old in their calm mood who declare We testify to all Brownists Apol p. 7. An. 1604. Men by these Presents That we have not forsaken any one Point of the true ancient Apostolick Faith professed in our Land but hold the same Grounds of Christian Religion with them See more in Baily's Disswasive cap. 2. p. 20 33. and Dr. Stillingfleet's Unreasonableness of Separation Part 1. § 9. p. 31. The Presbyterians if I may so call them for distinction sake do own it So Mr. Corbet The Doctrine of Faith and Sacraments by Discourse § 21 p. 43. Law established is heartily received by the Non-conformists So Mr. Baxter As for the Doctrine of the Church of England Preface to 5 Disp p. 6. the Bishops and their Followers from the first Reformation begun by Edw. 6. were sound in Doctrine adhering to the Augustan Method express'd now in the Articles and Homilies they differ'd not in any considerable Point from those whom they called Puritans The like is affirmed by the Independents The Confession of the Church of Peace-Offer ing p. 12. See Mr. Baxter's Defence of his Cure Part 1. p. 64. and Part 2. p. 3. and Wadsworth in his Separation yet no Schism p. 60 62. Mr. Throughton's Apology for the Non-Conformists cap. 3. p. 106. England declared in the Articles of Religion and herein what is purely doctrinal we fully embrace 2. As to the Worship they own it for the Matter and Substance to be good and for Edification So the old Non-Conformists as Mr. Hildersham There is Lecture 26. on John p. 121. nothing in our Assemblies but we may receive profit by it c. And again There is nothing done in God's Publick Worship among us but what is done by the Institution Ordinance and Commandment of the Lord. So among the present it is owned by both Presbyterians and Independents by the former in the Morning Exercise Continuat Morning Exercise Serm 4. p. 91. Why may it not be supposeable that Christians may be moved by reasonable Considerations to attend the publick Forms the substantial Parts of them being thought agreeable to a Divine Institution though in some Circumstantials too disagreeable So it is acknowledged That in Throughton's Apol. p. 104. private Meetings the same Doctrine and Worship is used as in the Parish Churches only some Circumstances and Ceremonies omitted By the latter We know full well that we Peace-Offering p. 17. differ in nothing from the whole form of Religion established in England but only in some few things in outward Worship But I shall have further occasion to treat of this under the third General 3. As for the Ministry of the Church 1. It is acknowledged to be true and for substance the same which Christ hath established So Mr. Bradshaw I Unreasonableness of the Separation p. 16. affirm That the Ministry of our Church-Assemblies howsoever it may in some particular parts of the Execution haply be defective in some Places is for the Substance thereof that very same Ministry which Christ hath set in his Church This he speaks as he saith of those that do subscribe and conform according to the Laws of the State 2. That they have all things necessarily belonging to their Office so the grave and modest Confutation maintains The preaching of the whole Truth of God's Word Grave and modest Confutat p. 28. and nothing but it the Administration of the Sacraments and of Publick Prayer as they are of all parts of the Ministers Office prescribed in the Word so they are all appointed to our Ministers by the Law 3. They own That all the Defects in it whether in their Call or Administration do not nullify the Office Thus much Mr. Bradshaw doth contend for So many of our Ministers Unreasonableness of Separation p. 27 37. who in the Book of Ordination are called Priests and Deacons as in all Points concerning the substance of their Ministry are qualified according to the intent of the Laws have their Offices Callings Adminstration and Maintenance for the Substance thereof ordained by Christ And yet I deny not but there may be some accidental Defects or Superfluities in or about them all yet such as do not or cannot be proved to destroy the Nature and Substance of any of them This is maintained at large in the Letter of the Ministers in Old England c. p. 86 87. And the like is also affirmed even by those of the Apologet. Narration p. 6. Congregational Way so the Brethren in their Apology The unwarrantable Power in Church-Governours did never work in any of us any other Thought much less Opinion but that the Ministry thereof of the English Churches was a true Ministry So Mr. Cotton The Cotton's Infant Baptism p. 181. Power whereby the Ministers in England do administer the Word and Sacraments is either spiritual and proper essential to their Calling or advantitious and accidental The former they have received from Christ c. The latter from the Patron who presents or the Bishop who ordains c. Whoever has a mind to see their Ordination defended may consult Jus Divinum Ministerii Evangelici part 2 p. 12 16 17 25 c. Jus Divinum Regim Eccles p. 264 c. Cawdry's Independency a great Schism pag. 116. and his Defence of it pag. 35 37. Thus far therefore we see how far it is agreed that the Church of England is a true Church in its Doctrine Worship and Ministry But when we come to consider what the Church is they own thus to be true there we shall find that they do differ The Presbyterians generally own a National Church and have writ much in the behalf of it as may be seen in the Books quoted in the * * * Jus Divinum Minist Evang. p 12 c. Brinsly's Church-remedy p 41 42. Cawdry Independ a great Schism p. 60 89 172. Margin Others look upon it as a prudential thing and what may lawfully be complied with So Mr. Tombs | | | Theodulia or just Defence § 15 16. Preface c. 9. § 3. It is no more against the Gospel to term the Believers of England the Church of England than it is to term Believers throughout the World the Catholick Church nor is it more unfit for us to term our selves Members of the Catholick Church nor is there need to shew any Institution of our Lord more for the one than the other But those that will not own it to be a true Church in respect of such a Constitution or that speak doubtfully of it do yet assert as much of the Parish Churches It 's acknowledged by all that the Distribution into Parishes is not of Divine but Humane Institution but withal its thought by some * * * Crofton's Reformation not Separation p. 10. and Bethshemesh clouded p. 101 c. Cawdrey's Independ a great Schism p. 132 c. Church-Reformation p. 42. agreeable to the reason of the
say as some have done that it is an Act of Worship to the outward Elements when the Church has declared this to be Idolatry to be abhorred of all Faithful Rubr. after the Communion Christians If it should be said that we ought to receive in the same posture that they received at the first Institution We cannot certainly tell what that was If it were that which is most probably Conjectured it is never used It is wholly laid aside by those that argue the most Zealously for it But sure if the particular Gesture had been so absolutely necessary as some do imagine there would have been some plain and express mention of it somewhere in the Scripture which there is not as I have noted before And then it must be very unwarrantable in those that Separate from our Church because they will not receive in that reverent manner which She has prescribed If there had been nothing injoyned in this matter a man upon a serious apprehension of the infinite mercies of God through the merits and mediation of his blessed Saviour could scarce have forborn falling upon his Knees when he came to partake of the Sacrament of his most precious Body and Blood The commemoration of the Death and Passion of the Son of God by which he was Redeemed would strike him almost naturally into the humblest posture of Adoration But if any reverence be granted to be due at such a time I am sure sitting at the Table is a very unfit posture to express it Or if any man should like it better than that which is required with us yet to make this an occasion of departing from our Communion would argue but too little value for the peace of the Church But some there are who though they be convinced of the Lawfulness of all these Rites and Usages and for their own particular could joyn with us well enough yet they dare not do it for fear of giving Scandal and Offence to those that are not satisfied in these things This matter of Scandal has been so vehemently pleaded sometimes as if it were the only thing to be regarded in all Church Constitutions and that they were to be immediately disused whatever Authority injoyned them assoon as any should be offended at them This puts all external Order in Christian Assemblies into a very tottering condition ready to be presently overturned by every little Scruple that may chance to arise But for answer to this we must observe That they are the Weak and Ignorant that take Offence That their doubts and scruples are not to be nourished and commended See Rom. 14. but only born with for a time That they are bound to take all due Care and convenient Opportunity 1 Cor. 8. of Instruction that they may be fully satisfied and that it is in things meerly Indifferent such as Meats and Drinks where we are obliged to any compliance for the avoiding of Scandal These things thus briefly premised let it be considered whether they who esteem themselves rather more Knowing than others who seem unwilling to part with their Doubts and who have entertained some Prejudices against those that would inform them better are to be treated like weak Brethren And whether we ought to yield to them where Authority has determined the contrary unless we could prove our Obedience as Indifferent as the things scrupled at are supposed to be If it should be said that we ought yet at least it cannot be safely done till it be made appear that all the weak are of one side For in our present Case if there should be as many as doubtless there are that would be offended to see the manner of our Publick Worship altered as there are to see it imposed then though the command of our Superiors should signify nothing we should yet be upon equal terms on the account of Scandal only and as much bound not to Separate as they think they are to Separate by their own Principle But in a word no Scandal taken at an Indifferent thing can be so great as the Sin and Scandal both of Confusion and Disorder and Contempt of Authority There is another Exception near akin to this Some have thought they must withdraw from us because of our mixt Communions and that some which they judg unworthy Receivers are admitted to the Lord's Table This Objection proves nothing but a Supercilious Arrogance and a great want of Charity in those that make it What care they may take in their new way of Discipline I cannot tell but our Church has given the Minister a Power of rejecting those that are guilty See Rubr. before the Communion of any known and scandalous Sin And this is as much as can be done the open Sinner may be excluded but the close Hypocrite will escape the narrowest search that humane Industry can make But if any notorious evil Livers should be admitted through the ignorance inadvertency or negligence of the Minister their Unworthiness cannot defile those that Communicate with them It is generally thought that the Cursed Traytor Judas did partake of the Holy Supper when it was first instituted by our Lord. God be praised I have not heard that amongst us the abuses of this Ordinance did ever arise to that Degree that they were at among the Corinthians when at the very time of receiving one was Hungry and another Drunken 1 Cor. 11. 21. and yet the Apostle does not Command them to forsake the Communion of that Church where these Scandalous Enormities were committed Every man is charged to Examine himself and not another before he presume Ver. 28. to eat of that Bread and drink of that Cup. And it would be very well if all men would hearken to this holy and pious Admonition for he that inquires seriously into his own Sins will find great cause to be Humble and Penitent and so may become a worthy Communicant But he that is curious to pry into the miscarriages of other men will be apt to be vain proud self-conceited and censorious which will make him as unfit for the Table of the Lord as any of those Faults which he so scornfully condemns in his Neighbour that he esteems himself and the ordinances of God polluted by his Company But if none of these Pleas I have mentioned should be sufficient many think they may leave our Assemblies only for the sake of greater Edification which they can find elsewhere This I believe prevails with great numbers of the more ignorant especially to depart from us And I would to God they might obtain what they say they depart for and that they were indeed more Edified and did grow in Grace under what Ministery soever it be But alas This talk of greater Edification is many times meer wantonness and instability of humour and too often rather in Fancy than effect Men conceit that they are better Edified not when they are more fully instructed in any weighty point of Faith or
follow that only the ablest of all these may be joyned with because that all the rest do worse And yet this must be if Edification be always to be consulted and is to determine us in our choice of Ministers Churches and Ordinances Fifthly They say Edification doth not depend Arg. 5 so much upon the external Administration of Worship as God's Blessing and that we are not to break the Order Peace and Union of the Church for the sake of it The former is asserted by Mr. Hildersham Lect. 54 p. 254 Lect. 58. It 's our Sin and Shame and is just cause of humbling to us if we cannot profit by the meanest Minister God hath sent The Power of the Ministry dependeth not on the Excellency of the Teacher's Gift but God's Blessing The latter is maintained by Mr. Vines It 's said Order in an Army kills no On the Sacrament p. 246. Body yet without it the Army is but a Rout neither able to offend or defend So haply Order in the Church converts no Body yet without it I see not how the Church can attain her End or preserve themselves in begetting or breeding up Souls to God Therefore is the Advice of Mr. Baxter Do not In his Farewel Sermon think to prosper by breaking over the Hedg under the pretence of any right of Holiness so of Edification whatsoever following any Party that would draw you to Separation The Mischief of which is represented by Dr. Tuckney Experience saith Sermon at Pauls on Acts 9. 31. he hath taught us that the Church of God hath been poorly edified by those who have daubed up their Babel with untempered Mortar c. when the Church is rent by Schisms and Factions and one Congregation is turned into many Conventicles falsely now called Churches this doth diminish weaken and ruine Lastly When they do grant that Edification may serve to guide us and that we may hear where we can most profit it 's with such Limitations and Cautions as these it must be seldom in a great Case without Offence and Contempt Thus Mr. Hildersham I Lect. 54. p. 253. dare not condemn such Christians as having Pastors in the places where they live of meaner Gifts do desire so they do it without open breach or contempt of the Churches Order to enjoy the Ministry of such as have better Gifts c. so they do it without contempt of their own Pastors and without Scandal and Offence to them and their People So again You ought not to leave your own Pastor at any Lect. 58. time with contempt of his Ministry as when you say or think alas he is no body a good honest Man but he hath no Gifts I cannot profit by him And as if he could not be too cautious in the case he lays down this as the Character of one that doth this innocently He only makes right use of the benefit of hearing such as have more excellent Gifts than his own Pastor's and learns thereby to like his own Pastor the better and to profit more by him That this is to be but seldom we have the concurrent Testimony of the Provincial Assembly of London who upon this Question Would Jus Divinum Minist Evangel p. 11 12. you have a Man keep constantly to the Minister under whom he lives do answer We are not so rigid as to tye up People from hearing other Ministers occasionally even upon the Lord's-Day But yet we believe 't is most agreeable to Gospel-Order upon the Grounds forementioned Thus it is resolved also by one of a more rigid way Methermeneut p. 72. who puts this Question Whether Members of particular Churches may hear indifferently elsewhere and returns this Answer God will have Mercy and not Sacrifice as distance of Habitation handing such a point But most certainly Members of Churches ought mostly to be with their own Churches The imagined Content in hearing others is rather a Temptation than Motion of the Spirit From all which we may conclude that the pretence of better Edification is no sufficient Reason for Separation from a Church Worship or Ministry without there be other Reasons that do accompany it and then it is not for this Reason so much as those it is in conjunction with But admitting this yet it will hardly be granted to be a reason for Separation from the Church of England if the Testimony of many worthy Persons be of any Consideration Thus Mr. Hildersham declares Lect. 29. p. 131. when he is reproving such as make no Conscience to come to the beginning of God's Publick Worship and to stay to the end of it he thus proceeds Because I see many of them that have most Knowledg and are forwardest Professors offend in this way I will manifest the Sin of these Men. 1. They sin against themselves in the Profit they might receive by the Worship of God There is no part of God's Service not the Confession not the Prayers not the Psalms not the Blessing but it concerns every one and every one may receive Edification by it This he otherwhere repeats and saith By the Confession Lect. 28 p. 129. and all other Prayers used in the Congregation a Man may receive more Profit than by many other Of this Opinion as to the most of the Prayers in our Liturgy were the old Non-conformists We are perswaded that not only some few Letter of the Minist in Old-England to the Brethren in New-England p. 13. select Prayers but many Prayers and other Exhortations may lawfully be used with Fruit and Edification to God's People As for the Word preach'd amongst us Nr. Nye Case of great use p. 3. saith That there is a Sum of doctrinal Truths which in the Enlargement and Application are sufficient both for Conversion and Edification to which the Preachers are to assent And That the Word of God interpreted and applied by preaching in this way is a choice Mercy and Gift wherewith God hath blessed this Nation for many Years to the Conversion and Edification of many thousands And he afterwards ascribes the want of Edification to the prejudices of People Such reasonings saith he against Pag. 25. hearing though they convince not the Vnlawfulness of it yet they leave such Prejudices in the Minds of them which are tender as perplex and render hearing less profitable and edifying even to those that are perswaded of its Lawfulness This Mr. Tombs declares himself freely Theodulia c. 9. § 8. p. 317. in If we look to experience of former Times there is now ground to expect a Blessing from conforming Preachers as well or rather more than from Preachers of the separated Churches Sure the conversion consolation strengthening establishing of Souls in the Truth has been more in England from Preachers who were Enemies to Separation whether Non-conformists to Ceremonies or Conformists Presbyterial or Episcopal even from Bishops themselves than from the best of the Separatists I think all
Member may be reclaim'd or by its just Censures be cut off from the Communion If he shall neglect to hear them tell it to the Church Matth. 18. 17. Rubr. before the Commun Our Church hath given every Minister of a Parish power to refuse all scandalous and notorius sinners from the Lord's Supper and as slack and as much disus'd as Discipline is amongst us were such persons more generally inform'd against and complain'd of they would not find it so easie a matter to continue in their Offences and the Church together You see by what means the Church may either be clear'd in some measure of publick Offenders or the Members of it together with the Ordinances of God secur'd from infection by their fellowship By this did the Primitive Christians shew their Zeal for their Religion as well as by suffering for it They were infinitely careful to keep the honour of their Religion â—nspotted and the Communion of the Church as much out of danger as they could from the malignant influence of bad examples for this reason they watch'd over one another told them privately of their faults and when that would not do brought them before the cognizance of the Church and tho' lapsing into Idolatry in times of presecution was the common sin that for some Ages chiefly exerciz'd the Discipline of the Church yet all Offences against the Christian Law all Vices and Immoralities that were either publick in themselves or made known and prov'd to the Church came also under the Ecclesiastical Rod and were put to open Shame and Pennance this was that Discipline that preserv'd their Manners so Uncorrupt and made their Religion so Renown'd and Triumphant in the World and how happy would it be for us in this loose and degenerate Age as our own Church expresses Preface to the Comminat her wishes and desires were it again in its due Force and Vigour restored and resetled amongst us But if after all imaginable care and endeavour by private Christians some scandalous Members through the defects of Power in the Discipline or of Care and Watchfulness in Governours should remain in the Church whatever pollution those whose Office it is to rebuke with all Authority may draw on themselves Tit. 3. last by suffering it private Members that are no way neither by consent nor councel nor excuse accessary to their Sin can receive none for sin no otherwise pollutes than as it is in the will not as it is in the understanding as it 's chose and embrac'd not as it 's known I may know Adultery and yet be Chast see Strife and Debate in the City and yet be Peaceable hear Oaths and Curses and yet tremble at God's Name Noah was a good Man in an evil World Lot a righteous person amongst the conversation of the wicked neither is there any more fear of pollution from wicked Men in Sacred than in Civil Society Our Saviour and his Apostles were not the least defil'd by that Society they had with Scribes and Pharisees nor by that Familiarity they had with the accursed Judas tho' he eat the Passover with them and they kept him company after they knew him to be a Traytor What pollution did Abel receive from Cain when they Sacrific'd together Or Elkanah and Hannah from Eli's Debauch'd Sons when at Shilo they Worshipt together The good and bad indeed Communicate together but in what not in sin but in their common duty and tho' to Communicate with sin is sin yet to Communicate with a sinner in that which is not sin can be none Communion is a common union many partaking of one thing wherein they do agree now the common union of the good and bad in the Church is not in evil but in hearing of the Word in receiving of the Sacrament and in other holy Ordinances and Exercises when therefore some do evil the Communion in spiritual things is not polluted because evil is no part of the union in common one with another but the error of Man by himself out of the Communion which he himself and they only that have been partakers with him in it shall answer for Obj. But does not the Apostle say A little leaven 1 Cor. 5. 6. leaveneth the whole lump Ans This is a proverbial speech and shews only that sin like leaven is of a very spreading and diffusive nature not that it actually defiles where it is not admmitted A People in one Assembly are as a lump and a wicked person amongst them is as leaven but now altho' the leaven is apt to conveigh it self through the whole lump yet only are those parts actually leaven'd with it that take the leaven so it is with the Church the sinner by his bad example is apt to spread the infection through the whole body but only such as allow or any way communicate with him in his sin are actually infected such as Chloe that reprove the offender 1 Cor. 1. 11. and present him doing their utmost endeavour in their place ro reform him remain in spight of its malignity unpolluted Beware of the leaven of the Pharisees says our Saviour he adviseth not his Disciples to leave their Assemblies but to beware that they take no leaven of them shewing thereby that a good Man that stands upon his gaurd may be where leaven is and yet not be leaven'd The incestuous person was not cast out of the Church of Corinth and yet the Apostle says at least of some of them ye are unleaven'd ver 7. And why may not the joynt Prayers of the Church and the Examples of Pious and Devout Men in the Communion be as sovereign an antidote against the infection as the bare company of wicked Men is of power to convey it Why should not the holy Ordinances of God and the presence of holy Men at them be of as much virtue and efficacy to purge and sanctifie the whole body as the impurities of the bad are to stain and pollute it especially considering that the sins of the 2 Cor. 30. 18. wicked shall never be imputed to the righteous but the Prayers of the righteous have obtain'd pardon for the wicked Obj. But were not the pollutions of sin typified by Numb 19 13 20. the legal uncleannesses And was not every thing that the unclean person touch'd made unclean Ans Those legal and ceremonial pollutions concern not us under the Gospel we may touch a grave a dead person a leper and not at all be the less clean it 's not any outward uncleanness but the corruption and depravity of the inner man that incapacitates men for the Worship of God and Communion with him 2. Those legal pollutions did not defile the whole Communion but only those particular persons whom the unclean person touch'd for 1. There was no sacrifice appointed for any such pollution as came upon all for the sin of some few 2. Tho' the Prophets many times reproved the Priests
Example have they for it or what reason more than the reason of the thing taken from expedience and the general Practice of the Church of God in colder Climates And yet this is as much used amongst them that pretend to keep exactly to the Rule of Scripture as it is amongst us that take a liberty in things Uncommanded but with this difference that they do it upon the supposition of a Command and so make it necessary and our Church leaves it as it is Indifferent Again where do they find a Command for Sitting at the Lord's Supper or so much as an Example For the Posture of our Saviour is left very uncertain Where again do they find a Command for the necessary use of conceived Prayer and that that and no other should be used in the publick Worship of God And that they must prove that maintain publick Forms unlawful Where again do they find it required that an Oath is to be taken by laying the Hand on the Gospel and Kissing the Book which is both a Natural and Instituted part of Worship being a Solemn Invocation of God and an appeal to him with an acknowledgment of his Omniscience and Omnipresence his Providence and Government of the World his Truth and Justice to Right the Innocent and Punnish the Guilty all which is owned and testified by Kissing that Book that God has declared this more especially in And if we more particularly descend to those that differ from us in this point Where do those of the Congregational way find that even Christians were otherwise divided from Christians than by place or that they did combine into particular Churches so as not to be all the while reputed Members of another and might be admitted upon removal of Place upon the same terms that they were of that they removed from or indeed that they were so Members of a particular as not to be Members of any or the whole Church of Christ upon their being Batipzed VVhere do they find that Christians were gathered out of Christians and did combine into a Society Excluding those from it that would not make a Profession of their Faith and Conversion distinct from that at Baptism Where do we ever read that he that was a Minister of one Church was not a Minister all the World over as well as he that was Baptized in one was reputed a Christian and Church-Member wherever he came Again where do we read that its necessary that Ministers should be alike in Authority Power and Jurisdiction and that there is to be no difference in point of Order and Superiority amongst them Or that there are to be Elders for Governing the Church who are not Ordained to it and are in no other State after than they were before that Service both of which are held by the Prerbyterians strictly so called And if it be said these respect Government but not VVorship I answer the case is the same for if we are to do nothing but what is prescribed in the VVorship of God because as they say it derogates from the Priestly Office of Christ and doth detract from the Sufficiency of Scripture then I say upon the like reason there must be nothing used in Church Government but what is prescribed since the Kingly Office is as much concerned in this as the Priestly in the other and the Sufficiency of Scripture in both Lastly VVhere do any of them find that position in Scripture that there is nothing lawful in Divine Worship but what prescribed and that what is not Commanded is Forbidden And if there be no such position in Scripture then that can no more be true than the want of such a position can render things not Commanded to be unlawful And now I am come to that which must put an Issue one way or other to the Dispute for if there be no such position in Scripture either expressed in it or to be gathered by good consequence from it we have gain'd the point but if there be then we must give it up And this is indeed contended for For it s Objected That it s accounted in Scripture an hainous Crime Object I to do things not commanded as when Nadab and Abihu offered strange Fire before the Lord which he Commanded Levit. 10. 1 c. them not c. From which form of expression it may be collected that what is not Commanded is Forbidden and that in every thing used in Divine Worship there must be a Command to make it lawful and allowable To this I answer that the Proposition infer'd that all Answ I things not Commanded are Forbidden is not true and so it cannot be the Sence and Meaning of the Phrase for 1. Then all things must be either Commanded or Forbidden and there would be nothing but what must be Commanded or Forbidden but I have before shewed and it must be granted that there are things neither Commanded nor Forbidden which are called Indifferent 2. If things not Commanded are Forbidden then a thing not Commanded is alike Hainous as a thing Forbidden And then David's Temple which he designed to Build would have been Criminal as well as Jeroboam's Dan and Bethel and the Feast of (a) (a) (a) Esth 9. 27. Purim like Jeroboam's Eighth Month (b) (b) (b) 1 King 12. 32 33. and the Synagogal Worship like the Sacrificing in Gardens (c) (c) (c) Isai 65. 3. and the hours of Prayer (d) (d) (d) Act. 3. 1. like Nadab's Strange Fire The former of which were things Uncommanded and the latter Forbidden and yet They were approved and These condemned 2. The things to which this Phrase not Commanded is applied to give no encouragement to such an Inference from it for its constantly applied to such as are absolutely Forbidden This was the case of Nadab and Abihu who offered Fire not meerly Uncommanded but what was prohibited which will appear if we consider that the Word Strange when applied to matters of Worship doth signify as much as Forbidden Thus we read of Strange Incense that is other than what was compounded Exod. 30. 9 according to the directions given for it which as it was to be put to no common uses so no common Ver. 34. Ch. 37 29. persmue was to be put to the like uses with it So we also read of Strange Vanities which is but another Jer. 8. 19. Word for Graven Images and of Strange Gods And after the same sort is it to be understood in the case before us viz. for what is Forbidden For that such was the Fire made use of by those Young Men will be further confirm'd if we consider that there is scarcely any thing belonging to the Altar Setting aside the Structure of it of which more is said than of the Fire burning upon it For 1. It was lighted from Heaven (a) (a) (a) Lev. 9. 24. 2. It was always to be burning upon the Altar (b) (b) (b) Ch. 6. 12. 3.
