Of Congregational Presbyterial Classical Churches and of the Church Catholick and Synods P. 25 26 WEe come now in the second place to interpret Antichristian Churches by Episcopal Churches that are the greater territories formed into Diocesan Provincial and Oecumenical Churches under the several orders of Bishops Episcopacy of the kind you mention being now discharged among us you might have spared your reader about this matter Let those that would see what is said for and against that Government read the treatises of learned men on that subject I shall onely here say to you in general that corruption in Church-Government is no sufficient cause for separation from a Church Wee must not say you p. 52. for respect to a right faith swallow a wrong order And wee must not say I because of some corruptions in the form of Church-Government forsake communion with a Church professing the true faith Your assertion in your sense stands onely upon your own authority Mine stands in the very light of the Scripture The Apostle John in his third Epistle mentions a great corruption in Church-Government but giveth not thereupon any precept for or encouragement to separation There were great corruptions crept into the form of Church-Government among the Jews in Christs time The Lord had appointed that there should bee onely one High-Priest at a time and hee was to continue in his office during life But there were then two High-Priests together that acted in the function each his year successively John 11.47 49. Besides the High Priesthood was at that time bought for mony procured by favour at the hands of the Romans Multitudes of corruptions there were also in the Priests actings c. Yet the Lord Christ gives no command or intimation to his Disciples to separate from them as from a false Church but onely bids them take heed of being leavened with their corrupt doctrines and drawn to an imitation of their wicked actions And the Lord himself held communion with them as a true Church in his life time Jesus Christ hath instituted no other visible integral Organical Church or Church with Officers P. 26. for the practice of his visible publick and solemn worship but one particular Congregation that may meet together ordinarily in the same place to worship in all the Ordinances of Gods house Such was the Church at Jerusalem there were added to it about three thousand Act. 2.41 They grew to five thousand more Chap. 4.4 yet they were all in Solomons porch Chap. 5.12 Multitudes were added Chap. 5.14 yet the Apostles call them together to them Chap. 6.2 5. And Chap. 15.4 Paul and Barnabas were received of the Church that is all the multitude verse 12. who were present at the disputation verse 6 7. Here indeed is the Hinge of the Controversies between us and our Reverend Brethren of the Congregational way in Old and New England who stand to their first professed principles owning our Congregations as true Churches but scrupling the Government of them by their Guides united confining all power of Government to a single Congregation and contending that it ought to bee so with all Gospel-Churches Had Mr. P. been such a one I should more gladly have entred the lists with him than I do But hee hath much out-grown his Brethren in Scruples and nothing will satisfie him concerning our Churches but what the Edomites wish'd against Jerusalem even the rasing of them to the foundation thereof For our parts wee beleeve that Gospel Churches may and commonly ought to consist of divers single Congregations united under and governed by their Elders in common and that wee have primitive examples for it and among them in the first and chief place that of the Church of Jerusalem in the Apostles times which is that that Mr. P. instanceth in to establish the contrary opinion Before I enter upon the dispute I desire it may bee considered that the enquiry is not of what number of members a Church consisted when it began first to bee planted But the inquiry is how it was with Churches when arrived to strength and maturity during the times in which the Apostles lived This premised I begin with the Church of Jerusalem and say that the Church of Jerusalem 1 Of the Church of Jerusalem when it grew numerous enough for it consisted of divers single Congregations as of so many parts making up one intire and compleat Church For proof whereof let it bee considered that 1 There was a Church at Jerusalem before the addition of the first three thousand Act. 2.41 And the members of the Church at that time cannot bee conceived to have been conteined within the limits of one single Congregation For the Ministery of Christ was exceeding successeful Mark 5.31 John 2.23 John 12.19 It is said of John Matth. 3.5 6. Jerusalem and all Judea and all the Region round about Jordan went out to him and were baptized of him And yet of Christ it is said hee made and baptized more disciples than John John 4.1 Visibly more so that the Pharisees could take notice of it Unto these converted by Johns and Christs Ministery add those brought in by the Ministery of the Apostles and seventy Disciples whom Christ endued with a power to work miracles that thereby they might gain faith to their doctrine Mark 6. Luk. 10. and yet still there is great want of labourers the Harvest was so great Luk. 10.2 and besides these more are found not without Christs approbation labouring in his Vineyard impowered also to work miracles to confirme Christs doctrine which they taught Mark 9.38 39. and of those there seem to have been many Matth. 7.22 Now seeing our Brethren will not grant that by Baptisme men are admitted into any other than a particular Church and there is no mention in Scripture of any other particular Church till long after this time but that of Jerusalem onely Let them from the premises judge whether the Church of Jerusalem even before the addition of the first three thousand must not needs consist of more Congregations than one But supposing that as yet there might bee but one Congregation in Jerusalem yet when wee consider from the Texts Mr. P. quotes the addition of the three thousand and of five thousand more and afterwards of multitudes and adde hereunto Act. 6.1.7 and 12.24 which speak of the farther prevailing of the Word and great increase of the number of the Disciples and together therewith 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 reflect on that Act. 21.20 Thou seest how many ten thousands of the Jews there are which beleeve mee thinks reason should compel men to acknowledge that the Church of Jerusalem must needs in the Apostles time consist of divers single Congregations What is said against these Texts shall bee anon considered 2 There was a great number of labourers in the Church of Jerusalem There were at first the twelve Apostles and one hundred and eight Disciples and most likely 't is there
of Asia spoken of Rev. 2. 3. chap. were Presbyterial Churches consisting of divers Congregations which appears because 1 The Cities in the which they were planted were great Cities Ephesus was the head of Ionia the greatest market of all Asia famous among the Heathen for the Temple of Diana and there the Apostle Paul spent his labours for three years together Act. 20.31 Laodicea was one of the greatest Cities in all Phrygia famous for traffick The rest were also famous Cities and of great command Therefore 't is not probable that there was but one single Congregation of Christians in each 2 There was a great number of Teachers in each of these Churches To the Angel of the Church write so begins every Epistle Now 't is apparent from several places in these Epistles that there was more than one Minister in each Church and therefore this Angel must mean either a Colledge of Pastors in each Church or a President over that ruling society as the leading man in all acts of publike concernment and Church-government The former seems most probable and is proved by Smectymunus from Rev. 2.24 But unto you I say and to the rest in Thyatira 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. where the Angel is bespoken in the Plural number as distinct from the members In Ephesus alone in Pauls time the Elders appear to have been so many as were more than needed for one single congregation Act. 20.25 36 37. Yee all shall see my face no more Hee prayed with them all They all wept sore these three all 's imply that they were very many And the Church is called all the flock vers 28. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which argues that there were several charges for them to attend upon So in Pergamos there were divers Pastors for there were divers erroneous teachers three some teaching the doctrine of Balaam Rev. 2.14 Some that of the Nicholaitans vers 15. and what more likely than that they did it in several Congregations and others holding fast Christs name who were so many that they are required to purge out those erroneous ones Therefore 't is not probable that they were all over one single congregation onely The like may bee said of the rest of those Churches that are exhorted to deal in a disciplinary way with false teachers There were very many Pastors in them and consequently several Congregations on which they attended 3 The Holy Ghost hints clearly that these Churches were Presbyterial consisting of divers Congregations when hee calleth each of them first a Church and then Churches Rev. 2.1 7. 8.11 12.17 18.29 So Rev. 3. Each of these bodies is called Churches as it was made up of divers congregations under their proper Pastors and yet but one Church as these congregations were combined and subjected together to the government of all the Elders in common These two Chapters well weighed would put an end to divers controversies among us about the Discipline of the Church For 1 Hence Christians might bee convinced that church-Church-power was never committed to the people but to Church-officers only The Angels only are censured for neglect and ill administration of Government in the Churches and praised for and exhorted to the due exercise of Discipline 2 Hence a combination of the Officers of divers congregations united to govern them in common may bee evinced The Elders in Pergamos sound in the faith must in a disciplinary way hinder the Balaamites and Nicholaitans from teaching their errors in the assemblies of Christians there 3 Hence appears that the spirit of the Prophets is not subject to the people but to the Prophets onely The Angel of each Church the Church-officers must try the Prophets and those that say they are Apostles Rev. 2.2 Let us now consider how Mr. P. proceeds p. 29 30 31 32 Classical Churches are put in the room of Episcopal Churches by the effectual working of the mystery of iniquity These are combinations of congregations united by subjection to one and the same Court of Elders chosen out of the whole to govern them These are pressed so far as to take away power of government and exercise of Ecclesiastical Discipline from the Congregations For they appropriate power of Government to the Eldership This agrees not with the institution Matth. 18.18 When Christ saies whatsoever yee binde on earth c. doth hee not include the offending brother Christ promised the Keyes of the Kingdome of Heaven unto Peter as unto a lively confessour of him and did not therein look on him otherwise I have already given in reasons to manifest Gospel Churches in Primitive times to have been Classical and more shall bee said to it upon your next paragraph The first branch of your charge against those that are for them I shall now consider which is that they appropriate the power of Government and exercise of Ecclesiastical discipline to the Eldership A sad crime beleeve it and as much to bee condemned as the appropriating of power of government in the Commonwealth to the Magistrate which by some passages in Mr. P's Book seems to bee in his judgement a crime too If the people can lay claim from Christs appointment to the power of the Keyes as to the Preaching of the Word administration of the Sacraments authoritative binding and loosing for the Keyes go together and were given to Peter together if these things belong to the Community in the Church wee shall confess our selves guilty in appropriating the power of government to the Eldership But though wee have looked much after it wee cannot discern any such grant and appointment of our Lord Christ the King of the Church And when I read such places as these Matth. 18.18 28.19 20. John 20.22 23. 21.16 Eph. 4.11 12. I cannot without offering violence to my reason imagine that they speak to and of the Community considering withall what express charges the Community have upon them from God to bee subject to those that are over them in the Lord as to their Governours Teachers Pastors Rulers c. But I will particularly consider the first of these Texts which is that Mr. P. urgeth for his cause and shew how little it makes for it That Mat. 18.17 18. speaks of the Church-Officers onely doth appear because it is spoken by Christ with reference firstly to the Jewish Church-governours than which there was then no other governing Church in being And this is the joint judgement of the Antients Ambrose Cyril Theodoret Gregory c. and of multitudes of later lights in the Church Melanchton Aretius Musculus Bucan Cartwright Parker c. and Mr. Fenner gives a reason of it from the words our Saviour useth viz. Publican Heathen and that otherwise the Apostles could not have understood Christ knowing then no other Church governing So that the Lord Christ manifestly alludes to the Jewish and gives from it a pattern to the Christian Church First the offending brother must bee dealt
with in a private way If this prevail not one or two witnesses are to bee taken the next time admonition is given If this work not on him then the Church is to bee told of it that is the Elders of the Church before whom among the Jews Ecclesiastical causes were brought first the Elders of that particular congregation then if need bee the associated Elders of combined Congregations for so among the Jews the Rulers of the Synagogue were first complâ—ined to and then the great Ecclesiastical Court which was the Church representative and if the offendor will not hear them hee must bee excommunicated and accounted as a Heathen and a Publican And hee that is thus bound on earth if the thing bee duly done is bound in heaven Hence it appears that the Communities sharing in the power and act of binding cannot any way bee hence gathered without offering a manifest violence to the Text which Mr. P. doth to purpose and withall to all rules both of divine and humane Polity when hee makes not onely the community judges and Governours but even the offending brother a judge in his own cause Let us now draw an Argument from this Text to relieve Classes against his fierce assault If in this place our Saviour layes down a rule for the healing of all the grievances of his Church then by the Church here to bee complained to wee must understand not onely the Church governing of one Congregation but also the Church governing of many Congregations But in this place Christ laies down a rule for the healing of all the grievances of his Church therefore wee must by the Church here understand the Church governing even of many Congregations or the united Elders of several Congregations and Churches The minor is clear because this is the onely express Text wherein Christ did lay down a rule to his disciples for the healing of offences in his Church and I suppose none will say that Christs remedy is too short to reach the malady The consequence of the major is made out thus Not onely one Brother may offend another but the Elders one another one part of the Congregation the other the Congregation the Elders the Elders the Congregation and one or more Churches one or many Sister Churches Our sad experience proves this to bee a truth and it is also proved by Scripture-examples Now how shall such evils bee healed but by an appeal and application to a representative Church a Church governing so comprehensive as the case will require If a Church so comprehensive be not here meant then Christian Churches are in such cases left without remedy but that being not to bee granted it will follow that the Church governing here spoken of takes into its meaning an assembly or Church of Officers of many Congregations Leaving Mr. P. to consider this Argument I return to the point the holding of which hee chargeth upon us as a crime that the power of the Keyes belongs onely to the Eldership For which I shall cite the suffrages of Congregational Brethren themselves The Key of authority and rule saith Mr. Cotton is committed to the Elders of the Church Keyes p. 20. and so the act of rule is made the proper act of their office Common members saith Mr. Noyes are not to govern by suffrage with their Elders Temple measured p. 30 31 34 35 36 their consent is not absolutely necessary and is not authoritative The Ministerial Keyes were given to Peter as an Apostle Peter is made Matth. 16.18 19. oeconomus Ecclesiae and is evidently distinguished from the Church which Mr. P. denies and in saying that Christ in this speech looked on him no otherwise than as a lively confessor of him hee puts into every beleevers hands the power of the Keys for if I give unto thee respect Peter onely as a lively confessor of Christ it extends to every lively confessor of Christ and so every true Beleever is vested with power to preach administer the Sacraments and binde and loose authoritatively than which what is more absurd Again the Elders are Rulers Governours have power to command as superiours in authority judicial The Church is charged to obey them not to command to bee subject not to govern The Angels are rebuked for the corruptions of the Churches of Asia as if it had been in their power to prevent and redress things amiss Governours and to govern with coactive power are conjugates Are they not proper Governours which shall govern the people over which they are Governours onely when themselves list Keyes p. 47. In case saith Mr. Cotton a Church be troubled with errour or scandal and the same maintained by a faction among them now a Synod of Churches or their messengers is the first subject of that power and authority whereby errour is judicially convinced and condemned the truth searched out and determined and the way of truth and peace declared and imposed on all Churches Quid plura Do not our Brethren grant what wee say though in some places they make exceptions from their own grants in favour of the Community But one Objection is to bee removed Object Neither Matthew 18. nor any other place is to bee understood of a governing Church or a Presbytery because such a company is never called a Church in Scripture Mr. Noyes answereth 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is used for any assembly in the New Testament Act. 19.39 and therefore is applicable to an assembly of Elders and the Presbytery is called the Congregation or Church in the Old Testament Numb 35.24 25. with Deut. 19.12 and our Saviour may well be supposed to conform his speech to the Old Testament Wee have shewed that 1 Cor. 14.23 calls clearly the Teachers the Church neither can Church bee otherwise understood in Matth. 18. but of a Presbytery or governing Church since the power of binding and loosing is ascribed to it which is no where granted to the Community as hath been said Let us now heed Mr. P's second assault or charge Secondly They exclude the single Congregations considered severally each one by it self from having an Eldership having power to exercise Ecclesiastick Discipline P. 32 33 34. But is it likely that go tell the Church should mean go tell the Elders of the combination It hath been proved that the Church of Jerusalem and Corinth were single Congregations and that of Corinth exercised ecclesiastick discipline But they stay not here but translate the power of Government to their Elderships subordinate one to another till they come to an oecumenical assembly Now if wee grant that single Congregations with their Elderships be excluded from the power of Government yet will it not appear from Scripture that there are any higher Elderships or larger combinations of Churches than those of the first form and first step from the single Congregations The Churches of Asia grant them collective Churches do severally receive of Christ the praise of their good and blame
of their evil carriage c. Here in some things you apprehend not our mind rightly and in others you overthrow your cause 1 Wee hold that the power of Government residing in the Eldership a particular Congregation may and ought to have an appropriate Eldership belonging to it 2 That a single Congregation having an appropriate Eldership is a true Church 3 That such single Congregations have equal power severally considered 4 That though a single Congregation bee a Church yet it is or ought to bee also when it may a part or member of a Presbyterial Church and hath not so much power as a Classical Church hath 5 That the Presbytery of a single Congregation have power to end differences among themselves in cases that are ordinary 6 That in cases weighty and extraordinary as excommunication The Presbytery or Eldership of consociated Congregations are concerned as well as the Presbytery of that single Congregation of which the offending Brother is Paul writeth not to the Eldership of that particular Congregation of which the incestuous person was more peculiarly a member but to the Presbytery of all the Congregations belonging to the Church of Corinth to cast him out 7 That there is no example in all the New Testament of excommunication by the particular Eldership of one single Congregation 8 That therefore a single Congregation ordinarily is not a compleat entire Church furnished with full power for all acts of Church-discipline 9 That wee finde in the New Testament Church-Discipline commonly executed in a Presbyterial Church consisting of divers Congregations Such was the Church of Ephesus and the Eldership of this Church as such did commonly exercise Church-Discipline tryed false Prophets and those that called themselves Apostles and convicted them as lyars Rev. 2. The like wee might say of other Churches 10 That in extraordinary cases wee have an example of appeal from one Presbyterial Church to an association of such Churches to guide us The Church of Antioch and probably also those of Syria and Silicia Act. 15.23 appeals to an assembly of the Apostles and Elders at Jerusalem and the Elders of that Church united probably also of the Elders of the Churches of Syria and Cilicia and the controversie which could not bee ended otherwise is ended in and by that Synod And thus larger Synods and Councils may bee necessary even an Oecumenical to heal publick and spreading evils If the Church saith Mr. Cotton where the offence lyeth Way p. 108 persisteth in the neglect of their duty and the counsel of their Brethren the matter would be referred to a Congregation of many or all the Churches together That is sure to the Elders of all the Churches for to them hee saies the power of rule or Government doth properly belong Hence you may rectifie your mistakes wee exclude not the Eldership of a single Congregation from power of Government but say it hath not ordinarily power for all acts of Church-Discipline And in that wee arise from a Congregational to a Classical Synodal and Oecumenical Eldership wee have respect to the need of the Church so requiring it and to the precedents given us of the two first in Scripture which are also a sufficient ground for the latter What you say of Jerusalem and Corinth helps you not for it hath been evinced that they were not single Congregations What you adde against higher Elderships or larger combinations of Churches than those of the first step from single Congregations from the consideration of the Churches of Asia doth you no service but è contra For 1 By granting the Churches of Asia to have been collective Churches you pull down what you had said for the congregationalness of Churches Grant them collective Churches and the greatest part of your book is una litura 2 By saying that it appears not from Scripture that there are any larger combinations of Churches than those of this first form You look beside the Scripture and the state of the Question The state of the question because wee stand not for stated and fixed combinations of Churches beyond that first form but onely occasional ones and the Scripture because as hath been and shall bee shewed there was a higher Eldership and larger combination of Churches in the Synod at Jerusalem than those of the first step from single congregations the Elders of the Presbyterial Churches of Antioch and Jerusalem being there combined and in all probability those also of Syria and Cilicia as hath been said 3 If you will stand to what you say that the Churches of Asia do severally receive praise or dispraise each for her self without reflection on the rest I will compel you to grant positively and not onely suppositively that they were collective Churches For the Epistle to every one hath this close Hee that hath an ear let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the Churches If what Christ saies to one Church hee says to the Churches and yet the several Churches do each for her self restrainedly receive praise or dispraise It follows unavoidably that every one of the seven Churches was a collective Church and so you dispute against and confute your self 4 'T is not strange as you say it is that Christ should not speak of a combination of these seven Churches as an Ordinance of his for their remedie and blame them for the neglect of it For they were first to use and Christ directs them accordingly to the use of the first means the help of the Presbytery of each Church If this would do there was no need of carrying the cause higher if upon tryal it would not do they knew what course was next to bee used and had an example of it in the practice of the Church of Antioch To your question Whether it bee likely that go tell the Church should mean go tell the Elders of the combination I answer it is likely and it hath been proved to mean so yet not firstly as you seem to insinuate that wee hold but secondarily when the Eldership of the particular Church where the offence is given prevail not to remove it Here was no Synod Act. 15. that is an assembly of Officers resulting out of many inferiour Presbyteries P. 35. 10 p. 45 1 Because we read not of any such combination of the Churches there mentioned to become subject to the rule of one Superior Eldership 2 Because wee read of no forreigners that came to this Synod but those of Antioch who concurred not in the Decrees of it and are excluded from the decision of the controversy Act. 16.4 3 Here was no appeal from the censure of the Church at Antioch there passed no censure but onely had been a dissention and disputation and so the errand of the Messengers was to get satisfaction that the same doctrin was taught at Jerusalem as at Antioch 4 Here was no rule exercised over the Churches for it would argue a diminution of Pauls Apostolical Authority that the Decrees of the
