circumstances thereof we have also the word of man as infallible as mans can be for that we may take upon good trust to be morally infallible which proceeds from men who neither deceive nor are deceived Now I suppose that the Parliament hath so fully declared their sincerity and discharged their trust in establishing this government that the most opposite thereunto cannot admit of such an unworthy thought as if they intended to impose any government upon the people which in conscience they thought not most agreeable to Gods word which as it cleareth them from the least suspicion of deceiving so it is also manifest that they have used the best and most approved means allowed to mortall man not to be deceived For in this waighty worke they have begun with the invocation of Gods infallible Spirit which is the Author and leader into all truth and have assembled Learned and religious men of the holy calling to enter into free deliberation and debate of that kind of Church-government which they should find most consonant to Gods word and if after all this we can imagine they have erred in their decrees How can we without presumption conceive the judgement of any private men to be more infallible Now if any shall think that this kind of government in every part thereof is established with such a perpetuall decree that it can never be changed We must know that many things may be infallibly true yet not alwayes necessary to be continued True in the Author of truth and true in the means of truth and yet may be laid aside when they are no longer usefull for edification an example hereof we may see in the ceremoniall Law which being appointed by God himselfe no man will doubt but it was infallibly true and being abolished by the same power that ordained it no man need doubt but that it was justly removed Infallibility doth not alwayes inferre immutability Things are not onely continued for their truth but also for their goodnesse and fitnesse and applicablenesse to present use So long as the Ceremoniall Law was to indure it was of divine infallibility needfull for the Church of the Jewes and during that time immutable by any power but divine but when the Evangelicall Law succeeded which by fulfilling ended the Ceremoniall the worship of God became more spirituall leaving the decencies circumstances and outward manner to the humane infallibility of the Magistrate set in authoriiy by God whose decrees in such matters are unchangeable by any inferiour power yet alterable by the same power that decreed them Moreover the Papists object against our doctrine that before Luther it was not known in thy world and the Prelates object against our discipline that before Calvin it was never known by both with aspersions they think to disgrace our doctrine and our discipline putting upon them the stamp of novelty as though they were but inventions of men But as our doctrine hath been sufficiently asserted against their calumnies to be the very doctrine of the spirit of God left recorded in the holy Scriptures So it is also plain that this government of Gods Church by the Presbytery was known and practised in the world before either Popery or Prelacy was in being both which are indeed novelties and the very spawn of corrupted men It is clearly demonstrated from the bosome of Antiquity That the Apostles and Evangelists knowing the mind of Christ did in all Cities and places where they collected Churches ordain a Colledge of Presbyters called the Presbytery with equall power to feed and govern the same This form of government continued in the Primitive Church about 1500 yeares in puritie and parity Afterwards by pride and contention of the leaders Bishops were set up above Presbyters and when that equality was once broken there was no stop Then Metropolitans were put above Bishop and Patriarks above Metropolitans and at the last whereunto all tended they brought forth that man of sin or son of perdition the Pope who perked above all and hath ever since contrary to the rules of Christ and his Apostles maintained by fraud fire and blood a prodigious tyrannie and oppression in the Church Bâ—t there is one testimony more which we can produce as a cleare light out of the very darknesse and dungeon of popery when there was no day of knowledge in the Christian world but all was overspread with Antichristian error and that was about 500 yeares ago when God moved Waldo a Citizen of Lions to discover the impostures of the popish Church who drawing after him many disciples were persecuted by the bloody Synagogue and driven from the society of men into mountains among beasts which they found lesse savage then their own kind there they multiplied into many Congregations and spreading themselves into divers places were called by divers names Then they found it necessary that the worship of God might be perfect among them to establish a discipline and government over all their Churches In which deliberation they had no pattern to follow no steps to tread in no helps from stories or records of antiquity which were all destroyed or corrupted Their onely guide and light to direct them was the word of God which the world was never able to extinguish and by his divine power was preserved among them There they sought and there they found the platform of their discipline and what was it no other then Presbyterian every Congregation governed by Pastors Elders and Deacons and as occasion required by a combination of them into Synods Councells and Assemblies Now if this way was practised among them wherein they were onely led by divine light How unjustly do some despise it as a novelty others reject it as a humane ordinance When as our own age also searching in the same holy monuments