what past John 13. from Ver. 1. to 31. vid. Hor. Heb. Tal. p. 300. and Mat. 26. 6. between Christ and his Disciples at a common and ordinary meal in Bethany and that for this reason among many others judiciously urged by him because the Disciples thought when our Lord had said to him Ver. 27. That thou doest do quickly that he had given order to Judas who kept the bag to buy those things that they had need of against the Feast viz. the Passover and therefore all those passages and that discourse related by St. John in the foregoing Verses of that Chapter were transacted at an ordinary and common Supper And indeed this seems to be the great end and design which St. John proposed to himself in writing his Gospel and which throughout he constantly pursues viz. To add out of his own Knowledge several remarkable passages especially such as tend to demonstrate the Divinity of our Saviour as had been omitted by the other Evangelists in their History of the Birth Life Actions and Sufferings of our Blessed Saviour There is another passage in St. John's Gospel which in the Judgment of John 5. 53. many Learned Divines both Ancient and Modern hath respect to the Lord's Supper though not at that time instituted when those mysterious words were uttered by our Saviour Except ye Eat the Flesh of the Son of Man and Drink Ver. 54. his Blood ye have no life in you Whoso Eateth my Flesh and Drinketh my Blood hath Eternal Life and I will raise him up at the last day For my Flesh is meat indeed and Ver. 55. my Blood is drink indeed He that Eateth my Flesh and Ver. 56. Drinketh my Blood dwelleth in me and I in him Now all that can be inferr'd from these words as they relate to this Holy Feast is onely thus much that it 's highly necessary for all Christians who have an opportunity to do it to partake of the Lord's Supper as they would partake in the merits of his Sacrifice and the Efficacy of his Death and his Sufferings and that none but such as do receive the tokens and signs of his Body broken and Blood shed for their Sins shall be owned and rewarded by him as his Friends These are all the places that we meet with in the Gospel let us now see what is delivered in the Acts and other Writings of the Apostles and Divinely-inspired Authors Among all their Writings there is but one place which gives any account of the History of the Sacrament and Institution of it and that is in the 1 Epist to the Corinthians Chap. 11. where St. Paul declares that what he delivered to them he received by immediate Revelation from Christ himself viz. That the Lord Jesus the same night in which Ver. 23. Ver. 24. he was betrayed took Bread and when he had given Thanks he brake it and said Take eat this is my Body which is broken for you this do in Remembrance of me After the Ver. 25. same manner he took the Cup when he had Supped saying This Cup is the New Testament in my Bloud this do as oft as ye Drink it in Remembrance of me For as often as Ver. 26. ye eat this Bread and Drink this Cup ye do shew or shew ye the Lord's Death till he come There are several other places wherein the Holy Sacrament is mentioned 1 Cor. 10. 16 21. 1 Cor. 11. 20. Acts 2. 46. Acts 20. 7. and described by several Names and Titles sutable to the nature and ends of it which for brevity sake I omit and desire the Reader to consult at his leisure and I would not put him to that trouble if they did contain any thing that made against Kneeling or that lookt like a command for the use of any other Gesture Let us now look back a little upon the places forementioned and see what our Lord hath ordained and appointed to be of perpetual use in his Church The Apostles and Disciples of our Lord at the Institution of the Sacrament were the Representatives of the whole Church and are to be considered under a double capacity Either as Governours and Ministers entrusted by Christ with the Power of dispensing and administring the Sacrament or as ordinary and lay Communicants If we consider them as Governours and Stewards of the Mysteries their Duty to which they are obliged by the express command of their Lord is to take the Bread into their Hands to bless and consecrate it to that mysterious and Divine use to which he designed it to break it to give it to the Communicants as he gave it them And so in like manner to Take the Cup to bless it to give it to their fellow-Christians That which they were obliged to do by the command of our Lord considered as private Men and in common with all believers was to take and receive the Consecrated Elements of Bread and Wine to eat and Drink and to do all this in Commemoration of his wonderful Love in giving his Body to be broken and his Blood to be shed for the Sins of the World And what the least Syllable or Shadow of a Command is there here in all this History for the use of any Gesture in the Act of Receiving Since then the Holy Scripture is altogether silent as to this matter its silence is a full and clear demonstration that Kneeling is not repugnant to any express Command of our Lord because no Gesture was ever Commanded at all And this hath been ingenuously Confessed in writing by a A Manuscript of an unknown Author cited by Mr. Paybody p. 48. great Enemy to Kneeling and a great Advocate for Sitting That the Gesture of Sitting is but a matter of Circumstance and not expresly Commanded But the Scotch Ministers Assembled at Perth affirm Object that when our Lord at the Institution Commanded his Disciple to do this he did by those words Command them to use that Gesture which he used at that time as well as to Take Eat Drink c. The Force of their Argument lies in this if it have any force at all Our Saviour Sate at the Passover as the Scriptures plainly inform Mat. 26. 20. Mar. 14. 18. Luke 22. 14. us and it is to be supposed he continued in the same posture when he instituted and Administred the Sacrament which was at the close of the Passover therefore Do this relates to and includes the Gesture amongst other things But this is a miserable shift which tends to Sink rather than Support their Cause For first If our Lord did Sit when he Administred Answ I the Sacrament which we will suppose at present yet there is no reason in the World to incline us to think that he intended by those words Do this to oblige us to observe his Gesture onely and not several other Circumstances which he observed at the same time Since Christ hath not restrained and interpreted these words Do
A COLLECTION OF CASES AND OTHER DISCOURSES Lately Written to Recover DISSENTERS TO THE COMMUNION OF THE Church of England By some Divines of the City of London In Two Volumes To each Volume is prefix'd a Catalogue of all the CASES and DISCOURSES contain'd in this Collection LONDON Printed for T. Basset at the George in Fleet-street and B. Tooke at the Ship in St. Paul's Church-yard 1685. A CATALOGUE OF ALL THE Cases and Discourses Contained in the first Volume of this COLLECTION 1. A Perswasive to Communion with the Church of England 2. A Resolution of some Cases of Conscience which respect Church-Communion 3. A Letter to Anonymus in Answer to his three Letters to Dr. Sherlock about Church-Communion 4. The Case of Lay-Communion with the Church of England considered 5. The Case of mixt Communion 6. The Case of indifferent things used in the Worship of God proposed and stated 7. A Vindication of the Case of indifferent things c. 8. A Discourse concerning Conscience In two Parts 9. A Discourse about a Scrupulous Conscience containing some plain Directions for the Cure of it 10. Considerations about the Case of Scandal or giving Offence to weak Brethren 11. The Charge of Scandal and giving Offence by Conformity refelled and reflected back upon Separation A PERSWASIVE TO COMMUNION With the Church of England The Second Edition Corrected Ephes 4. 15. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 LONDON Printed by J. Redmayne for Fincham Gardiner at the White Horse in Ludgate-street 1683. A Perswasive to COMMUNION With the CHURCH of ENGLAND THere is nothing that does more scandalize and unsettle the Weak nor tempt the Proud and Licentious to a professed neglect of all Religion than the many causless Divisions which do sometimes happen in the Church And he is no lively Member of that Mystical Body of Christ that is not sensibly affected with the Fatal Consequences of these things and does not endeavor what he Lawfully may to do something towards the healing of those Wounds which have been made by the extreme Scrupulosity of some and are still kept Bleeding by the Subtilty and cunning Artifice of others For it is manifest enough and cannot now be denied that the Papists have always attempted to pull down the Church of England by pretended Protestant hands and have made use of the facility of our Dissenting Brethren to bring about their own Designs I wish the eminent Danger we have been brought into would prevail with them at last to forbear to Batter and Undermine us as they have done when they cannot but see that the Common Enemy is waiting all Opportunities and stands ready to enter at those Breaches which they are making They might condemn the rashness of their own Counsels and lament it it may be when it would be too late if they should see Popery erected upon the ruins of that Church which they themselves had overthrown We know how restless and industrious the Romish Faction has always been and the only visible Security we have against the prevailing of it lies in the firm Vnion of the whole Protestant Profession and there is nothing wherein there is the least probability that we can ever be all Vnited unless it be the Church of England as it stands by Law established agreeable to the Rules of the Holy Gospel consonant to the Doctrine and Practice of the Primitive Christians and not only Allowed but highly Honored by all the Reformed Churches in the World Here is a Point fixed in which we all may Center whereas they that differ from us are not yet and it may be never will be perfectly agreed upon their own New Models of Discipline and Government neither can they find one Precept or Example in Scripture or Antiquity for the Constituting any Church without an Episcopal Power presiding over it And if any Party amongst them could have that Form of Church Government confirmed by Law which they esteem the most Apostolical it is manifest from reason and experience that it would be presently Opposed by all the rest with no less Violence than ours is and instead of putting an end to our Divisions would most certainly increase them Therefore though they have all still imposed their several Forms with the greatest Rigor wherever they have had the Power or but the Hopes of it in their hands yet that all Sorts of Dissenters may be drawn into the Confederacy for the present we hear now of nothing so much as the Mischief of Impositions and the Natural Right and great Advantages of Toleration Which is the very thing which the Romish Emissaries have always aimed at and seems to be one of the subtilest parts of the Popish Plot As might be made out by divers undeniable Arguments and appears sufficiently from many of the Letters Tryals and Narratives that have been lately published And it can be no wonder that they should give their Cordial Assistance to such a Design which if it should ever pass into an Act would reward their Diligence with a cheap and easie Victory For they may plainly foresee that it would be so far from Vniting us that it would undoubtedly break us in pieces by a Law Now if Vnion be always necessary upon the common Obligations of Christianity it will be much more so in the present Conjuncture considering the strength and incouragements that may be given to the Popish Cause by the continuance of our Dissensions And if there be far greater hopes that we may at length by the blessing of God be sooner Vnited in the way of the Church of England than in any other then it must needs be the greatest Service that can be done to the Protestant Interest if we could all be perswaded to joyn heartily in the Communion of that Church that has hitherto been and still is so great a Defence against the Errors and Superstitions of Rome It would be an unpardonable Vanity to imagine that these short Papers should be able to effect what so many Learned and Solid Treatises have not yet done But I address this little Essay only to those that have not time to peruse a larger Volume I have been incouraged to this Undertaking by the Numbers of those here in London that have seemed formerly to dissent from us who have lately joyned with us not only in Prayer but in the Holy Communion of the Blessed Body and Blood of Christ And I hope that many more may be invited and disposed by their good Example to receive the same Satisfaction that they have found These that are already come in will not stand in need of any farther Perswasion but only that they would continue Constant in that Communion they have now embraced For if they should leave us again and return to their Separate Assemblies they would seem by this to condemn themselves For if it were Lawful for them to Communicate with us once it must be Lawful for them to do so still and they will not refuse to submit to Authority
religious Common-wealth And our Blessed Saviour ordained the Apostles and committed the Government of his Church to them and their Successors with a promise to be with them to the end of the World And the Christian Church with respect to the firm and close Union and orderly Disposition of all its Eph. 2. 21 22. 1 Tim. 3. 15. Parts is not only called a Body but a Spiritual Building and Holy Temple and the House of God But then the Church is a Body or one Body in opposition to many bodies for Christ has but one Body and one Church and he is the Saviour of this Body The Jewish Church was but one and therefore the Christian Church is but one which is not a new distinct Church but is grafted into the Jewish stock or Root Believing Jews and Christians being United into one Church built upon the foundation of the Apostles and Prophets Jesus Christ himself being the chief Rom. 11. 17 18. corner stone Who unites Jews and Gentiles into one Church as the corner stone unites both sides of the House and holds them together Upon the same account the Church is called the Building the House the Temple of God and we know the Temple was but one and was to be but one by the express command and Institution of God And for the same reason Christ tells us that there should be but one Fold under one Shepherd And indeed it is extreamly absurd and unreasonable John 10. 16. to say that the Christian Church which is built upon the same foundation which worships the same God and Saviour which professes the same Faith are Heirs to the same promises and enjoy all priviledges in common should be divided into as distinct and separate bodies tho of the same kind and nature as Peter James and John are distinct Persons tho they partake of the same common nature That is it is very absurd to say that where every thing is common there is not one Community Peter and James and John tho they partake of the same common nature yet each of them have a distinct essence and subsistence of their own as it must be in natural Beings otherwise there could be but one Man in the World and this makes them distinct Persons But where the very nature and essence of a Body or Society consists in having all things common there can be but one Body and therefore if one Lord one Faith one Baptism one God and Father of all be common to the whole Christian Church if there be no peculiar Priviledges which belong to some Christians and not to all to one part of the Church and not to another then by the Institution of Christ there is but one Church one Body one Communion one Household and Family For where there is nothing to Distinguish and Separate no Enclosures or Partitions of Divine Appointment there can be by Divine Institution but one Body 2. I add that the Church is a Body or Society of Men separated from the rest of the World or called out of the World as 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 from whence Ecclesia is derived may signifie and is so expounded by many Divines upon which account the Christians are so of ten called the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Called and Chosen or Elect People of God which signifies that the Church is distinguished from the rest of the World by a peculiar and appropriate Faith by peculiar Laws by peculiar rites of Worship and peculiar Promises and Priviledges which are not common to the whole World but only to those who are received into the Communion of the Church But there is no controversie about this matter and therefore I need add no more about it 3. The Church is a Body of Men united to God and to themselves by a Divine Covenant The Church is united to God for it is a Religious Society instituted for the Worship of God and they are united among themselves and to each other because it is but one Body which requires a union of all its parts as I have already shewed and shall discourse more presently But the chief thing to be observed here is this that this union with God and to each other which constitutes a Church is made by a Divine Covenant Thus it was in the Jewish Church God entered into Covenant with Abraham and chose him and his Posterity for his Church and Peculiar People and gave him Circumcision for a Sign and Seal of this Covenant And under the Gospel God hath made a new Covenant with mankind in and by his Son Jesus Christ who is the Mediator of a Better Covenant founded upon better Promises and this Gospel Covenant is the foundation of the Christian Church For the Christian Church is nothing else but such a Society of Men as is in Covenant with God through Christ I suppose all men will grant that God only can make or constitute a Church For such persons if there were any so absurd are not worth disputing with who dare affirm the Church to be a human Creature or the invention of Men. And I think it is as plain that the only visible way God has of forming a Church for I do not now speak of the invisible operations of the Divine Spirit is by granting a Church-Covenant which is the Divine Charter whereon the Church is founded and investing some persons with Power and Authority to receive others into this Covenant according to the terms and conditions of the Covenant and by such Covenant Rites and Forms of Admission as he is pleased to institute which under the Gospel is Baptism as under the Law it was Circumcision To be taken into Covenant with God and to be received into the Church is the very same thing For the Church is a Society of Men who are in Covenant with God That can be no Church which is not in Covenant with God he is no member of the Church who is not at least visibly admitted into Gods Covenant and whoever is in Covenant with God is made a member of the Church by being admitted into Covenant Now before I proceed I shall briefly observe some few things which are so plain and evident if these Principles be true that I need only name them and yet are of great use for the resolution of some following cases As 1. That a Covenant-state and Church-state is the same thing 2. That every profest Christian who is received into Covenant as such is a Church member 3. That nothing else is necessary to make us members of the Christian Church but only Baptism which is the Sacrament of our admission into the Christian Covenant For if Baptism which gives us right to all the Priviledges of the Covenant does not make us Church members then a Church-state is no part of the Covenant then a man may be in Covenant with God through Christ and yet be no member of Christ or he may be a member
Churches and Societies of Christians 2. I observe further that tho the exercise of Church Communion as to most of the particular Duties and Offices of it must be confined to a particular Church and Congregation for we cannot Actually joyn in the Communion of Prayers and Sacraments c. but with some particular Church yet every Act of Christian Communion though performed in some particular Church is and must be an Act of Communion with the whole Catholick Church Praying and Hearing and receiving the Lords Supper together does not make us more in Communion with the Church of England than with any other true and Orthodox part of the Church tho in the Remotest parts of the World The exercise of true Christian Communion in a particular Church is nothing else but the exercise of Catholick Communion in a particular Church which the necessity of affairs requires since all the Christians in the World cannot meet together for Acts of Worship But there is nothing in all these Acts of Communion which does more peculiarly Unite us to such a particular Church than to the whole Christian Church When we pray together to God we Pray to him as the Common Father of all Christians and do not challenge any peculiar interest in him as members of such a particular Church but as members of the whole Body of Christ when we Pray in the Name of Christ we consider him as the great High Priest and Saviour of the Body who powerfully interceeds for the whole Church and for us as members of the Universal Church And we Offer up our Prayers and Thanksgiving not only for our selves and those who are present but for all Christians all the World over as our Fellow-members and Praying for one another is the truest notion of Communion of Prayers for Praying with one another is only in order to Praying for one another And thus our Prayers are an exercise of Christian Communion when we Pray to the same common Father through the Merits and Mediation of the same common Saviour and Redeemer for the same common Blessings for our selves and the whole Christian Church Thus when we meet together to Celebrate the Supper of our Lord we do not meet as at a private Supper but as at the common Feast of Christians and therefore it is not an Act of particular Church Fellowship but of Catholick Communion The Supper of our Lord does not signifie any other kind of Union and confederation between those Neighbour Christians who receive together in the same Church than with the whole Body of Christ The Sacramental Bread signifies and represents all those for whom Christ died that one Mystical Body for which he Offered his Natural Body which is the Universal Church and our eating of this Bread signifies our Union to this Body of Christ and therefore is considered as an Act of true Catholick not of a particular Church-Communion And the Sacramental Cup is the Blood of the New Testament and therefore represents our Communion in all the Blessings of the Covenant and with all those who are thus in Covenant with God So that there is nothing particular in this Feast to make it a private Feast or an Act of Communion with a particular Church considered as particular but it is the common Feast of Christians and an Act of Catholick Communion Which by the way plainly shews how groundless that scruple is against mixt Communions that Men think themselves defiled by receiving the Lords Supper with Men who are vicious For tho it is a great defect in Discipline and a great reproach to the Christian Profession when wicked Men are not censured and removed from Christian Communion yet they may as well pretend that their Communion is defiled by bad Men who Communicate in any other part of the Church or any other Congregation as in that in which they live and Communicate For this holy Feast signifies no other Communion between them who receive at the same time and in the same Company than it does with all sincere parts of the Christian Church It is not a Communion with any Persons considered as present but it is a Communion with the Body of Christ and all true members of it whether present or absent Those who separate from a National Church for the sake of corrupt professors though they could form a Society as pure and holy as they seem to desire yet are Schismaticks in it because they confine their Communion to their own select Company and Exclude the whole Body of Christians all the World over out of it their Communion is no larger than their gathered Church for if it be then they must still Communicate with those Churches which have corrupt members as all visible Churches on Earth have unless we will except Independents because they have the confidence to except themselves and then their Separation does not Answer its end which is to avoid such corrupt Communions and yet if they do confine their Communion to their own gathered Churches they are Schismaticks in dividing themselves from the Body of Christians and all their Prayers and Sacraments are not Acts of Christian Communion but a Schismatical Combination This does not prove indeed that particular Churches are not bound to reform themselves and to preserve their own Communion pure from corrupt members unless all the Churches in the World will do so too because every particular Church whether Diocesan or National has power to reform its own members and is accountable to God for such neglects of Discipline but it does prove that no Church without the guilt of Schism can renounce Communion with other Christian Churches or set up a distinct and separate Communion of its own for the sake of such corrupt members which was the pretence of the Novatian and Donatist Schism of Old and is so of the Independent Schism at this day 3. I observe further that our obligation to maintain Communion with a particular Church wholly results from our obligation to Catholick Communion The only reason why I am bound to live in Communion with any particular Church is because I am a member of the whole Christian Church which is the Body of Christ and therefore must live in Communion with the Christian Church and yet it is Impossible to live in Communion with the whole Christian Church without Actual Communion with some part of it when I am in such a place where there is a visible Christian Church as no member can be United to the Natural Body without its being United to some part of the Body for the Union and Communion of the whole Body consists in the Union of all its parts to each other Every Act of Christian Communion though performed in a particular Church or Congregation is not properly an Act of particular Church-Communion but is the exercise of Communion with the whole Church and Body of Christ as I have already proved but it can be no Act of Communion at all if it be not performed
in that place and where I am only occasionally there I can only Communicate occasionally also But to meet with the distempers of this Age and to remove those Apologies some Men make for their Schism it is necessary to make this a question For in this divided state of the Church there are a great many among us who think they cannot maintain constant Communion with the Church of England as constant and fixt Members who yet upon some occasions think they may Communicate with us in all parts of Worship and Actually do so Now when these Men who are fixt Members as they call it of Separate Churches think fit sometimes to Communicate in all parts of Worship with the Church of England we charitably suppose that Men who pretend to so much tenderness of Conscience and care of their Souls will do nothing not so much as once which they believe or suspect to be sinful at the time when they do it and therefore we conclude that those who Communicate occasionally with the Church of England do thereby declare that they believe there is nothing sinful in our Communion and we thank them for this good opinion they express of our Church and earnestly desire to know how they can justifie their ordinary Separation from such a Church as requires no sinful terms of Communion If any thing less than sinful terms of Communion can justifie a Separation then there can be no end of Separations and Catholick-Communion is an Impossible and Impracticable notion that is the Church of Christ neither is one Body nor ever can be For if Men are not bound to Communicate with a Church which observes our Saviours Insttutions without any such corrupt mixtures as make its Communion sinful then there is no bounds to be set to the Fancies of Men but they may new model Churches and divide and subdivide without any end Is that a sound and Orthodox part of the Catholick-Church which has nothing sinful in its Communion If it be not Pray what is it that makes any Church Sound and Orthodox If it be upon what account is it Lawful to Separate from a Sound and Orthodox Church And may we not by the same reason Separate from the whole Catholick Church as from any Sound part of it Nay does not that Man Separate from the whole Catholick Church who Separates from any Sound part of it For the Communion of the Church is but one and he that divides and breaks this union Separates himself from the whole Body Excepting the Independency of Churches which I have proved above to be Schism in the very notion of it the great Pleas for Separation from a Church which has nothing sinful in its Communion are the pretence of greater Edification and purer Ordinances But these are such Pleas as must expose the Church to Eternal Schisms because there are no certain Rules to judge of these matters but the various and uncertain fancies of Men. What they like best that shall be most for their Edification and these shall be purer Ordinances and till Men can agree these matters among themselves which they are never likely to do till they can all agree in the same Diet or in their judgment and opinion about beauty decency fitness convenience they may and will divide without end and if the Peace and Unity of the Church be so necessary a duty it is certain these Principles which are so destructive to Peace and Unity must be false as to consider these things particularly but very briefly What purer Administrations and Ordinances would Men have than those of our Saviours own Institution without any Corrupt and sinful mixtures to spoil their vertue and efficacy as we suppose is acknowledged by those who occasionally Communicate in all parts of our Worship that there is nothing sinful in it the purity of divine Administrations must consist in their agreement with the Institution that there is neither any such defect or addition as alters their Nature and destroys their Vertue For the Efficacy of Gospel Ordinances depends upon their Institution not upon particular modes of Administration which are not expresly Commanded in the Gospel and he who desires greater purity of Ordinances than their conformity to their Institution who thinks that Baptism and the Lords Supper lose their Efficacy unless they be administred in that way which they themselves best like are guilty of gross Superstition and attribute the vertue of Sacraments to the manner of their administration not to their Divine Institution And what Men talk of greater Edification is generally as little understood as the other for Edification is building up and is applied to the Church considered as Gods House and Temple and it is an odd way of building up the Temple of God by dividing and Separating the parts of it from each other This one thing well considered viz. That 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Edification or Building according to the Scripture notion of it does always primarily refer to or at least include Church-unity and Communion is sufficient to convince any Man what an ill way it is to seek for greater Edification in breaking the Communion of the Church by Schism and Separation and therefore I shall make it plainly appear that this is the true Scripture notion of Edification and to that end shall consider the most material places where this word is used Now the most proper signification of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which our Translators render by Edification is a House or Building and this is the proper Sense wherein it belongs to the Christian Church Ye are Gods Husbandry ye are Gods Building that is the Church is 1 Cor. 3. 9. Gods House or Building 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Thus the same Apostle tells us that in Christ the whole Building Eph. 2. 21. i. e. the whole Christian Church fitly framed together groweth unto an holy Temple in the Lord. Matth. 21. 42. Hence the Governours of the Church are called Builders 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and the Apostles are called Labourers Acts 4. 11. together with God in erecting this Spiritual Building and St. Paul calls himself a Master Builder Hence 1 Cor. 3. 9. the increase growth and advances towards perfection 10. in the Church is called the Building or Edification of it For this reason St. Paul commends Prophesie or Expounding the Scriptures before speaking in unknown Tongues without an Interpreter because 1 Cor. 14. 5. by this the Church receives Building or Edification All these Spiritual gifts which were bestowed v. 12. on the Christians were for the Building and Edifying of the Church The Apostolical power in Church censures was for Edification not for Destruction 2 Cor. 10. 8. 12. 19. 13. 10. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to Build and not to pull down that is to preserve the Unity of the Church intire and its Communion pure And we may observe that this Edification is primarily applied to the Church That the Church