forth the Ordainers to bee Church-Officers none of them give the least hint of the like power in the people in any case therefore surely this power is restrained to Officers and denied to the people That this work belongs to Officers the Precepts and Examples prove clearly that it belongs in any one case to the People let them give us one precept or example 2 The matter of the Objection which they pretend to answer is a sufficient answer to them That the extraordinary Officers mentioned might act in this as ordinary Officers and so their acting may warrant ordinary Officers in ordaining even in the case they mention Officers are appointed to Ordain the imposition of the hands of the Presbytery is required in Ordination ordained Officers had it in those Primitive times whose practice is our pattern though from Ministers that belonged not in particular to the Congregations for which they were ordained and will it not hence follow that in unpresbyterated Churches Officers of other Churches are to ordain Ministers If not to retort these Brethrens reasoning and use it more consequently than they doe Ordination will be in such Churches unattainable for Christ who hath given expresly power for it to Church-Officers hath no where given it to the people Their Medium will better serve against them than for them 3 It is as evident as that they say sometimes the contrary that there was then ordination by ordinary Officers Act. 13.1 2 3. speaks of Ordination by ordinary Officers at Antioch such certainly were many there and it is a wonder these Brethren should question it What no ordinary Officers at Antioch The Presbytery at Antioch saies the New-England plat-form laid hands upon Paul and Barnabas Platform p. 12. The Presbytery at Ephesus upon Timothy an Evangelist Ordinary Officers laid hands upon the Officers of many Churches Where there are no Elders wee see not why imposition of hands may not bee performed by the Elders of other Churches Timothy and Titus did ordain with imposition of hands in Unpresbytered Churches but they laid not on hands alone but with a Presbytery for so had Paul appointed them as must bee confessed unlesse which is groundlesse and unreasonable wee do suppose Paul's command and directions to cross his own practice See 1 Tim. 4.14 with 2 Tim. 1.6 But say these Brethren those Presbyteries had an Extraordinary Call they acted not in such Ordinations upon an ordinary call That is easily said but they would have done well to have proved that their cal was extraordinary They do not do it they cannot do it 'T is warrant then enough for Ordination in Unpresbyterated Churches by Presbyteries Ministers of other Churches and against the peoples Ordination that Ordination is made by the word the work of a Presbytery and signified to have been performed in such Churches by a Presbytery which these Brethren cannot prove to have had an extraordinary call to it and that it is no where made the work of the people or signified to have been performed in any case by them Argum. 2 In a Church that hath no Officers either some beleevers may ordain without Officers Preacher sent p. 330. to 334. or else Beleevers and Officers of other Churches or else Officers of other Churches onely or else there is no way laid out by Christ for Ordination in such a case But Officers of other Churches only are not appointed let our Brethren prove it Wee have under the former Argument found that all the Texts that speak about Ordination intimated either the Officers that acted in it or the call to be extraordinary Ans In such a case neither may Beleevers alone nor Beleevers and Officers of other Churches joyntly ordain Because wee have no example in the New-Testament of the peoples concurring with Officers extraordinary or ordinary in ordaining any though the lowest Officer in the Church much lesse of their ordaining alone And therefore wee stâ—â—â— retort their argument against them Either Ordination in the case mentioned must bee the act of Officers of other Churches onely or else there is no way laid out by Christ for ordination in such a case Let them prove by Precept or Example that it may be the peoples act affirmantiâ— incumbit probatio or else they jangle to no purpose They tell us they haue under the former Argument found that all the Texts that speak about Ordination intimate the Officers that acted in it or the Call to bee extraordinary When as all that they have said is onely that they might bee all extraordinary Teachers in Antioch and they much question whether the Presbytery 1 Tim. 4.14 were an ordinary Presbytery and they might bee all extraordinary and not one word to prove that if there were any ordinary Officers among them and who but they think there were not their Call was extraordinary in this businesse which notwithstanding was the main thing they should have done They require proof for the peculiarness of ordaining power in Officers of other Churches in the case in hand Wee have proved and do prove it Ordination is by the Holy Ghost committed to Church-Officers and we find them acting in it and no intimation that the people have any thing to do in it Therefore to Church Officers alone it belongs to act in it in all cases and so in the case in hand Their harping upon the extraordinariness of the Ordainers which the New-Testament mentions cannot enervate the argument no not if they could prove that none but extraordinary Officers ordained in the places in relation to which Ordination is mentioned which they can never do for still it remaines that it is the work of Officers and put upon and practised by none else Therefore if Ordination be to be continued in the Church after the cessation of extraordinary Officers it is the work of ordinary Officers and of none else Wee read of none that administred the Lords-Supper but Extraordinary Officers the Lord Jesus and the Apostles Act. 2. and Paul Act. 20.11 and the Commission given by Christ This do in the institution of this Ordinance was given to Extraordinary Officers even to his Apostles But will it hence follow that the Administration of this Ordinance belongs not to ordinary Officers and to them onely now Yet by these Brethrens way of arguing this may bee as well concluded as what they do contend for Their begged supposition that there is no Scripture-warrant for any other Presbytery but that onely which is in a particular Congregation and no rule to justify a Presbyteries putting forth any acts as a Presbytery towards any but the particular members of that Congregation where they are fixed which is another false hypothesis they build upon I shall not here consider having spoken to it in this Treatise Preacher sent p. 335. Argum. 3 Some Beleevers who are no Officers may publikely Preach as wee have proved therefore some Beleevers who are no Officers may ordain without Officers in a Church that
A Pretended VOICE FROM HEAVEN Proved to bee The Voice of Man and not of God OR AN ANSWER To a Treatise called A Voice from Heaven Written by Mr. Gualter Postlethwait an unordained Preacher Taking upon him to exercise the Pastoral charge in a Congregation at Lewis in Sussex Wherein his weakness in undertaking to prove all Protestant Churches to bee Antichristian and to bee separated from as no true Churches of Christ is discovered and the sinfulness of such a Separation evinced Together with A brief Answer inserted to the Arguments for Popular Ordination brought by the Answerers of Jus Divinum Ministerii Evangelici in their Book called The Preacher sent By Ezekiel Charke M. A. And Rector of Waldron in Sussex Job 6.25 How forcible are right words but what doth your arguing reprove Gal. 4.17 They zealously affect you but not well yea they would exclude us that you might affect them Imprimatur Edmond Calamy London Printed for Andrew Kembe and are to bee sold at his shop at St. Margarets hill near the Talbot in Southwark and under St. Margarets Church on New-Fishstreet-hill 1659. To the Christian Reader Reader UNderstand the Reasons why this Answer came forth no sooner to bee 1 That Mr. P's Book had been a good while publick ere I thought of being his Respondent 2 This Answer was drawn up above a year since But some Brethren not judging his Book worth an answer I had almost resolved to lay it by Yet afterwards considering that some answer might bee needful for the Peoples sake in these parts some of whom are easily shaken and to repress Mr. P's Arrogancy I reviewed and contracted it and divided it into Sections 3 There comming of late to my hands the Book called The Preacher sent which pleads among other things for a popular Ordination of Ministers I judged it convenient to insert an Answer to that part of their Treatise in mine Withall I desire thee to take notice that although many things in this Treatise touch the Congregational Brethren in general Yet I put a great deal of difference between many of them and Mr. P. and those of his way and minde Well knowing that their Moderation freeth them from many of those charges which his rigid principles and way fall under And that there are hopes that if matters between us were subjected to a fair free and amicable inquiry upon principles owned on both sides but rejected mostly by those of the principles and way which Mr. P. cleaves to wee might prove agreed For the evidencing of which I shall set down those Principles as yielded and owned by some of the chief Masters of their Assemblies in their Tracts wherein they hold a fair correspondency with us 1 Concerning the Subject of Church-power and Rule in general Mr. Cotton Keys p. 20. The Key of authority and rule is committed to the Elders of the Church and so the act of Rule is made the proper act of their Office The Church and its Elders are not Co-ordinate societies in respect of ordinary execution Mr. Noy p. 34. c. A necessity of Members consent in ordinary execution constitutes a Church excessively Democratical and renders the Elders onely Titular Governours Governours or Rulers should have judicial power to constrain obedience which is inconsistent with a necessity of the members consent The Relation of Elders to Churches doth chalenge power compleat The Church is to bee carried not to carry to obey not to command to be subject not to govern c. 2 Concerning the Subject of power for admission of Members and Excommunication Mr. Cotton Keyeâ— p. 21 Mr. Noyes p. 33 34 39. It is an Act of the power of the Elders to examine any whether Officers or others before they be received of the Church It is naturally in the power of the Presbytery to admonish the whole Church to suspend the whole Church in respect of the Seals Elders have as full power to Baptize as to teach by consequence they have full power to admit Members What the Apostles could do in all Churches that the ordinary Elders can do in respect of ordinary administration within the Sphaeres of their particular Churches and the Apostles could admit excommunicate threaten the Rod make Decrees c. They did not ask the vote of the Church in admissions or excommunications Philip could admit without the Church The twelve gates of New Jerusalem Rev. 21. are the particular Churches The Angels are Presbyters and are set to govern the gates they are not to open and shut of themselves but the Angels are to open and shut them in the use of the Keyes Mr. Baines Dioces trial p. 79 c. The Church Christ speaketh of Matth. 18.17 hee doth suppose it as the ordinary Executioner of all Discipline and censure But the multitude have not this execution as all but Morelius and such Democratical spirits do affirm 3 Concerning the Covenant for admission of Church-Members Mr. Catton Way p. 3. 4. In summe wee account it all one and of like value when a Covenant on Gods part is propounded and given to a People whether they receive it by silent consent or by express terms and whether their cleaving to their brethren and Officers and mutual watchfulnesse bee expresly mentioned or included onely in their general profession of subjection to Gods Ordinances An implicite Covenant Mr. Hooker Survey first part p 48. preserves the true nature of the true Church because it carries the formalis ratio of a confederation in it In some cases an implicit covenant may bee fully sufficient as suppose a whole Congregation should consist of such who were Children to the Parents now deceased who were confederate This fully reacheth our case Our Churches are made up of the children of such Parents who were confederate Explicit and particular Covenants Mr. Noyes p. 8. are not necessary to the constitution of Churches Christians fell into fellowship without any such form in primitive times c. 4 Concerning qualifications of Church-Members required for their admission The Profession of Faith and Repentance Mr. Noyes p. 62 63 64 65. with knowledge of the fundamentals and subjection to the Ordinances ought to give satisfaction in admission especially where there is testimony of an answerable conversation precedent That Rule which requireth more than is necessary for the weakest Beleever must needs exclude the called of God The practice of the Apostles must confine our prudence They expected no testimony not a daies experience They could not in so short a time make any inquisitions or hear any perswasive relations The Apostolical rule was large it did suffer many corrupt Members to creep in None as far as wee read were ever put by Yet converts were many young ignorant rude and conversions were suddain and passionate The Apostles were never acquainted with those questions when where whereby by whom conversion was wrought They accepted of Profession and subjection with congratulations
5 Concerning the quantity of a Church that it may consist of divers Assemblies Mr. Hooker grants Survey part â— p. 129. that the Church of Jerusalem was so numerous that they must needs meet in divers Congregations Several dissenting Brethren have yielded that Corinth had more than one Congregation 6 Concerning the gathering of Members into Congregations Respect is to bee had to vicinity of habitation Mr. Borroughs Heart Div. p. 163. 169. according to the rule of Christ All beleevers who live in a place together ought so far as they can to joyn in one Church though they bee of different judgements and tempers The way of Christ all along in Scripture is that those in a place that are not more than can joyn in one should joyn together and make but one Church 7 Concerning the return of Church-Members from gathered Churches to their proper Pastors in the places of their Habitations Mr. Borroughs Heart div p. 165. Do you pray for and endeavour the putting on reformation to the uttermost and then see what they will do They have not yet declared themselves so joyned by any Covenant that they may not joyn with you 8 Against Separation from our Churches as no true Churches Mr. Cotton Way p. 111 112. Wee cannot but conceive the Churches of England were rightly gathered and planted according to the rule of the Gospel at first So that all the work is now not to make them Churches which were none before but to reduce and restore them to their primitive institution Congr Way cleared p. 14 Mr. Robinsons denial of the Parishional Congregations in England to bee true Churches was never received into any heart from thence to inferre a nullity of their Church-state Neither was our departure from them even in those evil times a separation from them as no true Churches Mr. Burroughs Heart div p. 163. Men must not separâ—â—â— from a Church though there be corruption in it to gather into a new Church which may bee more pure and in some respects more comfortable Because wee never finde the Saints in Scripture separating or raising Churches in such a case and there would bee no continuance in Church-fellowship if this were admitted 9 Of Election and Ordination of Church-Officers Mr. Bains Dioces trial p. 84. If any fail in any Office the Church hath not power of supplying that but a Ministry of calling one whom Christ hath described that from Christ he may have power of Office given him in the place vacant Mr. Cotton Keys p. 21. Way p. 40 Ordination of Officers whether Elders or Deacons belongs to the Elders of the Church and is to be performed by prayer fasting and imposition of hands Mr. Hooker Surveys part 2. p. 76. Mr. Noyes p. 69. When Churches are rightly constituted and compleated the right of Ordination belongs to the Elders The act appertaines to the Presbyters when an Officer is invested in his place for of these it is expresly spoken 1 Tim. 4.14 It hath been proved that common Members may not ordain by themselves without Officers 10 Concerning the Ordination of the Ministers of the Church of England Congregational Brethren generally acknowledge the Ordination of our Ministers to bee valid and that they need not any new ordination nor those that have been ordained by them 11 Concerning the power of Synods Wee dare not say Mr. Cotton Keies p. 25. that their power reacheth no farther than giving of Counsell They have power by the grace of Christ also to command and injoyn the things to be beleeved and done Act. 15.28 In case a particular Church p. 47. bee disturbed with error or scandal maintained by a faction now a Synod of Churches or their Messengers is the first subject of that power and authority whereby error is judicially convinced and condemned and the way of truth and peace declared and imposed on the Churches See also Mr. Noyes Temple measured p. 56 57 58. Thus far and in several other particulars wee and the congregational Brethren are or at least were sometimes agreed And did they own what may bee from these principles inferred and practice what they lead to I doubt not but that wee should soon bee fully agreed But a generation of men are now Risen up who yet would be accounted one with these terming themselves Congregational also who call most if not all these principles into question and instead of tending to an accommodation raise and heighten our divisions proclaiming our Churches Ministry Government to bee Antichristian c. Among whom I have found my Antagonist laying about him to this end with all his might I confess I have dealt plainly with him but beleeve that my sharpest expressions fall short of his merit Reader consider and judge and the Lord lead thee with me and all his people into all truth So prays From my study in Waldron this 12th of August 1658. Thy Servant for Jesus sake EZECHIEL CHARKE The Table Sections 1 ANimadversions upon some passages in the Epistle concerning the Magistrates Power in matters of Religion Pages 1 Sections 2 Of Mr. P's Text and the interpretation thereof and inferences from it particularly of the coming out of Babylon and an Antichristian Church-state Pages 6 Sections 3 Of National Churches Pages 11 Sections 4 Of Parish-Churches Ministers maintenance the Churches of England the Witnesses and Separation Pages 13 Sections 5 Of Congregational Presbyterial Classical Churches and of the Church Catholick and Synods Pages 28 Sections 6 An Examination of Mr. P's Answers to the Objections hee mentions as made against his Doctrine of Separation and of his Reasons for Separation Pages 61 Sections 7 Of Mr. P's injunctions to the Magistrate and first concerning Parishes Parish-Temples and Patrons Pages 80 Sections 8 Of Tithes Pages 89 Sections 9 Concerning the Commissioners for approbation of publike Preachers Pages 101 Sections 10 Of Mr. P's Counsels and Directions for Reformation Pages 104 Sections 11 Of the Call of our Ministers Pages 106 Sections 12 A Question discussed Whether any unordained persons among us are lawful and compleat Ministers of the Gospel with an Answer to the six Arguments for Popular Ordination brought by the Answerers of Jus Div. Min. Evangelici in their Book called the Preacher sent Pages 110 Sections 13 Containing the Authors humble supplication to those in Authority for Reformation Pages 123 Sections 14 Of Mr. P's Conclusion abusing that of the Lord Du Plessis his book Pages 125 AN Answer to Mr. Postelthwaite's Book Entituled A voice from Heaven SECT I. Animadversions upon some Passages in the Epistle Concerning the Magistrates Power in matters of RELIGION CAn God indure to bee prescribed by Creatures shall man coine Laws for Rules of acceptable walking with God in spirituall Civil or Ecclesiastical things c. You are not ignorant that in Ecclesiastical things both for Doctrine and Discipline wee own no other Rule but the written Word of God by which both Magistrates and
Subjects must be guided And therefore your flourishing insinuations of the contrary are very uncharitable and vain Wee wish that those golden verses Deut. 17.18 19 20. were written in the hearts and transcribed in the lives of all Christian Princes Wee acknowledge that Magistrates have no power to create new Laws for the Government of the Church contrary to the Divine pattern laid down in the Word But have not Magistrates power to make Penal Laws to inforce obedience to the Law of God in matters of Ecclesiastical concernment Your book doth in effect deny them all power For the Magistrates Power in matters of Religion Consider 1. The light of Nature pleads for it It hath taught Heathen Princes to interpose their Power in matters of Religion and their people to acknowledge it Scripture examples clearly evince this which God seals with his approbation Ezra 7. 25 26 27. Dan. 3.29 Jonah 3.6 c. And Heathens generally have looked upon the blessing of God upon States and people as a consequent of their care and zeal for Religion 2 The Magistrates and Kings of Israel had and exercised power in matters of Religion Moses and Joshuah had so Exod. 32.27 28. Josh 5.2 c. Josh 24.14 to 29. So it was with the Judges 1 Sam. 7.3 4. And the Kings succeeded the Judges herein as that which God called them to Psa 78.70 71 72. Pascant reges principes suos subditor primum coelesti doctrina hoc est curent recte doceri ecclesiam prohibeant idololattiam superstitiosos cultus extirpent errores in ecclesia compescant blasphemos conferant opes ad conservationem ministerii studiorum necessariorum Deinde current etiam corpora subditorum Moller in locum He took him from the sheepfold to feed Jacob his people and Israel his inheritance Not only to protect them in their Civil immunities and priviledges But to feed or see them fed with heavenly Doctrine pure Ordinances and Worship to countenance true Religion and extirpate Idolatry This is the principal part of a Kings Office in reference to Gods inheritance So did David So did all other good Kings and Rulers feed Israel 2 Chro. 14.17 29 30 31. Chapters and Nehem. 13. And Gods frequent complaints against the Kings of Israel for not so doing are pregnant proofs of their power in matters of Religion 3 Under the Gospel the Christian Magistrate as such hath answerably power in matters of Religion For 1. All those Texts wherein this power of the Magistrate under the Law is made out whether by way of Precept approved example or blame for not exercising it shew the duty and Power of Magistrates under the Gospel Since we no where find the charge that God then laid upon those repealed or taken off in relation to these 2. The Commission of the Christian Magistrate as such is not onely as authentique but every whit as large as that of the Jewish Magistrate Rom. 13.1 2 3 4. 1 Tim. 2.1 2. Titus 3.1 1 Pet. 2.13 14. Here Magistrates are said to be sent and ordained of God Mali nomen comprehendit etiam omne quod circa sacra committiâ— tu◠〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 bonum qualecunque Grot. de imper Sum potest The end for and work about which they are sent and ordained is to punish evil and encourage good works The comprehensivenesse of those expressions shews plainly that the Magistrates power refers even to Religious concernments Wee must not distinguish where the Law doth not If therefore to blaspheme the name of God break the Sabbath c. bee evil works they fall under the Sword of the Civill Magistrate no lesse than Murder or Adultery and so the Magistrate is custos utriusque Tabulae the keeper of both the Tables of the Law Therefore wee are commanded to obey them as Ministers of God for good resisting their lawful commands is called a resisting of God and wee must pray for them that under them as Rulers wee may live in all Piety towards God as well as in all Righteousnesse towards men 3 The same reasons from the object which required the interposition of the Magistrates power in matters of Religion under the Law are of as much force under the Gospel Mens spirits are as licentious and prone to seduce people now as then The name of God is as much blasphemed by damnable heretical Doctrines Men are as apt to bee seduced by the subtle craftiness of those that lye in waite to deceive All mâ—ans without the Magistrates sword are as ineffectuall Will such as decry all Churches deny Christ's Deity and the Scriptures to be our Rule care for a bare Church-censure 4 The judgement of the Ancients Si omnis vestra Quis vos excipit ab Universitate Bern. ad Archiep that lived near the time of Christ and of the reformed Churches in these last ages is fully for it The Fathers generally assert it Chrysostome infers from Rom. 13.1 That even Apostles Evangelists and Prophets were bound to bee subject to the Magistrate Constantine was termed the Maintainer of Faith and Religion Kings saith Austin Serve God as they are men one way as Kings another As men they serve God by a faithful obedience to his Laws But as Kings they serve God by commanding things just Aug. ad Bonif. and prohibiting the unlawful restraining them with convenient rigour making and putting Laws in execution for beating down sin and promoting Gods glory Thus Hezekiah thus Josiah served God and thus Kings become nursing fathers and Queens Nursing Mothers to the Church as it was promised Isa 49.23 60.16 The Confessions of the Reformed Churches are exceeding full and unanimous in this point See Corpus Conf. And most of the Brethren of the Congregational way have seemed to bee suffragators to them herein Plat-form of Church government ch 17. Those of New-England are very expresse for it And our five Apologists for that way courted once the Magistrate to beleeve that their opinion allowed him more power in matters of Religion than the judgement of others To the Magistrates power say they wee give as much and as wee think more than the principle Apologetical Narratioâ— p. 19. 〈◊〉 the Presbyterial Government will suffer them to yeild which how it may be I understand not unlesse in a sense in the which I would not understand it by giving it more than the principles of their own government will suffer them to yeild So that the Churches in all ages are agreeed that the Magistrate hath power in matters of Religion Neque enim aliud aut belli laboribus aut pacis consilits ordinamus nisi ut verum Dei cultum Orbis nostri plebs devota custodiat Theod. Honor ad Marcel Caesarei est muneris ut non solum pacifie sed pie etiam subditi vivant Theod. ad Cyril against which stand onely a small company of dissenters muchly led by Anabaptistical unscriptural principles And accordingly the first