hath pitched upon the same discipline as in them held forth to the Churches of God Me thinks this would move the spirits of meek and sanctified men not to be wise above sobriety nor contest against such a cloud of witnesses For if the Primitive Apostolicall times the middle age of the Church under persecution and now the last generations wherein we live have all by the light of Gods word and guidance of his spirit concurred in one and the same discipline Why should any combine against it or suffer themselves to be perswaded rather to disturb the peace and unity of Gods Churches then yield a Christian conformity thereunto 3 But against this power of the Magistrate it may be further objected that although power be given him over the bodies and estates and outward adjuncts of men yet the conscience is the peculiar Court of God wherein man hath nothing to do but by intrusion when the body lies in prison the Judge by a habeas corpus can remove it but when the conscience is under bond no Judge can send a habeas conscientiam to deliver it and having no power to release he can have none to bind it
looke for the good of man both wayes Our duty to God is contayned in fewer precepts but more words it seeming necessary that God should explaine himselfe in his own cause leaving no power to any man to adde or diminish or interpret his Lawes but by his own word which made Moses though he were a Law-giver in Israel yet he would not judge the gatherer of sticks upon the Sabbath day without consultation with the Lord Before the written Law every father of a family was both Priest and Magistrate to looke to both and the greater the family or society was so much higher was the Magistrate and reverenced with more honour as being the common parent caring for the whole Country This Law therefore of Nature being the very dictate of God himself may not improperly be termed a divine Law There were also other Lawes which God prescribed by his servant Moses to the people of Jsrael politicke and Iudiciall Lawes for preserving humane society and governing the Common-wealth and Ceremoniall Lawes for the outward manner and forme of his publike worship for performance whereof he ordained divers Sacrifices and Sacrificers allotting maintainance for them both But when the time fore-appointed came that God would restore man to that happinesse he had deservedly lost by the sin of the first Adam he sent his onely Son Iesus Christ the second Adam in the flesh who after he had manifested his divine power to the world by his Doctrine and miracles did by his last words on the Crosse and by the first visible testimony of the power of his death finish and consummate the Law and rent from the top to the bottome the vaile of separation by both declaring the necessity of types and ceremonies places and times of worship differences of people Sacrifices and Sacrificers fixed and impropriated maintainance for any of them was no longer to bee continued strictly in the letter although a morall equity shadowed by them was to be perpetuall Neither did our Saviour in the constitution of his Evangelicall Church revive any of them nor ordain any set form of worship rule for goverment or a certained and speciall maintainance for his Ministers but only repaired and restored man to that way and manner of worship which Adam had in his innocency prescribing him to serve God the Father of spirits in spirit and in truth without otherwise confining him to time place gesture posture or other circumstances which of their own nature are not permanently confineable In like sort the blessed Apostles whom Christ sent into the world to publish the glad tydings of Salvation laid no other foundation as necessary thereunto then Iesus Christ and what he had laid himself for they were only master builders on that corner stone Christ Iesus What they declared to any people converted to the Gospel concerning any rule of order about the outward man or his Christian behaviour in publike service it was only a temporary advise sutable to the times Countries and occasions wherin they lived not universally binding to all Nations and generations to come In their dayes there was neither Christian State nor Christian Magistrate nor any publike power to countenance or appoint the outward government of the Church in default whereof it was necessary for them to make such orders and constitutions as might serve for those present times neverthelesse as Christ himself took upon him no civill authority so gave hee none to his Apostles nor they to the Ministers succeeding For when Christ was required to divide an inheritance betwixt two brothers he asked with indignation who had made him a Iudge or divider over them and when the case of the Incestuous person fell out at Corinth St. Paul inflicted no temporall punishment upon him only advised the brethren that whiles hee stood obstinate against all reproof to shun his company and cast him out of their communion that the shame thereof making him sensible of his sinne it might beget repentance and make him returne to the fellowship of true beleevers I verily thinke that if all the directions which the Apostles have left recorded in Scripture were laid in one view together no man nor multitudes of men how learned soever could collect or frame out of them all an exact body of Church government in all the parts and Circumstances thereof to bee imposed as a divine binding infallible rule upon all Christian Churches and Kingdomes in the world Indeed where we meet with any Councels or constitutions of the blessed Apostles who were holy men indued with more immediate power from Christ with a larger measure of the spirit of truth and consequently with a greater certainty of judgment