Church-Communion and our obligations to preserve the Unity of the Spirit in the Bond of Peace They have no notion at all of a Church or no notion of one Church or know not wherein the Unity and Communion of this Church consists and these Men think it is indifferent whether they Communicate with any Church at all or that they secure themselves from Schism by Communicating sometimes with one Church and sometimes with another that they may choose their Church according to their own fancies and change again when ever their humor alters But I hope who ever considers carefully what I have now writ and attends to those passionate Exhortations of the Gospel to Peace and Unity and Brotherly Love which cannot be preserved but in one Communion which is the Unity of the Body of Christ and the Peace and Love of fellow Members will not only heartily Pray to the God of Peace to restore Peace and Unity to his Church but will be careful how he divides the Church himself and will use his utmost endeavours to heal the present Schisms and Divisions of the Church of Christ THE END A LETTER TO ANONYMUS In Answer to his Three Letters TO Dr. SHERLOCK ABOUT Church-Communion LONDON Printed for Fincham Gardiner at the White-Horse in Ludgate-street 1683. A LETTER TO ANONYMUS In Answer to his Three LETTERS to Dr. SHERLOCK about Church-Communion SIR I Am very sorry that my Silence and Patience has been mistaken by you for an affront and neglect which is such a provocation as I find some sort of great minds cannot bear But yet that you may have a little mercy I shall give you a brief account of the reason why you had not an Answer before I did not answer your first Letter in so publick a manner as you desired because I believed your Objections were such as no body was concern'd in but your self and I cannot think it decent to trouble so numerous an Auditory with every particular mans conceits I did not answer your Second Letter because by the Temper and Spirit of it I easily foresaw that it would end in a publick Quarrel and if I must be in Print I henceforth resolve to Correct the Press my self and not to suffer any man to Print my private Letters for me But yet I called at Mr. R's Shop whither you directed me several times to have Invited you to a private Conference but could never see him till I accidentally met him in the street the same day I received the present of your Printed Letters The reason why I Printed those Discourses which you heard me Preach was because they were designed for the Press before they were designed for the Pulpit and before I dream't of your terrible Queries and were Printed and Preach'd exactly by the same Copy excepting the Introduction to fit them to a Text which you know is very convenient for a Sermon And the reason why I sent you one of those Tracts when it was Printed was because I did hope you might have had understanding enough upon a careful perusal of it when it lay before you to have answered those Objections which you made against it at the first hearing And now Sir I come to consider the Contents of your First Letter you have made some Repetition of what I Discoursed and a very good Repetition to be done by memory which gives you the commendable Character of a diligent and attentive hearer but when you had the Discourse before you in Print you ought not then to have depended upon your memory but to have given me my own again in my own words and order and with that dependance and connexion in which the whole strength of that Discourse consists and to have applied your Queries distinctly to those parts of the Discourse which they related to Had you done this you would either have been able to have resolved your own Queries or would more effectually have convinc'd me of my mistake or at least have given your Readers better satisfaction in the pertinency of what you say but now you have onely given us a heap of Queries which it is no easie matter to know to what they relate As for your Repetitions the Reader who desires satisfaction may compare them with what I have writ which is exactly the same with what I Preach'd and as for your Queries you know how easie a thing it is to ask Questions however I will endeavour to find out to what they belong and give as plain and short an Answer to them as I can for I assure you I am not at leasure now to write a long Book upon this Argument and therefore it is a great comfort to me that there is no need of it After your Repetition of what you could remember or what you thought fit to take notice of in my Sermon you give us a very mistaken Summary of it To sum up say you what I take to be the force of all p. 4. this The Apostles and their Successors were by our Saviour invested with a power of receiving Members into his Church upon his Terms and with such Rites as they should think fit and they who are not so received into the Church have no right to any of the blessings promis'd to the Members of Christ's Body This Power is by an uninterrupted Succession derived upon the Governours of our National Church wherefore all others that pretend to the exercise of this Power within this Nation are Vsurpers and all the Laity Baptized by their Pastors not being duly admitted into any particular Church are so far from being Members of Christ's Body that they are Vsurpers and Traitors to that Power which is derived from him in a right line Durus hic Sermo Had you not told the World in your Title-Page that you are a Lay-man to make your Triumph over a poor undone Dr. of Divinity the more glorious I should have taken you to be the Founder of some new Sect of Conjectural Divines and truly you are so happy in your guesses that I believe few men will ever be able to out-do you in this Art For there is not one word of all this matter in that Discourse which you pretend to sum up as it was delivered by me That to which you seem to refer is contained in one short Paragraph which I shall Transcribe and leave the most fanciful Reader to try his skill to sum it up as you have done Having before asserted that God onely can Constitute a Church I added And I think it is as plain that the only Resolut of Cases p. 5. visible way God has of Forming a Church for I do not now speak of the Invisible Operations of the Divine Spirit is by granting a Church-Covenant which is the Divine Charter whereon the Church is Founded and investing some persons with Power and Authority to receive others into this Convenant according to the terms and conditions of the Covenant and by such Covenant-Rites and
Forms of Admission as he is pleased to Institute which under the Gospel is Baptism as under the Law it was Circumcision I was discoursing of Gods visible way of Forming a Church which I asserted to be by granting a Church-Covenant which is that Divine Charter on which the Church is Founded but then lest any one should question how men are admitted into this Covenant I added that God had invested some Persons with Power and Authority to receive others into this Covenant by Baptism and by receiving them into Covenant they make them Members of that Church which is Founded on this Covenant Now what of all this will any sober Dissenter deny Here is no dispute who is invested with this Power what form of Church-Government Christ Instituted whether Episcopal or Presbyterian here is no Dispute about the validity of Orders or Succession or in what cases Baptism may be valid which is not Administred by a valid Authority This did not concern my present Argument which proceeds upon a quite different Hypothesis viz. the necessity of Communion with the one Church and Body of Christ for all those who are or would be owned to be Christians or Members of Christs Body I make no inquiry by whom they have been Baptized or whether they were rightly Baptized or not but taking all these things for granted I inquire whether Baptism do not make us Church-Members whether it makes us Members of a Particular or Universal Church whether a Church-Member be not bound to Communion with the whole Catholick Church whether he that separates from any sound part of the Catholick Church be not a Schismatick from the whole Church whether we be not bound to maintain constant Communion with that particular Church in which we live and with which we can when we please Communicate occasionally whether it be consistent with Catholick Communion to communicate with two Churches which are in a state of Separation from each other if you have any thing to say to these matters you shall have a fair hearing but all your Queries which proceed upon a mistaken Hypothesis of your own do not concern me and yet to oblige you if it be possible I shall briefly consider them 1. Your first Query is Whether a Pious Dissenter supposed to be received into the Church by such as he believes to be fully invested with sufficient Power is in as bad a condition as a Moral Heathen or in a worse than a Papist Ans The Catholick Church has been so indulgent to Hereticks and Schismaticks as to determine against the Necessity of Rebaptization if they have been once though irregularly baptized This you may find a particular account of in the Vindication of the Defence of Dr. Still p. 22. c. But the question is whether if they continue Schismaticks whatever their other pretences to Piety be their Condition be not as dangerous as the Condition of Moral Heathens and Papists 2. Whether the Submission to the Power and Censures of this Church which all must own to be a sound Church be part of the Divine Covenant which Vnites the Members of the Catholick Church to God and to each other Ans This is a captious question which must be distinctly answered A general Submission and Obedience to the Authority and Censures of the Church though it cannot properly be called a part of that Divine Covenant whereon the Church is founded which primarily respects the promise of Salvation by Christ through Faith in his Bloud yet it is a necessary Church-Duty and Essential to Church-Communion and so may be called a part of the Covenant if by the Covenant we understand all those Duties which are required of baptized Christians and Members of the Church by a Divine positive Law as Obedience to Church-Governours is But then Obedience to the Church of England is not an universal Duty incumbent on all Christians but onely on those which are or ought to live in Obedience to this particular Church for the particular exercises of Church-Authoritie and Jurisdiction is confined within certain limits as of necessitie it must be and though all Orthodox Churches must live in Communion with each other yet no particular Church can pretend to any original Authority over another Church or the Members of it as is the constant Doctrine of Protestants in opposition to the Usurpations of the Church of Rome But I perceive Sir you know no difference between the Authority and Power and the Communion of the Church But you add If it be then as he who is not admitted into this Church is no Member of the Catholick and has no right to the benefits of being a Member of Christs Body so is it with every one who is excluded by Church-Censures though excommunicated for a slight contempt or neglect nay for a wrongful cause Truly Sir I know not how any man is admitted into the Church of England any otherwise than as he is admitted into the whole Catholick Church viz by Baptism which does not make us Members of any particular Church but of the Universal Church which Obliges us to Communicate with that part of the Catholick Church wherein we live and whoever lives in England and renounces Communion with the Church of England is a Schismatick from the Cathelick Church And whoever is Excommunicated from one sound part of the Catholick Church is Excommunicated from the whole But then there is this difference between Excommunication and Schism the first is a Judicial Sentence the second is a Man 's own Choice the first is not valid unless it be inflicted for a just cause the second is always valid and does in its own nature cut Men off from all Communion with Christs Body I say in its own Nature for I will not pretend to determine the final States of Men for I know not what gracious allowances God will make for some Schismaticks no more than I do what favour he may allow to other Sinners But you proceed If it be no part of the Divine Covenant then a Man that lives here may be a true Member of the Catholick Church though he is not in Communion with this Sound Church This is another Horn of your formidable Dilemma If Obedience to the Authoritie and Censures of the particular National Church of England is no part of the Divine Covenant then those Baptized Christians who live in England are not bound to the Communion of the Church of England and may be Catholick Christians for all that As if because the Subjects of Spain are not bound to obey the King of England therefore English Men are not bound to obey him neither but may be very good Subjects for all that We are bound by the Divine Law to live in Communion with all true Catholick Churches and to obey the Governours of the Church wherein we live and therefore though Obedience to the Church of England be not a Law to all the World yet it is a Law to all English Christians inhabiting in
this Church But your way of arguing is as if a Man should say It is a Divine Law to obey Civil Magistrates but there is no Divine Law that all the World should obey the King of England France or Spain therefore French or English Subjects are not bound to obey their own Prince Oh what comfortable Doctrine is this to some Men You proceed But you will say which I think is not much to the question that he ought to Communicate if Communion may be had Yes I do say this and I believe by this time you see or at least others will see that it is much to the question But then Query whether the Dissenters may not reply that they are ready to Communicate if the Communion be not clog'd with some things which are no part of the Divine Covenant Yes they may replie so if they please or Anonymus for them but whoever does it the replie is very weak and impertinent It is weak because Obedience to Authority in all lawful things is in a large notion part of the Divine Covenant And it is very impertinent because the Supposition of Communicating where Communion may be had supersedes that Query For Communion cannot be had where there are any sinful Terms of Communion and though I assert that the Church must be founded on a Divine Covenant I never said that nothing must be enjoyned by the Church but what is express'd in that Covenant A Corporation which is founded upon a Royal Charter you know may have Authoritie to make By-Laws which shall oblige all the Members of it and so are Terms of Communion with it and yet it is the Charter not these By-Laws whereon the Corporation is founded I was not concerned to Examine the Terms of Communion that is and will be done by other hands but supposing nothing Sinful in our Communion whether all Christians that live in this Church are not bound to live in Communion with it Q. 3. Your next Query concerns the Derivation of church-Church-Power from Christ himself without any immediate Derivation from other Church-Governours which does not at all concern my Doctrine of Church-Communion for whether it be so or so still we are bound to maintain Communion with all sound parts of the Catholick Church so Church-Authoritie be Derived from Christ any way it is well enough but then we must be sure that it is so and if Christ have appointed no ordinarie way for this but by the hands of Men who received their Authoritie immediately from himself I know not who can appoint any other way But may not a Lay-man preach the Gospel and gather a Church in a Heathen Country where there is none of the Clergy to do it I suppose he may and if you please to consult the Vindication of the Defence of Dr. Stillingfleets Unreasonableness of Separation p. 331 c. you will finde this case largely debated But it seems it doth not satisfie you that this be allowed onely in case of Necessity for then up start two other Queries 1. Whether this will not put the being of our Church upon a very hazardous issue and oblige your self to prove that it was a true Church before the Reformation Ans This is no hazard at all for the Church of England was certainly a true though a corrupt Church before the Reformation as the Church of Rome is at this day A true Church is that which has every thing Essential to the being of a Church though mixt with such other Corruptions as make its Communion dangerous and sinful as a Diseased Man is a true Man and remove these Corruptions and then it is not onely a true but a sound Church as the Church of England is at this day And if you will not allow this I doubt Sir all private Christians will be at as great a loss for their Baptism as the Church will be for Orders But the case of a True Vindicat. p. 64. c. and Sound and Catholick Church if you please you may see Stated in the same Book to which I referred you before And thus your second Query is answered that though this Church was Antichristian before the Reformation yet there was not the same Necessity for private Christians to usurp the Ministerial Office without a regular Authoritie as there is for a Lay-man in a Heathen Nation because an Antichristian that is the most corrupt Church retains the Power of Orders as well as of Sacraments As for that Independent Principle that Christ has instituted a Power in the Church to ordain her own Officers you may see it Examined in the Defence of Dr. Still Vnr of Sep. p. 306 c. But what now is all this to me I don't charge our Dissenters with Schism from the Invalidity of their Orders but for their causeless and sinful Separation Let us suppose that they have no need of any Orders or that such Orders as they have are good or that they had Episcopal Orders and were Governed by Bishops of their own as the Donatists were yet they would be never the less Schismaticks for that while they separate from the Church of England and from each other If Orders be necessary and they have no Orders then they are no Churches at all if they have true Orders and are true Churches but yet divide Christian Communion by Separating from any Sound part of the Christian Church they are Schismaticks 4. Q Whether from the Supposition that there ought to be but one Church-Covenant throughout the Catholick Church that there cannot be one true Church within another and that the Nature of Catholick-Communion is such that one ought to be ready to Communicate with any Sound Church from which one is not hindred by reason of the Distance of Place it do's not follow Ans Fair and Softly let us first consider the Suppositions before we consider what follows from them for you have so mis-represented so curtailed these Propositions and so mixt and blended things of a different Nature that it is necessarie to restore them to their true Sense and proper Place again before we can tell what follows I asserted that the Christian Church is founded upon a Divine Covenant and since God hath made but one Covenant with mankind in Christ Jesus therefore there can be but one Christian Church throughout the World Resol of Cases p. 8. founded on this one Covenant Having explained the general notion of Church Communion which signifies no more than Church-Fellowship and p. 10. Society that to be in Communion with the Church is to be a Member of the Church I came to enquire what made a Separate Church For if there be but one Church and one Communion of which all true Christians and Christian Churches p. 19. are or ought to be Members then those Churches which are not Members of each other are Separate Churches And for a fuller explication of this I observed several p. 20. things 1. That there must be but
out of England without interrupting our Communion with the Church of England for the Communion is one and the same in all Christian Churches which are in Communion with each other though they may observe different Rites and Modes of Worship And this I suppose is a Sufficient answer to that other untoward consequence that if the Members of the Church of England may occasionally Communicate with the French Church then Constant Communion is not always a Duty where occasional Communion is lawful I suppose because we are not bound to a constant actual or presential Communion with the French Church though we may occasionally Communicate with it But certainly Sir Had you ever considered what I discourst about constant and occasional Communion you would not have made such an Objection as this For this is a Modern distinction which has no sence at the bottom as I plainly shewed But however by constant Communion our Dissenters understand the performing the Acts of Communion always or ordinarily in the same Church and by occasional Communion performing the Acts of Communion sometimes or as occasion serves in another Church now with respect to this Notion of constant or occasional Communion as it signifies the constant and ordinary or the Occasional Acts of Communion must that question be understood whether Constant Communion he a Duty where Occasional Communion is Lawful the meaning of which question is this whether when other reasons and circumstances determine my Personal Communion Ordinarily to one Church it be not my Duty to Communicate ordinarily with that Church if I can lawfully Communicate sometimes with it and there being no other reason to justifie non-Communion with any Church with which I am bound for other reasons Ordinarily to Communicate but onely Sinful Terms of Communion and there being no Colour for such a Pretence where occasional Communion is acknowledged Lawful for Sinful Terms of Communion make occasional as well as constant Acts of Communion Sinful I hence conclude that it is a necessary Duty to Communicate constantly or ordinarily with that Church in which I live if it be Lawful to Communicate occasionally or sometimes with it But if any Man will be so perverse as to understand this Question as you now do not of the Communion of a Church which for other reasons we are bound to Communicate Ordinarily with but of any Church with which I may Lawfully Communicate as occasion serves it makes it an absurd and senseless Proposition to say that constant Communion by that meaning presential and personal Communion is always a Duty where occasional Communion is lawful For at this rate if occasional Communion with the Protestant Churches of France Geneva Holland Germany be Lawful it becomes a necessary Duty for me to Communicate always personally and presentionally with all these Churches at the same time which no man can do who can be present but in one place at a time But yet thus far the Proposition holds universally true that whatever Church I can occasionally Communicate with without Sin I am also bound to Communicate constantly with whenever such reasons as are necessarie to determine my Communion to a particular Church make it my Dutie to do so And no man in his Wits ever understood this Question in any other sense But this you think cannot be my meaning For accorcording to me no Man is obliged to be a Member of one Sound Church more than another provided the distance is not so great but that he may Communicate with both It is wonderful to me Sir how you should come to fasten so many absurd Propositions upon me and I would desire of you for the future if you have no regard to your own Reputation yet upon Principles of Common Honesty not to write so hastily but to take some time to understand a Book before you undertake to confute it Where do I say that no man is Obliged to be a Member of one Sound Church more than of another I assert indeed that no Baptized Christian is a Member of any particular Church considered meerly as particular but is a Member of the universal Church and of all sound Orthodox Churches as parts of the Universal Church This puts him into a State of Communion with the whole Church without which he cannot be properly said to perform any Act of Church-Communion though he should join in all the Acts and Offices of Christian worship But is there no difference between being a Member of the Universal Church and of all particular Churches which are Parts and Members of the Universal Church and not to be Obliged to be a Member of one Sound Church more than of another The first supposes that every Christian whatever particular Church he actually Communicates in is a Member of the whole Christian Church and of all particular Sound Churches the second supposes the quite contrary that Christians are so Members of one Church as they are not of another that constant Communion in a particular Church confines their Church-Membership to that particular Church in which they Communicate So that the question is not what Church I must be a Member of for every Christian is a Member of the whole Church not meerly of this or that particular Church but what particular Church I must Communicate in now our Obligation to Communicate in a certain particular Church results from the place wherein we live The Church in which we were Born and Baptized and have our Ordinary abode and Residence the Church which is incorporated into the State of which we are Natural Subjects if it be a true and sound Christian Church Challenges our Communion and Obedience Now in the same place there never can be any Competition between two Churches because there must be but one Church in the same place and therefore there can be no dispute in what Church we must constantly Communicate which must be the Church in which we live But is there not a French and a Dutch as well as an English Church in London and since distance of place does not hinder may we not choose which of these we will ordinarily Communicate with I answer no we have onely the Church of England in England The French Church is in France and the Dutch Church is in Holland though there is a French and Dutch Congregation allowed in London These Congregations belong to their own Original Churches and are under their Government and Censures but there is no church-Church-Power and Authority in England but only of the Church of England and therefore though we may occasionally Communicate with the French Congregation our Obligation to constant Communion is with the Church of England which alone has Authority and Jurisdiction in England to require our Communion and Obedience one particular Church is distinguisht from another not by a distinct and separate Communion which is Schismatical but by distinct Power and Jurisdiction and that Church within whose Jurisdiction we live can onely Challenge our Communion and I suppose
no Man will say that in this sence we live in the French or Dutch Church because there is a French and Dutch Church allowed among us 5. Your next Query is Whether a true Christian though not visibly admitted into Church-Communion where he wants the Means has not a virtual Baptism in the Answer of a good Conscience towards God according to 1. Peter 2. 21. Ans What this concerns me I cannot tell I speak onely of the Necessity of Visible Communion in Visible Members you put a question whether the want of Visible Admission by Baptism when it can't be had may not be supplied with the answer of a good Conscience towards God I hope in some cases it may though I do not hope this from what St. Peter saies who onely speaks of that Answer of a good Conscience which is made at Baptism not of that which is made without it But what God will accept of in this case is not my business to determie unbaptized Persons are no Visible Members of the Church and therefore not capable of Visible Communion and therefore not concerned at all in this dispute 6. Query Why a profest Atheist who has been Baptized and out of Secular Interest continues a Communicant with this Church is more a Member of the Catholick Church than such as are above described Ans Neither Atheists nor Schismaticks are Members of the Catholick Church But this is a vile insinuation against the Governours and Government of our Church as if profest Atheists were admitted to Communion Though possibly there may be some Atheists yet I never met yet with one who would profess himself an Atheist If I should I assure you I would not admit him to Communion and I hope there is no Minister of the Church of England would and I am sure no Man who had any kindness for the Church with which he pretends to hold Communion would ask such a question 7. Query Whether as the Catholick Church is compared to a Body of Men incorporated by one Charter should upon supposition of a possibility of the forfeiture of the Charter to the whole Body by the Miscarriages of any of the Officers does it likewise follow that the Miscarriages of any of the Officers or the Church Representative as I remember Bishop Sanderson calls the Clergy may forfeit the Priviledges given by Christ to his Church or at least may suspend them As suppose a Protestant Clergy taking their Power to be as large as the Church of Rome claim'd should deny the Laity the Sacraments as the Popish did in Venice and here in King Johns time during the Interdicts quid inde operatur Ans Just as much as this Query does the reason of which I cannot easily guess I asserted indeed that as there is but one Covenant on which the Church is founded so there can be but one Church to which this Covenant belongs and therefore those who divide and separate themselves from this one Body of Christ forfeit Resol of Cases p. 8. c. their right to this Covenant which is made onely with the one Body of Christ which I illustrated by the instance of a Charter granted to a particular Corporation which no Man had any interest in who divided himself from that Corporation to which this Charter was granted but what is this to forfeiting a Charter by the Miscarriages of Officers I doubt Sir your Head has been Warmed with Quo Warranto's which so affect your Fancy that you can Dream of nothing else I was almost afraid when your hand was in I should never have seen an end of these Questions and I know no more reason why you so soon left off asking Questions than why you askt any at all for I would undertake to ask five hundred more as pertinent to the business as most of these You have not indeed done yet but have a reserve of particular Queries but general Queries are the most formidable things because it is harder to find what they relate to than how to Answer them You have three sets of Queries relating to three several Propositions besides a parting blow of four Queries relating to my Text. The first Proposition you are pleased to question me about is this That our Saviour made the Apostles and their Successors Governours of his Church with promise to be with them to the end of the World Which I alledged to prove that when the Church is called the Body of Christ it does not signifie a confused multitude of Christians but a regular Society under Order and Government Now Sir is this true or false if it be false then the Church is not a governed Society is not a Body but a confused heap and multitude of Independent Individuals which is somewhat worse than Independent Churches If it be true why do you ask all these Questions unless you have a mind to confute our Saviour and burlesque his Institutions but since I am condemned to answer questions I will briefly consider them 1. Whether our Saviours promise of Divine Assistance did not extend to all the Members of the Church considering every man in his respective station and capacity as well as the Apostles as Church-Governours For which you may compare St. John with St. Matthew Ans No doubt but there are promises which relate to the whole Church and promises which belong to particular Christians as well as promises which relate peculiarly to the Apostles and Governours of the Church in the exercise of their Ministerial Office and Authority but what then Christ is with his Church with his Ministers with particular Christians to the end of the World but in a different manner and to different purposes and yet that promise there is peculiarly made to the Apostles including their Successors also for the Apostles themselves were not to continue here to the end of the World but an Apostolical Ministry was 2. Therefore Query Whether it signifies any thing to say there is no promise to particular Churches provided there be to particular Persons such as are in charity with all Men and are ready to communicate with any Church which requires no more of them than what they conceive to be their duty according to the Divine Covenant Ans It seems to me to be a harder Query what this Query means or how it concerns that Authority which our Saviour has given to his Apostles for the Government of the Church to which this Query relates I asserted indeed that Christ hath made no Covenant with any particular but onely with the Universal Church which includes particulars as Members of it nor has he made any promise to particular Persons but as Members of the Church and in Communion with it when it may be had upon lawful terms Whoever breaks the Communion of the Church without necessary reason tho he may in other things be a very good natur'd man yet he has not true Christian Charity which unites all the Members of the same Body in one Communion
