ask your self that read our Reply then Ask any that ever did Converse with me whether ever I was suspected of flattery or dawbing with men sins 6. But seeing you so far honour me as to vindicate me from other mens accusations I shall confess that it is my judgement both that we should honour all men 1 Pet. 2. 17. especially our superiors and also that in our eyes a vile person should be contemned while we honour them that fear the Lord Psal. 15. 4. EXCEPT III. He alloweth himself a great and masterly liberty to call his brethren fierce self-conceited dividers feaverish persons c. Answ. IF there be none such or but a few I will joyfully confess my error But if all ages of the Church have had such and if this Kingdom have been so troubled by such as all men know and if they yet live in this sin to their own trouble and ours why should it be contrary to meekness to mention it Should I hate my Brother in suffering sin to lie upon him Every paragraph almost inviteth me to remember Christs words to the two fierie Disciples and to say O how hard is it to know what manner of spirit we are of Tell me Reader whether this be not true that if I had called the Bishops sacrilegious silencers of a faithful Ministry murderers of many hundred thousand souls perjurious proud tyrannical covetous formal hypocrites malignant haters of good men c. I might not very easily have come off with many of these angry brethren without any blame for want of Meekness Nay whether they would not have liked it as my zeal when as such a gentle touch upon themselves doth intollerably hurt them Is there not gross partialitie in this Note also that these brethren that plead for Libertie do call it a masterly Libertie in me thus to name their faults And do you think that they would not have silenced my book if it had been in their power Note then whether the silencing imperious Spirit be not common to both extreams EXCEPT Ib. He useth the same frothy and unsavoury words that others prophane Prayer and the name of God by and which at the best is that foolish talking or jesting which we are commanded not so much as to mention Eph. 5. 3 4. Answ. THE words are I am only perswading all dissenters to Love one another and to forbear but all that is contrary to love And if such