then any of their Ministeriall successors we may rely upon them and make them our patternes only remembring the distinction of times that the Apostolicall Church was in infancy and under persecution and the English in full growth and dominion in so much that in the framing of Ecclesiasticall orders an eye and regard must ever bee had to the civill Government which alwayes aymeth at the publike good both of Church and State wherein the Church is lodged The Ministers doubtlesse have power by their office to advise and instruct exhort and rebuke out of the word in a brotherly way but it is as doubtlesse that the power is in the Christian Magistrate upon hearing their advice to constitute and establish under the naturall notion of order such decrees as upon due debate and deliberation they shall find most wholsome and agreeable to the present State This is also to be observed that no man ought to take unto himself the office and honour to Minister for his brethren in things pertaining unto God unlesse hee be lawfully called thereunto Christ himself was sent by the Father and annointed by the spirit to his heavenly office by Christ the holy Apostles were sent into the world from whom they had their immediate Commission and the blessed Apostles following their pattern did not only send and appoint Pastors over all Churches in their present times but also lest rules and directions for ordaining all others for the time to come till the worlds end I make no question but God doth in our dayes call and stirre up many to this holy office by particular motions of his Spirit yet that exempteth not the persons so called from manifesting and approving their vocation according to the rules left in Scripture where we are commanded to try the spirits of men whither they be of God and the Spirits of the Prophets peculiarly such as are called to the Ministery are subject to the Prophets as fitting to be tryed and examined by them who by long experience and without reproach have conversed in the Church and dispenced the misteries of Salvation From this brief and plaine deduction I shall lay down some few Positions as ground-lines of the discourse ensuing 1. That God hath by his Son taken away all ties of necessity for observing any part or
parcell of the Ceremoniall Law 2. That God by Christ hath restored men to that spirituall worship which Adam had in time of his Innocency 3. That Christ hath not appointed any set or absolute form of Government in his Church binding to all times and Nations 4. That whatsoever the Apostles wrote concerning outward Government it was not in nature of an universall Law but only by way of order and advice answerable to these Primitive times and occasions 5. That the Ministers of the Church as they are Ministers have no temporall Power Iudicature or maintenance positively and particularly alotted them by Christ or his Apostles but only in the generall that it be sufficient and plentifull that thereby they may be examples unto others of hospitality and good workes learning the manner and speciall determination to the Christian Magistrate and the Lawes of the Land 6. That the Christian Magistrate hath the highest power of ordering and governing the Church of God which is a visible company not onely of Ministers and Officers but of all Beleevers and is intrusted to him forasmuch as the Church is in the Common-wealth and not the Common-wealth in the Church 7. Whosoever hath a Mission to undertake the Ministery ought first to find himself inwardly called then undergo a lawfull Tryall and receive approbation with the prayers and benediction of the Presbitery Now concerning this great controversie in our Common-wealth about the government of the Church I shall from these Principles according to the small ability God hath given me unbyassed by any opinion or affection to any kind of Government nor yet for any covetous nor ambitious desire or designe in my self but meerly ayming at the good of Gods Church and of my Country set down how I conceive our supream Magistrate may establish such a Church government as might preserve Amity among Brethren yet not oppugne any rules Christ hath left behind him The two houses of Parliament have already upon ripe deliberation passed an Ordinance for a Presbyteriall government with all the limitations thereof Which government I am verily perswaded if it be duly executed will prove the best Moderator betwixt dissenting Brethren For it is such a government as taketh away the ill and exorbitance of any other reserving that which is good in them and so much the better it ought to be liked because it disliketh those parties that oppose it for surely hee is esteemed the best and most unpartiall Moderator who in reconciling parties in such indifferences displeaseth them all yet if this government may not have so much as an Vmpires power to constrain obedience or else putteth not that power in practise then it will be vilified and of no esteem Therefore that it may not prove a dead uselesse letter I doe first conceive that it should be established with Penalties and put in present execution and made positive without allowing a limited time unto it for approbation For without that it may be altered in whole or in part at the Judgement of the Makers but with that it would leave every man doubtfull and indifferent which will lessen or take away the true value and operation of it In the next place I conceive as an especiall wheel of this motion and a strong fortification of the Government that care be taken to keep and incourage the Ministers of the word in a perpetuall and constant practise of their Function and to remove all occasions which might any way divert them from their holy calling Howsoever it comes