and tho the Church may prescribe Rules of Worship which are not expressed in the Divine Covenant this will not justifie a Separation if she commands nothing which is forbid for the very Authority Christ has committed to his Ministers requires our obedience to them in things lawful and if Men will adhere to their own private Fancies in opposition to Church-Authority they are guilty of Schism and had best consider whether such pride and opinionativeness will be allowed for excuse 3. Whether if the promise you mention be confined to the Apostles as Church-Governours it will not exclude the Civil Power Ans There are peculiar promises made to Church-Governours and to Civil Magistrates their Authority and Power is very distinct but very consistent 4. What was the extent of the promise whether it was to secure the whole Church that its Governours should never impose unlawful Terms of Communion or that there never be a defection of all the Members of the Catholick Church but that there should always be some true Members Ans The promise is that Christ will be with them in the discharge of their Ministry and Exercise of their Power and this is all I know of the matter our Saviour gave them Authority to Govern the Church and this was to last to the end of the World as long as there is any Church on Earth which is all I cited it for and so much it certainly proves The Second Proposition you raise Queries on is this 'T is absurd to gather a Church out of a Church of Baptized Christians This I do indeed assert that since the Church is founded on a Divine Covenant and to be in Covenant with God and to be Members of his Church is the same thing therefore Baptism whereby we are received into Covenant with God makes us Members of the Church also and this makes it very absurd to gather a Church out of Churches of Baptized Christians which supposes that they were not a Church before instead of considering the reason whereon this is founded as every honest Writer should do you onely put a perverse Comment on it By which say you I suppose you mean That Men ought not to Separate from such and live in a distinct Church-Communion from any Church of Baptized Christians which I conceive needs explaining But if this were true it were plain enough but the fault is that it is not true for we may Separate from any Church of Baptized Christians if their Communion be Sinful which justifies a Separation from the Church of Rome and answers your two first Queries But indeed the Proposition as asserted by me does not so much as concern a Separation from a Church let the cause be what it will just or unjust For the Independents who are the Men for gathering Churches do not own that they Separate from any Church but that they form themselves into a Church-State which they had not before and which no Christians according to their Principle have who are not Members of Independent Churches Baptism they acknowledge makes Men Christians at large but not Church-Members which I shewed must needs be very absurd if the Church be a Body and Society of Men founded on a Divine Covenant for then Baptism which admits us into Covenant with God makes us Members of the Church and they may as well rebaptize Christians as form them into new Church-Societies This I suppose may satisfie you how impertinent all your Queries are under this head Your two first concern the Separation from the Church of Rome which was not made upon Independent Principles because they were no Church but because they were a corrupt Church 3. Whether every Bishoprick in England be not so many Churches within the National Ans Every Bishoprick is a distinct Episcopal Church and the Union of them in one National Communion makes them not so many Churches within a National but one National Church which you may see explained at large in the Defence of Dr. Still Vnr of Separation 4. And therefore Independent and Presbyterian Churches are indeed within the National Churches within a Church which is Schismatical but not one National Church as Bishopricks are 5. And therefore tho we should allow them to have the External Form and all the Essentials of a Church which is a very liberal grant yet they are not in Catholick Communion because they are Schismaticks 6. And this is all I am to account for that they are not in Visible Communion with that one Church and Body of Christ to which the promises are made But what allowances Christ will make for the mistakes of honest well-meaning Men who divide the Communion of the Church I cannot determine I can hope as Charitably as any Man but I dare not be so Charitable as to make Church-Communion an indifferent thing which is the great Bond of Christian Charity 3dly You take occasion for your next Queries from what I say of the Independent Church-Covenant you say I suppose that the Independents exclude themselves from Catholick Communion by requiring of their Members a new contract no part of the Baptismal vow I prove indeed from their placing a Church-State in a particular explicite Covenant between Pastor and People that they separate themselves from the whole Body of Christians for no other Christians which are not in Covenant with them are Members of their Church nor can they be Members of any other Church And I proved that those are Separate Churches Resol of Cases p. 10. 32. which are not Members of each other and do not own each others Members for their own For the Notion of Church-Communion consists in Church-Membership and therefore no Man is in Communion with that Church of which he is no Member and if no Man can be a Member of a Church but by such an explicite Independent Covenant then he is a Member of no Church but that with which he is in Covenant and consequently is in Communion with no Church but that particular Independent Congregation of which he is a Member by a particular Covenant And if those be Schismaticks and Schismatical Churches which are not in Communion with each other then all Independents must be Schismaticks for they are in Communion with none but their own Independent Congregations Let us now hear your Queries Q. 1. Whether any Obstacle to Catholick Communion brought in by Men may not be a means of depriving Men of it as well as Covenant or Contract Ans Yes it may but with this Material difference Other things hinder Communion as Sinful Terms of Communion this Independent Covenant in its own Nature Shuts up Encloses and breaks Christian Communion into as many Separate Churches and Communions as there are Independent Congregations Sinful Terms of Communion are a just cause of Separation an Independent Church-Covenant is a State of Separation in its own Nature The Communion of the Church may be restored by removing those Sinful Terms of Communion but there can be no
saies nothing that the divine Spirit confines his Influences and Operations to the Vnity of the Church in such Conformity not only makes such Conformity necessary to Salvation but imputes to the Church the Damnation of many Thousands of Souls who might expect to be saved upon other Terms That the Divine Spirit confines his influences ordinarily to the Unity of the Church I do assert but that this is in Conformity to the Church of England I do not assert For Conformity to the Church of England is not Essential to the Unity of the Catholick Church for every Church has authority to prescribe its own Rites and Ceremonies of Worship in Conformity to the general Rules of the Gospel And therefore though the Unity of the Church is necessary to intitle Men to the ordinary influences of Gods Grace and consequently is necessary to Salvation yet Conformity to the Church of England is not necessary to the Unity of the Church because Christians who live under the Government and Jurisdiction of other Churches may and do preserve the Unity of the Church without conformity to the Church of England Obedience indeed and Subjection to Church-Authority in all Lawful things is necessary to the Unity of the Church and necessary to Salvation and consequently it is a necessary Duty to conform to all the Lawful and Innocent Customs of the Church wherein we live but this does not make the particular Laws of Conformity which are different in different Churches to be necessary to Salvation unless you will say the Church has no Authority but only in things absolutely necessary to Salvation which destroys all the external Order and Discipline of the Church and charges all the Churches in the World with destroying Mens Souls if any persons be so Humorsom and Peevish as to break Communion with them for such Reasons But such kind of Cavils as these you may find answered at large in the Vindication of the Defence and thither I refer you if you desire to see any more of it Thus Sir I have with great patience answered your Questions not that they needed or deserved any Answer but that you might not think your self too much despised nor other weak People think your Questions unanswered And now I have given you an Answer I shall take the Confidence to give you a little Ghostly Counsel too which you need a great deal more than an Answer I have not troubled my Head to inquire Scrupulously who you are nor do I use to trust Common Fame in such matters but though I know not you yet I perceive you know me and if as you say you have often p. 1. heard me with great Satisfaction and as you hope not without edifying thereby I think it would have become you to have treated me with a little more Civility than you have done if it be in your Nature to be Civil to a Clergy-Man And I wish more for your own sake than for mine you had done so for I thank God I have learnt not only by the precepts and example of my great Master but by frequent Tryals to go through good Report and evil Report and to bear the most invidious and Spightful Reflections with an equal mind But as contemptible as a Clergy-Man is now these things will be accounted for another day For it is very evident that you have a great Spight at the whole Order whatever personal kindness you may have for some Men they are but a Herd of Clergy-men and you know no other use of a Bishop but to oversee admonish and Censure those who are apt to Preface go beyond their due Bounds I confess this way of Railery is grown very fashionable and I perceive you are resolved to be in the Mode and to be an accomplisht Gentleman but I never knew a man that was seriously religious who durst affront the Servants for their Masters sake But you Sir are in the very height of the fashion and think their Office as contemptible as their Persons generally are thought to be you hope to be saved without understanding the Notion of Church-Government as 't is intreagued by Clergy-men of all sides And I hope you may be saved without understanding a great many other things besides Church-Government or else I doubt your Salvation may be hazardous But this is too plain a contempt of all Church-Authority for though the Church of Rome has usurpt an unlimited and Tyrannical Power under the Notion of Church-Government yet what has the Sound Church of England as you own it done What occasion did I give for this Censure who have expresly confined the Exercise of Church-Authority to Church-Communion to receiving in and putting out of the Church And if Resol of Cases p. 39. the Church be no Society I would desire to know what it is and if be a Society how can any Society subsist without Authority in some Persons to receive in and to shut out of the Society But the truth is tho you pretend to be in Communion with the Church of England you make the Church it self a very needless and insignificant thing for you know no necessity of Communicating with any Church you will not allow it to be Schism to Separate from the Church you think it a pretty indifferent thing whether Men be Baptized or not or by whom they are Baptized what your Opinion is about the Sacrament of the Lords Supper I do not know though if you are consistent with your self I doubt that is a very indifferent Ceremony too Truly to deal plainly with you I think you have more need to be taught your Catechism than to set up for a Writer of Books and let me in time warn you what the consequence of this way you are in is likely to be which is no less than a contempt of all revealed and institute Religion and consequently of Christianity Natural Religion may subsist without any positive Institutions but revealed Religion never did and never can for when God Transacts with Mankind in the way of a Visible Covenant there must be some Visible Ministers and Visible Sacraments of this Covenant And when the Evangelical Ministers and Sacraments fall into contempt Men must think meanly of Christianity and return to what they call natural Religion which is a Religion without a Priest and without a Sacrifice which cannot save a Sinner but by uncovenanted Grace and Mercy which no Man can be sure of and which no Man shall find who rejects a Priest and Sacrifice of Gods providing And to convince you of this you may observe that the contempt of the Notion of a Church of the Evangelical Priesthood and Sacraments is originally owing to Deists and Socinians to those who profess to believe in God and to worship him according to the Laws of natural Religion but believe nothing at all of Christ or to those who profess to believe in Christ but believe him only to be a meer Man and a great Reformer of Natural
thing and somewhat favoured by Scripture and by Experience has been found to be of such Convenience Advantage and Security to Religion that Mr. Baxter hath more than once said †††Mr. Baxter's Plea for Peace Epist Serm. on Gal. 6. 10. p. 24. Defence p. 21. par 1. p. 36. I doubt not but he that will preserve Religion here in its due Advantages must endeavour to preserve the Soundness Concord and Honour of the Parish-Churches And Mr. Corbet saith | | | Mr. Corbet's Account of the Principles c. of several Non-Conformists p. 26. That the nullifying and treading down the Parish-Churches is a Popish Design But whatever Opinion others may have of that Form yet all of one sort and another agree that the Churches so called are or may be true Churches This was the general Opinion of the old Non-Conformists Thus saith a late * * * Troughton's Apol. p. 103. Writer who though he is unwilling to grant that they did own the National Church to be a true Church yet doth admit as he needs must at least that they did own the several Parishes or Congregations in England to be true Churches both in respect of their Constitution and also in respect of their Doctrine and Worship and that there were in them no such intolerable Corruptions as that all Christians should fly from them And even those that were in other respects opposite enough to the Church did so declare It was saith Mr. Baxter the Parish Churches that had the Liturgy Defence of his Cure part 2. p. 178. V. Letter of Ministers of Old England to New p. 49. which Mr. H. Jacob the Father of the Congregational Party wrote for Communion with against Fr. Johnson and in respect to which he called them Separatists against whom he wrote The same I may say of Mr. Bradshaw Dr. Ames and other Non-conformists whom the Congregational Brethren think were favourable to their way And if you will hearken to the abovesaid Apologist he saith again and again That the general Sence Apol. c. 4. p. â—17 of the present Non-conformists both Ministers and People is that the Parishes of England generally are true Churches both as to the Matter of them the People being Christians and as to the form their Ministers being true Ministers such as for their Doctrine and Manners deserve not to be degraded But lest he should be thought to incline to one side I shall produce the Testimony of such as are of the Congregational Way As for those of New-England Mr. Baxter doth say That Defence of his Cure part 2 p. 177. their own Expressions signify that they take the English Parishes that have godly Ministers for true Churches though faulty Mr. Cotton professeth that Robinson's denial of Way cleared p. 8. the Parishional Churches to be true Churches was never received into any Hearts amongst them and otherwhere saith We dare not deny to bless the Womb that bare us His Letter p. 3. printed 1641. and the Papes that gave us suck The five Dissâ—nting Brethren do declare * * * Apologet. Narr V. Hooker's Survey Pref. and part 1. p. 47. We have this sincere Profession to make before God and the World that all the Conscience of the Defilements in the Church of England c. did never work in us any other Thought much less Opinion but that Multitudes of the Assemblies and Parochial Congregations thereof were the true Churches and Body of Christ To come nearer Dr. T. Goodwin On the Ephes p. 477 488 489. doth condemn it as an Error in those who hold particular Churches those you call Parish-Churches to be no true Churches of Christ and their Ministers to be no true Ministers and upon that Ground forbear all Church-Communion with them in hearing or in any other Ordinance c. and saith I acquitted my self before from this and my Brethren in the Ministry But the Church of England is not only thus acknowledged a true Church but hath been also looked upon as the most valuable in the World whether we consider the Church it self or those that minister in it The Church it self of which the Authors of the grave and modest Confutation thus write All the known Pag. 6. Churches in the World acknowledg our Church for their Sister and give unto us the Right-hand of Fellowship c. Dr. Goodwin saith If we should not acknowledg these Ibid. Churches so stated i. e. Parish-Churches to be the true Churches of Christ and their Ministers true Ministers and their Order such and hold Communion with them too in the Sence spoken of we must acknowledg no Church in all the Reformed Churches c. for they are all as full of Mixtures as ours And Mr. J. Goodwin saith Sion College visited that there was more of the Truth and Power of Religion in England under the late Prelatical Government than in all the Reformed Churches in the World besides If we would have a Character of the Ministry of the Church of England as it was then Mr. Bradshaw Unreasonableness of the Separat p. 97. gives it Our Churches are not inferiour for number of able Men yea and painful Ministers to any of the Reformed Churches of Christ in foreign Parts c. And certainly the Number of such is much advanced since his time But I cannot say more of this Subject than I find in a Page or two of an Author I must frequently Mr. Baxter's Cure of Church Divisions Dir. 56. p. 263. use to which I refer the Reader Before I proceed I shall only make this Inference from what hath been said That if the Church of England be a true Church the Churches true Churches the Ministry a true Ministry the Doctrine sound and Orthodox the Worship in the main good and allowable and the Defects such as render not the Ordinances unacceptable to God and ineffectual to us I think there is much said towards the proving Communion with that Church lawful and to justify those that do joyn in it Which brings to the second General which is to consider II. What Opinion the sober and eminent Non-conformists Sect. II. have of Communion with the Church of England And they generally hold 1. That they are not totally to separate from it this follows from the former and must be own'd by all them that hold she is a true Church for to own it to be such and yet to separate totally from it would be to own and disown it at the same time So say the Members of the Assembly of Divines Thus to Papers for Accommodation p. 47. depart from true Churches is not to hold Communion with them as such but rather by departing to declare them not to be such And saith Mr. Baxter Nothing will Reasons for the Christian Relig. p. 464. warrant us to separate from a Church as no Church which yet is the case in total Separation but the want of
safely Communicate with such or in a Church where such are without Sin Thirdly To separate upon this Ground is to maintain Arg. 3 Vines on the Sacrament p. 244. a Principle destructive to the Communion of the Church visible which consists of good and bad This Mr. Cotton is peremptory in It is utterly untrue Infant Baptism p. 102. V. Bains on the Ephes c. 1. v. 1. p. 5. to say that Christ admits not of any dead Plants to be set in his Vineyard or that he takes not to himself a compounded Body of living and dead Members or that the Church of God is not a mixed Company c. From the ill Effects of which Mr. Cartwright used to call this Separation upon In Proverb Edward's Apol. pretence of greater purity the white Devil And because there are some Scriptures that seem to look this way and are made use of by those that make mixed Communion an Argument for Separation therefore they have taken off the force of them If a Brother be a Fornicator c. the Apostle exhorteth Object 1 not to eat with him 1 Cor. 5. 11. To this they Answer That if it be meant of excluding such an one from Church-Communion it must be done by the Church Answ 1 Defence Part 2. p. 27. Cawdrey's Church-Reformat p. 126. and not a private Person But you are not commanded to separate from the Church if they exclude him not So Mr. Baxter c. That it concerns not Religious but Civil-Communion Answ 2 and that not all Civil Society or Commerce but Familiar also For which they produce several Reasons 1. They argue from the Notion of eating Bread which is a Token of Love and Friendship in phrase of Ball 's Tryal p. 200. Brinsley's Arraignment p. 45. Jenk on Jude v. 19. Tomb's Theodulia p. 210. Scripture not to partake of or to be shut from the Table is a sign of Familiarity broken off So Mr. Ball c. 2. The eating which is here forbidden is allowed to be with an Heathen but it 's the civil eating which is only allowed to be with an Heathen therefore it 's the civil eating which is forbidden to be with a Brother So Mr. Jenkin c. 3. The eating here forbidden is for the punishment of the Nocent not of the Innocent To these there are added others by the Old Non-Conformists Grave Confut. Part 4. p. 57. Tomb's Theodulia p. 167. Cawdrey's Reformat p. 75. Cure Dir. 9. p. 81. As for other Objections they are also undertaken by the same Hands and to which Mr. Baxter's Answer is sufficient If you mark all the Texts in the Gospel you shall find that all the Separation which is commanded in such cases besides our separation from the Infidels and Idolatrous World or Antichristian and Heretical Confederacies and No-Churches is but one of these two sorts 1. Either that the Church cast out the impenitent by the Power of the Keys Or 2. That private Men avoid all private Familiarity with them but that the private Members should separate from the Church because such Persons are not cast out of it shew me one Text to prove it if you can This saith Mr. Vines hath not On the Sacrament p. 246. Tomb's Theod. p. 128. a syllable of Scripture to allow or countenance it But supposing it be allowed that we ought not to separate from a Church where corrupt Members are tolerated or connived at under some present circumstances as for want of due proof or through particular favour yet it seems to be allowable where there is no Discipline exercised or taken care of For then we are without an Ordinance To avoid this Objection I shall consider 2. The Case with respect to Discipline and shall Sect. 2. shew from them 1. That the want of that or defects in it are no sufficient reason for Separation 2. What Discipline is exercised or taken care of in the Church of England The former of these they do own and prove First As Discipline is not necessary to the being Arg. 1 of a Church This was of old maintained by Mr. T. C's Letter to Harrison against Separation in the Defence of the Admonit p. 98 99. Cartwright who thus argues That Church-Assemblies are builded by Faith only on Christ the Foundation the which Faith so being whatsoever is wanting of that which is commanded or remaining of that which is forbidden is not able to put that Assembly from the Right and Title of so being the Church of Christ For though there be many things necessary for every Assembly yet they be necessary to the comely and stable Being and not simply to the Being of the Church And afterward he gives an Instance in the Dutch Assemblies or Lutheran Churches which he saith are maintained in P. 106. Discipline So Dr. T. Goodwin Whereas now in Com. on the Ephes p 487 488. some of the Parishes of this Kingdom there are many Godly Men that do constantly give themselves up to the Worship of God in Publick c. These notwithstanding their mixture and want of Discipline I never thought for my part but that they were True Churches of Christ and Sister Churches and so ought to be acknowledged So that if Discipline be not essential to a True Church and a True Church is not to be separated from as has been proved above then the want of Discipline is no sufficient reason for Separation Secondly This they further prove by an Induction Arg. 2 of Particulars This way Mr. Blake proceeds in Vindiciae c. 31. p. 236 238. Discipline was neglected in the Church of Israel yet none of the Prophets or Men of God ever made attempt of getting up purer select Churches V. Grave Confut Part 1. p. 18. or made Separation from that which was in this sort faulty All was not right in the exercise of Discipline in the Churches planted by the Apostles some are censured as foully faulty c. yet nothing heard by way of Advice for any to make Separation nor any one Instance of a Separatist given To come lower we are told by Mr. Vines On Sacram. c. 19. p. 226. That the Helvetian or Switzerland Churches claim to be Churches and have the Notes Word and Sacraments though the Order of Discipline be not setled among V. Gillespie's Nihil respondes p. 33. them and I am not he that shall blot out their Name To come nearer Home it was so in the late Times when this was wanting as was acknowledged (a) (a) (a) Knutton's seven Queries Brinsley's Arraign p. 48. and of which Mr. Vines saith (b) (b) (b) On Sacram. p. 219. Troughton's Apol. p. 65. we know rather the Name than the Thing And if we shall look into the several Church-Assemblies amongst the Dissenters we shall find that as there are many Preachers without full Pastoral Charge as it is acknowledged that have little Authority over their Flocks in this
and the same Acts 2. 41. day were added to the Church about 3000 souls It 's true St. Peter exhorted them all to repent in order to it but whether they did so or no he stay'd not for proof from their bringing forth fruits worthy of repentance but presently upon their profest willing reception of the Word they were baptiz'd and added to the Church One might have been apt to suspect that amongst so great a number all would not prove sincere Converts and so it fell out Ananias and Saphira Acts 4. 34. Acts 5. 1 2 3. were two of the number in whom ye know that glad reception of the Gospel was found to be but gross hypocrisie By the same rule St. Philip proceeded in planting the Church at Samaria when the People seeing the miracles he did gave heed to the doctrine he Acts 8. 12. taught concerning the Kingdom of Heaven and the Name of Jesus and declar'd their belief of it without any farther examination they were Baptized both Men and Women And amongst them was Simon Magus wose former notorious Crimes of Sorcery Witchcraft and Blasphemy might have given just grounds of fear to the holy Deacon that his Faith was but hypocritical and his Heart not right in the sight of God as appear'd afterwards yet upon his believing Acts 8. 20. he was Baptiz'd such other Members of Christ's Church were Demas Hymeneus and Alexander they ver 13. had nothing it seems but a bare outward profession of the Faith to entitle them to that Priviledg since afterwards as we read the one embrac'd this present World and the other two made shipwrack of Faith and a good Conscience 3. This appears from the representation Christ hath 2 Tim. 4. 10. 1 Tim. 1. 19. made of his Church in the Gospel fore-instructing his Disciples by many Parables that it should consist of a mixture of good and bad It is a Field wherein Wheat and Tares grow up together A Net wherein are Fishes of all sorts A Flour in which is laid up solid Corn and Mat. 13. 24 25. vers 47. light Chaff A Vine on which are fruitful and barren Branches A great House wherein are Vessels of Gold Mat. 3. 12. and Silver and Vessels of lesser value Wood and Earth John 15. 1. A Marriage feast where are wise and foolish Virgins 2 Tim. 2. 20. some with wedding garments and some without some Mat. 25. had Oyl and some but empty Lamps St. Hierome compares it to Noah's Ark wherein were preserv'd Beasts clean and unclean when the Apostle said They are St. Hier. dial con Lucifer Arca Noae Ecclesiae typus not all Israel that are of Israel his meaning was that in the Jewish Church many more were Circumcis'd in the Flesh than what were Circumcis'd in Heart and when our Saviour said many are call'd Rom. 9. 6. but few chosen he declar'd the same thing that in his Church many more were call'd and admitted into it by Baptism than what were sanctified by his Spirit or should be admitted into his Heaven 4. The many corrupt and vicious Members in the Churches which the Apostle themselves had planted is another proof of this The number whereof in all likelihood could not have been so great had they been so cautious and scrupulous as to admit none into them but whom in their judgments they thought to be really holy In the Church of Corinth there were 1 Cor. 15. 34. ver 12. 2 Cor. 12. 20 21. 1 Cor. 7. many that had not the knowledg of God that denied the Resurrection of the Dead that came Drunk to the Lords Table that were Fornicators Unclean and Contentious Persons In the Church of Galatia there were many that Nauseated the Bread of Life and made it their Choice to pick and eat the rubbish of the partition wall which Christ had demolisht The Rites of the Law which expired at the death of Christ they attempted to pull out of their Graves and to give a Resurrection to them They were so much gone off from the Doctrine of Christianity to weak and beggarly Rudiments observing Days and Months and Gal. 3. 7 10 11. Times and Years that by reason of this their Superstition St. Paul signifi'd his fears of quite losing them and that his labour was bestowed upon them in vain Amongst all the Seven Churches in Asia there was not one but what had receiv'd such Members into it that were either very Cold Lukewarm in their Religion or by their Vicious Lives proved a Reproach and Scandal to it The Church of Sardis so swarm'd with these that St. John tells us that there were but a few Rev. 3. 1 4. names in Sardis that had not defil'd their garments Now if the Apostles of our Lord who had the extraordinary assistances of the Holy Ghost for the discerning of Spirits at that time and were thereby enabl'd far beyond what any of their Successors can pretend to to distinguish betwixt the good and the bad did notwistanding admit many meer formal Professors into the Church of Christ we may conclude that they apprehended that 't was the will of Christ it should be so 5. No other rule in admitting persons into the Church is practicable Whether Persons are really holy and truly regenerate or no the Officers of Christ who know not the hearts of Men cannot make a certain judgment of they may through want of judgment be deceiv'd through the subtilty of hypocrites be impos'd upon through humane frailty passion or prejudice be misguided and by this means many times the door may be open'd to the bad and shut against the good Now that cannot be suppos'd to be a rule of Christ's appointment which is either impossible to be observ'd or in observing which the Governours of his Church cannot be secur'd from acting wrongfully and injuriously to Men. In sum Christ hath entrusted the power of the Keys into the hands of an Order of Men whom he hath set over his Church and who under him are to manage the Affairs of it but these being but Earthen vessels of short and fallible understandings he has 2. Cor. 4 7. not left the execution of their Office to be manag'd solely by their own prudence and discretion but hath given them a certain publick Rule to go by both in admitting persons into his Church and in excluding them out of it for the one the Rule is open and solemn profession of the Christian Faith for the other open and scandalous Offences prov'd by witnesses 2. The second Proposition is That every such Member has a right to all the external Priviledges of the Church till by his continuance in some notorious and scandalous sins he forfeits that right and by the just censures of the Church for such behaviour he be actually excluded from those Priviledges For the explanation and proof of this Proposition these three particulars are to be done 1. What 's
meant by external Priviledges 2 What kind of Offenders those are that forfeit their right to them and ought by the Censures of the Church to be excluded from them 3. Upon what the right of those Members that have not so offended is grounded 1. What 's meant by external Priviledges As there are two sorts of Members in Christ's visible Church so there are two sorts of Priviledges that belong to them each sort having those that are proper and peculiar to it according to the nature of that relation they bear to the Head and their fellow Members 1. There are Members only by foederal or covenant-holiness such as are only born of water when by Baptism they were united to Christ and the Church and took upon them the Profession and Practice of the Christian Religion Now the Priviledges that belong to these are of the same make with their Church-membership external and consisting only in an outward and publick Communion with the Church in the Word and Ordinances 2. There are Members by real and inherent holiness such as are not only born of Water but of the Spirit also when by the inward operations of the Holy Ghost their Souls are renew'd after the Image of God and made partakers of a Divine Nature And the Priviledges that belong to these are not only the forementioned ones but together with them others that are sutable to their more spiritual relation inward and such as consist in the especial and particular care and protection of God the pardon and remission of their sins by the Blood of Christ and the gracious influences and comforts of the Holy Ghost All comprehended in that Prayer of the Apostle for his Corinthians The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God and the communion of the Holy Ghost be 2 Cor. 13. 14. with you all Amen Now t is of the first sort of Members and that sort of Priviledges that belong to them that the Proposition is to be understood 2. What kind of Offenders those are that have forfeited their right to and ought by the Censures of the Church to be excluded from those Priviledges This the Apostle hath plainly told us and our own Church in its Exhortation to the Sacrament fairly intimates I have wrote unto you says St. Paul not no keep company 1 Cor. 5. 11. if any Man that is call'd a Brother be a Fornicator or Covetous or an Idolater or a Railer or a Drunkard or an Extortioner no not to eat Not only as much as can be to have no familier conversation with ver 10. him in civil matters tho' some must be had whilst we are in this World but also and more especially to avoid communion with him in religious exercises and how that is to be done the Apostle tells us viz. not by forsaking the Church our selves but by doing our utmost endeavours to have him cast out of it So it follows Therefore put away from among your selves that wicked ver 13. person And In the Name of our Lord Jesus Christ when ye are gathered together and my spirit with the power of our Lord Jesus Christ to deliver such an one ver 4 5. unto Satan for the destruction of the flesh that the spirit may bo sav'd in the day of the Lord Jesus Agreeable hereunto are the words of the Exhortation If any of you be a blasphemer of God a hinderer and slanderer of his Word an Adulterer or be in malice or envy or in any other greivous Crime repent you of your sins or come not to that holy Table Such sinners as these have in a manner undone and made void what was done in their behalf in Baptism They by not performing what was then promis'd for them but living directly contrary to it do virtually renounce that Covenant they then entred into with God in Christ and fall back again into the state of Pagans and Infidels Their Sureties engag'd for them that they should believe the Christian Faith keep God's Commandments and renounce the World the Flesh and the Devil But such habitual notorious Offenders as these say by their Practice what had they to do to undertake such things for us we will stand to no such engagements but we will be at large to believe what we please and to practice what we fancy and to worship whom we think fit And thus as it were breaking off from being in Covenant with God and virtually renouncing their Church-membership they at the same time lose all right and title to those Blessings and Priviledges that were due to them upon the account thereof and in this sad state and condition did the Primitive Christians reckon all that had hâ—ghly and notorâ—ously sinn'd amongst whom especially were the lapsed that had offer'd Sacrifice they staid not for a formal Sentence to be pronounc'd against them by the Church but lookt upon them as ipso facto excommunicate and tho' till that was past they could not actually be shut out yet they began before to avoid their Company and to forbear all religious commerce towards them But so long as Men keep in Covenant with God and abide in his Church which may be done by holding that profession of Faith that they made at their first entrance into it their right to the external franchises of it remains inviolable and their title without question As may appear from these particulars 1. From the Tenour of that Covenant they in their Baptism enter'd into with God which consists of Promises on God's part as well as Conditions on Mans. The Promises on God's part are exprest in these general 2 Cor. 6. 61. words I will be their God The Conditions on Mans in those and they shall be my People Now so far as Men perform the Conditions so far will God make good his Promises In what sense they are a People to God in the same he 'll be a God unto them If a bare faederal holiness can give Men a relation to God and God upon that account owns them to be a People unto him the same gives them some kind of interest in God and a claim to the blessings that belong to that relation Not that such Members as these are to expect those special and particular favours that are the portion of those that are more nearly and by a kind of spiritual consanguinity allied to God in Christ but yet being of God's houshould are to be allowed the liberty to partake of those external blessings which he in common bestows upon the whole Family 2. From the nature of Church-membership Church-membership necessarily implies Church-Communion or else it signifies nothing for to be admitted a Member of the Church and not to have a right in common with the rest to Church-Priviledges is to be taken in with one hand and to be thrown out with the other 't is to be put back into the state of those that are no Members and virtually to be cut off from