Christian Princes and their Successors since have with the approbation of godly Bishops and Pastors owned and exercised it But you proceed confidently Therefore my beloved brethren accept no Law-giver but Jesus Christ neither in Church nor Common-wealth that will in due time save us from Devillish Government in the Church and from all worldly government in Common-weals when the stone cut out of the Mountain shall smite on the toes of the Image Then no more place shall bee found for them no not for the goodliest government that ever was invented by the wit of man If Christian Magistrates should cause you to suffer for these lines would you not suffer as an Evil-doer Doth not the Apostle Jude 8. call those filthy dreamers that despise dominion and speak evil of dignities You proclaim to the world in Print that for the present de jure they have no power neither in things of Religion nor yet of Civil concernment and call off men from yeilding that obedience to them which the Laws of God and man require You say expresly that de facto they shall have no power in matters of Religion or Civil concernment in the most glorious times of the Church And this is the doctrine which by you and men of your opinion is still buzzed into the ears of the people dangerous to Rulers and contrary to the Word of God and to the blessed example of the Apostles of Christ They in the most glorious time of the Church that hath yet been never exhorted men to cast off and cast down Magistrates though they were then Heathen but to the contrary to pray for and submit to them And yet the Apostles understood I am sure the Monarchy of the Lord Christ farre better than you That Magistrates have power in matters of Religion hath been proved before That they sâ—â—ll have and exercise this power in the latter and most glorious daies of the Church may be easily made evident from Scripture Isaiah 60. Speaks of a glorious time to the Church in the daies yet to come for it speaks of the conversion of the Jews and the flourishing Church-state ensuing thereon But the promise there concerning Magistrates then is not that they shall bee removed but reformed and established verse 17. and made instrumental for the edification of the Church verse 10 16. as Isa 49 22 23. and this all along that glorious time of the Church verse 11. Rev. 21. Is generally understood to speak of the future glorious times of the Church but not a word there of the ending of earthly governments But on the contrary verse 24 25 26. it is said The Kings of the earth do bring and shall bring their glory and honour into the new Jerusalem and for this end the gates thereof shall not bee shut Zech. 13. Speaks of the latter State of the Church and verse 3. declares that Heretical seducing Teachers shall then undergo capital punishment Transfigent id est supplicio afficiendum tradent judicibus Pisc His Father and Mother shall thrust hm thorough Which Expositors and Mr. Burroughs with them understand of their convening them out of zeal for Gods glory before the Christian Magistrate and so causing them to bee put to death From these and many the like places it is evident that all along the most glorious times of the Church there shall bee Magistrates exercising their power and authority for the Churches good in matters both of Civil and Religious concernment What Government it is which you call Devilish Government in the Church you do not here expresly tell us But your book gives the Reader abundant cause to conclude that you mean all Government in the Church but that of your way And if so do you know what manner of spirit you were of when you wrote this passage Dare you pronounce all Government in the Church besides the Congregational to bee for the substance of it Devilish and so all those that exercise it to bee the Servants of the Devil therein What could the Antichrist of Rome have said more against Protestant Churches I shall say no more to you at this time but the Lord rebuke thee And shall now address my self to examine whether your Treatise doth prove the Protestant Churches and their Government to bee Antichristian and Devilish for that 's the sad task it undertakes SECT II. Of Mr. P's Text Rev. 18.4 And the interpretation thereof and inferences from it particularly of the coming out of Babylon and an Antichristian Church-State YOur explication of the Text and it s context had need to have been more clearly and firmly laid to have borne up such doctrines as you build upon it But you are mainly for the particular conclusion P. 5. Wee must depart from the fellowship of Antichristian Churches that is with you Protestant Churches or else wee remaine in Babylon still I shall a little reflect upon your text and it s context and shew that this conclusion of yours in the sense mentioned can of right claime no acquaintance with their import In this Revelations 18. Babylons ruine is set forth 1 By the instrumental causes of it the Word of Gods mouth denounceing it and drawing off her associates from her verse 1 2 3 4. 2 By the procuring cause of it her foule Idolatries and seduceings verse 3. 5. 3 By the consequents of it the sorrowing and wailing of her followers and lovers and the great joy of the Church and people of God verse 9 to 21. I shall particularly consider the four first verses Verse 1. I saw another Angel come down from Heaven c. Pareus understands it in a literal sense Brightman of some cheif Executioner of Gods wrath as Commander General of Gods armies against Babylon But in regard by Angels in this book are often meant the Ministers of the Gospel whose tongues and pens God imploies to discover Antichrists impostures as Interpreters agree those places mean Rev. 14.6 7 8 9 15 17 18. This Angel may also bee understood to signifie them since he brings for substance no other message than the former onely his discovery is more clear being neerer Antichrists ruine and therefore whereas the Angel Rev. 14.6 is said to flie in the midst of the Heavens this Angel is said to come down from Heaven and to cry with a strong voice and the earth to bee enlightened with his glory By this Angel I understand the company of Gods Ministers of the reformed Churches that have been and shall bee raised out of the bowels of the territories of Antichrist who by their preaching and writing enlighten the earth that is the common sort of Christians who were before the footstool of Antichrist and basis of his Hierarchy For though this was in a great measure done at the pouring out of the first viall upon the Throne of the Beast when the Waldenses Albigenses Hussites c. began every where to renounce the authority of the beast calling Rome ecclesiastical the Apocalyptical Babylon
Yet this vial is as yet poured out but in part as are also severall others of the Vials The dregs of them and of this in particular remaining to bee poured upon the beast in a doctrinal way by this Angel who shall give the last warning of Babylons instant ruine The effect whereof is that the earth is inlightned that is many more of the common people are drawn off from communion with Babylon and joyn issue with some of the ten horns fallen off from the Whore and hating her But as for her more honourable slaves and vassals they receive no benefit by the Ministery of this Angell but either perish in Babylons ruine or by the dregs of the vials poured out upon her associates Vers 2. Cecidit cecidit i. e. Paulo post casura certissime gravissime Pisc Here we have the summe of the report of this Angel concerning Babylons fall which is by way of anticipation set down as actually come to pass after the manner of the Prophets to note the certainty of it and the expression doubled to note the grievousnesse of her fall Vers 3. Here wee have the procuring cause of Babylons fall her abominable Idolatries and whoring seducings wherein shee continueth after convictions admonitions and threatnings Vers 4 Here t is observable Militaris exhortatio ut non solum ab ea secedant sed et acriter eam oppugnent Grass that the Holy Ghost alters the usual manner and way of witnessing against Babylon for here is no Angel but a voice from heaven It may bee vox è castris a voice from the campe God is mustering up his Armies and the warre is advancing to the very gates of Rome and now the voice of Providence doth thereby cry out aloud Come out c. By Babylon I understand with Pareus c. not onely the City of Rome but all those places that are under the power and jurisdiction of the Pope where his authority takes place and where his idolatrous worship and doctrines are submitted to and imbraced To come out of Babylon is to renounce communion with her in her soule sinnes and abominable Idolatries and to disclaim and reject the usurped power of Antichrist both in temporals and especially in spirituals The not doing of this maketh men her associates and will cause them to partake of her plagues Rev. 13.16 17. Rev. 14.8 9 10. and here Rev. 18.3 4. From these Texts I observe 1 That Antichrists sin lies principally in this that hee causeth all under great penalties to receive the mark of the name of the beast in their right hands or foreheads that is to own the universal headship of the Pope especially in spirituals So that no point of Christian faith must bee received unless warranted by his authority and whatsoever is stampt with his authority must bee owned though never so contrary to the Scriptures 2 The sin of his followers lyeth in this that they resign up themselves in obedience to the Pope and make him soveraign Lord over their persons rights and consciences in all things receiving owning pleading fighting for his abominable Doctrines worship and usurpation Kings themselves submitting their crowns to him and maintaining by their Laws and edicts his blasphemous doctrines and tyranny 3 Those onely are threatned to partake of Babylons plagues that partake with her in her sins And who those are the Holy Ghost tells us Rev. 13.16 17. All and onely they that receive a marke the name of the beast or the number of his name in their right hand or in their fore-head That is that own the usurped authority of the Pope and his doctrines and idolatries because stampt with his authority which whosoever doth to the death cannot bee saved Rev. 16.3 The Doctrine of the Church of Rome as set forth and confirmed for such by the Tridentine Council is this Sea consisting of the popish errors collected into one body as many waters meet in the Sea The Angell that turned this Sea into bloud might bee among others Martin Chemuitius who poured out his vial on it when hee wrote his Examination of the Trent Council And every Soul living in this Sea dyed whosoever owneth the Popish Religion as set forth by that Councill and dies in that Faith cannot bee saved for what the Apostle saith of one of its anti-Scriptural doctrines Gal. 5.4 may be said of all of them that rase the foundation On the contrary those that renounce the universal headship of the Pope and all his anti-scriptural doctrines as the insufficiency of the Scriptures the authority and necessity of his traditions justification by works praying to glorified Saints and Angels worshiping Images and Crucifixes Purgatory and Indulgences c. and withal abhorre and renounce his Idolatrous worship and profess themselves resolved to resist unto blood rather than hold communion with him in his sins All such persons and Churches are come out of Babylon already And among such are the Protestant Churches in England Scotland Holland France Germany c. professing the sound doctrines of the Gospel in opposition to Antichrists Idolatries How those Churches that disown and reject the corrupt doctrine and worship of the Roman Church and have sealed their witness against them with their blood being by their profession and sufferings the instruments whereby God hath shaken the Kingdome of the Beast How these Churches should yet bee Antichristian limbs of the Beast may well bee a Mystery to all considerate and unprejudiced men And whereas Mr. P. beleeves that none save a few separate Churches named Congregational are yet come out of Babylon which the Brownists Anabaptists Quakers c. plead each for themselves I have one text to offer to his consideration thereupon which is Rev. 14.1 2 3 4. 1 By the Lamb is undoubtedly meant the Lord Jesus Christ 2 Mount-Sion is opposed to Babylon the Gospel-Church to the Church Antichristian 3 The 144000 that stand upon Mount-Sion a definite number for an indefinite and have their Fathers name written in their fore-heads must therefore bee members of the true Church in opposition to the members of the Church of Anti-Christ who have his name or mark in their right hand or forehead 4 By their having their Fathers name written in their forehead is therefore hinted their keeping close in the main to Gods institutions in profession and worship in opposition to the Idolatries of the Antichristian Church Which further appears in that it is said that they are not defiled with women vers 4. that is with the Idolatries of the great Whore Now can any man say that those of whom the holy Ghost thus speaketh are yet in Babylon How can they bee upon Mount-Sion and yet in Babylon too 5 The 144000 signifie some definite number of the people of God that in all ages from the first rise of Antichrists Kingdome have cleaved to the Lamb and kept a true Church-State which is signified by their standing with the Lamb upon Mount-Sion with
their Fathers name c. That their standing synchronizeth with the standing of the Antichristian Church appeareth Rev. 13.16 17. with the four first verses of the 14th Chapter For the company of the Lambs marked ones is opposite to the Beasts whole marked company whilst it was such whilst the Church-State of the Beast was false and corrupt the Church-State of the 144000 was true And it is said they were not defiled with women which argues that the Whore was at the time of their standing seducing And the Apostle John at the same time sees an Angel going forth and crying Forbes Gyffard Fulk Deut. Fox Bernard Broughton Babylon is fallen Accordingly Brightman Mede and sundry other worthy Expositors understand this context of the 144000 to denote the true Church of God in the midst of whom Christ reigned who were fed with purer ordinances and worship during Antichrists reign and standing out all along against his Idolatry Now seeing the Congregational Churches are as it were but of yesterday who are those 144000 that have stood with the Lamb upon Mount-Sion all along the time of Antichrists reign Either you must assert the loss of a true Church-State in the world for many ages past or else you must acknowledge that the Churches that have maintained a true profession all along the time of Antichrists reign were true Churches and that the Protestant Churches that have owned and maintained the same profession to this day have been and are true Churches and are in the number of the 144000. If you dare not say the former as I suppose you do not you must confess the latter and then with what face or reason will you justifie that separation from them as Antichristian Churches which you contend for Consider I beseech you what you have to answer for before the Lord in branding all the Christian Churches in the world from the rise of Antichrist to this day who have disowned and opposed him except a few separate Congregations of these latter daies as false and Antichristian Churches And the Lord give you repentance from this rash and unchristian dealing SECT III. Of National Churches CIvil co-habitation with wicked men is dangerous Ecclesiastical communion with them in the times of the Gospel p. 6 7 8. much more dangerous and unwarrantable 1 Cor. 5.1 To worship God with a strange worship is to worship a strange God Stephen lost his life for preaching against the Temple and so consequently against the Jews National Church the bond of which was their meeting together at the Temple in one individual worship That the Church is not of the world all grant but that it should not bee in the world is strange Christ gives his Disciples leave when persecuted in one City to flie to another Matth. 10.23 but never requires his followers to forsake their habitations because neer wicked neighbours As for that 1 Cor. 5. touching the incestuous person it is uncharitably managed by you for separation from Protestant Churches who contend for the excommunicating of scandalous persons to their power But it commeth too close to YOUR OWN DOOR verbum sapienti sat The other Texts you mention set forth the danger of society and intimate converse and communion with Idolaters but fasten not upon us because our Churches are not Idolatrous nor our worship strange worship not grounded upon the Word as shall bee made appear In what you alledge of Stephens bearing testimony against the National Church of the Jews and so consequently as you would bee understood against all National Churches as inconsistent with Gospel times the consequence follows not by Stephens Logick but your own For how doth it appear that because hee preached against the Temple and the Ceremonial-Law as things which had an end put to them by the death of Christ therefore hee preached against a National Church as inconsistent with Gospel times in respect of the Nationality of it Or that a National Church purely in respect of its Nationality considered without the adjuncts of one single person as the head of it and one single place of worship to which all should repaire at some set time for you know wee plead not for these things but acknowledge them to have been peculiar to the Church of the Jews is contrary to the institution of Christ and his Apostles in the New Testament If it bee said wee have no example of a National Church in the time of the Apostles nor yet in the times of the primitive Church This cannot bee an objection of weight For in those times whole Nations were not converted to the profession of the Gospel and Magistrates in most of them were bloody persecutors of the Christian profession But yet See Divine right of the Ministery of England p. 12. 13. 1 Wee have both prophecies and promises in the Old Testament of National Churches under the Gospel Psa 72.10 11 17. and Isa 19.18 to the end Here 't is prophecied and promised that Nations shall serve God and bee his people and that they shall combine and hold communion with one another for the better carrying on of Gods service and worship and God approveth of them and blesseth them upon that account 2 There have been National Christian Churches in the world since the primitive times according to the Apostle Johns historical prophecie Rev. 12.7 8 9. wee have a short description of the Heathen Emperours See History of the life of Constantine Maxentius Licinus Maximius overthrown by the victorious armes of Constantine the Great the Man-child that the Church brought forth and now saies verse 10. is come salvation and strength and the Kingdome of our God and the power of his Christ to wit brought into the Roman Empire Persecutors Idolatry and Heresie being suppressed and Christian religion countenanced professed promoted by the godly zeal of Constantine in his dominions Again Rev. 11. Wee have a description of the downfall of Antichrist verse 13. the tenth part of the City fell many of the places under the Roman jurisdiction cast off the Pope then it followes verse 15. The Kingdomes of this world are become the Kingdomes of the Lord and of his Christ The Kingdomes which before were the Kingdomes of the Beast become professedly subject to the Laws of Christ and embrace his Gospel which our eyes have been so happy as in part to see And indeed considering that the Nationality of a Church lies properly in this that the body of a Nation living under one Civil Government and professing the Gospel should have one way of Doctrine and Worship established in all the Congregations of it and one way of Government by greater and lesser Assemblies how such a constitution as this should bee contrary to the mind of God concerning Churches under the New Testament I do not see nor beleeve any man can demonstrate SECT IV. Of Parish Churches Ministers maintenance the Churches of England the Witnesses and Separation I Shall now explain what I mean by
Antichristian Churches P. 9 10 11 And first I mean Parish-Churches to prove which to bee Antichristian I shall shew what I finde storied of their Original c. You cannot prove the Original of Parish-Churches to be from Rome Quid certi aut explorati a tempore Trajani ad imperium Constantini haberet Ecclesia si Divinum thesaurum non haberet however confident your small reading maketh you of it Your borrowed relation concerning Cletus and Evaristus is not much to bee valued as neither are most of the Histories of the Church for the first three hundred years And if this relation were true the thing is still unproved for I finde it recorded of Ignatius who as some say was Peters successor at Antioch and suffered Martyrdome in the eleventh year of Trajan that being sent from Syria because hee professed Christ to Rome where hee suffered when hee passed thorough Asia hee strengthened and confirmed the Parishes through all the Cities as hee went with his exhortations and preaching So that these Parishes are ancienter than those of Rome But if it were granted that Parishes had their Original at Rome about the time you speak of it makes not to your purpose and that for two Reasons 1 Because Rome then was and long after continued to bee a pure Church of Christ affording many Martyrs that sealed the truth with their blood therefore division of Parishes is not in its Original from Antichrist But you think you have prevented this answer sufficiently by saying Neither doth it help P. 13. that Parish-Churches derive their pedigree from times so neer the Apostles for the mystery of iniquity did work even in Pauls time If you could prove that the mystery of iniquity sprung up in Rome or chiefly there in the Apostles daies you would have some though but a slender and insufficient ground to think that Parishes if they began there are Antichristian But from Scripture and Church-history no such thing appears In the Apostles daies Diotrephes is charged with aspiring towards an universal Headship 3 John 9 10. The Church of the Galatians mingleth works with Christs righteousness for justification and are by this peece of Popery in danger of the loss of salvation Gal. 3.1 2 3 4. The doctrine of worshiping of Angels creeps in Apostle-times into the Church of Colosse Col. 2.18 But all this while the Church of Rome keeps her garments undefiled of these and the like abominations and for a sound profession of faith is famous throughout the whole Christian world Rom. 1.8 And long after this and even in that very time wherein you suppose the division of Rome into Parishes the Saints there sacrificed their lives in the flames to God in the maintenance of the profession of the Christian doctrine And yet Mr. P. is so charitable that to maintain a Fable that hee thinks will serve his turne the Church of Rome must needs bee then Antichristian 2 Because it cannot bee made to appear that Parish divisions as such have in them the least evil or appearance of evil Without divisions according to co-habitation within certain bounds Christians cannot conveniently meet to worship nor Ministers and people discharge their mutual duties I no way doubt but that they have ever been in use when they might bee had in the Church of God The Jews had their several Synagogues for several vicinities And it is very probable that the Apostles in planting Churches observed such divisions as farre as might bee They ordained them Elders in every City But in many Cities the Church consisted in each of several Congregations as shall bee evidenced Sect. 5. and 't is most probable that these were distinguished to attend on their respective Elders according to the neerness of their habitation to the several meeting-places However beleevers are still found in Scripture to have ecclesiastically imbodied in the places of their habitation as those in Ephesus Corinth c. And is not this sufficient warrant for Parochial Congregations as such that is the Ecclesiastical imbodying of such in a vicinity as profess the Gospel But now the way of gathering Churches used by most of the Congregational Brethren and your self picking some out of one Parish and some out of another and that without the leave and against the mind of their godly Ministers who indeavour after reformation and the use of all Ordinances according to Gods mind in their places but are hindered therein to your might by your sinister dealings and some of those members so many miles distant that you are thereby utterly disabled from discharging mutual duties this way and practice is altogether a stranger to the Word of God and sound reason and hath more than an appearance of evil in it There is nothing in Scripture of limitation of Churches by the Ministers function or maintenance by the edicts of Popes P. 13. Bishops or Princes of this world And it is enough against a thing belonging to the worship of God that there is no institution for it that the Scripture speaks nothing of it Then surely it concerns you to look about you Where have you an institution for uniting in a single Congregation members living at such a distance from one another as your practice doth and undertaking to bee a Pastor to a scattered people over whose souls it is impossible you should watch and urging an explicite Covenant as necessary for admission c. As for limitation of Churches by the Ministers function how is your Church distinguished from other Churches but by your taking the charge of the members thereof to watch for their souls how well or possible you can do it it concernes you to see to and is not this limitation of a Church by the Ministers function That the Scripture saies nothing of Ministers maintenance by the edicts of Princes of this world is true if you mean de facto that Scripture gives no example of maintenance thus appointed and raised Princes when the Gospel was penned had power to raise maintenance for the Ministery but would not being enemies to the Church But to argue that because Scripture gives no example of it Christian Magistrates who are by Scripture appointment to bee nursing Fathers and Mothers to the Church may not by their Edicts Laws and Power settle a sufficient revenue upon the Ministers of the Church is vain and frivolous and the result of it is which seems to bee your meaning that the maintenance of the Ministers must bee by the peoples free will and they must live upon the Almes of the Church That this is not the mind of God but that a certain liberal maintenance is by Gods ordinance due to the Ministers of the Gospel is from Scripture very clear 1. Because God established a certain liberal Maintenance for the Priests and Levites under the Law as appeareth by the books of Moses And godly Magistrates quickened up by their royal commands the backward people to pay it 2 Chron. 31.4 5.