about I know not but certain it is that â—â—thence the Church was poysoned with a temporall revenue and carnall estimation given to Ministers for their masters sake Pride and covetousnesse have predominated amongst them who have bin and ever will bee the roots of much evill and combustions in those States and Churches where they have had any power so farre as forgetting their calling and the patterne of Christ they have ever bin observed for the maintenance of their secular pomp and greatnesse to bee the chiefe hinderers of Reformation to the purity and humility of the Gospell knowing it must first begin at themselves Therefore for the rooting out and preventing ambition among them it might bee good to take away those titles of separation and division which have had their originall from 〈◊〉 As to be called Clergy as if they were holy and the people prophane or Divines as if they were all heavenly and 〈◊〉 formed of the same earth with the people certainâ—y they can have 〈◊〉 higher title then to be called Ministers of the Gospell bringing from God to man the glad tyding of reconciliation and 〈◊〉 For place and dignities they are either Officiall which are 〈◊〉 taken away or Personall which should be left to the 〈◊〉 discretion of every man for if in humility they strive 〈◊〉 behind all men in place and before them in goodness the people will be ready to give even their eyes in testimony of their love and estimation of them I shall forbeare in this place to set down particularly how Covetuousnesse may bee also removed from the Ministery because the remedy thereof as of many other things conducing to the good of the Church how Religion may bee kept and perpetuated in truth and purity freed from the danger of relapsing to Popery how the Ministers may be for ever provided with a plentifull maintenance over all the Kingdome how their Widowes and Orphans if there be need may be relieved are already plainly and largely laid down in another Treatise by a well-wisher to the Peace of our Sion which wayteth only for a fit occasion to bee produced Wherein no new charge is laid upon the people but only part of the pious donations of our Ancestors to the Church and good uses are rectifyed and reduced This being done it may then seeme necessary so to hedge and defend this Government held forth by Parliament that it may neither receive damage from Enemies without not bee uncharitably torne and shattered by Schismes and opinions within It hath pleased God so miraculously to blesse this Kingdome that we have thrown off the yoke of Rome which neither we nor our Fathers could bear The Pope and the Bishops the head and the tayle are sent back from whence they came The gap which they had made is by Gods goodnes and care of this Parliament filled up with a moderate Presbyteriall government sufficiently armed to keep out the wild Boare that destroyed our Vineyard and that common implacable enemy from returning But there are some little Foxes yet among us that earth in our ground and annoy our Vineyard and by craft or rudenesse weaknesse or wilfulnesse bring scandals upon our holy profession That therefore our Church may injoy her peace and bee onely Militant against sin and Satan The Magistracie must take care to preserve it from disturbance As the present conjuncture of our Church standeth they who seeme most to distast or oppose this kind of government are
wrapped up in generall precepts it behoveth us to learne from his deputies upon earth asking councell of the Lord what his mind and pleasure is and such for the most part are the outward rites formes and circumstances of his Evangelicall worship these things fall within the compasse of order and decency which are rather civill notions then devine yet as Armies in the field easily fall into a rout not well arrayed so assemblies in the Church and Churches in the Common-wealth prove but rude and tumultuous meetings if they be not decently ordered a lute or violl is seen plaid upon but there is much adoe to tune many instruments into one consort private Christians may dispose of themselves in their owne houses but when they meet in a publike body they must be tuned by the publike Magistrate the world would never have stood without societies nor can societies hold without government neither can there be any government where some rule not and some obey all the question is to set due limits and bounds to the civill government wherein I conceive that there is the selfe the same measure betwixt the Magistrate and the conscience for as the word of God bindeth the conscience to obey so it prescribeth the Magistrate to governe otherwise if as the high Priest forbad the Apostles to teach in the name of Jesus so the Magistrate shall impose any thing upon the people contrary to divine law or the word revealed the case is plain that we ought to obey God rather then men These rubbs thus remooved in our way I shall proceed to the solving of such objections as are commonly made by those brethren that challenge a liberty and exemption from this lawfull obedience 1. First they build upon our owne ground alledging that since the nature of conscience is so free and voluntary in it self it must needs be a manifest violation of her freedome to constraine her by laws or penalties or impositions of men To which I answer that we must remember to put a difference betwixt the constraint and the restraint of mens consciences no law nor power of man can constraine the conscience in her voluntary act to goe against her owne light or approve that which she condemneth or say to her self conscience I lye no she may and ought rather to suffer then undergoe such a constraint but the lawes of man may so farre restrain their liberty that she