can or will do in some extraordinary cases when Communion with a true visible Church cannot be had as in a general Apostacy of the Church or Persecution for Religion or unjust Excommunication but what is God's ordinary method and means of bringing Men to salvation and that he himself tells us is by adding them to the Church and the Lord added to the Church daily Acts 2. 47. such as should be saved To this purpose we may observe not only in general that whatever Christ did and suffered for Mankind 't was for them as incorporated into a Church Christ loved his Church and gave himself Eph. 5. 25. for it Christ redeem'd his Church with his own Acts 26. 28. blood Christ is the saviour of the body that is the Eph. 5. 23. Church But also in particular that the Apostle confines the influences and operations of the spirit to the unity of the Church there is one body and one spirit Upon this account viz. the efficacy of the means afforded Eph. 4. 4. in Christ's Church and the necessity of keeping in Communion with it in order to salvation was it that the Primitive Christians lookt upon it as so dreadful a thing to be shut or cast out of it as laughing a matter as some now adays make it as much as they slight the priviledg and benefit to be of Christ's Church and count it their glory and saintship voluntarily to cut off themselves from it I am sure the Primitive Christians had a far different opinion of it with them to be cast Nam judicatur magno cum pondere ut apud certos c. Tert. Apol. out of the Church and to be deliver'd up to Satan signified the same thing and the one accounted full as dreadful a doom as the other hence was it that this sentance was rarely past against an offender but with 1 Cor. 5 2. grief and sorrow in him that was forc'd to do it and that those against whom it was past us'd the most ardent importunities and were willing to undergo the severest penances in order to be restored into the bosom of it you might have beheld them kissing the chains of imprison'd Martyrs washing the feet of Lazars Nazion 12. Or. wallowing at the Temple-doors on their knees begging the Prayers of Saints you might have seen them stript and naked their hair neglected their bodies whither'd their eyes dejected and sometimes crying out in the words of David as the great Theodosius Theod. H. Eccl. 5. c. 15. in the state of penance My soul cleaveth to the dust quicken thou me O Lord according to thy Word Thus much seems to be enough to be said on the Second Proposition but that our passage to the Third may be the clearer I shall add a little by way of Answer to an Objection or two that lies in our way And the first is Obj. Do not all the Members of Christ's Church that come to the blessed Sacrament having not the power of Godliness as well as the Form come unworthily and to their own great sin and danger no less than being guilty of the Body and Blood of Christ and eating and 1 Cor. 11. 27 29. drinking their own damnation And can they have a right to that they are so unworthy of In doing which they sin so hainously and for doing which they shall be punished so severely Answ I Answer these two things 1. All even the best men in a strict legal sense are unworthy and that even of common mercies from God much more of this prime Duty and Priviledg of Christianity Every man in his best estate is altogether vanity We are all an unclean thing and our righteousness Psal 39. 5. is as filthy rags The meaning is all men are Isa 39. 5. sinners and their best services imperfect and impure But then the right they have to this Priviledg does not depend on their own merit and worth but as was said before on the promise of God when they enter'd at first into covenant with him whereby he was pleas'd to oblige himself to be their God so far and so long as they continued to be his people 2. Those Members that we have asserted to have a right to the external Priviledges of Christ's Church are not guilty of that unworthiness St. Paul speaks of the sin and danger whereof is so great and this will appear by the description he gives of those unworthy Communicants 1. They discern'd not the Lord's body he that eats this 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 S. Chrysost 1 Cor. 11. 27. Dr. Lightf in loc bread and drinks this cup of the Lord unworthily is guilty of the body and blood of Christ how not discerning the Lord's body It may be they did eat it still as a part of the Jewish Passover they understood not the nature of it what it did represent or for what end it was instituted being ignorant of the infinite value and merit of Christ's blood not at all affected with the greatness of his love nor wrought upon by the infiniteness of his mercy and altogether as void of any sincere affection and gratitude to Christ for that mighty redemption he wrought for mankind as the Jew and Pagan that neither know nor believe in him 2. They were open and scandalous sinners The Apostles charges them with Schisms and Divisions 18 21 22 ver pride and contempt of their brethren sensuality and drunkenness In those early days of Christianity the Lord's Supper was usually usher'd in with a Love-feast that was eaten just before it but so unchristian were these Corinthians that every one took before other his own Supper they run into parties and tho' they had not yet left the place they refus'd to communicate at the same time with their brethren The rich despis'd and excluded the poor that came not so well provided as they from their feast and that which was yet an higher aggravation of their sin the poor were hungry whilst the rich fed and pamper'd ther bodies to excess and luxury When ye come together says he this is not to eat the Lord's Supper this is no fit preparation for it for in eating every one takes before other his own supper and one is hungry and another is drunken such Swine as these ought not indeed to come to the Holy Table of our Lord and such as these as I said in the beginning of my Discourse on this Proposition have forfeited their right to it and ought by the Censures of the Church to be excluded This indeed is to be unworthy with a witness to be guilty of the body and blood of Christ or as St. Paul sometimes words it in the case of Apostacy and other hainous sins to crucifie Heb. 6. 6. Heb. 10. 16. afresh the Lord of Life to tread under foot the Son of God and to count the blood of the Covenant an unholy thing that is in an high degree to despise
are for a Form This do they urge that are for Sitting at the Lord's Supper and this they say that are for Kneeling so that these and the like Adjuncts do further Devotion and are for Edification is an argument used by both Now if Adjuncts are not part of VVorship and may be yet used to further Devotion then the furthering Devotion by any Rite doth not in it self make that Rite so used to be VVorship I acknowledg there is False VVorship as well as True True VVorship is of Divine Institution and False VVorship is of Humane Appointment and becomes Worship when either Divine Institution is pretended for it or it s used for the same special ends that Gods VVorship is instituted for that is as necessary to acceptance or as a means of Grace And so I confess Adjuncts may be made parts of False VVorship as many Ceremonies are in the Church of Rome but this is not the case with any things used in the Administration of VVorship in our Church we plead nothing of Divine Authority to enforce them use them not as necessary nor as means of Grace after the manner we do the VVord of God and the Sacraments 2. It s another mistake that its charged as a fault upon Rites in VVorship that They are used to further Devotion VVithout this end surely they are not to be used or at least not to be encouraged for Divine VVorship being the acknowledgment of God and a giving Honour to Him should have all things about it Grave and Solemn that may best sute it and promote the ends for which it s used But if Rites are used in it that have no respect to such ends they become Vain and Trifling neither worthy of that nor our Defence And therefore we justly blame the Church of Rome for the Multitude of Ceremonies used in their VVorship and for such that either have no signification or whose signification is so obscure as is not easie to be observed or traced and that rather hinder than further Devotion Surely it would not so well answer the end if the Hand in Swearing was laid upon another Book as when on the Gospel nor if the Love-feasts at the Lords Supper had been only as a Common Meal without respect to Charity signified by it 3. It s another mistake that External Rites taken up by Men and used for the furthering Devotion are made to be of the same Nature with Images This there is no foundation for for the Religious use of Images is expresly contrary to the Command of God and Forbidden because it tends to debase God in the thoughts of those that VVorship him by such mediums But there is nothing in the use of such External Ries as are before spoken of that fall under the censure of either of these but that we may lawfully use them and the use of which is not therefore at all Forbidden in the Second Commandment If there be not a Rule for all things belonging to the VVorship of God the Gospel would be less perfect than Object IV the Law and Christ would not be so Faithful as Moses in the care of his Church Heb. 3. 2. which is not to be supposed The sufficiency of Scripture and Faithfulness of Christ Answer are not to be judged of by what we fancy they should have determined but by what they have It s a plausiable Plea made by the Church of Rome for an Infallible Judge in matters of Faith that by an Appeal to him all controversies would be decided and the Peace of the Church secured But notwithstanding all the advantages which they so hugely amplify there is not one Word in Scripture which in a matter of that importance is absolutely necessary that doth shew that it is necessary or were it so who the Person or Persons are that should have this Power or Commission And in this case we must be content to leave things as the Wisdom of God hath thought fit to leave them and to go on in the old way of sober and amicable debate and fair reasoning to bring debates to a conclusion Thus it is in the matter before us the pretence is very Popular and Plausible that Who can better determine things Relating to the Worship of God than God whose Worship it is And where may we expect to find them better determined than in his Word which is sufficient to all the ends it was writ for But when we come to enquire into the case we find no such thing done no such care taken no such particular directions as they had under the Law and therefore its certain that neither the sufficiency of Scripture nor Faithfulness of Christ stand upon that foundation And if we do not find the like particular prescriptions in Baptism as Circumcision nor in the Lord's Supper as in the Passover nor in Prayers as in Sacrifices its plain that the sufficiency of Scripture and Faithfulness of Christ do respect somewhat else and that they are not the less for the want of them Christ was Faithful as Moses To him that appointed him in performing what belonged to him as a Mediator in which respect Moses was a Type of him and discovering to Mankind in Scripture the method and means by which they might be Sav'd and the sufficiency of Scripture is in being a sufficient means to that end and putting Men into such State as will render them capable of attaining to it And as for modes and circumstances of things they are left to the prudence of those who by the Grace and the Word of God hath been converted to the Truth and have received it in the Love of it I have been the larger in the consideration of this principle viz. that Nothing but what is prescribed may be lawfully used in Divine Worship that I might relieve the consciences of those that are insnared by it and that cannot be so without subjecting themselves to great inconveniences For if nothing but what is of that Nature may be used or joyned with and that the second Commandment doth with as much Authority Forbid the use of any thing not Commanded as the Worshipping of Images If Nadab's and Abihu's Strange Fire and Vzzah's touching of the Ark be examples Recorded for caution to us and that every thing Uncommanded is of the like Nature attended with the like Aggravations and alike do expose to God's Displeasure If the use of any thing not prescribed be such an addition to the VVord of God as leaves us under the Penalty of that Text If any Man shall add unto these things Rev. 22. 18. God shall add unto him the Plagues that are Written in this Book we cannot be too cautious in the Examination of what is or what is not prescribed But withall if this be our case it would be more intollerable than that of the Jews For amongst them every thing for the most part was plainly laid down and though the particular Rites and Circumstances prescribed in their
one and the other If We state the case we say the Rules we are to guide our selves by are those of the Apostle of Decency Order and Edification And we trouble not our selves nicely to consider whether the Decency arise from the nature of the thing or from common usage or prescription or institution since we think that decency may arise from any and it matters not from what cause the thing proceeds nor how it came to be Decent when it 's now thought and found to be so And as little curious arewe about the first reasons of Order and Edification for we are so little speculative in matters of practice that we think the peace of the Church and Unity amongst Christians are much more fit to determine us in these cases than all the accuracy in Metaphysicks So that if a thing be found to be decent orderly and for Edification though we were assur'd it did Spring from Humane Institution we think it to be lawful and that Humane Institution cannot make that unlawful which is found by use and experience to be for Decency and Order Again we think that those things which in kind are necessary to Humane Acts in all cases and comely and grave in Worship as well as out of it may be appropriated to Worship and that the appropriation of Places Time and Habit to Worship doth not therefore make such Places Times and Habits unlawful to be used And if things indifferent in themselves are unlawful in Worship we conclude it must be when Divine Institution is pretended for what is Humane and when the things sute not the Nature or defeat the ends Case of indifferent things p. 24 c. of Divine Worship or for the like reasons which I in the controverted Tract did insist upon But now on the contrary by what may be Collected from him it appears to be the Sence of his position 1. That nothing of Humane Institution is to be admitted or may lawfully be used in Divine Worship For thus he saith they must be things necessary to all Humane Acts or convenient for them as Humane Acts or comely for all Humane Acts c. 2. That nothing though necessary or convenient or comely ought to be used in and much less be appropriated to the Worship of God for they are to be considered in Worship only as they have a reference to such Humane Acts. In the consideration of these I shall 1. Consider how he attempts to prove it 2. Endeavour to discover the mistake and vindicate the arguments and instances produced in the case of Indifferent things to the contrary from his Exceptions These are the chief things that all his discourse is founded upon and that are scattered through it But though they are rather supposed than proved by him and therefore to use his own Words I may lightly pass them over and expect till he hath justified them yet because I would make somewhat of it I shall collect from the Hints he gives what it is that he doth think may be said for them As for the first of these that nothing is to be used iâ— Prop. 1. Divine Worship that is meerly of Humane Institution his arguments are fetched from the Nature of thâ— things pleaded for them viz. Decency order edification As saith he 1. We cannot apprehend it in the power of Man tâ— Pag 11. Create a Decency The greatest Emperors wearing aâ— Antick Habit would not make it Decent till it coulâ— prescribe or had obtained a common consent This â— the rather mention because it is an argument much iâ— vogue amongst those that would artificially handlâ— this matter But here let me ask them what it is creates a Decency He saith the Law of Nature and prescription common consent and the guise of Countries But how began that Prescription whence arose that consent whether from chance or institution Or what is it whence iâ— ariseth if it be found to be decent Certainly if it began in one of these institution is the more noble of thâ— two and the less disputable And then it would be harâ— to conceive how that which came by chance should be sawful and that which came by Institution should be unlawful But 2. If Prescription and Common Consent and the Guise of Countreys be the measure of Decency may not these things also be the measure of it in the Church and in things relating to Divine Worship And is not the custom of the Churches of God a reason as sufficient to conclude us in this matter as the grave and Civil customs of a Nation Or 3. Is there any Church on this side Rome that by a Sic volo doth stamp a decency upon its Institutions without respect to prescription and the custom of Churches Or that can do it By his way of expressing himself he would make the Argument great as if to Create a Decency was an invasion of God's Prerogative We cannot apprehend it in the Power of man to Create a Decency The greatest Emperor c. But if a Decency arise from the Guise of Countrys and Prescription and Common Consent it might be questioned whether according to him God himself can then Create a Decency and by his authority make that to be at once which requires time and Custom as he saith to produce and form it So high doth the power of a little School-subtilty and Imagination sometimes transport men that their Arguments vanish out of fight and are lost to all those that converse with what is gross and tangible But supposing it is not in the power of man to Create a Decency yet Order may be Order without those dilatory reasons of Custom and Prescription and therefore what holds against establishing Decency by institution will not hinder but that order may be thereby established Therefore 2. He further argues from the Nature of Decency and Order that things of meer Humane Institution are not capable of that plea. We can understand saith he nothing Ibid. by orderly and according to order but without confusion By Decency we can understand nothing but what is opposed to sordidly nor can we think of any action that is not Decent if the contrary to it be not indecent So then nothing ought to be done in the Worship of God but what may be done without Confusion c. of which Nature can nothing be that is idle and superfluous c. I was at a great loss at first to find out the drift of all this but upon consideration I think it contains these things 1. That it is unlawful to ordain or use any thing superfluous in the Worship of God 2. That whatsoever is not for Order Decency and Edification is superfluous 3. That nothing is Decent if the contrary to it be not indecent It 's the last of these we are now concerned in which by the help of the great managers of this Argument may be better understood Ames 's Fresh Suit answer to Bp. Morton
13. 4. Though God did deny this Privilege to David yet it was not without giving him good reason for it and that was 1. because things were not setled So it was before with the tribes therefore God saith he walked with them (f) (f) (f) 2 Sam. 7. 6 7. vers 1. And so it was with David for though he had at that time rest which was about the 10th or at most the 20th of his Reign Yet it was far from a settled Peace and therefore Mr. Pool reads it as the Margin v. 11. I will cause thee to rest 2. It was not fit for David Because he had been a man of War and shed much blood (g) (g) (g) 1 Chron. 22. 7 8 9. 28 3. Now in opposition to this 1. God saith I will ordain a place for Israel and plant them c. (h) (h) (h) 1 Chron. 17. 9 2. Of Solomon he saith He shall be a man of rest and I will give him Peace (i) (i) (i) 1 Chron. 22. 9 So that it appears that it was not unlawful for David to design a Temple nor unacceptable to God that he did design it but it was deferr'd for the reasons before given and because it was unseasonable Now because the Author has referr'd me to Ames I will send him back thither and let him see whether he has answered all this or no. Ames Fresh Suit part 2. §. 6 and 7. Case examined p. 26. As for the Feast of Purim This Reverend person saith It lieth upon our Author to prove the Feast of purim was kept as a Religious Feast There is no order for any Religious Acts to be performed in it If it were it was generally commanded under the precepts of giving thanks for publick mercies I shall therefore undertake to prove it a Religious Feast But before I proceed I shall 1. observe That the lawfulness of Religious Feasts and Fasts admit of the same general proof and if I prove one I prove the other 2. I observe that the Jews did think it lawful to institute Religious Feasts and Fasts both occasional and anniversary Of the latter sort which is the matter in dispute were the Fasts of the 4 th 5th and 10th Months instituted in the time of the Captivity (a) (a) (a) Zech. 8. 19. Such was the Feast of Dedication instituted by the Jews in the time of the Maccabees (b) (b) (b) 1 Mac. 4. 59. And kept to the time of our Saviour (c) (c) (c) John 10 22. nay to this very day amongst them (d) (d) (d) Buxtorf Synag Jud. And so Mordecai and Esther did establish this Feast of Purim and the Jews took upon themselves to keep it (e) (e) (e) Est 9 20 27 29. Now that it was a Religious Feast will appear 1. As it was a day of thanksgiving to God for that great deliverance Thus it 's called a day of gladness a good day (f) (f) (f) ◠8. 17. 9. 18 19 22. which Mr. Pool thus paraphraseth a time of feasting rejoycing and thanksgiving (g) (g) (g) On c. 8. 17. Ch. 9. 27. This further appears from the reason given for the celebration of it It was saith the Text That the memorial of their deliverance should not perish or as Mr. Pool Because they had seen and felt this wonderful work of God on their behalf (h) (h) (h) C. 9. 25 31. It appear'd further from the circumstances of it it 's said They sent portions one to another and gifts to the poor (i) (i) (i) C. 9 22. Which saith Pool they used to give upon days of thanksgiving of which see Neh. 8. 10. And I may add that it is impossible to conceive that persons of such signal piety as Mordecai and Esther should institute and under the present sense of such a deliverance as the Jews were should observe this Feast only as a day of Civil Joy without respect to God that wonderfully brought it about 2. It was as much a Religious Feast as their Fast was a Religious Fast So the Text makes them parallel They confirmed these days of Purim c. As they had decreed for themselves for their seed the matters of the fastings their cry (k) (k) (k) C. 10 31. But what their Fasting was the nature of the thing as well as the Cry here spoken of doth declare So to go ye and fast Pool adds and pray which was the main business to which fasting was only an help (l) (l) (l) On. c. 4. 16 and 9 31. But our Author saith There is no order for any Religious Acts to be performed in it As if they did not know what became them to do upon such a gracious and wonderful deliverance But we read of no order for such Acts on their days of Fasting were they not therefore Religious Nay we read not of the name of God in the whole Book or of any duty to him plainly expressed and shall we therefore esteem it not to be Religious and Canonical But saith our Author If it were a Religious Feast it was generally commanded under the precepts of giving thanks And I desire no more For in one Breath he hath yielded all So that now we have gained that fixed and anniversary festival days set apart for Commemoration of God's Mercies to us are not only lawful but what we have a command for And thence it follows that a Church hath Power to determine them as they did And further that things not commanded may be used in Divine Worship The next thing is the Synagogal Worship To this he replyes The Worshipping of God in Synagogues wanted no special Command Being but a Circumstance convenient if not necessary to publick Worship considered as an Humane Act. A Multitude of people could not meet to Worship God together without a fit place But First why did not Synagogues want a Special Command as well as the Temple which he contends for For which is worse to build a more convenient place for one already instituted a Temple for a Tabernacle or to build places for which they had as he yields no special command as the Synagogues But suppose they needed not a Command for Synagogues because a Multitude could not meet together without a Fit Place yet how will that be a reason that the Worshipping in Synagogues wanted it not That place is a circumstance convenient and that Synagogues were fit places for a Multitude of people to Worship in we grant and we will grant that this may be a reason to justify the building and using such places without a special Command yet what is that to the Worship so and so ordered in those places What is that to Days and Hours which the Scripture speaks of and he contends against What is this to the Forms used in their Service which the Jews do write of If these are not to be justified though they wanted a Special Command how
use the hours of Prayer onely as necessary circumstances of Humane actions or such without which the light of Nature or Common usage shews the thing cannot be done or conveniently or Pag. 1. Pag. 14. comelily done as he saith Or rather did they not use them as they found them instituted and observed in the Jewish Church And not for his Thus and the reasons given by him Will those reasons justifie those very hours of the day or the just number of three hours Or however how will they Justify the Prayers used at those hours But whatever exceptions he had against the time he it seems found nothing to say to the Service which yet was pleaded as well as that Case of Indifferent things P. 11. But he saith There is nothing of Religion in the time If so as is granted then it 's in the power of a Church to institute and determine it where there is no other Religion in the Time than as it 's thus separated to the Service of God Lastly he saith The Apostles might have changed the Hours of Prayer if they had pleased How might they have changed them Might they do it as Apostolical Persons or as Private Members of the Jewish Church As to the former I find not they did exercise any such Power within the Jurisdiction of the Jewish Church nor that they had any Commission so to do As for the latter I deny it For if it lay in the power of Private Members of a Church to alter the Hours in which the Church is to assemble it is in their power to Dissolve the Assembly and there could nothing but Confusion issue from it I must confess he seems to be at a perfect loss what to say as to this matter And it appears so when he dares not so much as touch upon the Prayers used in those hours and applies his Thus to St. Paul's using Circumcision and Purification as if they also were necessary circumstances of Humane action or such without which the light of Nature or Common Vsage shews the thing cannot be done c. which were things of pure Institution at the first and what though peculiar to the Jewish Church the Apostle complied with them in for a time The next instances produced in proof of the Proposition were Washing the Disciples feet Love-Feasts and Holy-Kiss which he joyns together and of which he saith 1. It 's impossible to prove that they were any more Pag. 12 15 16 19. than Civil usages c. 2. They were not used in Worship Whether it is impossible to prove the first or no doth not rest upon our Author's authority and yet that is the Case of Indifferenc things P. 13. only thing which he hath thought fit to confront what I produced in proof of it That they were Civilrites is granted but that they were used by Christ and the Apostles as no more than Civil is I may safely venture to say impossible to prove First Because there is the reason of the thing against it as they were instituted and used for Spiritual ends and in token of Christian Humility and Charity as I then shewed Secondly Case of Indiff p. 9. 12. Because of the great Difference there was betwixt them when used as meerly Civil and as used by our Saviour and the Apostles What this was as to washing the feet I then shewed where he might be Satisfied and to Hor. in Joh. c. 13. 5. Buxtorf I may add the Learned Dr. Lightfoot It appears further they were not meerly Civil from the Character given to the kiss of Charity being called the Holy Kiss But This was saith he because the Apostle commanded Christians to use it in a Sober Temperate Chast Or holy manner But if this was the reason then all Kisses and all Feasts would be holy But now Holiness stamps somewhat peculiar upon the thing it 's applied to and signifies that by Some act end or use it 's Separated from the rest of the same kind And for this reason was it more likely the kiss was called Holy from its end use and signification as it was a Testimony of that Holy and intire love which was or ought to have been amongst Christians rather than in respect of the manner for what reason was there for that when it was betwixt persons of the same and not a different Sex Besides if it was a meer Civil rite and design'd for no Religious end could we think the Apostle would require it and close his Epistles so frequently with it Lastly it appears they were not used as mere Civil Rites because they were used in Religious Assemblies and some of them annexed thereunto Of this he saith he can never Pag. 16. prove that while Our Saviour was Worshipping his Father he stept aside to wash his Disciples Feet Or that the Primitive Christians were either Kissing or Feasting one another in the Time or Act of Worship as Praying c. It would have become our Author rather to have removed the proofs given of this than to call for more which if he had considered he would have expressed himself with more caution and reverence That washing the Disciples feet had a Spiritual signification I have shewed and so was not unfit for a Religious Solemnity and that it was used in such the Apostle shews Joh. 13. 4. for a further account of which I leave him to the Learned Exercit. 16. n. 22. 24. Casaubon How and when the Holy Kiss was used and how it was called the Seal of Prayer and reconciliation I then shewed and is so fully proved by Dr. Falkner that Libertas l. 2. c. 1. §. 3. there needs no more to be added till that at least be refuted That the Love-Feasts were joyned to and used at the same time as the Lord's Supper not only the Apostle's discourse upon it sheweth but also the change of Names and the giving of one to the other doth confirm it For Theophylact supposeth that the Apostle 1 Cor. 11. 20. calls the Love-Feast by the name of the Lord's Supper And on the contrary Tertullian declares that from hence Apel. c. 39. the Lord's Supper came to be called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 It were easy to heap up Authorities in this kind but that is done to my hand by such as write upon this Custom V. Vines on the Sacram. c. 2. p. 25 c. After I had proved that things Indifferent though not prescribed might be used in Divine Worship from the practice of the Jewish Church and that of Christ and the Apostles I further confirm'd it from the incapacity we should be in of holding Communion with any Church if it were otherwise whether Ancient or Modern But our Author doth endeavour at once to overthrow it For saith he that every particular Christian must Case examined Pag. 21. practise every thing which the Churches practise which he hath Communion with or be concluded to have