whose examples are preceptive to Christian Magistrates now And shall wee think that God bears a less tender respect to a Gospel than to a Legal Ministery neither appointing them a certain maintenance nor means to raise it if it bee with-held 2 Dependance upon voluntary contributions is the ready way to tempt Ministers to bee the greatest temporizers in the world since it will force many of them to please their givers or starve 3 Duties required of Ministers under the Gospel call for a liberal and certain maintenance They must bee given to hospitality But they cannot exercise it without a maintenance liberal and certain 4 That command to hearers of the Gospel Gal. 6.6 7. leaves not men to their liberty but chargeth a duty upon their consciences which they cannot neglect without mocking God 5 Ministers may require this maintenance in an authoritative way as an absolute due debt for their work in the Ministery 1 Cor. 9.11 12 13 14. Now a liberal maintenance being by Gods Ordinance due to the Gospel Ministery what hinders but that the fixing of it should bee a lawful yea a necessary means for their injoying of it Before there were any Christian Magistrates in the world the revenue of the Church was not altogether unsetled Constantine the first Christian Emperour being come to the Crown enacts that the Church Lands or goods that had been injuriously taken away though annext to his own Crown should bee restored that such as had purchased Church-Lands should make present restitution of the same These lands and possessions were 't is probable long before purchased out of the publick bank of the mony laid at the Apostles feet and other charitable donations since that time and setled upon the Church that so Ministers having some certain maintenance might serve God in their places with the less distraction And therefore the building Oratories and Churches and endowing them with maintenance for the certain support of fixed Ministers which you make the object of your contempt appears to bee in it self considered a lively imitation of primitive practice These things considered I demand 1 Where a maintenance is already established and hath been so for many hundreds of years together and that by as firme Laws as any man hath for his personal estate Whether now the Magistrate may not animate those Laws and make meet new ones for the due payment of that established maintenance as Hezekiah did 1 Chron. 31.4 2 Where maintenance is wanting whether the Magistrate may not provide and settle it by a levy upon the people Seeing 't is Gods ordinance there should bee a liberal maintenance and that many people if left to themselves will rather want the Gospel than bee at charge for it and that it is a duty incumbent on the Christian Magistrate to provide for the good of mens souls and for the continuance support and incouragement of the Ministery for that end But to returne to Parish-Churches you say Consider what Babels of confusion and superstition they bee Here you may see Saints and sinners jumbled together without any kindly separation of the precious from the vile Great care that all may bee consecrated but the worshippers Are they not given unto the Gentiles P. 13 19 20 do not men of uncircumcised hearts for so are the Major part in those Churches stand seized of the power of the keyes Let us say to those christened Gentiles that upon pretence of being of the same Religion and Church with us would interess themselves in rebuilding our Gospel-Temple as the Jews did to the Samaritanes Ezra 4.1 2 3. Specious arguments to take ignorant persons 'T is common with those of your way to argue against the Church-state of Churches from the corruptions in manners which are found in them Whereas the Scripture every where declares such an arguing to bee of no force witness its owning the Church of the Jews as such under its great and severely reprovered corruptions So the degenrate Churches of Asia dead Sardis and lukewarme and miserable Laodicea If a man fix his eye on those Churches under their then condition and apply your charge to them as hee may and thence conclude that they were no true Chruches will hee not contradict the holy Ghost and the Truth and what then doth your arguing prove Whatever corruption is in out Churches wee make as much the matter of our grief as you of your scorn and are as ready to bear witness against it as your self But not with you to incourage the sin of separation but to advance the duty of reformation This many Church-guides do zealously indeavour after in our Churches so unjust is your charge generally fastened upon them that they take care all may bee consecrated but the worshippers and that they make no kindly separation of the precious from the vile You seem to make use of a bad rule Calumniare fort it er aliquid haerebit Your own knowledge of the contrary to your charge in many Parish-Congregations should make you blush for these expressions And truly that they are no more reformed and others in no way for reformation may bee as much ascribed to the practices of your self and many of your way in drawing off from them helpful members and hindring endeavours for healing and restauration as to any other single cause yea as to many of them put together And had not men of your way in a time when uniformity in worship according to the Word was about to have been established by the Magistrate in the Churches of England hindered that good work 't is very probable that reformation had been much forwarded in our Churches at this day and many of our civil shakings and overturnings prevented thereby Your comparing of those that comply not with your opinion in matter of Church-State and Government to the Idolatrous Samaritans and loading them with the opprobrious name of christened Gentiles is very devoid of modesty and truth Many Church-guides in our Congregations are as free from the least taint of Superstition as any of your way And for the members of our Churches who have been baptized in them and owne their Baptisme though the most of them do not appear to bee godly yet they differ very much from Heathens being taken into an external Covenant with God and in the number of those that are called And are as much the people of God as sometime formal and prophane Israelites were the estate of the Gentiles at this day to whom the ordinances are given being not inferiour to that of Israelites of old Rom. 11.17 And therefore as the Infants of the Israelites had generally right to Circumcision So have the children of Professors of Christianity owning their Baptisme though corrupt in their conversation but promising reformation right to Baptisme Else were the grace of God streighter under the Gospel than before Christ was exhibited in the flesh which cannot bee But you have this more against our Churches that men of uncircumcised
hearts stand seized of the power of the keyes in them because the major part are such in our Churches Petitio principij As if the people had the power of the keyes committed to them you know wee owne not that doctrine Church-guides have the power of the keyes committed to them and many of such among us are to bee reputed godly And if in most places wicked men stand seized of the power of the Keyes yet this will not serve to justifie separation from our Churches as false and Antichristian The wicked Scribes and Pharisees stood seized of the power of the Keyes in the Church of the Jews and yet Christ with his Disciples held communion with that Church and gives no encouragement to separation from it whilest hee had not set up a new Church-State Mat. 23.1 2 3. Your prudential consideration for separation That there is no probability of reforming our Churches P. 20 21 22 because the greatest part in them are wicked and will hinder the work which you strengthen with a passage out of the Epistle to the Little Stone Is certainly an argument which the Prophets and holy people of God in the Church of the Jews were not acquainted with or thought not to bee of force to warrant them to separate or to neglect indeavours for reformation Neither doth Jesus Christ look upon such a reasoning or the ground for it as sufficient to excuse the Angels of and Christians in the Churches of dead Sardis and wretched Laodicea who might plead the same improbability of reformation from putting forth their utmost indeavours for it Your Prudence would it seems have taught them that they might spare themselves a labour and rather gather new Churches than stand about a work so unlikely to bee effected as the reforming of the old But surely the Spirit that spake by the Prophets exhorting to indeavours for reformation in the Church of the Jews as miserably corrupted at least as our Churches and the command of our Lord pressing the same duty upon the Churches of Asia do excuse us from practising by your prudential consideration and teacheth us to do our duty for reformation and leave the successe to the Almighty God depending upon him by faith And I doubt not but that it all Church-guides and pious Christians in our Churches would to their power joyn and set about this work wee should finde the Lord dispelling our fears facilitating the work and shaming us for our distrust But you say 〈◊〉 16. If wee would make a kindly reformation wee must not build on Antichrists foundation but returne to primitive practice Agreed But in regard it doth not appear that Parish-Churches had their original from Antichrist and that it appears that Primitive Churches were made up of co-habiting or neighbouring families this puts no necessity upon us of demolishing or forsaking Parish-Churches in order to a reformation no more than the duty of repenting reforming and conforming to Primitive patternes did upon Sardis and Laodicea to forsake their then Church-standing and erect new Congregations Christs Church-State and Antichrist are opposed Rev. 11.1 2 3 4. The witnesses against this are impowered and specified to bee the two Olive-trees noting Magistracy and Ministery and the two Candlesticks noting Churches that arise against the Antichristian Church-State At least at the latter end of Antichrists reign 〈◊〉 17 18 shall the testimony bee mannaged by separating Congregations The Holy Ghost speaks plainly for separating not onely from the corruptions of the Antichristian Church but from the Antichristian Church-State it self Can Mr. P. bee so blind as not to see or so wilful as not to acknowledge that Protestant Churches are Churches separating from the Antichristian Church and from its Antichristian Church-State and that they have been witnesses against them from the beginning of their appearing to this day What was the Antichristian Church and Church-State never separated from till Independent Congregations came of late to bee erected who separate from Churches that separate from Rome Grant that there remaine some Antichristian corruptions in Protestant Churches I am sure there do in the Independent and those of a higher nature For Schisme and Separation from all the Churches of Christ but their own is an Antichristian corruption of one of the first magnitudes The Romanists being the great Schismatick and Separatists will it follow that Protestant Churches while they in the main renounce forsake and protest against Romes pretended Supremacy and her abominable doctrines Idolatry and worship are not Churches separating from Rome and witnessing against her What Churches in the last ages to these late years have mannaged the testimony against Antichrist but Protestant Churches that separated from him and sealed their testimony with their blood whereon ours have not done the least And must wee now look upon them as Churches still in Rome strip them of the glory of being witnesses against her despise the sufferings undergone by them for refusing to own and subject to her And own as Churches separate from Rome and witnessing against her onely a very small number of late Congregations in this corner of the world who have little by profession and nothing by suffering witnessed against Rome but much inveighed against and separated from Protestant Rome-opposing Churches to the great service of Rome Surely Mr. P. must bring better proof of it than hee doth before it can perswade or deserve our beleef But let us weigh his device concerning the witnesses whereby hee presumes to make it out 1 Hee will have the two Olive-trees to note Magistracy and Ministery and the two Candlesticks Churches But wee have but his word for it The holy Ghost doth not there distinguish the witnesses but saies of them both These are the two Olive-trees and the two Candlesticks 2 Hee saith In the latter end of Antichrists reign the Testimony shall bee mannaged by separating Congregations Whereas the holy Ghost doth not set forth two sorts of witnesses in different times but saies that the same shall prophesie in sackcloath one thousand two hundred and sixty dayes during the whole time of Antichrists reign My apprehensions of the witnesses according to Scripture are these Three paire of Types wee finde of them in the Old Testament Moses and Aaron in the Wilderness Elias and Elisha under the Baalitical Apostacy Zerubbabel and Joshuah under the Babylonish Captivity And the holy Ghost alludes to somewhat famous in the history of the lives of these persons which is answered with something parallel in the two witnesses Verse 4. alludes to Zerubbabel and Joshuah who are called two Olive-trees that stand by the Lord of the whole earth Zach. 4. Verse 3 5. And the former part of the sixth allude to Elias and Elisha who witnessed against the Apostacy and Idolatry of their times and more particularly to Elias who destroyed his enemies by fire and did by his prayers open and shut Heaven 2 Kings 1. James 5.17 18. Verse 6. the latter part alludes to
The Kings of the earth assembled themselves together 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 So Psalm 49.2 Give ear all yee inhabitants of the world both high and low rich and poor together 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Where t is plain that together relates not to the place of their assembling for what place can contain the whole world as an auditory but to their concurring in attention to the Prophets doctrin when declared to them Therefore these beleevers being 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 will not infer that there was but one Congregation of them but that they were one in heart spirit and practice Neither can that other place bee usefull in the service for which 't is prest that they continued with one accord in the Temple That same 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 confirms what hath been said to the other place and is exegetical to it And for their continuing daily in the Temple It teacheth us that as yet they had not cast off all the worship of the Temple but resorted thither at the houres of Prayer Act. 3.1 as before holding correspondency with the Church of the Jews so far as they might But it doth not hold out that the Temple was their meeting place as our Reverend Brethren suppose either for the feeding Disciples with the Word Defence of the nine positions p. 125. or the administring of Sacraments to them for neither of these would have been indured there Act. 4.1 2. p. 26. Obj. 3 They were all with one accord in Solomons porch Act. 5.12 Answ 1 The Text speaks not of the multitude of Beleevers but of the Apostles by whose hands miracles were wrought as appears clearly by what precedes and follows the parenthesis in the 12. and 15. vers So that the mistake is palpable in interpreting this of the multitude The Text distinguisheth clearly between the Apostles and the Church vers 10 11 12. 2 Were it granted that all the multitude of beleevers was there It follows not neither can it ever bee proved that they convened there to partake of the Ordinances of Christ as administered by the Apostles Or that the Apostles did there Administer them to them The work of the Apostles as Ministers in the Temple is still found to relate to the unconverted And no one place can bee produced that proves that they there fed the converted p. 26. Object 4 Act. 6.2 3. The twelve called the multitude of the Disciples unto them and said Brethren look yee out among you seven men c. Therefore at this time the Church did all meet in the same place and consequently were but one single Congregation Ans 1 It may bee questioned whether this multitude mean the whole number of Beleevers or onely the multitude of the Presbytery called to choose from among themselves seven men Authors of good note there are for the latter 2 Supposing the choice of Deacons to bee permitted to the whole Church of Jerusalem this will not help our brethrens cause 1 Because it cannot bee proved neither is it likely that all the Members of the Church both men and women did meet upon this occasion But that of the men as many met as would and could as is usual in publike conventions as in the choice of Parliament men c. 2 If every individual member met yet who knows not that many more may come together in the same place who by lifting up of hands or some other signal may give testimony of their choice of persons than can meet together in the same place to hear the word preached and in an ordinary way to partake of all Ordinances The whole multitude might on such an occasion come together and yet for the orderly use of all Ordinances meet usually in several Assemblies Object 5 Act. 15.4 6 7 12. Paul and Barnabas p. 27. were received of the Church by which Calvin understands plebem ipsam totum corpus All the multitude of the Church were present at the disputation for they gave audience to Paul and Barnabas and concurred with the Apostles and Elders immediately upon the conclusion of James his speech v. 22. Answ 1 What Calvin says will not serve your turn Peculiarem locum assignat Apostolis Presbyteris a quibus praesertim excepti fuerunt You might have seen by what hee subjoyns his meaning to be that they were received by the Apostles and Elders and some chief ones of the Members of the Church in the name of the whole Thus the act of the Lord Maior Aldermen and Common Council is reputed the Act of the whole City So also is the third vers expounded by Calvin and so to bee understood Communi Ecclesiae nomine adjuncti fuerunt comites of the Church of Antioch for who can think that the whole body of the Church brought them on their way 2 The Multitude that kept silence and gave audience to Paul and Barnabas was the multitude of the Elders with the Apostles met to decide the Question about which the Church of Antioch was troubled For vers 6. mentions no others The Apostles and Elders came together to consider of this matter and to them were Paul and Barnabas delegated ver 2. and they onely speak in the judging and deciding of this question for such power doth not belong to common members as shall be proved therefore they were the multitude that gave audience to Paul and Barnabas In vers 6. 3 There is not ground to conclude that the whole Church was present at that disputation Non dicit Lucas saith Calvin totam Ecclesiam congregatam sed eos qui doctrina judicio pollebant qui ratione officii hujus causae legitimi erant judices Your Reason brought to prove that 't is very plain that the whole multitude of the Church was present because the whole Church is said to concur with the Apostles and Elders in chusing brethren and sending letters seems to mee very obscure and not at all cogent For though the Apostles and Elders concluded then to write Letters and send Messengers yet it follows not that the thing was immediately done Nor that the Church was then present to consent to the doing of it There is no necessity that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 should signify immediately upon the conclusion of James his speech no more than that so when they were dismissed which follows the end of the letter should mean that the messengers were sent away towards Antioch that night That which the Apostles and Elders determined then might bee afterwards put in execution with the concurrence of the Church had in due time and place by way of consent Or if the Letters were then drawn up and the consent of the whole Church was then given to it and to the sending of the chosen Messengers which cannot bee firmly proved yet there is no necessity of understanding by the whole Church here all the members of the Church of Jerusalem but some chief ones of it that
Congregations for the setling of which Of Schism p. 37 38. Paul stayeth so long And besides this The Christians of all Achaia saith Dr. Owen did belong to the Church of Corinth and assembled therewith as they could for the participation of Ordinances and the Church of Cenchrea cometh under the same name with that of Corinth Put this together The beleevers in Corinth in Cenchrea and in all Achaia besides are accounted members of the Church of Corinth by the learned Doctor to whom I suppose Mr. P. will subscribe and then who sees not that there must needs have been many Congregations belonging to the Church of Corinth 4 There was a great number of Teachers in that Church that speech 1 Cor. 4.15 clearly implies it and this argues that there were several Congregations for so great a number of Teachers to attend upon 5 The Apostle speaketh expresly of divers Congregations belonging to the Church of Corinth 1 Cor. 14.34 Let your Women 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 keep silence in the Churches Therefore there were Churches several Congregations to which the women of the Church of Corinth did belong Against this there are chiefly two Objections Object 1 1 Cor. 14.23 If the whole Church bee come together and all speak with tongues c. Therefore they were but one single Congregation Answ 1 The Greek is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and may well bee rendred about the same thing or for the same end and purpose n. to partake of Gods Ordinances Diodate saith to verse 31. yee may all prophesie c. namely by course and in divers or several Assemblies So saith Estius The Prophets were to prophesie in divers Assemblies and therefore it is said Let your Women keep silence in the Churches 2 I suppose none will say that all the members of the Church of Corinth did speak with tongues for then what need of an Interpreter and yet the Church here spoken of did so 3 Therefore here is a clear pattern of a Representative Church The Prophets as distinguished from the rest of the members are called the Church 4 Here is a clear pattern of Prophets in combination with and subjection to their fellow Prophets Let the Prophets speak two or three and let the other judge verse 29. Obj. 2 1 Cor. 5.4 5. When you are gathered together to deliver such a one to Satan Therefore they were but one Congregation Answ 1 The Text speaks not of the gathering together of all the members of the Church of Corinth but of the meeting of the Church Officers to excommunicate the incestuous person Authoritative binding acts of rule and government belonging onely to Church-Officers as is granted by the most moderate and learned of the Congregational Brethren The Key of Authority and Rule saith Mr. Cotton is committed to the Elders of the Church Keyes p. 20. alibi and so the Act of Rule is made the proper act of their Office Christ gave the power of binding and loosing to all the Apostles and the Apostles committed it to the Elders The power of the people is a power of liberty to joyn with the Presbytery in casting out or cutting off But authoritative power they have not Temple measured p. 35 And saies Mr. Noys A necessity of members consent doth constitute a Church excessively Democratical and renders the Elders onely titular Governours Hence it appears there was no need of the presence of all the members of the Church of Corinth to excommunicate the incestuous person 2 The persons that met for this work were to meet with Pauls pastoral spirit this suits the Church Officers not the people 3 Paul chargeth it upon the ordinary members as their sin that they mourned not for that sin 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and for their Elders neglect of discipline using the passive voice not the active as Mr. Rutherford observes whereby it appears that the members were patients rather than agents That some of the ordinary members were present at the excommunication may bee granted But that all the members of the Church of Corinth were present or bound so to bee cannot bee proved Nothing therefore is hence gained The Church of Antioch also appeareth to have consisted of divers Congregations 2 The Church of Antioch because of the multitude of labourers there Divers of the Teachers of Jerusalem come to Antioch being driven away by the persecution and the hand of the Lord was with them in bringing in Gentiles to joyn with the beleeving Jews Act. 11.19 20 21. They soon want more labourers Barnabas is sent to assist in the work verse 22. hee findes the work so great that hee fetcheth over Saul to assist him verse 25. Barnabas and Paul stay at Antioch a whole year teach much people and here Disciples are first called Christians verse 26 and returning they abode there a long time chap. 14.28 What more likely than that there were divers Congregations belonging to that Church since it needed so many Teachers and kept there so long men so eminent Planters of Churches Object Act. 14.27 When they had gathered the Church together Act. 15.30 the muâ—titude together Act. 11.26 they assembled themselves with the Church Answ The first Text may well bee understood of the Representative Church to wit the Elders by whom the multitude might at their set times of meeting for the use of publick Ordinances be informed And if wee should understand it of the whole Church the Text puts no necessity upon us of understanding it of their being all gathered into one and the same place They might bee gathered into their several meeting-places and there bee informed of the successe of the Messengers by several of them The two other Texts may also bee so understood The multitude might bee gathered and informed of the Epistle in their several meeting-places and Paul and Barnabas and the other Teachers might assemble with the Church in several meeting-places some in some and some in others From these Texts therefore nothing can be concluded to prove Antioch's a congregational Church 4 The Church of Rome The Church of Rome likewise appears to have been Presbyterial There was one congregation meeting in the house of Aquila and Priscilla Rom. 16.3 5. and two others meeting in other places vers 14 15. and there is ground to conclude that there were yet more Congregations belonging to that Church 1 Because Paul saluteth several in this Chapter that seem to have been Teachers in that Church vers 3 5 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15. 2 The Faith of the Romans was spoken of throughout the whole world Rom. 1. which argueth them to have been a numerous Church 3 Their continuing sound in the faith for many years together when other famous Churches mouldered away argues the same Wee might also instance in the Churches of the Colossians Thessalonians Philippians But I shall for a conclusion mention the Churches of Asia 5 The seven Churches of Asia The seven Churches