produce not the act of her private sence and freedome into hurtfull effects such as may endanger and disturbe our christian and publike peace it hath bin alwaies observed that it is as naturall and appetitions for error to beget error opinion to spread opinion as for one kind to generate and multiply the same insomuch when an erronious conscience will not be limited nor contained within it self it may and ought to be restrained and inhibited from infecting others and dispersing the contagion 2. Secondly it may be againe objected that although it be granted nothing can bind the conscience but the pure word of God yet forasmuch as no word of Scrirture is produced expresly confirming this from of polity and Presbyterian government which we are commanded to obey it will plainly follow that the consciences of men are therein left unto their liberty To give a full answer hereunto it would be necessary to take the frame of this government in pieces as the Levites did the Tabernacle when they removed their Tents and then bring it piece by piece to the light of Gods word to see what is thereby confirmed and what unfirmed But because this is already done by divers worthy brethren of the holy calling I shall forbeare to insert their volumes into these few sheets and shall onely say that this kind of government is either expresly or by good consequence included and allowed by the Scripture as not repugnant to it in any thing Of the Presbytery it selfe where the government is inherent I heare no question made but that it is expresly mentioned in the Scripture the main doubt and difference is whither it be Independent in particular Congregations subordinate to Synods and Assemblies as the urgencies and occasions of the Church may require Those Brethren that maintain Independency of single Congregations stand upon a ground feeble and unfirm saying that in the Apostles time there were no other Churches but onely congregationall in which alone all government was confined This assertion will hold no further true then in such Churches as were gathered whiles Christ was upon earth then indeed we may conceive that the first Evangelicall Church consisted in the congregation of the Apostles and afterwards of the Disciples but when Christ ascended into heaven and the holy Ghost descended upon earth we shall find that when the multitude of believers increased so much in severall Cities as one Congregation could not contain them their manner was to distribute themselves into severall meetings accordinp to the commodity of their habitations in the said Cities or else as it might most stand with their safety Now th' Apostles themselves and their coadjutors th' Evangelists and other Founders of Churches under them did usually constitute and ordain Elders in every City but not in every Congregation who had power in common and colleâ—gially to teach and govern the whole flock though severally congregated in the same City Thus we read of the Elders of Hierusalem of Antiochia of Ephesus of Corinth of Philippi and many mo where the numbers of the faithfull were inlarged Whereby it appeareth that in the Apostles times and the times succeeding those primitive Churches were City Churches consisting of divers Congregations and not congregationall as is pretended Independent within themselves True it is the City church was commonly independent within it selfe but thereof the reason was because the Cities in their civill policy were free and unsubjected otherwise the government of the City Church reached as farre as the jurisdiction of the City If all this be true as it is made most evident by the unpartiall searchers of Antiquity we may herein observe a pattern though not a precept for the subordination of Churches for if in the Apostles time a City church consisted of many congregations by the same proportion according to the increase of Beleevers a Provinciall Church may consist of many Cities and a Nationall Church of many Provinces and the Catholick Church of many Nations the lowest step was laid by the Apostles the highest step is a point of our belief and from the lowest to the highest there is no passage but by gradations which is the scale of that government now held forth by Parliament But to this may be replyed All this that you say is but conjecturall and that hath no power to bind the conscience which must have a word infallible to rest upon To this I answer That for the substance of this government wee have the infallible word of God whereof neither part doubteth for the frame and
lived many yeares separated from his wife in which time she had divers children by another man by the law he shall be injoyned to father them all may he not plead that it is against his conscience to take upon him the fathering of another mans children Many such examples might be brought wherein the consciences of men seem to have more just pretences to withdraw their obedience from such civill lawes then from this law of government so fully debated and â—o duly established Besides inasmuch as our brethren require a toleration of their own government they do tacitly acknowledge a power in the Magistrate to gratifie them or deny them and consequently they may also acknowledge that this power is either lawfull or unlawfull if it be lawfull they are with us bound to obey it if unlawfull they are bound to disprove it which when they go â—bout godly pens will not be wanting to endeavour to give them satisfaction 4. Moreover it is said by some that whatsoever is imposed by man in the worship of God not directly specified in his Word falleth under the condemnation of will-worship humane traditions or inventions of men This is too large an assertion to be ever well proved for it is true