not pretend that it is unlawful or a Sin against God to joyn with us in our Service which is the only thing wherein their Conscience can be concerned but only they are not pleased with many things in our Service as fancying them not to be so decent or convenient or not to be so prudently Order'd as they would have them But what of all this Admit the things to be so as they fancy them yet still so long as they do not think there is any Sin in them it cannot go against their Conscience to joyn with any Assembly in which they are Practised Because Conscience as we have often said is not touched is not affected where no Law of God is Transgressed In the fourth Place all those that are kept from our Communion purely upon the Account of Education or acquaintance with Persons that are of another perswasion Those that have nothing to say against our Worship but only that they were bred in another way or those that would joyn with us in it but that they know a great many Religious Godly Persons that do Condemn it and therefore they dare not come at us These now may be very well meaning Men but yet they cannot reasonably Plead Conscience upon this Account for their Separation For it is not a Mans Education or the Example or Opinion of other Men that makes any Action to be a Duty or a Sin but the Law of God Commanding or Forbidding that Action And therefore before I can say that this or the other Action is against my Conscience I must believe that Gods Law hath either in general or in particular either directly or by Consequence made that Action unlawful I grant the Opinions of other Men especially those that are Learned and Pious are always to be listned to in doubtful Cases But then no Mans Opinion can be the Rule of my Conscience nor am I at all concerned in Conscience to follow it any farther than I am convinced that it declares Gods Law to me And therefore sure in this Case of Church Communion I can be but very little concerned to follow any Mans Opinion when both there are so many Persons and those as Learned and as Pious as any others that are of another Opinion and when also the Publick Law which has much more Authority than any private Opinion hath determined what I am to do in the Case So that it is great weakness sillyness not Conscience that prevails with these Men I am speaking of to live in disobedience to the Laws If indeed they be really perswaded in their own Minds that our way of Worshipping God is in any part or instance of it Unlawful or Forbidden let that Perswasion be upon what grounds it will then they may truly say it is against their Conscience to joyn with us But if they be not convinced of this I do not see how the Example or the advice of their Friends and Acquaintance can in the least give them a Title to Plead Conscience for their refusing our Communion Fifthly those that withdraw from the Church upon this Account that our Governours in their Laws and Prescriptions about Gods Worship have not rightly used the Power which they are intrusted with but have exceeded their bounds have made perhaps too great Encroachments upon Christian Liberty or laid more stress than was meet upon Indifferent things These likewise are excluded by the former Rule from Pleading Conscience for their Separation For admit the Law-givers have been to blame in the Exercise of their Power in these matters which yet is sooner said then proved and have really done more then they can answer to God for yet what is this to them The Conscience of the Governours is indeed deeply concerned about these things and they must give an Account to God for the abuse of their Authority if there be any But how this doth concern the Conscience of the Subject is not easily understood So long as what is Commanded or Enjoyned doth not appear to interfere with any Law of God But having said this I fear there is too much reason to add that those who so much stand up for Christian Liberty and would be thought the great Patrons of it do by their endless scruples about Indifferent things and refusing to Obey Authority in such matters in all appearance take the most Effectuall Course to destroy all Christian Liberty in the true Notion of it and to bring in a Religion that shall consist of Touch not Tast not Handle not and such other Uncommanded things Sixthly and lastly to name no more instances All those that can Communicate Occasionally with us in our Prayers and Sacraments As for instance those that when they have a turn to be served when there is an Office or some such thing in the Case can come to Church and receive the Communion but at other times they do not afford us their Presence These are also excluded from pretending to Conscience for their not constantly joyning in Communion with us For if indeed they did believe it was a Sin in them to joyn with us in our Prayers and Sacraments with what Conscience dare they do it at all They ought not for any worldly good to venture upon such an Action as they do believe to be forbidden by Gods Laws But if they do not believe that to joyn in our Communion is a Sinful thing as I dare say none of these Persons do then I will be bold to make the Inference that it cannot be more against their Conscience to do it Thrice than to do it Once and do it constantly than to do it Thrice But let us leave the false Pretenders to Conscience and come to the Case of those who can justly Plead Conscience for their Separation or that can truly say it is against their Conscience to joyn in our Communion Of this sort are all such and none but such as do teally believe that our Communion is unlawful or that they cannot Communicate with us without Sin as I have before proved As for those that only doubt of the Lawfulness of our Communion but are not perswaded that it is unlawful I do not here consider them because they cannot say that it is against their Conscience to Communicate with us any more than they can say that they are bound in Conscience to Communicate with us For they are uncertain as to both these things and are not determined either way But however because these men may justly Plead Conscience upon this Account that they think it is a Sin to joyn with us so long as they doubt of the Lawfulness of our Communion I shall consider their Case afterwards in a particular Discourse upon that Argument Those that I am now concerned with are such as do believe or are perswaded that there is some thing in our Worship which they cannot comply with without Sinning against God And my business is to Examine whether such a Belief or
and a contempt of God to wound and destroy their precious Souls and to provide matter for eternal torments And any thing that discourageth a man in the way of his Duty or renders it more perplexed and troublesome to him may be justly called an offence or grief to him I do not easily understand how this kind of offence can properly be said to be given any other but by some of these ways Now let our debate be determined by these things and let the issue be Whether Conformity can be grieving others upon any of these accounts It cannot I am sure be said or at least nothing like a proof be offered that we offend men hereby because we either do any dishonour to God or to his holy Religion by it It is much truer that we bring honour and reputation to both by it To God by taking the best course we can pitch upon to secure the Solemnity and Decency of his Worship And to Religion by taking care that all the great Services of it be performed decently and to edification and not profaned by the ignorance or temerity of every bold and unskilful undertaker 2. Nor secondly can it be pretended that hereby we let men be spectators of our wickedness and profaneness and so grieve and make sad the hearts of good men while they see us without any fear of God before our eyes I have that charity for the modesty and integrity of our Dissenting Brethren that they will not call our Worship Idolatry and the service of Baal any longer though it cannot be dissembled that a great part of the less-discerning Rabble have been taught by them so to account and think of it But if any have been misled into such an Opinion I would beg them to come and behold our way of publick Worship for their better conviction 3. No nor thirdly do I see how it can be any offence upon its making the way of Religion and Duty more cumbersome or difficult to others than it would be It would be a hard matter for any to shew where he is hindred from being good by seeing others conformable to the Church or what obstruction that casts in his way of Duty I will at any time undertake to shew that it may be an help and advantage to him and a furtherance to him in the way of Religion and Salvation but let or hinderance it can be none If it be pretended that by this we make Religion cumbersome and clog that with Rites and Ceremonies that is a plain and easie thing I grant the Objection were reasonable and the Charge of giving offence undeniable were it either so as it began to be of old in St. Augustin's time or is at present in the Roman-Church clogged with so many antick and garish Ceremonies that it requires a great deal of study to be an exact Ritualist and is a thousand times harder to remember and observe all the Rites and Modes of any Service and Office in Religion than to do the thing a hundred times over But let me beg men to consider whether this Charge can be just against a Church and its Liturgy which enjoyn but three Ceremonies against which the Dissenters themselves can object and these too not in the same but so many distinct Services and which are little more than barely determining those circumstances of Habit and Gesture which are natural and necessary to all our actions If these things can be thought to make the Practice and Services of Religion burthensome then any of the Postures in which our Brethren perform their Worship will make that so too and then the Directory will be as chargeable and faulty in this as the Liturgy These things will be sufficient upon this first way that I proposed to shew that conforming to the Institutions of the Church is not concerned in any thing the Apostle speaks in this place nor can come under his notion of giving offence to any which he speaks against in it I will not deny but that some may be offended and troubled at it It is too visible how much some men are troubled to see a Church constituted among us to behold it protected by Law and Power and to see so great a deference and respect payd unto it and its way of Worship as blessed be God is at present by multitudes both of great and good men I do not doubt but it is greatly maligned and envyed by men and it is little less than a continual trouble and grief to them It is contrary to their private Interest and so long as it is so their designs and aims will never be effected But so ill men are troubled at a good Government and Thieves and Robbers may be vexed that Honest men are secured from them and these may as well cry out that the Laws and the Government are an offence to them as others may that they are offended at the Church and Conformity Sure we know things better than to call every thing a Scandal that any man is vexed or troubled at If we must acknowledge that an offence or forbear doing every thing for fear of Scandal that every ill designing man is pleased to take exceptions against it is more than probable we must do nothing at all nor venture to undertake any thing till we see whether all persons will be pleased with it or not We must not call every thing an offence that pleaseth not the humour of every man for then nothing can avoid that character But this is not enough to say in this matter for it will serve us much further not onely to justifie our selves from this imputation but to reflect it back upon those that charge us For when we have well considered things we shall find that the Scandal will fall upon our Accusers and not Conformity but Separation will be found to be the giving Offence and that in both the notions of giving it that have been named Separation is indeed the Scandal as being both an evil in it self and that which betrays others into many evils If ever there were such a thing as Schism in the world or if the Separation of the Donatists or any that were ever made from the Communion of a National Church were a Schism I think it hath been sufficiently proved on our behalf that the present Separation from our Church is really a Schism And if Schism be a damnable sin and so it is if we will judge either by the Doctrines of the Apostles or their best Successors yea and few sins greater then we shall need no other argument to prove Separation to be indeed the Scandal and that in the greatest notion of Scandal too And we sadly see what great mischiefs it is introductive of what uncharitableness and railing what pride and censoriousness it betrays men into Schism was scarce ever content to be alone Men think it not enough to separate from the Communion of the Church unless they go to justifie their Separation by
the Jews and St. Paul enlargeth their reason in this Chapter because it was a confederating with Devils and being partakers at the table of Devils which he condemns as hugely unbecoming them that eat at the Lords Table vers 20 21. Grotius is so exact in this matter as to tell us there were two ways by which men might eat of things sacrificed to Idols in the sence that the Apostles mean 1. Vel aliquid a Tabulâ c i. e. when at their publick Feasts they sent some part off the Table to be offered solemnly to the Idol and to entitle him to the whole Feast 2. Vel ab Aris ad Mensam defertis or when they took some considerable portion from the Altar and fed upon it at the Table as part of the Idols portion as was hinted before Now for the Christians to be present at and to partake of these things was that which the Apostles forbid in that Canon and which St. Paul also is so sharp upon from 14 to 24 of this Chapter But that which he speaks of afterwards is vastly different from it and plainly means either that part of the Offering which they afterwards spent in their ordinary meals or which was publickly sold afterwards in the Shambles The first of these is easily understood and was common among them to offer some part of the Sacrifice to their Idols and to reserve the rest for their own common use not looking upon it as sacred and the Idols portion as in some great and solemn Sacrifices they did but that which was truly their own and at their own disposal especially having given a part of it to their Gods The other i. e. what was sold in the Shamble◠Criticks give two accounts of 1. It was either that which the Butcher sold part of which he himself had offered to the Idol before he brought the rest to the Shambles Vel à Mà cellario qui ante quam ad marcellum carnes ferret aliquid de Aram in dedisset 2. Or that part which belonged to the Priests and which they often sold having it's probable either more than they could spend themselves or perhaps having a mind to exchange it for other meat which they might purchase with the money they sold it for Vel à Sacerdotibus qui partes quae ipsis cederent venderent saith the same Author Now these were the meats about which the Apostles had made no order at all So that men were at their liberty to buy and eat them if they pleased without asking any questions or troubling themselves with any scruples of Conscience about them And which the Apostle commands them to abstain then onely from when knowing what they were their eating them might wound the Conscience of another and they might give offence thereby either to the Jews or to the Gentiles or to the Church of God To the Jews by seeing them make so little a matter of Idolatry to the Gentiles by encouraging and confirming them in that Idolatry which they ought by all means to seek to wean them from and to the Church of God by seeing them so careless and regardless of the good and benefit of others and without all charity to them By all which I hope it is sufficiently clear that these things to which this Speech relates were not onely indifferent in their nature but undetermined also as to their use no Law having passed one way or other upon them Now this makes them vastly different from the things scrupled among us and by conformity to which Offence is pretended to be given For the use of these is already determined and several Laws both of the Church and State both of the Spiritual and Temporal power have passed upon them So that how indifferent soever they may be in themselves yet it is not indifferent to us whether we observe them or not but it is now matter of Obedience and plain Duty and these things are tied upon the Conscience as strongly as any matter of humane command is or can be And therefore in these we cannot shew favour and indulgence to others if we would for we our selves are under Authority and bound up by the Laws of those above us We have not the power of doing or forbearing nor can we now abstain for fear of offending another man's Conscience without grievously wounding and worse offending of our own and whatever may be the consequence of our Conformity as to another man yet we certainly Know the neglect of it will be a downright sin and a grievous guilt unto our selves So that in this matter the fear of giving offence to others is impertinent a Snare and a direct Temptation and as improperly urged against Conformity as it would be against any other Duty how necessary soever to tell us that there are a great many men that will be offended with our doing of it In this and all such cases we stand immediately responsible unto God and may justly retort that so much abused and mistaken Apology of the Apostles Whether it be not right to obey God rather than regard men judge ye 2. But there is a second thing yet incumbent upon me and that is to shew that supposing the Text were pertinently urged against Conformity and there were a real possibility of giving offence by it yet it would not serve that purpose that it is produced for by our Dissenting Brethren but on the contrary make very much against them And this I shall endeavour to make good by considering who the persons are that the Apostle here cautions us against giving offence unto not onely the Jews nor onely the Gentiles nor both these onely but the Church of God From whence before I come to the main Improvement of this place against the purpose and practice of our Dissenting Brethren we may take occasion to consider what the object of Scandal is and who they are that men ought especially to regard in their cares not to give it At the time of the Apostles writing this there were three different sorts of men that might be offended with eating things offered to Idols the Jews the Gentiles and the body of Christians which he here calls the Church of God In analogy to which there are and always will be different Parties among which men converse Upon which account it will concern us to enquire what our respects to them in this matter ought to be and whether we ought to make any difference among them And this we may resolve our selves in by considering the Cases that concern us which I think are onely these two 1. When we perceive or have reason to think that what we are going to do will offend all Parties equally then no doubt but we ought to forbear it This was plainly the case here The Jews might be prejudiced against Christianity by this practice seeing its Professors make so little a matter of Idolatry which their Law so strictly prohibited and God had always declared himself so
severe against The Gentiles might be encouraged and confirmed in their Idolatry by feeing men of the most holy Religion as they called themselves consent with them in it And the Church might be offended too by seeing her Members have so little a regard to her Constitutions and the plain Canons of her great Founders And therefore they ought to be extreamly careful and cautious what they did in this nice point and so ought we always to be in such cases 2. But secondly it may so happen that what we do may onely offend some These different Parties may have different apprehensions of the same thing Some may think it lawful or a Duty others may scruple it or condemn it as a sin Now in this case it will concern us to consider how we ought to govern our selves and our actions and what difference to make in our respects to men And the Apostles Rule in this Text will be a safe measure and direction to us especially it Ecumenius his Note be true as it commonly is in all places where a Climax or Gradation is used as it seems plainly to be in this place His words are these 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. consider what the Apostle saith how he puts the chief thing last and makes giving offence to the Church of God that which especially we ought to have a care of and he gives this reason for the equity of this Rule 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 it concerns us to endeavour to win others unto the Faith but by no means to offend and grieve those that already profess it And certainly nothing can be more just and reasonable than this is So that the sum of this advice is plainly this You ought as near as you can to do nothing to offend any but however take care not to offend the Church You ough to have a charitable respect to all particular persons of what denomination soever whether Jews or Gentiles but especially to the Church and never to give offence to that by any thing that you do Now this will be a clear guide to us in our present case and not onely acquit Conformity from all guilt of Scandal but cast it wholly upon Separation and refusing to comply with the present Constitutions of the Church since that is a direct giving offence to those which the Apostle chiefly respects in this prohibition i. e. the Church of God I stay not now to give the notion of the Church I doubt not but all contending Parties understand that competently well Nor to prove the present national Church of England to be justly called the Church of God this God be thanked is fully done against both the opposite Factions against her those that call her Heretical or Schismatical on one hand and those that reproach her as Popish and Antichristian on the other Were her present Constitutions to be tried by Apostolical and Primitive practice her Faith to be judged by that of the first Centuries and four most truly General-Councils or her Liturgy and Discipline her Rites Ceremonies and way of publick Worship to be compared with what we can collect and judge of those purest times Or were she to stand or fall by the judgement and suffrages of the most able and learned of Protestant Divines abroad since the Reformation she would not onely be justified but commended not onely pass for a true and sound part of Christs Church but the most sound and Orthodox the most truly Primitive and Apostolical of any at this day on the face of the earth But I wave all this and proceed to apply this Advice and Rule of St. Paul to our own Case as it is at this day with respect to Scandal and the danger of it by conforming to the Church which is plainly this The Church of England having reformed it self from those Corruptions that had sullied the truth and beauty of Christian Doctrine and Worship not by Noise and Tumult and popular Faction which too much influenced some forein Reformations but upon grave and sober advice with the concurrence of the lawful Civil Power digested her Doctrinals into such a number of Articles as she judged most consonant to the Faith and Doctrine of the Apostles and first Councils established such a Form of Worship as upon most diligent enquiry and search she found most agreeable to the practice of pure and Primitive Ages and retained onely such Rites and Usages as she found most ancient and freest from any just and reasonable Exceptions and Abuses All these thus constituted and framed she imposeth as Conditions of her Communion and requires Conformity unto of all her Members She will be grievously offended if any of her Children reject and comply not with this Constitution as knowing her Knowledge and Integirty questioned her Authority despised and that Power that hath confirmed all this contemned by so doing On the other hand there are some particular men some Hereticks some Schismaticks some either designing or less instructed persons that declare themselves offended by conforming to this Constitution The question now is how we shall govern our selves and which of these Considerations we will permit to sway us Whether respect to the Church and just Authority and fear of giving offence thereto shall engage us to conform or whether respect to some private persons and fear of offending and angring them shall cause us to cast off all regard to those Laws and Constitutions and all care to comply with them This is the plain Case and were there no other Considerations to determine us when yet there are many I would desire nothing plainer than the direction of the Apostle in this Text where he tells us that the persons we ought chiefly to have a care not to give offence unto are the Church of God If some private persons and the Church come in competition and we must needs offend some we ought to have a greater respect to the Church than unto them And were it truly giving them offence which yet it is not yet were it so I say we ought not to attend so to that Consideration as to cast off all regard and care to the Church of Christ This I think is a Rule so very reasonable at the very hearing of and so fair upon its own reasons that I do not know whether it be really worth while to go to adde any strength to it We might venture it to its own strength to stand or fall and may challenge any one to assault or undertake it Yet however I shall proceed to enlarge a little more upon it and to adde some Considerations which may make it something more popularly plain and convincing 1. And first I desire to have it fairly considered whether we ought not to have at least as fair a respect to the Church of God as to any private persons of what character or denomination soever I do not see upon what reasons any person can deny this to me especially in a case where we
to grieve or offend some private persons than to trouble and disturb and endanger the Constitution of the whole Church which we must needs do if at every private persons pleasure we take upon us a liberty to dispense with the Commands and Institutions of it And this is a Rule that not only all wise Nations but even all men still act by in Cases that are any way like to this All Nations prefer the Publick good before the Private and think it much better that some single persons suffer inconvenience than that the Publick be endangered and have ever set the worst Characters upon those men that have sacrificed the good of their Country to their own private Ambition and Revenge and never regarded what Confusion and Mischief thus bring upon it so they may please and gratifie their own Passions All the world hath ever hated and reproached these as Monsters of men and I hope we in time shall learn to do so also Nay we see nothing more common among the wisest Nations than to punish single persons for the correction and good of the whole and many times to cut off those whose crimes in their own nature were not so great and who seemed fairly capable of mercy onely to be Examples and Warnings to others and to deter them from any thing by which the Publick might be endangered and which were but the least steps to the dissolution of its Government And we shall see all men act by this Rule too in their own concerns even any of our dissenting Brethren themselves They do not suffer every particular person to neglect and speak against their establishments but chuse rather to punish and molest them than endanger their whole Constitution And they prefer their own Body and the health of it before any particular Member they readily gash and cut one to save all yea and will have a putrid and mortified Member taken off rather than it shall endanger the good of the whole Body So true is it that the more Publick good ought to be preferred to the more private and that all men naturally yield a greater respect to the whole Society than they do to any single Member of it And that the same Rule ought to be observed by us in our present Case of giving Offence I shall endeavour to make evident both by plain Warrant of Scripture and by some proper Considerations which all men allow the reasonableness of in other cases 1. I begin first with searching what warrant for this we can find in holy Scripture either in the Precepts and Directions of it or in the Lives and Actions of those who are proposed there to our imitation And first as for Precept and Direction I think that of St. Paul Gal. 6. 10. to be very plain and a firm foundation for what I am upon As we have therefore opportunity let us do good to all especially to those of the houshold of faith Where it is plain the Apostle not only allows but enjoyns us to make a difference in our Charity and to shew this upon all occasions rather to the houshold of Faith i. e. to the Church of God than to any other person or persons whatsoever This place is full and directly comes up to our present Case and the pretences made about it For Charity is as direct and plain a duty as the not giving offence it is as strictly enjoyned as the other and the neglect of Charity is as severely threatned as the giving Offence is or can be And yet for all this when the Church of Christ and any other persons whatever come in competition and are Candidates for our Charity we ought to shew it unto that and not unto these And the same reasons that determine thus our Charity will determine as well our care of not giving Offence especially since this is a proper and principal act of Charity and no one that I know of more so This will be a sufficient answer to all the tragical stories of the sin of Scandal and the great necessity of not giving it to any We are expresly charged not to give Offence and so we are expresly charged above all things to put on Charity In giving Offence we must have a regard to the meanest person in the Church and a woe is denounced against him that offends a little one And so we are in charity commanded too and a woe threatned to him that shuts up his bowels of Compassion from the meanest servant of God Yea this is commanded even to the creatures below us And yet for all this we must prefer the Church before all others and if it should so happen that Charity could not be shewed unto both we ought to determine our respects and Charity to the Church and to suspend the acts of it unto the others and must do so too in our Charity of not offending or grieving the Church unless some disproportion could be shewed in this from the other acts of Charity or some reasons here to alter the case which I am very sure cannot This place alone if there were none others sufficiently determines this Case And that we are warranted also by the Precedents of the New Testament to act by this Rule the actions of those great men whose lives are there recorded for our imitation do shew us The Life of our blessed Saviour is a good example for us in this as well as in all other instances of duty that are incumbent on us We find him in every thing paying a mighty deference to the Church of the Jews and studiously avoiding to give any displeasure or offence unto them and this in many things which they themselves had introduced without any express Warrant or Command from God as were easie to shew and hath been by many learned men of late But there is one instance which comes pretty well up to our present case and that is his paying Tribute of which you have the story Matth. 17. 27. there is no doubt but by this he might give some offence in this loose notion of offence i. e. occasion some trouble in his followers by owning himself a stranger and paying Tribute as such nevertheless he chose to do that rather than to give any offence to the Publick Notwithstanding that we offend them not c. Whether the persons he was so careful here not to offend were the Roman Government or the Church of the Jews it is all one to our present Case If it were the Church of the Jews then we see he was more careful not to offend them than his own Followers But if it were the Government of the Romans it concludes more strongly for us and for our present Case where the Government is Christian and that of the Church and of the Kingdom one and the same where we cannot offend the Church but we must offend the Government and Civil Power too under whose protection and favour it is established and whose Canons it hath adopted