Apostles should more than materially bind him And these Decrees are made by a joynt act of the Apostles Elders and Brethren difference in the order of their concurrence we grant but in the nature of the Act wee cannot grant but it will not bee granted that the Brethren did exercise an Act of Rule over other Churches To say that by the whole Church is meant the Synodical Church is without ground being built on the impossibility of the meeting of the Church of Jerusalem in one place which hath been refuted And if the Brethren were shut out from a concurrence of the same nature with the Elders will they say that the Elders of a Classical Presbytery at Jerusalem did exercise rule over all these Churches so far distant that could not be of their combination If vers 28. of laying a burden bee objected Let it bee considered whether there be not as much said of the assertion of the Pharisees ver 5 10. Thus if wee should grant Classical Eldership it will bee hard to grant any more with Scripture warrant But wee shall not grant these having proved the most numerous Churches to have been Congregational and called severally by the name of Church in the singular and the numerous Church of Corinth was not onely Congregational but had and exercised the power of the Keyes Paul wraps up Elders and people together in the exercise of discipline with a concurrence of the like nature And thus the whole fabrick of the Classical way falls to the ground Mr. P. as one observes is a man of growing scruples and hath much out-stript in them the Reverend New-England Congregational Brethren Keys chap. 6. and that in weighty points rejecting Ruling-Elders c. and here Synods Mr. Cotton tells him that Synods are an Ordinance of Christ grounding himself on Act. 15. saying 'T is a precedent for succeeding Ages And that they have power by the grace of Christ to command and injoyn the things to bee beleeved and done for which hee cites the express words of the Synodal letter vers 28. And that this power to binde burdens ariseth not onely materially from the weight of the things imposed but formally from the authority of the Synod as an Ordinance of Christ Adding that the fraternity have onely a power of liberty not of authority for which hee quotes Act. 16.4 And excepts from the power of a Synod onely the injoyning of things in their use indifferent not denying them power of Ordination and Excommunication But Mr. P. is an Independent of an higher form Let us consider what he saith 1 His first reason against the Synodicalness of this Assembly that wee Read not of a combination of Churches is untrue For the deputed Elders of the Church of Antioch combined with those of Jerusalem and there is no reason to exclude those of the Churches of Syria and Cilicia since the Decrees reach them and that not onely the Church of Antioch but also those Churches are subjected to them Will Mr. P. grant no more than what hee reads in express words 2 His second is as weak That we read of no forreigners there but those of Antioch and that they concurred not in the making of the Decrees For if there were no more forreigners yet forreigners they were but where doth hee read that the Elders of Syria and Cilicia were not joyned to them There is sufficient reason to conclude they were since the Decrees reach those Churches In saying that these forreigners concurred not in making the Decrees hee speaks clearly besides the book For they being Elders and at Jerusalem met with the Elders of that Church and hee being so punctual in holding no more than he reads in express words Let him see whether he can exclude them from those Texts vers 6 20 22 25 28. Act. 16.4 If the Forreigners were Elders certainly these texts include them and 't is one of the mysterious reaches of his wit to apprehend them excluded from the decision of the controversy by Act. 16.4 for were not the Forreigners Elders and were they not at Jerusalem and in the Assembly at the making of the Decrees how then doth this text exclude them 3 His third is frivolous That there was no appeal from the censure of the Church at Antioch Grant there had passed no formal censure which is more than hee can prove might they not appeal for the deciding of what was debated and which there could bee no joynt agreement upon His fancied main end of their applying themselves to the Church of Jerusalem to get satisfaction that there was the same doctrin taught at Jerusalem that was at Antioch sheweth that hee looketh on the Chapter through spectacles of pre-occupation Else hee would have seen that comming about the Question of difference vers 2. and the Apostles and Elders comming together to consider of the matter ver 6. and together decreeing and laying a burden upon the Churches concerned vers 28. must needs evince that the main end was to have the question authoritatively decided The knowing of the minde and practice of the Church of Jerusalem needed not all this work Paul and others might have informed the Church of Antioch of it before Any Messengers sent might soon have certified them of it Those that came might without such a solemn convening have been assured of it The Apostles and Elders in their Epistles shew not that they minded such an end chiefly in assembling For though they disown the erroneous Teachers doctrine and declare that they gave them no incouragement for it in those words To whom wee gave no such commandement which is all that Mr. P. can build upon yet they clearly manifest that the end of their convening was upon the hearing the difference in the Church of Antioch to decide the Question authoritatively and that the end of sending chosen men with Barnabas and Paul was to give them the greater assurance of this decision as the dependance of the 28. vers on the 27. by the illative for doth clearly shew 4 His fourth is a huddle of groundlesse surmises Here was hee saith no Rule exercised because 't would bee a diminution of Pauls Apostolical Authority But Paul acted not then as an Apostle but as an Elder of the Church of Antioch When the Elders there could not prevail against the corrupt Teachers and their Doctrin they have recourse to a Synod joyning themselves as Elders to the Apostles and Elders at Jerusalem giving herein an example of the right way of healing Church-divisions that cannot bee remedied in the respective Churches to the end of the world The Apostles themselves acted not meerly as Apostles but as members of the Synod yielding to a fair dispute on both sides Next hee saith The Brethren concurred with the Apostles and Elders in making the Decrees therefore there was no rule exercised thereby for it will not bee granted by us that the Brethren can exercise an act of rule over other Churches
I Answer no nor over their own Church neither But it is but supposed by him that the Brethren out of office concurred in making the Decrees They consented to the making of them or to them made and might use their power of Liberty as Mr. Cotton speaks but concurred not in the act of making them for if so they had been their Decrees but they are not so called but expresly otherwise Act. 16.4 Much lesse can wee conceive with Mr. P. that the Brethren concurred with the Elders in a way of the same nature assigning the difference to bee onely in the order of their concurrence For hence it follows that all in the Church are Rulers and guides and have the Key of Authority and binding power which is another absurd attainment wherein hee goes beyond many of his brethren and the vanity of which hath been already observed The whole Church here cannot hee saith mean the Synodical Church onely because the reason given for it the impossibility of the meeting of the Church of Jerusalem together in one place hath been refuted by him The Reader may look back and see what cause hee hath to boast and if his triumph bee but imaginary then hee hath brought in an argument against himself But you must not think that if he do shut out the Brethren from a concurrence of the same nature with the Elders hee hath not strength enough left him to prove that in this Assembly there was no Rule exercised and for that hee will but cast an interrogation at us Will they say that the Elders of a Classical Presbytery at Jerusalem did exercise Rule over all these Churches so far distant and not of their combination This being the Tail of his arguing a sting might bee feared in it but 't is quite unarmed Wee will not say so and yet hee gets not any thing by it for though wee say not that the Elders of the Church of Jerusalem singly considered did exercise Rule over the Churches concerned yet wee will say by his leave that these Elders and the Elders of the Churches concerned united in Synod and acting joyntly did exercise Rule over those Churches which appears both by the tenour and by the use of the Decrees Act. 16.4 So that Mr. P. is more bountiful than maketh for the profit of his cause in granting his adversaries to make the most of Act. 15.6 and Act. 16.4 For besides that in these wee finde not the Elders of the Churches concerned excluded but included and as one in the latter wee finde the Decrees imposed on some of the Churches concerned as ordained of the Apostles and the Elders which were at Jerusalem at the time of the making of them none excepted and therefore their joint-act of authority and rule Hee hath now but an answer to an Objection left him and therein hee comes off worst of all For to that which is said for the exercise of authority by this meeting over the Churches and accounted an unanswerable argument by most and which if hee remove not all his talk against that Synod is to no purpose that the 28th vers calleth the Apostles and Elders Decrees the laying a burden of necessary things upon the Churches Hee onely saies Let it bee considered whether there be not as much said of the assertion of the Pharisees vers 5. and 10. Which Gersom Bucer's answer in another case will suit well Quis adeo ineptire sustinuerit Who can chuse but wonder at his weakness to put forth such a reasoning as an argument and at his confidence to undertake a debate of that moment as is that which hee is upon whilst hee appears so much a stranger to the Laws of a true Syllogism and reasoning If some of the Sect of the Pharisees contending for the necessity of circumcision and keeping the Ceremonial Law are said thereby tempting God to put a yoak of Jewish bondage upon the neck of beleevers and this their imposition was not authoritatively binding Then when the Apostles and Elders say that they lay by their Decrees a burden of necessary things upon the Churches their Decrees are not to be accounted authoritatively binding But some of the Pharisees c. Ergo. This is his sad arguing of the deplorableness of which I need not any farther inform any intelligent Reader But there is nothing like a good courage and therefore hee concludes bee it how it may Thus you see how hard it will be to grant any more with Scripture warrant if we should grant Classical Elderships and combinations Which difficulty I suppose those that have considered what hath been said do not see at all But lest men should take his Supposition of Classical Elderships for a grant hee now returns to renounce them and tells us 1 That hee hath proved the most numerous Churches to have been congregational To which I answer I have disproved it 2 That they are called severally by the name of Church in the singular that is alwaies or else hee saies nothing Witness say I the seven Churches of Asia concerning each of which his words have been made to grant that it is said without reference to or reflection upon the rest hear what the Spirit saith unto the Churches 3 That the numerous Church of Corinth in particular was congregational To which I say witness 1 Cor. 14.34 Let your Women keep silence in the Churches What hee subjoyns that the body of that Church did exercise the power of the Keyes and that the Apostle 1 Cor. 5. wraps up Elders and People together with a concurrence of the like nature is gratis dictum as hath been shewed I shall adde Though the Apostle there mention no express limitation of the power of the Keyes to the Eldership it follows not that it is not to be understood for to whom should acts of rule be appropriated but to the Rulers A concurrence with them may be granted to the community in the use of their power of liberty as they speak but a concurrence with them in the thing of the like nature with the power and acts of the Elders hee will never prove till hee hath proved that all are Rulers in the Church and have a power of Office which hee will do ad Graecas calendas And if the Apostles silence there concerning the appropriation of the power of exercising Discipline to the Eldership bee an argument for the communities like power then the sole mention of the Angels of the Churches Rev. chap. 2. and 3. who are commended for blamed upon the neglect of and exhorted to exercise Church-Discipline is an argument against the communities like power therein and a far stronger argument against it than the other is for it in regard that here the Holy Ghost appropriateth the power and there hee doth not and so by this place the other is to bee expounded Neither hath any known Writer of note in the Church for these sixteen hundred years past until some of the late risen
Independents understood that in 1 Cor. 5. the Apostle wraps up Elders and People together in the exercise of Discipline with a concurrence of the like nature nor hath any Church during that time that wee read of unless those of the Donatists practised by it And therefore well may Beza say Quod nounulli ex hac vocula congregatis colligunt Beza in locum totius Ecclesiae coetum in judiciis omnibus Ecclesiasticis convenisse suffragium tulisse neque ratione neque ullo exemplo nititur excommunicationis jus penes Pastores 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 fuit What difference between the Episcopal and Presbyterial Government wherein doth their constitution differ P. 45 46 47 48 except in the exorbitant power of a chair-man What difference between the Universal Church of the Papists and that of the Presbyterians There is an easie transition from Presbytery to Episcopacy yea Papacy they agree much in nature and therefore I have put them together as also Mr. Bains Diocesan Tryal q. 1. p. 21. Those who subject themselves to a Presbytery saith hee as being under it by subordination may in effect as well be subject to an Episcopal and by consequence I say to a Papal consistory Os hominis With what face can Mr. P. put these questions Do the Episcopal and Presbyterial Government differ onely in regard of the power of a chair-man Do not the patrons of the former attribute all power to the Bishop in his Dioces excluding the Ministers of the several Congregations in matters of Discipline And do not the Presbyterians assert that all Ministers have equal power and is this difference onely circumstantial and the transition from one to the other so easie And as to the Universal Church is not the difference between Papists and Presbyterians vast whilst the one do restrain it to the Romanists that own the Papal doctrines the other extend it to all that embrace the fundamental truths of Christian Religion and renounce the abominations of Rome is Mr. P. so mean a scholar that hee doth not know as to the point in hand what Universal and particular are Doth not the Papists referring the root and head of their Universality to Rome make their Church a particular Church as our Champions against them have fully evinced and is this no considerable difference that the Presbyterians do the contrary The one subject it to the Pope or to a general Council of Pontificial Bishops convened by and presided in by the Pope The others to a general Council of the Elders of the Christian Churches throughout the world assembling in the name of Christ as the sole head of the Church Did I love to recriminate might I not with more reason say that Mr. P's way borders upon and that there is an easie transition from it to Donatism Brownism Anabaptism Familism Quakism Libertinism and confusion and that it opens a door to the setting up and nourishing of all sects errours heresies false worship and blasphemies even the Roman themselves For under the notion of Independentism of that degree as his is especially may any thing shelter it self and therefore the Roman Factors usually say that in England Presbyterianism is a great hinderance but Independentism a wonderful help to them in their gaining Proselytes to the Roman Church But if you were resolved to say your worst of Presbyterians as the greatest opposers of your Democracy yet why must you abuse the Reverend name of Mr. Bains whom you pretend to bee altogether of your side and obtrude upon the Reader a palpable untruth concerning his concent with you in putting Episcopacy and Presbytery together as having little or no difference between them It is not Mr. Bains that puts Episcopacy and Presbytery together but the Objection of the Episcopal party p. 3. which Mr. Bains answers here p. 21. and in his answers repeats the terms of the Objection and shews the invalidity of it 1 By telling them that they mis-apprehended the practice of the Churches of Geneva They have saies hee power of governing themselves but for greater edification voluntarily confederate not to use nor exercise their power but with mutual communication in that common Presbytery 2 It is saith hee one thing for Churches to subject themselves to a Bishop and Consistory wherein they shall have no power of suffrage another thing to communicate with such a Presbytery wherein themselves are members and Judges with others 3 Say saies hee they had no power nor were no members in that Presbytery yet it is one thing to submit themselves to the government of Aristocracy another to the Bishops Monarchical Government for while his Presbyters are but as Counsellers to a King though hee consulteth with them hee alone governeth Let the Reader now judge whether Mr. P. hath Mr. Bains on his side in saying What difference between the Episcopal and Presbyterial Government and whether hee hath ground to say that because they agree much in nature Mr. Bains hath put them together when as they are his Objectors that do it whom hee answers and confutes This makes mee remember a pleasant passage in Kekermans Eccles Rhet. l. 2. c. ult A young Theologue reciting his Postil to the people at a time when there was health within their walls and inveighing therein against some sins broke out at last into this expression hence it is that God hath visited you and your families with the plague which rageth already every where in our streets The people stood amazed at this report and when Sermon was ended the Praetor of the place enquired of the Preacher in what families or houses the plague was broken forth who answered whether the plague bee in our Town or not so I found it it in my Postil Such an account is Mr. P. able to give of Mr. Bains his consent with him in putting Presbytery and Episcopacy together as having no difference between them in their constitution Whether the words of the Objection which put them together bee Mr. Bains words or express his mind or not hee found them printed in his book And now because Mr. P. by mentioning thus Mr. Bains doth intimate to the Reader that his doctrine hath a full friend in him It is to bee considered that though Mr. Bains in his dispute against and opposition to Diocesan Episcopal Churches doth plead for Independency of Churches yet as hee judged the difference between Episcopacy and Presbyterial dependent Government very great So doth hee fully declare against that Democratical Government in Churches which most of the Independents of our daies and Mr. P. among them do plead for and doth very fully assert the whole power of Government into the hands of the Elders in many places of that book I shall cite some of them to make Mr. P. do penance P. 80. on Matth. 18. Christ doth not by the name of Church understand essentially all the Congregation for then Christ should not give some but all the members of the Church to