neither way Neither whatsoever is omitted in Scripture to be rejected as wil-worship nor whatsoever is recorded in Scripture to be retained of perpetuall necessity We read that the first administration of Baptism used to be performed in open rivers which with us would be thought rude and dangerous The Saints had a custome in the close of their holy meetings to salute one another with a holy kisse which in our Congregations might be thought carnall and lascivious they also were wont after the celebration of the blessed Eucharist to bring their provisions together and make love-feast which among us would be esteemed loose and luxurious When a Brother or Sister was sick the Elders of the Church were sent for to pray over them and anoint them with oile which in our visitations might be held superstitious or perhaps fitter for a Physitian then a Minister All these customes and many others passed with edification in the innocency and infancy of these first times which not consorting with ours are universally disused On the other side the times and places of diuine worship the seats and gestures of the worshippers the manner of publike Praying and Preaching of singing of Psalms of collecting Almes of assembling and dismissing the people the forme of administration and receiving the holy Sacraments and many other things concerning the outward publick communion of Saints are for the most part undeclared in Scripture yet in full use and practise among us without offence that therefore must be understood for a wil-worship and humane invention which is set up for some humane and carnall end repugnant to Gods word and to his glory 5. There be yet remaining two more objections arising from two contrary grounds one from pretence of weaknesse th' other from presumption of strength Those that lay forth the tendernesse of conscience forget not to produce those heavenly exhortations whereof the Scripture is full that we should not bruise the broken reede nor offend the least of the little ones nor cast stumbling blocks before our brethren nor use our liberty to the destroying of the weake but rather spread the covering of love over our brethrens infirmities to raise up one another in the spirit of meeknesse to beare with the weake and please one another for good edification yea rather to abstain from matters which we think lawfull then to compell others to things they judge unlawfull This they say was the doctrine and the pattern which Christ and his Apostles taught and practised among the faithfull which because I intend not to deny I shall onely examine how fitly they are applyed to the controversie in hand and whether they be of force to absolve weake brethren from their due obedience to Gods Magistrate We are therefore to understand that all those excellent rules set down by the Apostles for tendering of weak consciences receive a double limitation First they were limited to the state of those times with respect to the condition of private Christians and their carriage one towards another For in the Apostles age nor long after there was in the world neither Christian Kingdome Common-wealth nor Magistrate whereby these Rulers were neither given to them who were not then in being nor for ought we find intended so for them when God should raise them up in his Church The contrary rather appeareth for Christ himselfe comming to set up a spirituall Kingdome in his Church intended onely to pull down the kingdom of Satan but not the Kingdomes of the world those he left standing not refusing to pay for himself and his Apostle tribute to Caesar nor yet to answer before the Courts and Tribunalls of the Jewes After Christs example th' Apostles were very carefull to instruct the faithfull that they should walke with circumspexion without blame or reproach lest if they should transgresse the law or commit scandalls or fall into divisions among themselves they should make the name of God and that holy profession which they had undertaken to be blasphemed among the heathen ordaining them moreover to make prayers and supplications for all in authority and to give them obedience for conscience sake indeed the Gospell is called a law of liberty because through Christ it freeth us from the bondage of sinne the slavery of Satan and the feare of death not because it dischargeth us of our Christian duty and obedience to the Magistrate in which case it giveth no liberty nor exemption From whence we may conclude that if Christ and his Apostles subjected the beleevers of those times both by their precept and practise to unbeâ—ieving powers It was never their meaning to exempt the faithfull of our times from their due obedience to Chrsitian and believing Magistrates Secondly these Evangelicall rules for the ease of tender consciences respected especially indifferent things The Christians of those dayes consisted of two sorts the converted Jewes and converted Gentiles The Jewes trained up in the Ceremoniall Law which they knew was appointed by God made a conscience of meats and dayes and other rites and rudiments of the time as yet not convinced that they were abolished by the comming of Christ These were then the weake Christians On the other side the Gentiles were fully instructed in their liberty that they might use them or not use them as they pleased They were then the strong Christians The Apostle therefore to lay the foundation of charity aright and preserve these dissenting brethren in the unity of the Spirit and bond of Peace giveth these rules about indifferent things That the strong should not despise the weake nor the weake censure the strong because whether they eat or eat not they do it to the Lord and are of him accepted and being both accepted of the Lord they