there is no doubt but they may be composed with the same advantage of expression and pronounced with the same affection as the Prayers of our own extempore composure and if they are so they will have the same advantage of the musick of speech to excite the Devotions of the People but as for novelty of method and expression that may indeed entertain their minds and divert them from roving out to other objects but even this entertainment is a roving and excursion of their minds from the acts of Prayer which while they are amused with the novelty of the phrase and method of the Prayer can be no more intent on the devotion of it than while they are busied about secular objects and affairs And indeed that seeming devotion that is raised in the minds of the People by the gingling of the Ministers words about their fancies is generally false and counterfeit for as words do naturally impress the fancy so the fancy doth naturally excite the sensitive affections so that when the affections are excited meerly by the art and musick of the words of Prayer it is not Devotion but Mechanism for there is no doubt but men may be and many times are strangely affected with the words of Prayer when they have not the least spark of true devotion to the matter of it for when they fancy the matter of Prayer and are affected with it meerly for the sake of the words the movement of their affection will cease as soon as the impression is worn out which the words make upon their fancies and if in the mean time they happen to hear any other matter exprest in the same affectionate words they will in all probability be as much affected with it as they are now with the matter of Prayer but if the mind be truly devout and doth affect the matter of Prayer for it self and not for the sake of the words I cannot imagin how new words should any way advantage its devotion unless they were to express new matter Since therefore the matter of publick Prayer neither is nor ought to be new unless it be upon extraordinary publick emergencies what colour of reason can there be assign'd why the devotion of the hearers should be more affected with it in new words than in old supposing it be express'd and pronounc'd with the same propriety and affection in both And thus I have shewn that those advantages of publick Devotion which are pretended to be peculiar to conceiv'd Prayers are for the most part imaginary and that so far forth as they are real they are more peculiar to Forms of Prayer I proceed to the third and last enquiry viz. 3. Whether there are not sundry advantages of publick Devotion peculiar to Forms of Prayer which conceived Prayers cannot pretend to That there are I do affirm and will indeavour to prove by these following Instances 1. One great advantage that is peculiar to publick Forms of Prayer is That the People may address themselves to them with greater preparation for if they please they may peruse the words before-hand and consider the sense and matter of them and indeavour to affect their minds with it as for instance when I know before-hand what words my sins will be confest in when I am to joyn in the publick Devotions I can consider before-hand the sense and meaning of them and prepare such affections as are sutable to them as suppose the confession be that of our Church's Liturgy wherein we begin with Almighty and most merciful Father I can consider the meaning of these words before I come to Church and from the consideration of God's almighty and most merciful nature excite my affections to an awful dread of his power and an ingenuous sense of his mercy by which when I come to joyn with these words in the publick confession I shall be duely affected with the sense of them and my soul will be ready melted into all that filial sorrow and humiliation for my sin which the consideration that I have offended by it an Almighty and most merciful Father suggests and so if I consider and apply before-hand all the rest of the confession I shall thereby tune and set my affections to the sense and matter of each particular phrase and expression in it which 't will be impossible for me to do when I am to joyn with an extempore Prayer because I cannot know before-hand what the phrases and expressions of it will be besides which upon the words of publick Forms there may be written excellent Paraphrases and Meditations such as is that of the Companion to the Temple by reading of which the Devotions of the People may be very much excited and improved which is such an advantage as the words of extempore Prayer will not admit of 2. Another advantage peculiar to publick Forms is That in joining with them the People may pray with more understanding than they can well be supposed to do in conceiv'd and extempore Prayer wherein generally the Minister is forc'd to make use of such words and expressions as come first to hand having not leisure enough to pick and choose his words without making long and undecent pauses and interruptions so that sometimes he is fain to use a hard word which perhaps not half the People understand because an easier doth not come to his mind and sometimes to intangle his expressions with long Parentheses sometimes to darken his matter with far fetch'd Metaphors or to express it by halfs in broken Sentences and sometimes to run out his Periods to an inordinate length by which the sense of them is very much clouded and obscur'd these and such like inconveniences all the World knows do very commonly attend extempore Effusions and let a mans fancy and tongue be never so fluent and voluble he can never be so secure of expressing himself intelligibly to the People when he prayers extempore as he might be if he took time enough before-hand to choose his words and form his expressions so that the People may be much more secure of understanding what they pray for when they joyn with a Form than when they joyn with an extempore Prayer for to be sure in composing publick Forms more care will be taken of the phrase that the words may fit the matter and express it intelligibly to the People than there can be in extempore Prayer which admits of no long consideration no alteration upon second thoughts no after-scanning or revisal as Forms of Prayer do but it must pass as it happens whether it be intelligible or no by reason of which those who occupy the room of the unlearned are many times forc'd to break off praying for want of understanding what the words and expressions of the Prayer mean for whether the Prayer be spoken in an unknown Tongue or in words that are unintelligible to the People it is all one to them for still their understanding is unfruitful and so long their devotion must
all agree doth in Scripture frequently signifie an Office and that in both these Texts it is so to be understood is evident because those things which the Apostles exhort them to are the proper acts and exercises of those several Offices and Capacities of Bishops Presbyters Deacons and rich men and the Argument by which they exhort them is that they had receiv'd the proper Gifts to which these acts appertain So that if by these Gifts we understand abilities to perform those acts we shall force the Argument to prove too much viz. that it is the duty of every one to Rule and Teach and Minister and Prophesie that hath receiv'd an ability to do so whereas in truth none can have a right to perform these acts as all sober Dissenters will acknowledge but onely such as are vested with the Offices to which they appertain Wherefore either this Argument having received Gifts must oblige all men to rule c. that are able to do so or else by Gifts must be meant the Offices to which those acts of ruling c. belong But you will say 'T is evident that by some of these Gifts must be meant the ability of doing the acts here specifi'd as particularly that of distributing to the Poor and shewing Mercy I answer That as for these acts the meer ability to relieve the poor and miserable not onely authorizes but obliges us to them and by putting it in our power God doth as much make it our Office to relieve them as if he had set us apart to it by a solemn Ordination and because the ability here confers the Office the Gift though it signifies the Office must necessarily include the ability too but in all those other particulars where the Office and Ability are distinct things the Gift must signifie the Office distinct from the Ability because here it being the Office and not the Ability that authorizes and obliges us to perform the acts the necessity of performing the acts must be argued from the Office and not from the Ability So then if by the Gifts here spoken of onely such and such Offices are intended by what consequence doth it follow that because those who are vested with these Offices are here exhorted faithfully to discharge them therefore those who are able to pray extempore are hereby obliged to do so Our Brethren may as well argue from these words that all those who are able to rule are obliged to exercise the Episcopal Office as that those who are able to pray extempore are obliged to pray extempore But then thirdly and lastly I answer That supposing that by these Gifts were not meant Offices but onely Abilities yet all that can hence be argued is that those who have them are obliged to exercise them so far forth as is consistent with edification for so the Apostle exhorts That all things be done to edification and to be sure what he exhorts to in one Text doth not at all clash with what he exhorts in another and even of those extraordinary Gifts that were poured out in the Primitive times the Apostle declares 1 Cor. 14. that those who had them were no farther obliged to use them in the Church than the use of them tended to edification vers 2 6 18 19. and particularly for the Gift of Tongues though it was immediately inspired he totally forbids them the use and exercise of it where there was no interpreter vers 23 27 28. If then we are not to exercise our Gifts meerly because they are Gifts but because the exercise of them tends to Edification and if when they do not tend to it we are to suspend the exercise of them as it 's plain we are by this instance of the Gift of Tongues then although by the Gifts mention'd in the above-nam'd Text were meant Abilities and not Offices yet it doth not follow that those who have an ability to pray extempore should therefore be obliged to exercise it any further than as it tends to Edification and therefore if praying by a Form in publick Worship be more for the publick Edification and that it is hath been proved Part 1. Case 3. we are no more oblig'd to pray extempore though we have an ability to do so than he who had the Gift of Tongues was to exercise his Gift when he could not edifie the publick by it and if we ought to suspend the exercise of our Gift when it is not at all edifying at least we are not obliged to exercise it when we may perform the same thing without exercising it in a more edifying manner Having thus shewn the insufficiency of those Scriptures which our Brethren urge to prove that those who are able to pray extempore are oblig'd to do so it remains that hitherto no discovery can be made of any Command of Scripture by which we are oblig'd to pray vocally by our own gift or ability of expression for upon the utmost enquiry I can make these which I have answer'd are the onely Texts which with any shew of argument our Brethren produce to this purpose Supposing therefore it were true that nothing ought to be admitted into God's Worship but what he hath commanded yet this makes a great deal more against praying by our own Gift and in our own words and expressions than it doth against praying by a Form because there are express Commands for praying in some cases by a Form but there is no Command at all for praying by our own Gifts Since therefore there are sundry instances of God's prescribing Forms of Prayer and since no instance can be given of his requiring us to pray by our own Gifts and Abilities this certainly is a sufficient Scripture-warrant of the lawfulness of worshipping him by Forms I proceed to the second Enquiry included in this Case and that is Whether there be any Warrant for the use of Forms in pure Antiquity For it is pretended by some of our Brethren that in the primitive Ages of the Church all publick Prayers were perform'd by the Gifts and Abilities of him that minister'd and that there was no such things as Forms admitted into their publick Worship for the proof of which bold Assertion they onely urge two or three doubtful Authorities against a whole current of plain and express Testimonies to the contrary In the prosecution therefore of this Enquiry I shall endeavour 1. To answer those Authorities which are objected by our Brethren against the use of Forms in the Primitive Ages 2. To prove that they were used in those Ages by a short Historical Account of the Matter of Fact The first Authority which they object against the Primitive use of Forms of Prayer is that of Justin Martyr (a) (a) (a) Apol. 2. p. 98. who tells us that at the Communion the Chief Minister did send forth Prayers and Thanksgivings 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is say they according to his ability from whence they infer that in Justin Martyr's days
together Then Seven more Saints Then all the Bishops and Confessors together Then all the Holy Doctors Then Five more of their own great Saints by Name Then all the Holy Priests and Levites Then all the Holy Monks and Hermites Then Seven She Saints by Name Then all the Holy Virgins and Widows And Lastly All the He and She Saints together But the brevity I am confined to in this Discourse will not permit me to abide any longer upon this Argument of the vast distance between these two Churches in reference to their Publick Prayers and Offices Fourthly We proceed to shew that there is also no small distance between the Church of England and that of Rome in reference to the Books they receive for Canonical This will be Immediately dispatched For no more is to be said upon this subject but that whereas the Church of Rome takes all the Apocryphal Books into her Canon the Church of England like all other Protestant Churches receives only those Books of the Old and New Testament for Canonical Scripture as she declares in her Sixth Article of whose Authority there was never any doubt in the Church And she declareth concerning the Apocryphal Books in the same Article citing St. Hierom for her Authority That the Church doth read them for Example of life and Instruction of manners but yet it doth not apply them to Establish any Doctrine And after the example of the Primitive Church no more doth ours and appoints the reading some of them only upon the foresaid Account In the Fifth and Last place The Church of England is at the greatest distance possible from the Church of Rome in reference to the Authority on which they each found their whole Religion As to the Church of Rome she makes her own Infallibility the Foundation of Faith For 1. Our belief of the Divine Authority of the Holy Scriptures themselves must according to her Doctrine be founded upon her infallible Testimony 2. As to that Prodigious deal which she hath added of her own to the Doctrines and Precepts of the Holy Scriptures and which she makes as necessary to be believed and practised as any matters of Faith and Practice contained in the Scriptures and more necessary too than many of them the Authority of those things is founded upon her unwritten Traditions and the Decrees of her Councils which she will have to be no less inspired by the Holy Ghost than were the Prophets and Apostles themselves But Contrariwise the Church of England doth 1. Build the whole of her Religion upon the Sole Authority of Divine Revelation in the Holy Scriptures And therefore she takes every jot thereof out of the Bible She makes the Scriptures the Complete Rule of her Faith and of her Practice too in all matters necessary to Salvation that is in all the parts or Religion nor is there any Genuine Son of this Church that maketh any thing a part of his Religion that is not plainly contained in the Bible Let us see what our Church declareth to this purpose in her 16 Article viz. That Holy Scripture containeth all things necessary to Salvation so that whatsoever is not read therein nor may be proved thereby is not to be required of any Man that it should be believed as an Article of Faith or be thought requisite or necessary to Salvation So that as Mr. Chillingworth saith THE BIBLE THE BIBLE IS THE RELIGION OF PROTESTANTS So you see the Bible is the Religion of the Protestant Church of England Nor doth she fetch one Tittle of her Religion either out of unwritten Traditions or Decrees of Councils Notwithstanding she hath a great Reverence for those Councils which were not a Company of Bishops and Priests of the Popes packing to serve his purposes and which have best deserved the Name of General Councils especially the Four first yet her Reverence of them consisteth not in any opinion of their Infallibility As appears by Article 14. General Councils may not be gathered together without the Commandment and Will of Princes and when they be gathered together for as much as they be an Assembly of Men whereof all be not Governed with the Spirit and Word of God they may Err and sometimes have Erred even in things pertaining unto God Wherefore things ordained by them as necessary to Salvation have neither Strength nor Authority unless it may be declared that is manifestly proved that they be taken out of Holy Scripture Let us see again how our Church speaks of the matter in hand Article 20. The Church hath Power to decree Rites or Ceremonies and Authority in Controversies of Faith And yet it is not Lawful for the Church to Ordain any thing that is contrary to Gods Word Written neither may it so Expound one place of Scripture that it be Repugnant to another Wherefore although the Church be a Witness and Keeper of Holy Writ that is as the Jewish Church was so of the Canon of the Old Testament by whose Tradition alone it could be known what Books were Canonical and what not so the Catholick Christian Church from Christ and his Apostles downwards is so of the Canon of the New Yet as it ought not to decree any thing against the same so besides the same ought it not to inforce any thing to be believed for necessity of Salvation If it be asked who is to Judge what is agreeable or contrary to Holy Writ 't is manifest that Our Church leaves it to every Man to Judge for himself But 't is Objected that 't is to be acknowledged that if the Church only claimed a Power to Decree Rites and Ceremonies that is according to the general Rules of doing all things Decently and Orderly and to Edification which Power all Churches have ever Exercised this may well enough consist with private Persons Liberty to Judge for themselves but 't is also said in the now Cited Article that the Church hath Authority in Controversies of Faith and accordingly Our Church hath Publisht 39 Articles and requires of the Clergy c. Subscription to them To this we answer that we shall make one Article Egregiously to Contradict another and one and the same to Contradict it self if we understand by the Authority in Controversies of Faith which Our Church acknowledges all Churches to have any more than Authority to Oblige their Members to outward Submission when their Decisions are such as Contradict not any of the Essentials of our Religion whether they be Articles of Faith or Rules of Life not an Authority to Oblige them to assent to their Decrees as infallibly true But it is necessary to the maintaining of Peace that all Churches should be invested with a Power to bind their Members to outward submission in the Case aforesaid that is when their supposed Errors are not of that Moment as that 't is of more pernicious Consequence to bear with them than to break the Peace of the Church by opposing them And as to the fore-mentioned
them should in tract of time creep upon us we should certainly be much the better Christians for the observation of our Holy-days Mr. Calvin saith In Festis non recipiendis cuperem vos esse Constantiores c. I could wish In Epist ad Monsbel-gardenses p. 81 82. that you would be more constant in your not receiving Festivals but so as not to contend and make a stir about all but about those onely which nothing at all tend to Edification and which have a manifest appearance of Superstition c. And he instanceth in those Days which Popery dedicates to the Celebrating of the immaculate Conception of the Virgin Mary and of her Assumption on which Holy-days nothing he saith can be said in the Pulpit by a servant of God besides exposing the folly of those who have invented them And in another Epistle Caeterùm cùm Festi dies hîc In Epist ad Hallerum abrogati c. Moreover whereas some of your Country are much offended at the Abrogation of Holy-days among us and 't is likely that much odious talk is spread about it And I make account that I am made the Author of this whole matter and that by the Ignorant as well as Malicious I can solemnly testifie of my self that this was done without my knowledge o desire c. Before I ever came into the City there was no Holy-day at all observed besides the Lords day those which are Celebrated by you were taken away by that same Law of the People which banisht me and Farel And 't was rather Tumultuously extorted by the violence of Wicked Men than decreed legally Vpon my return I obtained this temper or mean that Christmass-day should be observed after your manner but upon the other days extraordinary supplications should be made the Shops being kept shut in the Morning but after Dinner every one should go about his own Business And no doubt the Governours of our Church would be abundantly satisfied with such an observation of most of our Holy-days as Mr. Calvin ordered at Geneva would the People be generally so far conformable And thus I have I hope sufficiently shewed that our Church's Symbolizing in this Rite too with the Church of Rome no otherwise than she doth can be no colour for Separation It may be objected that notwithstanding our having several times cited Mr. Calvin for the unlawfulness of Separation from the Church of England on the account of her Symbolizing as she doth with the Church of Rome yet he calleth her Ceremonies tolerabiles ineptiae tolerable fooleries which would make one think that he was not in earnest in calling them tolerable fooling in the Worship of God being no doubt intolerable In Answer hereto let Mr. Calvin account for his joining ineptiae tolerabiles together but the instances he gives of things he so censured were such as the Liturgy was cleared of in the amendment of it under Queen Elizabeth viz. Prayers for the dead that is that they might have a happy Resurrection not such Prayers as supposed Purgatory Chrism at Baptism and Extreme Vnction And besides he saith he was informed by Mr. Knox of several other Popish Ceremonies that were retained viz. the Use of Wax Candles divers Crossings at the Communion c. which Information was not true And now how happy should we think our selves would our Brethren at length be perswaded to cease fearing where no fear is as also to fear what is really very frightful namely the guilt of so great a sin as that of Schism or making and continuing a breach in the Church by Separation without just cause The greatness of which sin none have more aggravated than Mr. Calvin and several of our old Non-conformists who have also zealously born their Testimony against Separation from the Church of England and accordingly did themselves hold Communion there with generally viz. all the Presbyterian Party to their dying day though they could not Conform as Ministers And there is another very formidable Evil too which I wish more of our Bretheren had a greater sense of viz. the advantage that our Common Enemy is too like to make of our Sad Divisions and being crumbled into so many Sects and Parties and hath already made in order to their final accomplishing their designs upon us The truth on 't is they themselves have had the main hand in those Divisions they so upbraid us with of which we have abundant Evidence having most industriously followed that advice of the famous Jesuit Campanella viz. There is no such effectual Jam verò ad enervandos Anglos nihil tam conducit quà m dissensio discordia inter illos excitata perpetuóque nutrita Quod citò occasiones meliores suppeditabit Camp de Mon. Hisp p. 304. Amstel way to weaken the English as to stir up strife and discord among them and still to feed it This will quickly put into our hands very fair advantages and opportunities Their main spight is at the Church of England as being well aware that it hath ever since the Reformation been their most formidable Enemy and the most impregnable Bulwark in all Christendom against the mighty Power and Policy of their Church of Rome What a madness therefore is it in hearty Protestants to joyn with those People in laying this Church as low as ever they are able And by contending with our Church about innocent if not commendable things upon the account of her Symbolizing in them with the Church of Rome eminently to endanger the opening such a breach as shall let in all her Heresies Superstitions and Idolatries among us Which God in his infinite Mercy prevent by causing us to live more answerably to the happy Means and Opportunities we now enjoy by quenching our as unreasonable as unchristian fierce Feuds and Animosities and by making our Church like Jerusalem of old a City compact together and at Vnity within it self Amen ERRATA PAge 4. line 9. read unction p. 8. l. 14. r. the Mass p. 10. l. 8. r. Homilies especially p. 15. l. 1. r. others p. 32. l. 21. r. dispensation FINIS A DEFENCE OF THE RESOLUTION OF THIS CASE VIZ. Whether the Church of England's Symbolizing so far as it doth with the Church of Rome makes it Unlawfull to hold Communion with the Church of England In Answer to a Book Intituled A Modest Examination OF THAT RESOLUTION LONDON Printed by J. H. for B. Aylmer at the Three Pigeons against the Royal Exchange in Cornhill 1684. A DEFENCE OF THE Resolution c. SIR I who know the Author of the Book which hath given you this trouble better than any man do conclude that you are not more a stranger to him than he is to you from the Epithets you so frequently bestow upon him throughout your Papers except you do it which I would not be so uncharitable as to think by way of Irony In your First Paragraph you express a Liking of the Complexion of his Book
hath consequently left the particular Gesture to the Determination of the Church a Gesture being in the general necessary Your answer is Our Saviour bad his Disciples Baptize but saith nothing of Water nor from what Fountain or River hath he therefore left it to the Churches determination that Ministers shall Baptize onely with Rose-water or Water fetched from the River Truly Sir a smile is the best Reply that is due to this But do you in sober sadness then think that nothing is left by Christ to the Churches Determination neither place nor time nor any other Circumstance If this be not wild Fanaticism there is no such thing in nature and I know you 'll acknowledge it But if the Church may determine the place of publick worship and the times of day when to meet because our Lord hath not determined such particulars why may not the Church determine particular Gestures when they are not by him determined And can you think Sir that it is well done after this manner to Ridicule the Churche's Power No I know you cannot think so and therefore this was an hasty Slip from your Pen which you will not upon Second thoughts justifie You say at the Bottom of this page That you do not think what our Author mentions pag. 50. of the Ring in Marriage worth the speaking to Because Dissenters generally believe the Ring a Civil Pledg c. I wish they universally thought so and if they do not as time was when you know they did not I know not why you should add that How it comes into our debate you cannot tell Next you spend the best part of two pages upon our Holy-days which is our Author's last instance of Rites which Dissenters are offended with upon the account of our Symbolizing in them with the Church of Rome And 1. You say That it is God's Prerogative alone to make a day Holy i. e. such as it shall be sinfull for any to labour in But do you think that God 's Vicegerents have not power given them to set apart days to a holy use And in any other sense we do not think that any day is capable of being made Holy 'T is manifest from what follows that you do not think so And if you do not can you think that our Governours have no power to forbid ordinary Labour upon those days which they have so set apart And if they have this power can you think it lawfull to disobey those laws of theirs that prohibit working on those days And if this be not lawfull then I fear 't is Sinfull 2. You say That God's Revelation of his Will for solemn Praises upon the Receipt of Signal Mercies or solemn Prayers in times of great Distress justifieth Magistrates or Churches in setting apart in such Cases Days for Praise and Prayers Then I hope the Magistrates or the Church have power to make a day Holy and Consequently they may forbid opening of Shops and Ordinary labour on such a day And therefore 't is sinfull to disobey them herein 3. You say That all such days ought to be intirely spent in Religious Exercises But notwithstanding you are so dogmatical in this thing I am Confident upon second thoughts you 'll acknowledge you were too rash For you cannot really think what you assert with such Confidence except you can find in your heart to reprove Ringing of Bells and innocent Recreations after Sermon on the Fifth of November as Profanations of that Holy-day And I hope we may make bold to call that day a Holy-day it being so according to your own Concession in the foregoing particular 4. You say That to spend an hour of such a Day in Prayer and all the rest in Idleness Drinking Revelling Gaming c. is not to keep a Holy but a Licentious Day No body doubts this But are you obliged by our Church so to spend Her Holy-days And if you are not but may keep them as strictly as you please what a strange objection is this against the lawfulness of observing them 5. You say That there is no need of keeping any such days in Commemoration of the Birth Death Resurrection or Ascension of Christ because God hath appointed fifty two every year for that purpose I answer if you mean by no need that there is no absolute necessity of the Churches setting apart days for the Commemoration of Christ 's Birth Death c. we will perhaps grant it but what then Doth it thence follow that the well observing such days doth not tend to our Edification to the more building us up in our holy Faith and encrease in Holiness you dare not say or think so But I say farther that the well observing them is of admirable use And nothing would tend more to our Growth in all the Christian Vertues than besides the general Meditation on the Birth Death Resurrection and Ascension of our Lord every Lord's day to set days apart for the particular Meditation on Each of these Grand Mysteries of our Religion There being in each of them more than enough to employ a whole day in admiring thoughts of it and in praises to God for it and in making Applications of it to our Spiritual Advantage And therefore I am certain you would spend your pains to far better purpose if instead of prejudicing Peoples minds against the observance of such days you would Excite them like the good Fathers of the Primitive Church to the well observing and making the best improvement of them The generality God knows of Professors of Christianity are too too carelesly and irreligiously disposed of themselves to need to be disswaded from the using of any helps to their being made more devout and better People And where there is one among us that is apt to be too superstitiously inclined I fear there are some hundreds who are more enclined to the other Extreme that of profaneness But our Author hath sufficiently shewed that the Popish Superstitions are perfectly removed by our Church from the Observation of Holy-days And no man that observes them as our Church directeth can have the least temptation from the Observance of them to be superstitious 6. You say That to keep a day Holy to any Saint is to make an Idol of that Saint And do you think our Church in her Festivals designs keeping Days holy to Saints if you do not think so why are you thus impertinent But if you do then you declare that she makes Idols of Saints And if so why did you pag. 17th declare it as your belief that the Church of England cannot be justly charged with Idolatry But I think that the making an Idol of a Saint is idolatry 7. You say That to keep a Day of Thanksgiving for blessing the world with such a Saint is what God hath no where prescribed what neither the Jews nor Christians in the first times ever did So that it seems you are not so ignorant as you now seemed to make your self
the Governed who could never part with their Right in chusing Officers c. But what Right they have you will soon learn from the Reverend Dean Stillingfleet in his Vnreasonableness of Separation pag. 307 c. There you will find they have no Right at all or I am much mistaken From what you say in these two Pages and that which follows in which your discourse is such that 't is hard to say certainly what you would be at I shrewdly conjecture that you believe it Lawfull to separate from the Church of England although she had neither Ceremonies nor Liturgy to scare men away Your Second case is When a Church is turned Idolatrous that then it is necessary to depart from it And here we have no Controversie Your Third is When a Church will not admit a man's abiding in it unless he will doe something which his Conscience tells him is sinfull But Sir will you not acknowledge that it cannot justifie our Separation that something is required which we judge sinfull whilst we will not impartially use all means for the duly informing of our judgments whilst we call it a running into Temptation to read what is offered us in Defence of the Lawfulness of that we have a prejudice against Whilst we so confide in our own judgments or in the judgments of our Party as not to bear to hear that 't is possible we should be mistaken Surely all truly good men will acknowledge this You say in all these Cases Separating is Lawfull if not Necessary For in the two first Cases we ought to Separate And then I hope in those cases it is Necessary and not onely Lawfull to Separate in the last we may prudently and warily depart c. And why do you so mince the matter by changing your phrase when your meaning is that you may Separate And why do you so mince it too in saying in the two first Cases we ought to Separate which supposeth that in this Case you are at your Liberty and that though you may lawfully Separate yet it is not a necessary duty so to doe And why again do you say we judge this no sinfull Separation Why don't you speak out and say 't is a Necessary one Except you think that a man may lawfully act against his Conscience But you have given me sufficient assurance in your Book that this you do not think You say pag. 33. If any others in former Ages or in our own have had any other apprehensions of the significancy you would have said signification of the Terms Church Schism and Separation whom we own to have been Holy and Excellent men till we see their Notions justified from Holy Writ which alone can determine these things we must crave leave to dissent from them and believe that had they lived in our times they would have dissented from their own Apprehensions under a more perfect light c. But 1. What would you have said to us if we had given this Answer to your citing Holy and Excellent men such as Calvin whom our Author hath so often appealed to in his Book and others against our Notions I am sure you would have severely upbraided us with having a wonderfull opinion of our own judgments Especially if our Notions ran counter to all Antiquity and the Judgments of all Holy Excellent men in former Ages and to the generality of such in our own Age and Time But this I dare say may be asserted of your Notions concerning the Terms Schism and Separation and much of your talk concerning the Term Church too 2. How came you to have more light than the Holy and Excellent men in former Ages and in our own Age too which you plainly suppose your selves to have Nay you suppose this as to multitudes of such persons also as are your Contemporaries For you say pag. 7. We are far from thinking that there are not multitudes of Holy and Learned men in our Ecclesia Loquens c. that is Among Conformable Divines of the Church of England 3. This Answer would far better become the Quakers than you they pretending to inspiration which you do not I will now conclude with a Remarque or two on those words with which you begin the concluding part of your Book You say pag. 29. And now how happy should we not onely think our selves but indeed be would our Brethren but leave disputing how far it is lawfull for the Spouse of Christ to have Communion with the Great Whore and onely argue how far we come short of symbolizing with the First and Purest Gospel Churches of which we have Records in Holy Writ To this I say 1. How Unaccountable is this Charge you lay against your Brethren when you know that they are in as perfect a Separation as your selves from the Communion of that Apostate Church which you mean by the Great WHORE 2. It lieth not in your power to shew us a Church which more symbolizeth with the First and Purest Gospel Churches than the Church of England And as for those Churches which you believe do come nearer to the First and Purest it hath often enough been demonstrated with invincible strength that the main thing viz. the point of Government in which you conceive they more agree with these Churches doth speak them far less to agree with them than the Church of England does And speaks them to be therein unlike to the whole Catholique Church of Christ for fifteen hundred years together from the time of the Apostles We do not pretend that the Constitution of our Church is absolutely perfect we do believe that such a Constitution is the peculiar privilege of the Church Triumphant but we bless God that 't is no more imperfect and we who live in complete Communion with this Church are well assured that there is nothing either in the Constitution thereof or in what is required thereby that hindereth us from being as good Christians as ever were in the world We cannot find after all the pains that you and others have taken to prove the contrary that there is imposed upon us any one condition of Communion that does contradict any Law of God that tends in the least to the depraving of our Souls to the gratifying of any one corrupt Affection or the making us unmeet for the Heavenly Happiness And this our Holy Martyrs thought as well as we And gave a Demonstration hereof by their Excellent Lives and Heroick Behaviour under the greatest Torments they not onely patiently but also joyfully enduring them for the sake of Christ Nor do we find any more than they did that we are debarred by our Church of any Helps for the building of us up in our most holy faith And whereas you express such mighty zeal for Purer Ordinances we think that zeal would be much better employed in endeavouring after Purer Hearts And that this contending with your Superiours and your Brethren about some things enjoined hath been infinitely more