be Governours of it Christ speaketh it of such a Church to whom wee may ordinarily and orderly complain now this cannot be to the whole multitude This Church hee speaketh of hee doth presuppose it as the ordinary executioner of all Discipline and censure But the multitude have not this execution as all but Morelius and such Democratical spirits do affirm P. 81. The Church in the Old Testament noteth an assembly of Priests sitting together as Judges in the causes of God and Christ doth here onely presuppose the joynt authority and joynt execution of a representative Church a Presbytery of Elders who were Pastors and Governours P. 82. The Apostles in determining the Question Act. 15. had the joynt-suffrages of the Presbytery with them because it was a thing to be determined by many all who mark that had received power of the Keyes doing it ex officio and others from discretion and duty of confessing the truth P. 83. Ordinary power with the execution thereof was not given to the Community of the Church or to the whole multitude of the faithful so that they were the immediate and first receptacle receiving it from Christ and vertually deriving it to others P. 84. Ordinary power of Ministerial Government is committed with the execution of it to the Senate or Presbytery of the Church If any fail in any office mark that the Church hath not power of supplying that but a Ministery of calling one whom Christ hath described that from Christ hee may have power of office given him in the place vacant So much for Mr. P's correction One thing more I have to consider and so shall end this Section P. 46. Let it be seriously considered that the Bishop of Rome is not reckoned the Antichrist from what time hee got the peaceable possession of his Universal Bishoprick But from what time hee aspired to and carried it ambitiously and had it usually yeelded to him to sway Bishops and Churches at his pleasure Wee have considered it and finde no very good sense in it For when hee had it usually yeelded to him to sway Bishops and Churches at his pleasure hee had the peaceable possession of his universal Bishoprick And as to what you mean that hee did aspire to an Universal headship long before hee was possessed of it and that from that time of aspiring hee is reckoned Antichrist you bring no Scripture nor reason for it but onely quote a place of Mr. Cotton as if 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 would do the deed Now what saies Mr. Cotton The head was in conception long before Phocas his grant True for 't was in conception in the Apostles daies and yet I suppose he would not say the Bishop of Rome was Antichrist then Is it likely the Holy Ghost should speak of him as of a formed apparent compleat head so visible that all the world should wonder after the Beast upon the hearing of it whilst hee was but yet in his conception And it is certain there was not any claim laid by the Bishops of Rome to the Vniversal headship any long time before it was possessed by them The first that laid claim to it was not the Bishop of Rome but John the fourth sirnamed the Faster Bishop of Constantinople about the year 580. six and twenty years before the matter was determined by Phocas for the Bishop of Rome in the year 606. The Bishop of Rome at the same time strongly opposing and disputing against the name and title of Universal Bishop as the name of the Beast and a new and prophane title contrary to the scope of the Gospel which none of his Predecessors did ever use Saying that whosoever calleth himself or desireth to bee called Greg. Magn. lib. 6. Ep. 30. lib. 4. Ep. 34 38. the Universal Priest or Bishop is the fore-runner of Antichrist and that in regard the said John did assume it it appeared that the time of Antichrist was now at hand And to that John hee saith What wilt thou answer to Christ in the tryal of the day of judgement seeing that by this name Universal thou seekest to inthral the members of his body to thy self What Mr. P. proceeds to say upon his supposition is not worth the considering and so I come to see how well hee answers the objections that hee considers as made against his separating device SECT VI. An examination of Mr. P's Answers to the Objections hee mentions as made against his doctrine of Separation and of his Reasons for Separation OBject 1 It will bee said this way of separation that you press P. 49 50 51 52 nulls all at least the most part of the reformed Churches in the world Answ This tends not to null or make void the faith of true beleevers that shall bee found in the aforesaid waies of Church-order I deny not their faith whereby by they are of the Mystical Church and accordingly destroy not their Mystical Churchdome but assert that though their faith hee Christian their order is Antichristian I deny them to bee such Churches as Christ hath instituted and to bee the Candlesticks that stand before the God of the earth Some have had power to set up Christs order in the face and to the teeth of the Beast though they were slain for it Such was the Congregation in Queen Maries time which Mr. Fox mentions and those hundred persons which Mr. Cotton mentions Congr Way cleared p. 4. that were in Queen Elizabeths days 1576. 'T is one thing for Churches to bee looked upon as Churches in point of salvation another thing for them to bee looked upon as Churches in respect of outward constitution in the former account wee cannot but give the right hand of fellowship to all that look to no other way of salvation but by the blood of the Lambe in the latter account wee can give the right hand of fellowship onely to those that are after the heavenly pattern Answ Hee needed not to say that his way nulls at least the most part of the reformed Churches for it clearly nulls them all The Churches of his way and principles being not to bee numbered among the Reformed Churches since they renounce them and account them Antichristian So that his way clearly nulls all the reformed Churches in the world at this day yea generally all the Churches that have disowned the Papal Church of Rome throughout the ages since the rise of it His Answer whereby hee would salve the matter is exceeding frivolous and childish Hee denies not the faith of true beleevers in reformed Churches nor their mystical Churchdome But what is that to the purpose whilst hee denies them to be Churches of Christ and to bee the candlesticks that stand before the God of the earth by which hee weakly understands Churches of which Sect. 4. doth hee not utterly null them as Churches Neither will that passage shield him wherein hee clearly contradicts himself that 't is one thing for Churches to bee
swerving from his institution as of those that seek him in a way conformable to his Institution I suppose you will answer negatively But now through Gods goodness wee are able to say that God is and hath been as much found of us in our Churches and way and our Ministers have received as glorious a seal of their Ministery as any Churches that wee know of since the Apostles daies and farre more than our Congregational Brethren themselves in their way who although they deal out this hard measure to us to cry down our Ministery and Churches as Antichristian owe most of them that are renewed their conversion unto God unto our Ministery as the instrument for it in Gods hand themselves being Judges Though they had ten thousand Independent Instructors yet could they not say they are their Fathers for in Christ Jesus the Ministery of our Churches hath begotten them to the Gospel If I am become a fool in glorying they have compelled mee Object 4 But there may be and hath been good done this way errours suppressed c. and those that reject it now P. 61. made use of it once Answ The good that God brings out of evil is not to be construed into a divine approbation of it Nor the use that hath been made by good men of a false way of Churches to bee drawn into an argument to continue in it Answ What good there hath been done by reformed Churches few can bee ignorant of What good hath been done by Independent Churches hath not yet much appeared That some of their flocks are pure they owe to our Churches as hath been said Errours have been indeed suppressed by ours but not by theirs it appears therefore they have made but a bad exchange but cherished by many of them who have been to them as Cities of refuge and out of which they have swarmed abundantly into all parts of the Land and for this the Land groans And thinks Mr. P. to put off this so sleightly with his begged supposition of the truth of the Churches of his way and the falseness of ours Surely the beating down of errour and the promoting of truth is no contemptible note of a true Church though some corruptions bee found in it Rev. 2.2 4. and on the contrary c. That those that owned our Churches once have now rejected them I judge from the word to be their sin They should have continued in them since Christ hath not divorced them though he hath somewhat against them and have indeavoured to reform them But they have not laboured to heal yea they have widened and encreased our wounds and then they insult over us Antichristianize us separate from us and draw away the best of our flocks boasting in other mens lines of things made ready to their hands The Lord judge between us and them Object 5. and 6. But shall wee do it without the authority of the Magistrate P. 62 63 64 without the consent of the Church Answ That which is pressed is but the doing of the duty that lies upon every Christian to separate from unwarrantable societies The Text hath no such proviso if the Magistrate bid or give you leave then come out of Babylon Therefore wee are to resolve with Peter Martyr and with Wollebius c. After God hath made known his truth saies the first wee must not delay Consent indeed is to be expected if the matter be dubious and obscure to wit to him to whom it is revealed as the course of his speech makes manifest Answ The Magistrate is as no body with you unless you have him on your side and then you can change your note But wee hold that very much respect is to bee had to the Magistrate in this matter and all means possible are to bee used to ingage the Magistrate to carry on the work of Reformation Give mee but one example in all the Old Testament of any considerable reformation in the Church without the interposition of the power of the Magistrate or one example of it in Ecclesiastical history in a time when there were Christian Magistrates Can our Magistrates endure that their authority and power should bee contemned as it is I hope they will not but that they will exert it for the good of the Church in discountenancing restraining and punishing men of corrupt minds principles and practices leading to separation blasphemies errours and rebellion sheltring themselves under this notion that the Magistrate hath nothing to do with Church-matters and that all men are therein to bee left to their liberty and the dictates of their own spirits The places that you pick out of Martyr and Wollebius favour not your fancy The place of Wollebius taken in his sense I readily yeeld to That when Religion is depraved it is to bee reformed by the Magistrate But if reformation cannot be obtained of the Magistrate hee being an enemy to the Church then reformation lies upon those whom God hath furnished with necessary gifts for it neither is the consent of Roman Bishops to bee expected for if our Fathers had done so saies hee there would have been no reformation And hee produceth the examples of Gideon Jehoiada the Maccabes the Apostles c. to make good his assertion Now when you shall have proved 1 That the supreme Magistrate is an enemy of Religion the Church and reformation 2 That the way of reformation you contend for is indeed the way of God 3 That all lawful means have been used and notwithstanding reformation cannot be obtained at the Magistrates hands 4 That Englands condition and the State of the Church in the time of Gideon Jehoiada the Maccabes the Apostles and Protestant reformers are alike 5 That you have Instruments that have the like call from God and are furnished with such abilities for reforming as they had and were Then I confess this place will speak something for you 6 The reformation Wollebius speaks of referres chiefly to essentials in Religion and that hee is an Antagonist to your way of separation from reformed Churches appears sufficiently in his book Martyr you much mistake also 1 The reformation hee presseth referres chiefly to fundamentals in Religion 2 Those whose consent hee saies was not to bee expected were the Roman Bishops whom hee calls sworn enemies to the truth 3 Hee doth not incite and stirre up the people to set upon the work without the consent of the Magistrate but the inferiour Magistrates to endeavour in their places a reformation of Religion in banishing the impure Masse out of their Cities c. and how doth this reach your case 4 The cause hee saies was clear and such as was confessed to be Gods and delaies might indanger the loss of a good cause Consent indeed saies hee is to be expected if the matter bee dubious and obscure And here you bring in your shameful Parenthesis to wit to whom it is revealed which Parenthesis spoils and abuseth Peter Martyrs Text For his
words clearly import to any man that will read there that the cause was not onely clear unto them whom hee endeavours to interest in carrying on the work of reformation but clear in it self and not as to its matter dubious and obscure being such as all the Churches on earth but the Romish would own For shame leave off your abusing of Authors at which work I have caught you more than once or twice in this Treatise Again your Parenthesis is full fraught with all seeds of Rebellion against the State as well as of confusion in the Church of God For if men may freely follow the apprehensions of their own misguided judgements and deluded fancies against the mind of the Magistrate and consent of the Church of God How shall our Religion or Liberties Persons Estates or Lives bee secured to us Probably the late fift-Monarchy-Traitours had read your Treatise I find a harmony between their remonstrance and your book in many passages and I am sure they will assert the cause they undertook was clear to them and then your parenthesis bears them out they needed not to expect any consent You now conclude notwithstanding all Objections Let those whose hearts God hath raised up go up and build his house Get wee our brethren p. 64. if we can along with us but let us not delay our duty Indeed reformation-work is blessed work but people had need to have better guides than you in it lest they mistake their way and whilst they think they are flying from Babylon they fly indeed into it for thither your way drives though I suppose you perceive it not Babylon and you are farther agreed than all men are aware of 1 The Pope cries down all Churches as Antichristian and heretical but his own especially Protestant Churches Mr. P. proclaimes all Churches that are not of his way to bee Antichristian and especially the Western reformed Churches called Protestants to bee Babylon-Harlots c. 2 Mr. P. is an earnest contender for Democratical and against Presbyterial Government The Pope hee hates a Scripture Presbytery at his heart but favours by his agents Democratical government hoping to work out his own designes by it And therefore his disguised Agents insinuate into Independent congregations and strengthen them in their way of independency and separation as that which best helps on their work and gives them the greatest advantage for the sowing of their bad seed Hence have proceeded from such Congregations Anabaptists c. with Popish doctrines and arguments in their mouths Therefore let Mr. P. beware lest a blind zeal betray him and that instead of a Reformer hee prove a Deformer leading men to Rome whilst hee calls upon them to come out of it for men of his understanding spirit and confidence are usually in danger to prove such in the end Consider wee now his reasons for separation from our Churches The Reasons of the point are 1 Because Antichrists Churches are sin The great Beast spoken of Rev. 13 1 2. is the Vniversal visible Church of Rome It cannot bee meant of the Roman Pagan nor Christian Empire nor of Antichrist which is the other beast vers 11. hee is one of the heads but not the Beast it self Antichrist causeth an image to be made to the first Beast vers 14. that is to set a Church in every Nation c. that may have the likenesse of the Roman Church viz. Metropolitan National Diocesan Cathedral and Provincial Churches as Mr. Cotton shews on Rev. 13. and these are the living Characters of the first Beast the Catholick visible Church of Rome and so the image and the Parishes are but reliques of them Protestant Churches are it seems Antichrist his Churches and SIN in the abstract if Mr. P. may bee judge If hee can prove them to bee so they are no doubt to bee separated from but hitherto hee hath not come neer it Here hee seems to summe up his grounds of so bold an assertion which arise from an interpretation of Rev. 13. This Chapter hath alwaies much perplext Interpreters to make out what is meant by these two Beasts both because of what is said of them and because they seem to bee spoken of as but one Beast vers 18. and chap. 17. Some will have the first Beast to bee the Roman Pagan Empire the second the Pope But the stream of Interpreters generally understand them to bee one and the same beast the Pope of Rome under a double notion and Bellarmine himself Per unam exprimitur Antichristus ratione Regiae potestatis tyrannidis per alteram ratione magicae artis qua callidè homines seducet judgeth that the same Antichrist is meant by both indifferent respects But however it be it may easily bee made to appear that the first beast cannot mean as Mr. Cotton and Mr. P. from him would have it the Catholick visible Church of Rome 1 Because such a Church supposeth an Vniversal visible head for these are relates But there was no universal visible head untill long after the time of the wound which Mr. Cotton mentions the year 415 For Phocas conferred the universal headship on Boniface the third in the year 606. and not long before that Gregory disclaimeth such a title and power 2 Because the setting of Diocesan c. See the end of Sect. 5. Churches in every nation cannot bee a making of an Image to the Catholick visible Church of Rome Since these as Papal are parts of that Church and help to make it up And that the Image will then bee more perfect than the Original or pattern For the Catholick visible Church of Rome was never such in that manner and measure before as after the wound Yea the Visible Catholickness of the Church of Rome hath little or no appearance at all in Historie before that time of the wound 3 Because the things predicated of this first Beast vers 2. are no way applicable to the Catholick visible Church of Rome especially before that time of the wound The power of a Bear and of a Lyon and of the Dragon giving it his seat and great authority cannot bee found in History to have been possessed and exercised by the Catholick Visible Church of Rome before that time And a man must speak meer dreams that will undertake to make what is said of the first Beast unto the rise of the second vers 11. to suit to the universal Visible Church of Rome before that rising of the second 4 Because the Text expresly distinguisheth between the Beast that exerciseth Soveraign rule and authority and those that are under his rule and Government Hee is set forth vers 1 2 3 4 5 6 7. Those under his rule are set forth by their admiring of him and worshipping and subjecting to him vers 3 4 7 8. and these make up the Roman Catholick Visible Church Mr. P's foundation therefore is found to bee null and so consequently his inferences from it fall to
them to the uttermost neglect of means to reform them separating from them as fast as they can yea while and when they are reforming drawing away others lest they should help to reform them and proclaiming them to bee Antichristian and wholely to bee rased bee requisite indeavours to cure them and that destroying of them bee curing of them Nay 't is sufficiently known to those that have acquainted themselves with the carriages of our and their Church-guides in these late years that when overtures were made by ours for an accommodation and for unity in reformation upon Scripture principles it was refused and the hopeful beginnings of it broken off by them Yet I must not be so much a Disciple of Mr. P. as to say that they were stubborn therein though there bee much moer ground to say it of them than of us False also it is to say Universally that Protestant Churches are not cured by indeavours put forth for their cure For though not by Independents I confesse yet by the indeavours of many zealous Protestants much of that which looked like something of Rome and was more according to the Traditions of men than the word of God hath been removed and in particular in our Land which notwithstanding the prejudice Mr. P. is overgrown with hee cannot I suppose but acknowledge I confesse much of corruption there is remaining but such as cannot by the rule of the Word deprive Protestant Churches of their Church-state or render it Antichristian What hee saith next That none of those that would have a thorough Reformation dare take their whole Parish along with them to the work as it is nothing to his purpose for corruption in manners proves not a Church to bee Antichristian so it is ridiculously propounded For though a godly Minister that is a Pastor to a Parish-Congregation think not all in a meetness for the Lords-Supper nor admits them all to it yet it follows not that hee takes not the whole Parish-Congregation along with him to the work of Reformation considering it in a Scriptural sense Hee may speak to all admonish all instruct all and indeavour to reform all though hee administer the Supper onely to those who are fit for it and it is one of Mr. P's Slanders to say as hee doth of our Ministers that they lay aside the most of their people as the Jews the Samaritans for they own their membership tell them in relation to the Supper they have a Fundamental right though not a proximate right to present participation being as yet unfit receive them to all Ordinances that they are capable to profit by and exhort them to labour in the use of means for fitnesse for the use of all Ordinances and then they shall rejoyce to administer even the Lords Supper to them and is this to lay them aside as the Jews the Samaritans No more than the keeping from the Passeover under the Law those that were judged by the Law to bee in a present incapacity to use it But the mans head is full of his Democracy which makes him measure us by his principle and think that those whom wee admit to full communion wee admit to exercise the power of the Keyes also which makes him talk of taking them along with us to the work of reformation and admitting them to the management of that matter and that those that are not admitted to all Ordinances are quite laid aside because 't is so with him To his Query Why should they bee washed at the same laver at least their children that may not eat at the same Table If hee bee ignorant of our answers to it let him read them in those many Tracts that have them and if hee bee not ignorant of them why puts hee the Question and that without answering our arguments for this practice Some men will ask why though they have been told why a hundred times and can say nothing that is worth hearing against it His inference from his sorry Reasons the words of which hee borroweth from that famous assertour of Reformed Churches the Lord Du Plessis is a farther evidence of his weakness mistakes and impudence Our Churches this man brands every where as Antichristian and Babylon it self but not one argument of weight doth hee bring to prove it Neither answers hee the solid arguments of the godly-learned condemning separation from our Churches as no true Churches for a grievous sin which indeed should have been properly his work since hee had an itch to write in regard hee stands charged by those writings with this sinne But this belike hee finds too hard a task and that it is easier to lay on than to take off charges and wee must not blame a man for not undertaking what hee cannot perform and so instead of answering their arguments sometimes hee wrests their words and perverts their sence to make it serve his turn Sometimes abuseth their expressions for separation from Rome by pressing them for the service of his unscriptural separation from reformed Churches as he shamefully doth here those of this champion of the reformed Churches Did ever Du Plessis think that his exhortation to separation from Rome should have been so much polluted and abused as to bee managed for separation from Reformed Churches or that the World would have produced a writer so absurd as to account reformed Churches to bee yet in and of and the Babylon it self How could hee if hee had any forehead left him so much as name that woruhy Champion of the Protestant Churches when hee exhorts to separation from them But we shall have a worse carriage of this nature to look upon at the end of his book SECT VII Of Mr. P's Injunctions to the Magistrate and first concerning Parishes Parish-Temples and Patrons P. 69. c. BEE wise O yee Kings be instructed yee Judges of the earth Take away Parishes by an Act of State away with all those Consecrated places for worship Away with Patrons or Lay-founders Away with Tithes c. Away I say with all appurtenances of a parish-Parish-Church Can this be Mr. P's voyce I mean not in regard of the imperiousness of it for there is no ground to doubt it to be his on that account but appealing in matters that concern Religion to the Magistrate whose power he hath so much decried Strange that these worldly Governments whom hee exhorts men in his preface not to accept as Law-givers no not in the Common-wealth and hopes Christ will in due time deliver us from should now be applied to by him for the exercise of their power and that in matters that concern Religion What strange liberty is this that he takes to pul down Magistrates at his pleasure when they stand in his light and set them up again to be his Servants and drive on his designes But possibly he means those Rulers that Mr. Feak and his party of which he hath manifested himself to be would have in place of authority and
then his injunctions might have been deferred till their time which I hope we shall never see But consider we a little what he doth enjoyn First take away Parishes by an Act of State the Ecclesiasticalness of them But no Reason that he hath urged against them hitherto will warrant it What says he now for it Hezekiah brake the brazen Serpent because the Children of Israel did Idolize it Josiah demolished the Altar of Bethel and the high place there Rare arguing What analogy is there between these things Are Protestant Parish-congregations idolatrously worshipped because whilst Rome was owned in them they were Idolatrous are they to be demolished now that they renounce it and own Gods true worship Are they like the Altar of Bethel and the High-places against Divine institution in place of being and means of worship For place Churches are now confined to no set place as that of the Jews was then but may any where be made up of co-habiting professors of Christianity For the means of worship let the Reader judge whether he hath proved our Churches Idolatrous And what would this Arguer say I trow from his instances against those Protestant Churches that are not Parishional in France c. made up of Professors whose dwellings are scattered in the Popish Parishes in compasses near to their meeting-places Must they be taken away by an Act of State too if such a one could be procured there Next our Temples feel his wrath Away with all those Consecrated places for Worship P. 70. 71 those holds of Mahuzzim Daemons or Saint-Gods as Mede expounds them may monuments of Idolatry be better endured than heretofore The argument for the demolishing of these is perpetual and so the precept Deut. 7.5 6 25 26. the reason why they are suffered is want of zeal as is hinted by Master Cotton Vial the 7. p. 14. I fear Mr. P's zeal is as misguided as that Luke 9.54 55. want of due consideration and the power of prejudice and wrath doe it is to be feared kindle his zeal For are our Temples holds of Mahuzzim now Is any Saint-God but the holy Trine-une-God worshipped and owned in them as their Protector and Defender How untrue is Mr. P's insinuation of it Surely learned Mede is much abused by him as are most of the Non-congregational Authors whom he quotes in being made from that expression he mentions to account our Temples holds of Mahuzzim whereas he intends it only for the Romish Temples where Saints are worshipped distinguishing Protestants from Papists p. 101. True Christians have with David one Mahoz but apostate Christians have their many Mahuzzims and how much he was for the holiness of our Churches as places not Idolatrous and prophane his tract bearing that name with that of the reverence of Gods house and several other places in his works doe sufficiently demonstrate to shame Mr. P. if he be not perfrictae frontis But sayes Mr. P. They are monuments of Idolatry and may they be better endured than heretofore Here he reasons strangely for if because they were heretofore abused to Idolatry they may not be used now without Idolatry but must be pulled down then the Temple should have been destroyed and not used for the performing of the worship of God in it by Josiah because Manasseh his father had set up Idolatrous Altars for all the Host of Heaven and a carved Image in it 2 Chron. 33.4 5 7. but he neither pulls down nor scrupleth worshipping in the Temple when he had purged it which yet he should have done by Mr. P's doctrine because his father had made it a monument of Idolatry In times near the Primitive Christians scrupled not to use for Christian worship Temples before used for the worship of Pagan gods when they came to be in their power neither I beleeve would the Apostle Paul who preached upon Mars-hil have scrupled to have used them for the worship of God if they had been in the hands of Christians in his time About the text in Deut. however confidently he build his Temple-demolishing doctrine upon it he is much deceived and hath need to be taught that the reason of those precepts for the destroying of the Canaanites places and means of worship and not using them in Gods service was that God had purposed and appointed that there should be but one only place in the whole Land of Israel to which they were to bring their gifts offerings and sacrifices as the Levitical Law required which is expresly told us Deut. 12.1 to 8. And we find that that precept Deut. 7. did not bind them to demolish and reject from being used in Gods service whatsoever was abused to undue worship The Censers of the two hundred and fifty that should not have offered incense were made broad plates for the covering of the Altar Numb 16.39 and the Censers that Nadab and Abihu put strange fire in were not that we read of cast away and made no use of in the Tabernacle and therefore probably Eleazar and Ithamar that succeeded used them Our Temples many of them had a being before the Popish religion prevailed in our Land and some of them have been built since it was removed and had they been all erected during the prevalency of that religion yet their use being changed to the worshipping and religious honouring of God alone they are no more holds of Mahuzzim but Temples of Christ As to Mr. Cottons opinion which he mentions it is built upon exceeding slender grounds He p. 9. 14. doth expound Revel 16.20 thus By Islands are meant Church-yards and ther grounds consecrated by Popish devotions by Mountains Cathedral Churches and all those high places that over-top the people of God Hence he concludes when the zeal of God lifts up the hearts of his people they will not endure a Consecrated place in the world With reverence to Mr. Cottons piety and learning let the judicious Reader judge whether any thing may not bee said and inferred at this rate of interpreting Never did any man in the Christian Church so interpret this text neither can it in any reason be thought to be the sense of the Holy Ghost but rather that Islands and Mountaines are put for places of strength and the powers in them wherein Rome relies and which in the overthrow of Babylon though she look for help from them are not able to afford it her but fall as many as adhere to her under ruin themselves which is that the generality of the best Interpreters understand by it But would you think that Mr. P. that inveighs thus against our Temples should use them himself He tells us plainly that he not only hath done and doth but also hints that hee intends to continue so to doe and that with the help of this pretty distinction I confess were it not to cry out against the Altar at Bethel P. 71 72 81. and gain an advantage of speaking that otherwise I cannot have after
the example of the Churches meeting in Solomons Porch after the Temple was abolished Act. 5.12 I would never more preach or perform any holy duty in them I could not meet with the Parish were it not that I come as a Prophet from Judah to Bethel to them to cry out against the Altar there or upon occasion of the Churches meeting not theirs primarily If he comes as a Prophet yet will he say he is so extraordinary a Prophet as to have a dispensation to doe evil that good may come of it which the great Apostle durst not doe Rom. 3.8 Surely his practice speaks it in effect supposing that he beleeveth that to be true which he hath delivered that our Temples are high places and that it is equally sin to use them at it was to use these Either he must recant what he hath said or he must acknowledge that he doth evil to him evil that good may come of it If this confident accuser charge us who are not convinced of the Antichristianism of our Temples of living in a sinful practice for using them how deeply may he be charged for using them who accounts them holds of Daemons Idolatrous high places not to be endured by any zealous person such as God expresly forbids men to have to doe with But let us consider his pretences for the warrantableness of this practice notwithstanding his Principle what weight are they of even none 1 He comes as a Prophet from Judah to Bethel to cry out against the Altar there But surely besides that he can never shew such a Commission for his inveighing against our Temples as that Prophet had to declare against the Idolatrous Altar at Bethel as may be easily concluded from what hath been said it is plain that he useth not our Temples alwayes on this account but commonly for the performing of Divine services to God with the people that are with him in the use of all Ordinances which I am certain that Prophet would not have done at the Altar of Bethel So that this is but a meer empty pretence 2 He doth it to gain an advantage to cry out against the Altar c. that otherwise hee cannot have after the example of the Church Act. 5. But besides as I have said that this is not commonly his work when he appears in our Temples but to use ordinarily Gods Ordinances with the people there which the Prophet would not have done at the Altar of Bethel and which we read not that the Apostles did in Solomons Porch though if they had the case had been farre different from that in hand Can he not cry out against the Altar c. elsewhere and that with more probable advantage Would it not better suit with Mr. P's Principles to ascend to the top of the Market-place or upon some Scaffold erected on purpose and there to cry out against our Temples And I dare say in so doing hee shall have more hearers than he can expect in a Temple 3. He meets with the Parish in the Temple upon the account of the Churches meeting there not theirs primarily But cannot his Church meet elsewhere Surely after all his drawing away of the Members of our Churches his company is not so bigge but that some room of theirs may contain them as it doth when they list and one would think this Prophet should instruct and lead his flock better than to carry them to and suffer them to meet and worship God in an Idolatrous place as unwarrantable to be used in his judgement as the high-places and the Altar of Bethel in Israels time 'T is a sad thing that this Prophet should be so like that other old Prophet mentioned 1 King 13.18 19 c. he in his practice leads his people to use our Temples and yet in his doctrin hee condemns the use of them as very sinful Idolatrous and not to be practised by any and thereby condemns both those who are led by him into this practice and himself much more who is found and leads others into it contrary to his principles convictions and doctrin Is it not to be feared that in this he is not a true Prophet of the Lord and that his voyce in this Book is no more from Heaven than the Message of that old Prophet was from an Angel But yet attend we his third injunction Away with Patrons or Lay-founders that usurp the Prerogative of Christ they will found Churches P. 72. â— not only build a Synagogue but appoint the Church and the Minister Is not Christ Jesus the builder of the house Durst Paul and Barnabas exercise such tyranny as to impose a Minister on the people Acts 14.23 Certainly Mr. P. invents a crime against Patrons especially those of our days Doe they appoint the Congregations of Professors surely he dreams they only present Ministers to Congregations already formed and if those Ministers can bee proved by any in those Congregations to be unfit to be over them in the Lord there is now and hath commonly been by publick appointment a way to keep them out and make the presentation null but if they have no valid exception against them what harm is there done by the Patrons presenting I shall not here speak to Patrons right But I think their using of that priviledge of nominating Ministers to places which was bestowed upon them at first by the favour of Princes that men might be thereby encouraged to so good a work as building Temples and endowing them with means to maintain Ministers to preach there for the edification of Souls cannot truly be termed an usurping of the Prerogative of Christ nor an exercising if tyranny over the people Ministers may have Christs mission either wholly or inchoatively by fitness and a true desire of edifying Souls in the Ministery though they bee presented by Patrons yea Patrons present them upon the account that they apprehend them to have Christs mission and people have sufficient means to invalidate the Presentation especially among us in case they can evidence them to bee unfit and to procure them to bee ejected after admission in case they can prove them insufficient ignorant or scandalous Those that are presented must bring a sufficient Testimonial of their good conversation They must undergo a tryal in relation to their abilities and it any Objection of weight is laid in by the people against them they cannot injoy the benefit of their presentation unlesse that bee removed Also it is no hard matter for prudent godly people to prevail with Patrons to present whom themselves shall pitch upon All which things considered as I cannot look on their presenting as an exercising of Tyranny over the people So I think that places are better provided for this way considering the condition of our Churches than if they had the full power of nominating chusing and admitting their Ministers But Mr. P. would have done well since hee accounts the presentations of Patrons such abominations to have
instructed and reproved Mr. L. one of his chief members who not long ago sinned against his Antipatronical doctrin For enquiring what course hee should take to bee settled in the Living where hee was hee in whose right hee held it being deceased and being answered by mee that hee must have recourse to the Patron Though hee then much inveighed against Patrons and declared that hee would have no recourse to him nor use him in this matter yet hee soon after addressed himself to him and procured himself to bee presented by him Quid non mortalia pectora cogis Auri sacra fames The Text Act. 14.23 whence Mr. P. queries Durst Paul and Barnabas impose a Minister on the people is mistaken by him but for once he doth not wrong the Presbyterian Author he quotes p. 72 73 which is a rare vertue with him about the import of the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 For it is true that Reverend Calvin Beza and some others say that Paul and Barnabas are by this word to be deemed to have put the Election of the Elders to the suffrages of all in the Churches But others not a few nor mean hold that as they were Elders themselves and more than Elders so they chose and ordained Elders for the Churches by vertue of their Office as best able to appoint to them therein and that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 referres not to the peoples chusing by lifting up of hands but to the act of Paul and Barnabas who by imposition of hands ordained them Elders Scriptores Ecclesiastici saith Marlorat 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 usurpant pro solemni Ordination is ritu qui in Scripturis vocatur manuum impositio And indeed by the imposition of the hands of the Presbytery were Ministers put into office 1 Tim. 4.14 5.22 And as yet I have not seen one example of weight produced from Scripture of a Minister Pastor or Elder chosen by the people much lesse thereby constituted a Minister That Text Act. 1.21 c. reacheth not the case for the Apostleship is allotted to Matthias not by the choice of the Disciples but by divine decision and if the choice had been by the Disciples yet they were not all the Beleevers in Jerusalem but onely the one hundred and twenty who were all Ministers as hath been before evinced Act. 6 1. to 6. concludes nothing in the case in hand neither for probable it is as hath been shewed that the Deacons were not chosen by the multitude of the Disciples at Jerusalem but by the Presbytery and if they were chosen by the people it makes nothing here for it speaks not ad idem There is a wide difference between a Deacon and a Pastor though it were left to people to chuse their own Deacons yet it cannot hence bee concluded that de jure divino people have power to chuse their own Ministers Let Mr. P. consider what the Author whom he elsewhere so unhappily leans upon saies to this n. Mr. Bains in a place already quoted If any saies hee fail in any Office Diocesan Trial p. 84. Conc. 4. the Church hath not power of supplying that but a Ministery of calling one whom Christ hath described that from Christ hee may have power of Office given him in the place vacant Let the world as well as the Church p. 74 bee supplyed with Ministers according to Christ's institution But then say I they must not bee supplied with such as your self gifted brethren unordained for these are not Compleat Ministers according to Christs institution of which more afterwards And you have given no solid reason why presented Ministers that are tryed approved of ordained and sent to Congregations to administer Christs Ordinances should not bee in your account Ministers according to Christs institution That which is stuck at is the rights and properties of Patrons the taking away these is looked upon as a peece of injustice Remember Pharaoh King of Egypt and Sihon King of Heshbon how their hearts were hardened by abuse of righteous principles urging them against Gods command Mr. P. hath not yet produced a Command of God against Patrons properties And 't is a mystery to mee how Pharaoh can bee said to have stuck to righteous principles in oppressing so grievously the Israelites by whose means hee and his land had been saved from famine and refusing to let those injoy their liberty by whom hee and his land injoyed life and freedome Mr. P. hath a strange art in reasoning if hee can make it out that Pharaoh acted towards the Israelites as hee did from righteous principles I am sorry for men in these daies that make it a ground to break up Parliaments p. 75. and make Ordinances to preserve the right of Patrons c. Neither was that Parliament which Mr. P. intends broken up properly by any power but their own Nor was the reason of their dissolution either wholly or chiefly the preserving of the rights and properties of Patrons But the Committee having presented to this Parliament these proposals 1 That Commissioners bee sent down into the Counties and enabled to eject scandalous and unable Ministers and settle able Ministers in void places 2 That such as are or shall bee approved for publick Preachers of the Gospel shall have and injoy such maintenance as is already settled by Law 3 That upon hearing and considering what hath been offered to the Committee touching propriety of Tythes of Incumbents Rectors Possessors of Donatives or appropriate Tythes It is the opinion of the Committee that the said persons have a Legal propriety in Tythes Instead of concurring with the Honourable Committee a Party in this Parliament resolve 1 To put out of Office all the Ministers in the Land 2 To abolish the maintenance of Ministers by Tythes no other maintenance being provided in the stead thereof 3 That no Ministers should have been capable of being admitted to exercise their Ministery that would not have renounced their former call to the Ministery and taken up a new call from the People Hereupon the Major part with the Speaker resign up their power into his Excellencies hands whence they had it foreseeing that confusion and much evil would have ensued upon the execution of such Counsels Mr. P. would it seems have rejoyced to have seen them executed But not onely Presbyterians but also Independents that are not of his form blesse that hand of providence that disappointed them Sad would that day have been to England that should have brought forth the fruits of them His bitter insinuation that Patrons presenting p. 75. doth oblige Ministers to daub with untempered mortar and sew pillows under their elbows is very uncharitable and unreasonable Godly Ministers will bee rather ingaged by being presented to labour to edify the souls of Patrons And were Ministers chosen by the people and cast off by them when they please as Mr. P. would have it they would lye thereby under a far greater temptation
hath no Officers For Scripture doth not evidence that Ordination is so great work as Preaching or that it is more limited or restrained to Officers than preaching is Answ That Beleevers who are no Officers may publikely and ordinarily Preach they have not proved as Reverend Mr. Collings his late Vindicia Min. Ev. revind doth abundantly manifest to which I refer them and the Reader to see how poorly they have acquitted themselves under that attempt All reformed Churches condemn the practice of such persons as Antiscriptural that without Ordination take upon them to bee Preachers in a constituted Church allowing them to Preach onely for Probation in order to Ordination desired by them As for their Argument and the Reason of it they are very wilde For were it granted that Beleevers that are no Officers might ordinarily Preach yet they themselves will grant they preach not as Officers But Ordination they cannot finde in Scripture neither do they say they do committed to or performed by any but Officers Therefore it is an act of Office and so it no way follows that if Beleevers may preach as no Officers they may also Ordain But say they Ordination is not more limitted or restrained to Officers than Preaching Well but what Preaching mean they Extraordinary occasionall probational preaching is not so much limitted or restrained to Officers as Ordination but Authoritative preaching is as much restrained to them as Ordination and Ordination as that But it is not say they so great a work as Preaching therefore if beleevers may Preach they may Ordain Alas is the Preaching the Scripture magnifies the preaching of private Beleevers or of Officers certainly their Argument and their Reason speak not ad idem The Scripture magnifies an authoritative Preaching of the Gospel by Church-Officers above other acts These Brethren speak of the preaching of gifted Brethren out of Office which is not authoritative and then tell us they may Ordain because they may Preach which is the greater work How unhandsome is this arguing for men of parts And if unordained gifted Brethrens preaching bee that great work which the Scripture magnifies above other Ministerial acts may they not at well say such may administer the Sacraments every whit as well Argum. 4 Some Beleevers may with Christs allowance act in other publike special Church-works and such as that there can be no special reason given against their ordaining more than against their doing those other works Therefore in a Church that hath no Officers they may ordain Act. 15.2 22 23. 2 Cor. 8.18 19 23. Answ If their proposition were true yet they could gain nothing by it for it is Reason enough against private Beleevers Ordaining that the Holy-Ghost hath expresly put this work upon Officers and no where upon private Beleevers But they are far from proving what they say Act. 15.2 speaks in all probability of the Officers of the Church at Antioch onely read 1 2 3. verses They that determined to send were those between whom there was no small dissention and disputation The certain other of them are some of those Teachers sent with Paul and Barnabas and they are all distinguished from the Church as Officers from the people That they were all Teachers the 32. verse also evinceth But if the Church of Beleevers had chosen and sent these their Officers for this work will it follow hence they might put men into Office Apage That there were any private Brethren in the number of the chosen and sent here let them prove they cannot The 22. 23. verses whence they say that the brethren acted in the Synod and therefore Beleevers may act in ordination unlesse wee will say that men may act in making Decrees in a Synod that may not ordain give them no sufficient ground thus to speak and are much mistaken by them as by what hath been said Sect. 5. of this Treatise may appear The whole Church may mean that Synodical Church The Brethren are mentioned to signify their consent to what was decreed Yet it cannot bee proved that private Brethren much lesse that the whole Church of Jerusalem were present at the Synod 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 then vers 22 can bee no way necessitated to signify immediately upon the conclusion of James his speech no more than so when they were dismissed vers 30. signifies that the Messengers from Antioch went away that night The Decrees might bee written out and the consent of the Church of private Brethren might bee had in due time and place though not at that particular season And though the private Brethren are mentioned as consenting to the Decrees yet as it inferres not that there was a necessity of their consent So doth it not at all prove that they concurred in making the Decrees for then they had been their Decrees But as they are not said to come together to consider of this matter but onely the Apostles and Elders vers 6. though it is possible some of them might bee there to hear how it was considered of So the Decrees are not called their Decrees but expresly the Deerees ordained of the Apostles and Elders Act. 16.4 That the Brethren are taken into the inscription of the Letter is farre from proving that they concurred in making the Decrees or had any joynt power with the Apostles and Elders in imposing them Because it is frequent for the Epistles of the New-Testament to take into their inscriptions for Salutation and by way of consent to what is written those who cannot bee reputed to have had joynt power with the Writer of them and of whom all that is spoken even without limitation cannot bee affirmed c. as Gal. 1.2 8. and other places These Brethren therefore are too too weakly confident in saying Either our Brethren must say that some Beleevers may ordain or else That men may act in making decrees in a Synod that may not ordain It is denyed them that private Beleevers may act in making Decrees in a Synod and that they did it in that Synod and they have not proved nor will ever bee able to prove it That other place 2 Cor. 8.18 19 23. helps them not at all neither For it doth not appear that these messengers were any of them private Beleevers nor that they were chosen and sent by private Beleevers and if they had what can they infer from hence for private Brethrens ordaining Nothing certainly by all their Logick Messengers are chosen by the Churches to carry their contribution to necessitous Brethren Therefere they may depute private Beleevers to whom Christ never gave power for it to ordain Ministers Who sees not the weaknesse of this consequence is there any equality or analogy between these acts Arg. 5. Those that give the essence of the Call to Office Preacher sent p. 337. may also give the adjunct But some Beleevers without Officers do give the essence of the call to Office For Election is that which giveth the essence to
the outward call to Office and that belongeth to a Church of beleevers without Officers Ergo they may give the adjunct Ordination Answ This is another false Hypothesis of theirs and a main cause of their many mistakes that Election gives the essence of the call to Office nay the whole essence of it p. 242. and that Ordination is but an adjunct But because this point is largely discussed between the Reverend Authors of Jus Div. Min. and them I shall say the less to it 1 If Election did give the Essence of the Call to Office and Ordination were but an adjunct yet it follows not that Private beleevers may ordain Because whatever ordination bee Christ hath made it the work of Officers and no where of the People as hath been said Their reasonings will do them no good without a Precept or Example 2 If Election did give the whole essence of the Call to Office yet it follows not that the Peoples Election alone doth do it Surely Ministers have an electing Power also When Titus is appointed to ordain to constitute Elders in every City hee is charged to look that they bee such as were able to convince gain-sayers Tit. 1.5 9. and that ordinarily private Beleevers yea Churches of private beleevers are not sufficient to judge of nor any where appointed Judges of it If then the Ministers who are the proper Judges of this do not approve and chuse as such persons those whom the People chuse the peoples choice hath no validity in it and so doth not constitute them Ministers In vain should Paul tell Titus what abilities Elders should bee found by him to have in order to his constituting them in every City if the people might chuse men whom hee judged unable and their election stand valid 3 If Election did give the essence of the Call to the Office of Eldership yet these Brethren cannot prove from Scripture that it belongs to private Beleevers as giving such a Call No Scripture that I know of gives power to people to chuse their Elders so as to give them thereby a Call to Office They may chuse them in order to the exercise of their Ministerial Office among them but do not by that choice confer the Ministerial Office upon them no nor empower them to exercise that office among them The Scriptures commonly urged for it prove no such thing For which see Sect. 7. of this book about the the end That Ministers have power to chuse and set Elders in the Churches that mentioned place in Titus proves That People have such an electing power no Scripture proves There is some shew of their power to chuse Deacons but not Elders and that choice Act. 6. doth not appear to have constituted them such Besides there is a great deal of difference between chusing those who are to look to the goods of the Church and those who are to watch over the souls of the Church and to rule them in the Lord. The Deacons are the Churches Servants but Elders their Rulers 4 That Ordination gives the essence of the Call to Offfice the Authors they answer have proved and will I suppose vindicate their proofs from what they have said against them if they shall finde it to bee tanti The very first of them from the New Testament is sufficient to conclude this which is concerning Deacons an Office inferiour to Eldership Act. 6.3 Look ye out among you say the Apostles seven men whom wee may appoint over this businesse They cannot bee deemed to have had the Essence of the call to Office till they were appointed to it the looking of them out did not appoint them to it the setting them before the Apostles did not appoint them to it for it is whom we not you may appoint Appointed to it they were then by the Apostles laying of hands on them with prayer Therefore the Apostles Ordaining them with prayer and imposition of hands gave them the essence of the call to office and so Ordination gives the essence of the call to office and is not an adjunct This Argument then is farre from proving that people may ordain Arg. 6. If Ordination consisteth in Preacher sent p. 338 c. or be made up of such acts only as Beleevers may undoubtedly perform and these acts be not limited in their use upon this occasion to Officers only then in a Church which hath no Officers some beleevers may lawfully and warrantably ordain without Officers But Ordination consisteth c. Ergo. The minor they endeavour to prove by saying that The three things belonging to Ordination on the part of the Ordainers fasting prayer imposition of hands may be all performed by Beleevers Ans The minor is exceeding weak That private beleevers may joyn with the Ordainers in fasting and prayer none deny but what is that to the purpose That Ordination consists in prayer as they say we deny and they can never prove it It consists in mission appointing setting apart which Scripture precepts and examples teach us doe belong to Officers and no where hints to belong to the People That private beleevers may lay on hands on Officers in Ordination no Scripture proves Numb 8.10 is farre from it for 1. Nothing can be certainly concluded from Mosaical Ceremonies for practices under the New Testament unless they bee there opened and the practices there confirmed by precept or example and this might be answer enough 2. They are told that those of the People who laid on hands had a command to doe it their talking of mediate and immediate is to little purpose but there is no such command express or included in the New Testament And will they say from that command that there is now a necessity of the peoples laying on hands in Ordination They must say it if they will make use of this text their way and then it will follow there have been none rightly ordained for one thousand six hundred years since Christ 3. It is clear from this eighth of Numbers by reading the following verses that the Levites being taken instead of the first-born which were Gods by his appointment vers 16 17 18. the people whoever of them they were did by this Ceremony only declare that they closed with the Lords appointment and desired the Levites might according to it be accepted and taken in the room of the first born and therefore they are called an offering of the children of Israel vers 11. they offered them by Gods appointment to the Lord instead of the first-born and the laying on of hands was a sign thereof After this sacrifices being offered for them and they offered to the Lord by Aaron and his sons vers 12 13. they were to enter upon their Office vers 14 15. Now what analogy is there between the Peoples offering of the Levites with imposition of hands upon such a special reason and account and but in order to their being constituted Officers and admitted to the service of the
Tabernacle which they were afterwards by Aaron and his Sons and the ordaining of Ministers with impositions of hands by the people and that without Officers now under the New Testament where we have clearly institution and example to declare it to be the Ministers work They proceed to say None of the texts which speak of Ordination limit it to Officers only Let our brethren prove any such limitation else private beleevers may warrantably ordain VVhat Readers did these Brethren think their Book would meet with to urge this reasoning again and again as an argument for popular Ordination They might have considered how easie the proof is Either it is limited to Officers only or committed to others as well as them But it is not committed to others therefore it is limited to Officers only Let them shew by Scripture-precept or example out of the New Testament that it is committed to others else private beleevers Ordaining must needs remain unwarrantable Let them shew private Beleevers warrant as Ministers can theirs We prove it is committed to Officers they cannot prove it is committed to others doth it not then follow that it is limited to Officers only May they not by their way of reasoning as well say that Magistrates as such may ordain Ministers because they are not by name excluded and so screw Erastus his way one pin higher than ever he durst bring it to Nay may they not by this reasoning argue that private beleevers may administer the Sacraments since no place of Scripture doth express the administration of them to be limited to Officers by excluding the people from it These Brethrens Arguments then are not at all conclusive for their purpose The Holy Ghost hath committed Ordination to Ministers and no where to the people for them therefore to act in it is a gross and very sinful usurpation Hence also it will follow that people cannot without sin own unordained persons or such as are ordained only by the People as Ministers of Jesus Christ As these may bee justly charged to run before they are sent as those did Jerem. 23.21 so those may be charged justly as the Israelites about their Kings Hos 8.4 to set up Pastors but not by him and Ministers but he knew not approved not of it Therefore let such supposed Ministers bee humbled for their rash intrusion and seek for Ordination at the hands of Gospel-Ministers And People who have such Pastors urge them to it and upon their refusal and neglect of it let them know that they cannot own them as Ministers of Christ SECT XIII Containing the Author's humble supplication to those in Authority for Reformation SInce notwithstanding the Criminations of the Accuser whom this Book answereth and the several charges from others our Churches remain true Churches of Christ and need not new making but reforming and our Ministry a true Ministry and that it appears that such only are lawful Ministers of Jesus Christ and Embassadours for him among us who have a constituted Church as have been ordained by a Presbytery of preaching Elders My humble request to the Magistrates of our Land is 1 That they would improve to their utmost the power put into their hands by the King of the Church Jesus Christ for Reformation in our Churches by stirring up and enjoyning Ministers to lay out themselves more fully for the instructing admonishing and reforming of the flocks committed to them and people to receive yeeld and submit unto their Ministerial labours and authority in order to the due use of all the Ordinances of Christ and such a conversation as becometh the Gospel And that therefore they would bee pleased to countenance and enjoyn the nâ—cessary works of Catechising and private instruction and by their authority to strengthen the hands of Christs Ministers in their keeping the Ordinances of Christ and particularly that of his Supper from profanation 2 That they would take care that every Congregation so farre as may be stand furnished with a Minister of the Gospel rightly qualified and invested into office by Ordination received from Ministers of the Gospel according to Christs institution Jehosaphat sent none with his Princes to teach the People the Law of God but Levites and Priests persons regularly invested with office 2 Chron. 17.8 9. The Churches of God in Primitive times in after ages at this day in Scotland France Sweden Denmark Helvetia Germany the Netherlands New-England all the Presbyterian Churches in England yea of Congregational Churches almost all doe with one consent affirm that authoritative preaching of the Word and dispensing of the Sacraments belong only to a lawfully Ordained Ministry I beseech our Rulers in the bowels of Christ that effectual care bee taken that all our Ministers may be such that countenance publick places and publick maintenance bee afforded only to such How should wee expect our comforts should bee dear to God if wee are not zealous for that which so nearly concerns his glory 3 That they would be pleased effectually to suppress to their power all Blasphemies Heresies and Anti-fundamental Errours that they may not bee written taught vented promoted to the prejudice of the Truth trouble of the Church and endangering the immortal Souls of people and that men may not have liberty to defame and every Blatero to rail at and charge with Antichristianism the Churches and ways of God which Protestants have generally owned and sealed their testimony unto with the bloud of multitudes of Martyrs Then would their light break forth as the morning and the glory of the Lord would be their rereward Let timid spirits cry out of Lions in the way and fear that if there bee an owning of thorow Reformation erroneous and loose persons will bee discontented and ready to joyn with forreign enemies to disturb the publick peace and procure the ruine of Church and State But let Magistrates who are the Ministers of God and bear his Name zealously goe through with the work of the Lord and expect confidently protection and a blessing from him in it setting before them that excellent pattern Jehosaphat 2 Chron. 17. whose care and zeal for Reformation was remarkably owned and rewarded by God for He stablished the Kingdom in his hand all Judah brought him presents and the Philistines and Arabians tribute he had riches and honour in abundance and the fear of the Lord fell upon the Kingdoms of the Lands that were round about Judah so that they made no warre against Jehosaphat Thus will the Lord reward Rulers that are zealous for his honour and against whatsoever strikes at it And our Supream Magistrate and Chief Rulers may in the discharge of this work look for like success SECT XIV Of Mr. P's conclusion abusing that of the Lord Du Plessis his Book I Shall conclude all with that noble Speech P. 95 96. of that noble Lord Du Plessis May we not lawfully say with the Prophet We would have cured Babel but she would not be cured forsake her
either not at all Ordained or are ordained only by the People when they might have been and might be ordained by a Presbytery of preaching Elders either they are no Ministers at all or their Ministry is more liable to the charge of Antichristianism than the Ministry of any of the Protestant Churches For proof hereof let it be considered that as Ordination is by the Word rendered necessary when it may be had for the constituting of a Gospel-Ministry so there is no rule for any other way of Ordination of Ministers left us in the Word of God neither by command nor yet by example but only by a Presbytery of preaching Elders either extraordinary or ordinary or mixt By a Presbytery of preaching Elders was Ordination always conferred in Primitive times on the Officers of the Church All the texts that speak of Ordination will bear witness to this truth Acts 6.6 Acts 13.1 2 3. Acts 14.23 1 Tim. 4.14 5.22 2 Tim. 1.6 Tit. 1.5 Church-officers extraordinary or ordinary are the persons ordaining in all these places There cannot be one text of Scripture produced so much as for the concurrence of private Beleevers with Officers extraordinary or ordinary in the act of ordaining any though the lowest Officer in the Church Therefore the London Ministers assertion holds good Ordination of Ministers by the People is a perverting of the Ordinance of God and of no more force than Baptism administred by a Midwife or the consecration of the Elements in the Lords Supper by a person out of office And since Ordination of Ministers by Ministers of the Gospel is the only way of ordination warranted in the Word as the former texts prove then Ordination of Ministers by the People must needs be an Antichristian way of Ordination because it wholly crosseth Christs rules for Ordination given us in the New Testament What is pleaded for unordained persons assuming the holy Office of the Ministry may be easily answered 1 Many of them are gifted for the Ministry Ans 1. But who hath made trial of their abilities That they should be their own Judges in this case is unreasonable that People ordinarily are not able to judge of their gifts is certain Who so meet to judge of their fitness as Ministers and is not this work appropriated to them 1 Tim. 3.2 8 9 10 14 15. compared 5.22 Ans 2. Suppose their gifts and qualifications for the Ministry were proved and approved yet Ordination is necessary ordinarily to invest them into office The Apostles were endowed with choyce abilities for the work of the Ministry yet they take not upon them to be Preachers of the Gospel until they are invested into office by Jesus Christ Mark 6.7 to 14. So also the seventy Disciples preach not the Gospel until they have a special Commission from Christ Luk. 10.1 to 12. Timothy and Titus must have sufficient proof of mens abilities and qualifications for the Ministry and then such persons must be invested with Office by imposition of the hands of the Presbytery This is Gods way and in it those that would serve him should desire to bee found Wheresoever saith Calvin there is a Church of God In Jer. 23.21 it hath its Laws and certain Rules of Government and there no man ought to thrust himself into the work of the Ministry although he should equal all the Angels in holiness How God hath born witness against such persons as have boldly thrust themselves into this holy Office without a lawful call and investiture as he did against Uzziah 2 Chro 26.19 20 who though many of them were before reputed sober and Orthodox Christians yet soon after have been given up to beleeve a lye and are become instruments to draw off others into the erroneous and crooked paths of Socinianism Arminianism Papism Quakism Atheism is most sad to consider From such Prophets as these is profaneness gone forth into the Land 2 They are not only gifted but they find in themselves a strong inclination and desire to preach the Gospel that they may win souls to God Therefore they may take upon them the Ministry Ans What Anabaptist Arminian Quaker may not thus plead And indeed in the Schools of Arminians and Anabaptists was this Doctrin tending to confusion and all errour hatched The Remonstrants judge it lawful for any one to preach the Word Episcop Thes privat Disp 26. Thes 5. Zanch. in Praecept 4. if he be fit to teach and the People desire it and the Anabaptists in Zanchy's time thought it lawful for any man to take upon him the Ministry if he thought hee had the call of the Spirit Those that desire to win Souls to God ought to desire if they are fit for it to be invested with office in the way of Christ by a lawful Ordination by a Presbytery of preaching Elders What is pleaded for Popular Ordination comes now to bee considered The Answerers of Jus Div. Min. Evangelici lay down this proposition In a Church that hath no Officers in it some Beleevers may lawfully and warrantably Ordain without Officers The Preacher sent p. 323. to p. 330 This they endeavour to prove by six Arguments Arg. 1. To hold that some Beleevers may not lawfully and warrantably ordain Officers in a Church that hath none in it would necessarily and unavoidably inferre Ordination to be in such a case unattainable therefore it is contrary to sound Doctrin and not to be asserted For the Antecedent they say There are no Officers on earth authorized or appointed by Christ to Ordain in case a Church hath no Officers in it any more than Beleevers without Officers In regard the special rules and examples left in the Gospâ—l about Ordination give no more warrant to Officers to ordain in such a Church than Beleevers without them For either they were extraordinary Officers that ordained or had an extraordinary Call to ordain There is no precept for or example of any ordinary Officer acting in Ordination out of the particular Church he is over upon any ordinary call in any one text Ans This Argument is built upon a false Hypothesis That the Churches of the Gospel are Congregational only which I have disproved before VVere our Churches generally conformed to the Gospel-pattern divers single Congregatious being united in one compleat Church after the constitution of the Church of Jerusalem Corinth Rome the Churches of Asia c. this case would hardly fall out that is mentioned For though the Officers of a single Congregation might fail yet there would still be a sufficient Presbytery left in that Presbyterial Church to Ordain others in their room But take the case as it is these Brethren fall short of proving their Argument for 1 Suppose that all the Officers mentioned as Ordainers in other Churches in the New Testament were as to their Office or Call extraordinary yet how in-consequent must it needs be that therefore the People may ordain All the precepts and examples hold