Indian Church in Coulan and Crangonor and about Maliapur Planted by St. Thomas both which practice Infant-Baptism tho in all probability they never had it one from the other or both from any third Church It is very incredible that God should suffer all Churches in all the Parts of the World to fall into one and the same Practice which certainly is a Church-destroying Practice if the Apostles and their Assistants did not Baptize Infants but only grown Persons One may easily imagine that God might suffer all Churches to fall into such an harmless Practise as that of Infant-Communion or that the Fathers of the Church might comply with the Religious fondness of the People in bringing their Children to the Sacrament as we do with bringing them to Prayers but that God should let them all not preserving any one for a Monument of Apostolical Purity fall into a Practice which destroys the Being of the Church is at least a thousand times more Incredible than that the Apostles without a Prohibition from Christ to the contrary and no such Prohibition is Extant in the New Testament should Baptize Infants according to the Practise of the Jewish Church But in the fourth Place what Account can rationally be given why the Jewish Christians who were offended at the neglect of Circumcision should not have been much more offended if the Apostles had refused to initiate Children under the New Testament which had always been initiated under the Old Is it reasonable to believe that those who complained so much meerly because the Apostles Taught the Jews which lived among the Gentiles that they should not Circumcise their Children would not have complained much more if they had not Baptized them but quite excluded them like the Infants of Unbelievers from Admission into the Church It must in all probability have galled them very much to see their Children Treated like the Children of meer Strangers and to have had no visible difference put between the Infants of those that Embraced and those that resisted the Faith For they always looked upon Pagan Children as Common and Unclean but upon their own as Separate and Holy and St. Paul makes the same distinction between them 1 Cor. 7. 14. But had the Apostles taught that the Children of those who were in Covenant with God had no more right unto Baptismal Initiation than the Children of Idolaters who were out of the Covenant they had Taught a Doctrine which certainly would have offended them more than all they Preached against Circumcision and keeping the Ceremonial Law Wherefore since we never read among their many Complaints upon the alteration of the Jews Customs that they complained of their Childrens not being initiated by Baptism it is a greater presumption that the Apostles and their Assistants Baptized their Children then the want of an Express Example of Infant-Baptism in the New Testament is that they Baptized them not Having now shewed first that Infants are not uncapable of Baptism Secondly That they are not excluded from it by Christ but that on the contrary we have very convincing Reasons to presume that the Baptism of Infants as well as of grown Persons was intended by him Let us now proceed to make a fair and impartial enquiry upon the Third Question Quest III. Whether it is lawful to separate from a Church which appointeth Infants to be Baptized And this considering what I have said upon the former Questions must be determined in the Negative Whether we consider Infant-Baptism only as a thing lawful and allowable or as a Thing highly requisite or necessary to be done I know very well that my Adversaries in this Controversie will be apt to deny this distinction betwixt Lawful and Necessary as acknowledging nothing in Religious matters to be lawful but what is necessary according to that common Principle imbibed by all sorts of Dissenters That nothing is to be appointed in Religious matters but what is commanded by some Precept or directed unto by some special Example in the Word of God Hence they ordinarily say Can you shew us any Precept or Example for Baptizing Infants in the New Testament if you can we will grant that the appointment of it is lawful but if you cannot we disallow it as unlawful nay as an Usurpation and will never be of a Church which so Usurpeth it over the Consciences of Men. This way of Arguing is plausible to the Vulgar and would be very good were there such a Principle in the Scripture as this from whence they Argue viz. That nothing is to be appointed in Religious matters but what is warranted by Precept or Example in the Word of God Wherefore as the Men with whom I have to deal in this Controversie are generally Persons of good natural Understandings So in the First place I beg them to consider that there is no such Rule in the Scripture as this and therefore those who teach it for a Scripture-rule or Precept do themselves impose upon Mens Consciences as bad as Papists and like them and the Pharisees of old teach the Traditions of Men for Doctrines of God On the contrary the Gospel tells us that Sin is the Transgression of a Law and that where there is no Law there is no Transgression and according to this plain and intelligible Rule though the Baptizing of Infants were not commanded in the Scriptures yet the Church would have Power and Authority to appoint it upon supposition that it is not forbid Secondly I desire them to consider the absurdity of this pretended Scripture-rule in that it takes away the distinction betwixt barely lawful or allowable and necessary and leaves no Negative mean betwixt necessary and sinful but makes things forbidden and things not commanded to be the very same Thirdly I desire them to consider what a slavish Principle this is and how inconsistent it is with the free and manly nature of the Christian Religion under which we should be in a far more servile and Childish condition then the Jews were under the Law which as it is evident from the Feast of Purim and from the Institution of Baptism among the Jews allowed private Persons to practice and the Church to appoint things of a Religious nature which God had not commanded to be done Lastly I entreat them to consider how utterly impracticable this pretended Principle is as might be proved from the contrary Practice of all those who advance it against Ecclesiastical Authority and particularly from their own Practice in Baptizing grown Persons who were bred up from Infants in the Christian Religion and in admitting Women to the Lords-Supper who were not admitted to the Passover nor Paschal-cup of Blessing without any Precept or President for so doing in the Word of God This little well considered is enough to obviate all Objections against my first Assertion viz. That it is not lawful to separate from a Church which appointeth Infants to be Baptized upon supposition that Infant-Baptism is barely lawful and
a a a C. 7. Where arguing for Infant-Baptism he saith Of this we say the same things which our Divine Ministers of Holy things instructed by Divine Tradition brought down to us Dionysius the Areopagite are of no authority as to the first Century when St. Clement and St. Denis lived yet they are most excellent authorities for the third and fourth Century when they were written because they had no interest to write for Infant-Baptism The like I may say of the Testimony which the b b b Quaest respons 56. Where he saith That there is this difference betwixt Baptized and unbaptized Infants that Baptized Infants enjoy the good things of Baptism which those that are not Baptized do not enjoy and that they enâ—â—â— them by the Faith of those who offer them to Baptism Ancient and Judicious Author of the Answers to the Orthodox concerning some Questions gives of Infant-Baptism it is of no authority as for the second Century when Justin Martyr whose name it bears flourished but being a disinteressed writer it is of excellent authority for the third when it was written So much for the Test whereby to try certain and undoubted from uncertain and doubted Tradition and happy had it been for the Church of God if all Writers at the beginning of the Reformation had made this distinction and not written so as many of them have done against all Tradition without any discrimination whereas Tradition as I have here stated it is not only an harmless thing but in many cases very useful and necessary for the Church It was by Tradition in this sence that the Catholicks or Orthodox defended themselves in the fourth Century against the Arians and the Church of Africk against the Donatists and the Protestants defend themselves as to the Scripture-Canon and many other things against the Innovations of the Papists And therefore in answer to the Second part of their Objection against Tradition as detracting from the Sufficiency of the Scriptures I must remind them that the Scriptures whose sufficiency we admire as well as they cannot be proved to be the Word of God without Tradition and that though they are sufficient where they are understood to determine any Controversie yet to the right understanding and interpretation of them in many points Tradition is as requisite as the * * * Lex currit cum praxi practice of the Courts is to understand the Books of the Law This is so true that the Anabaptists themselves cannot defend the Baptizing of such grown Persons as were born and bred in the Church merely from the Scriptures in which the very Institution of Baptism hath a special regard unto Proselytes who from Judaism or Gâ—ntilism would come over unto the Christian Faith Accordingly they cannot produce one Precept or Example for Baptizing of such as were born of Christian Parents in all the New Testament but all the Baptized Persons we read of in it were Jews or Gentiles and therefore they cannot defend themselves against the Quakers who for this and other Reasons have quite laid aside Baptism without the Tradition and Practice of the Church Quest IV. Whether it be a Duty incumbent upon Christian Parents to bring their Children unto Baptism To state this Question aright I must proceed in the same order that I did upon the last First In arguing from the bare lawfulness and allowableness of Infant-Baptism And Secondly From the necessity thereof As to the lawfulness of it I have already shewn upon the last Question That there is no necessity of having a Command or Example for to justifie the practice of Infant-Initiation but it is sufficient that it is not forbidden to make it lawful and allowable under the Gospel Nay I have shewed upon the Second Question that of the two there is more reason that Christians should have had an express command to leave off or lay down the practice of Infant-Initiation because it was commanded by God in Infant-Circumcision and approved by him in Infant-Baptism which the Jewish Church added to Infant-Circumcision under the Legal State Commands are usually given for the beginning of the practice of something which was never in practice before but to justifie the continuation of an anciently instituted or anciently received practice it is sufficient that the Power which instituted or approved it do not countermand or forbid it and this as I have shewn being the case of Infants-Initiation the Initiation of them by Baptism under the Gospel must at least be lawful and allowable and if it be so then Parents and Pro-parents are bound in Conscience to bring them unto Baptism in Obedience unto the Orders of the Church For the Church is a Society of a People in Covenant with God and in this Society as in all others there are Superiors and in Inferiors some that must Order and some that must observe Orders some that must Command and some that must Obey and therefore if the Catholick Church or any Member of it commands her Children to observe any lawful thing they are bound by the Common-Laws of all Government and by the Precepts in the Gospel which regard Ecclesiastical Order and Discipline to observe her Commands Obey them saith the * * * Heb. 13. 17. Apostle who have the Rule over you and submit your selves unto them for they watch for your Souls Accordingly we read that St. †††Act. 16. 4. Paul as he went through the Grecian Cities delivered the Christians the Decrees which the Apostles had made at Jerusalem to keep but I think I need not spend more time in the Proof of a thing which all Dissenters will grant me for though they differ from us as to the Subject of pure Ecclesiastical Power yet they all agree that there is such a Power and that all lawful Commands proceeding from it ought to be Obey'd Wherefore if Infants are not uncapable of Baptismal Initiation as is proved under the first Question nor excluded from it by Christ as is proved under the Second but on the contrary there are very good Reasons to presume that Christ at least allowed them the benefit and honour of Baptism as well as grown Persons then the Ordinance of any Church to Baptize them must needs lay an Obligation of Obedience upon the Consciences of Parents and Pro-parents who live within the Pale of it because the matter of that Ordinance is a thing not forbidden but at least allowed by Jesus Christ But because People when the are once satisfied with the lawfulness are wont especially in Church-matters to enquire into the expediency of their Superiors Commands and to obey them with most Chearfulness and Satisfaction when they know they have good reasons for what they ordain therefore least any one whom perhaps I may have convinced of the bare lawfulness of Infant-Baptism should doubt of the expediency of it and upon that account be less ready to comply I will here proceed to justifie the practice of
Subjects more lov'd commanding equally Bowels and Affections and Duty and Honour Masters and Servants Husbands and Wives and all Relations are kept in their just Bounds and Priviledges With other Churches we make good Works necessary to Salvation but think our selves more modest and secure in taking away Arrogance and Merit and advancing the Grace of Christ With other Men we cry up Faith but not an hungry and a starved one but what is fruitful of good Works and so have all that others contend for with greater modesty and security 3. How fitly this Church is constituted to excite true Devotion When we make our Addresses unto God we ought to have worthy and reverend Conceptions of his Nature a true sense and plain knowledge of the Duty and of the Wants and Necessities for which we pray to be suppli'd All which our Church to help our Devotion plainly sets down describing God by all his Attributes of just wise and laying forth the Vices and Infirmities of Humane Nature and that none else but God can cure our needs When her Sons are to pray the matter of her Petitions are not nice and controverted trivial or words of a Party but plain and substantial wherein all agree Her Words in Prayer are neither rustick nor gay the whole Composure neither too tedious nor too short decently order'd to help our Memories and wandring Thoughts Responsals and short Collects in Publick Devotion are so far from being her fault that they are her beauty and prudence There are few Cases and Conditions of Humane Life whether of a Civil or Spiritual Nature which have not their proper Prayers and particular Petitions for them at least as is proper for publick Devotions When we return our Thanks we have proper Offices to enflame our Passions to quicken our Resentment to excite our Love and to confirm our future Obedience the best instance of gratitude When we Commemorate the Passion of Christ we have a Service fit to move our Affections to assist our Faith to enlarge our Charity to shew forth and exhibit Christ and all his bloudy Sufferings every way to qualifie us to discharge that great Duty She hath indeed nothing to kindle an Enthusiastick heat nor any thing that savours of Raptures and Extasies which commonly flow from temper or fraud but that which makes us manly devout our Judgment still guiding our Affections When we enter first into Religion and go out of the World we have two proper Offices Baptism and Burial full of Devotion to attend those purposes So that if any doth not pray and give thanks communicate and live like a Christian 't is not because the Services to promote these are too plain and hungry beggarly and mean but their own mind is not fitly qualifi'd before they use them bring but an honest mind to these parts of Devotion a true sense of God sober and good purposes and affections well disposed that which is plain will prove Seraphical improve our Judgment heighten our Passions and make the Church a Quire of Angels Without which good disposition our Devotion is but Constitution or melancholy Peevishness Sullenness or Devotion to a Party a Sacrifice that God will not acccept 4. Her Order and Discipline Such are the Capacities and Manners of Men not to be taught onely by naked Vertue a natural Judgment or an immediate Teaching of God but by Ministry and Discipline decent Ceremonies and Constitutions and other external Methods these are the outward Pales and Guards the Supplies and Helps for the Weakness of Humane Nature Our Church hath fitted and ordered these so well as neither to want or to abound not to make Religion too gay nor leave her slovingly neither rude nor phantastick but is cloth'd in Dresses proper to a manly Religion not to please or gratifie our senses so as to fix there but to serve the reason and judgment of our Mind There are none of our Ceremonies which good Men and wise Men have not judged decent and serviceable to the great ends of Religion and none of them but derive themselves from a very ancient Family being us'd in most Ages and most of the Churches of God and have decency antiquity and usefulness to plead for them to help our Memories to excite our Affections to render our Services orderly and comely Were we indeed all Soul and such Seraphical Saints and grown Men as we make our selves we might then plead against such external helps but when we have Natures of weakness and passion these outward helps may be call'd very convenient if not generally necessary and as our Nature is mixt of Soul and Body so must always our Devotion be here and such God expects and is pleas'd with Our Church is neither defective in Power and Discipline had she her just dues and others would do well to joyn with her in her wishes that they might be restor'd which would turn all into Confusion nor yet tyrannical want of Authority breeding as many if not more Miseries than Tyranny or too much Power both of them severe Curses of a Nation But her Government like her Clime is so well temper'd together that the Members of this Christian Society may not be dissolute or rude with her nor her Rulers insolent being constituted in the Church with their different Names and Titles not for lustre and greatness and Secular purposes but for suppression of Vice the maintaining of Faith Peace Order and all Virtues the true Edification of Mens Souls And if those Vices are not reprov'd and chastized which fall under her Cognizance 't is not the fault of her Power but because by other ways ill restrain'd unnecessary Divisions from her hindring her Discipline upon Offenders and so they hinder that Edification which thy contend for This Government is not Modern Particular or purely Humane but Apostolical Primitive and Universal to time as well as place till some private Persons for Number Learning or Piety not to be equall'd to the good Men of old who defended it and obey'd it and suffer'd for it out of some mistakes of Humane frailty and passion or born down with the iniquities of the times began to change it and declaim against it though so very fit and proper to promote Christianity in the World This is a general account of that Edification that is to be had in that Church in which we live a more particular one would be too long for this Discourse but thus much must be said that examine all her particular Parts and Offices you will find none of them light or superstitious novel or too numerous ill dispos'd or uncouth improper or burthensome no just cause for any to revolt from her Communion but considering the present circumstances of Christianity and Men the best constituted Church in the World If therefore Edification be going on to Perfection Heb. 6. 1. 2 Pet. 3. 18. Rom. 15. 2. 1 Cor. 14. 3. or growing in Grace if it is doing good to the Souls of
have brought your self to much liberty I doubt not you will find that you are in a wrong way and therefore resolve to alter it and come into the way of the Church Where if you do not meet presently with such advantages for your Spiritual growth as you are told you may receive you have reason to conclude as the forenamed Mr. Hildersham doth to those that said they could not find such Lights such Power such Comfort in the Word as was spoken of First either you have not sought it aright not with earnestness or not with a good Heart or Secundly if you have and do not find it at first yet you shall hereafter if you seek it here with an honest heart VIII And the preaching of Gods holy Word among us would be of greater efficacy upon your Hearts if when you come to partake of it you would remember and observe some Rules delivered by the same Author in another place Lecture XXVI about the Publick Worship of God which now alas are generally neglected and therefore had need to be pressed for the disposing all Mens Hearts to profit by their attendance on it 1. One is that at your coming into the Congregation and during the whole time of your abode there you would behave your selves reverently For we may not come into the place of Gods Worship as we would into a dancing-School or Play-House laughing or toying c. neither may we go out of it as we would out of such a one but in our very coming in and going out and whole outward carriage there we ought to give some signification of the reverence that we bear to this Place and that we do indeed account it the House of God Which serious temper of Mind and awful sense of Gods Presence possessing the Mind would no doubt be an excellent preparation to receive benefit by the whole Service of God as well as by the Sermon For which end 2. Another Rule is that we must all come to the beginning of Gods publick worship and carry till all be done Yea it is the Duty of Gods People saith he to be in Gods House before the beginning For it becomes them to wait for the Minister of God and not to let him wait for them The Reasons he gives for this are two First there is Nothing done in our Assemblies but all may receive profit by it For example by the confession of Sins and Absolution I may add and all other Prayers used in the Congregation a man may receive more profit and comfort than by any other Which is the reason why the Apostles even after Christs Ascention when the typical Honour of the Temple was abolished c. were so delighted to go to the Temple to pray at the times of publick Prayer 1. Act. 3. c. And so he goes on to shew how by hearing the Word read all may profit and by hearing it preached even by the meanest Minister of Christ if the fault be not in themselves How the singing of Psalms also furthers the fruit of the Word in the Hearts of Believers and much more benefit may the faithful receive by the Sacrament of the Lords Supper Nay by being present at the Administration of Baptisme all may receive profit being put in mind there-by of the Covenant God made with them in Baptism c. Lastly by the blessing pronounced by Gods Minister all may receive good and therefore none ought to absent himself from any part of the publick Service of God For which his second Reason is very remarkable that though we could receive no profit by the Exercises used in our Assemblies yet we must be present at them all to do our homage unto God and shew the reverent respect we have to his Ordinances For there is nothing done in Gods publick Worship among us observe this but it is done by the Instruction and Ordinance and Commandment of the Lord. As he shews particularly that it is his ordinance there should be all sorts and kinds of Prayers used yea this is the chief duty to be performed in our assemblies 1 K. 11. 1 2. that in our publick assemblies the Word of God should be read as well as preached the Holy Communion administred c. that is all things should be done as they are now in our Common-Prayer to which it is plain he hath respect And this he repeats again Lecture XXVIII If thou wast sure thou couldst not profit yet must thou come to do thy Homage to God and to shew thy reverence to his Ordinance 3. Another of his general Rules is that when we are present we ought to joyn with the Congregation in all the parts of Gods Worship and do as the Congregation doth For it makes much for the come liness and reverence of Gods Worship that all things be done in good order without confusion And it is a principle part of this good order that should be in the Congregation when they all come together and go together pray together sing together kneel together in a word when every part of Gods Worship is to be performed by the Congregation as if the whole Congregation were but one Man And in several places he reproves with a great deal of Zeal mens great carelessness in this particularly their neglect of kneeling in the Prayers having observed that men who will kneel at their own private prayers can never be seen to kneel at the common and publick Prayer His last general Rule is that we ought to teach our Children and Servants to shew Reverence to the Sanctuary and publick Worship of God For God cannot indure profaneness and contempt of Religion no not in Children And it stands us all upon to use the utmost Authority we have to maintain the Reverence of Gods Sanctuary for the open contempt done by any may bring Gods curse on us all And certainly saith he among other causes of the Plauge and other Judgments of God upon the Land this is not the least that Gods publick Worship is performed among us with so little Reverence and Devotion as it is I am tempted to transcribe a great deal more of these Lectures because by them you may see that if I had moved all that hath been said about our Sermons I might according to the Judgment of this devout and learned man have maintain'd that there wants not sufficient means of profiting in our Congregations if there were none as long as the word of God is there read by which together with the other holy duties all may receive the greatest profit and comfort if they please For it is of far greater excellence authority and certainty than the Sermons of any Preacher in the World First because it comes more immediately from God and though it be translated by men yet is there in it far less mixture of humane Ignorance and Infirmity than in Sermons While the Word is read we are sure we hear God speaking to us and that it is the
of Popery 2. The Introduction of the Protestant Religion in greater Purity and Perfection than the Church of England is in their Opinion as yet arrived at or can probably attain to by vertue of its present Constitution If there be amongst them Men disturbed in their Understandings by the heat of Enthusiasm if there be amongst them any Men whose Wisdom is sensual and worldly who presumptuously make Heaven stoop to Earth and conceal their private and secular Designs under the venerable name of Pure Religion I do not concern my self with them in this Persuasive to Vnion The former cannot and the later will not be convinc'd For there is no Ear so deaf as that which Interest hath stopp'd And there is a great deal of earnest Truth suggested in the Jocular Speech of James the fifth of Scotland who when his Treasurer desired liberty to be plain with him * * * Melvil 's Memoirs p. 2. drew out his Sword and said merrily to him I shall slay thee if thou speak against my profit The First Branch of the first or Subordinate End of The first Branch of the first End of the Dissenters viz. Vnion in a National Church the Dissenters is the Establishing of themselves as a National Church This is either designed by All of them or by a Party which believeth it self to be most sober and must numerous and most likely to prevail over the rest so far at least as to become the State-Party For All of them to expect to be united in one Uniform Body is to hope not only against the Grounds of Hope but of Possibility For the Parties are very many and very differing or rather very contrary and they cannot frame amongst them any common Scheme in which their Assents can be united What Communion for Example sake can the Presbyterians have with Arians Socinians Anabaptists Fifth-Monarchy-Men Sensual Millenaries Behmenists Familists Seekers Antinomians Ranters Sabbatarians Quakers Muggletonians Sweet-Singers These may associate in a Caravan but cannot joyn in the Communion of a Church Such a Church would be like the Family of Errour and her Daughters described in Mr. Spencer's Fairy-Queen of which none were alike unless in this that they were all deform'd And how shal the Christians of this present Church be disposed of to their just satisfaction They will never Incorporate with such a Medly of Religions and they are such both for their Quality and their number as not to be beneath a very serious Consideration For the Prevalent Party there seemeth to be both Reason and Experience against their hopes of Establishing themselves as a National Church These Reasons amongst others have moved me to entertain this Persuasion concerning them First Such a Party not maintaining Episcopal Government which hath obtained here from the Times of the Britains who in the Apostolical Age received the Christian Religion and which is so agreeable to the Scheme of the Monarchy It is not probable that they shall easily procure an exchange of it for a newer Model by the general consent of Church or State I may add the Body of the People of England whose Genius renders them tenacious of their Antient Customs Again All the Parties amongst us have of late declared for Mutual Forbearance They cannot therefore be consistent with themselves if they frame such a National Constitution by which any Man who Dissents from it shall be otherwise dealt with than by personal Conference which also he must have liberty not to admit if he be persuaded it is not fit or safe for him And such a Body without any other nerves for its strength and motion for the Encouragement of those who are Members of it and the Discouragement of those who refuse its Communion will not long hold together Nor hath it means in it sufficient for the Ends to which it is designed And indeed by this means the Spiritual Power of Excommunication will be rendred of none Effect For what Punishment what Shame what Check will it be to Cross and Perverse Men if being shut out of the National Church they may with open Arms and with Applause due to real Converts be received into this or the other particular Congregation as it best suiteth with their good likeing Furthermore it is commonly said that since the Presbyterians have gathered Churches out of Churches there are not many true and proper Disciplinarians in England If it be so then Independency is amongst Dissenters the prevalent side and I know not how a National Church can be made up of Separate Independent Churches for each Congregation is a Church by it self and hath besides the general Covenant of Baptism a particular Church-Covenant and therefore it is difficult to imagine how all of them can be by any Coherence of the Parts united into one intire Society But be it supposed that the Disciplinarians are of all Parties the most numerous and prevalent yet Experience sheweth how hard a Work it is for all of them to form themselves into a Church of England In the late times of Publick disquiet they had great Power they had in humane appearance fair and promising Opportunities and yet there grew up at their Roots another Party which in conclusion over-dropped them and brought their Interest into a sensible decay it being the nature of every Faction upon Victory obtain'd over their Common Adversary to subdivide In the Year 1640 * * * July 17. 1640. Whitelock's Memorials p. 45. The Commons had a debate about a new form of Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction And they agreed that every Shire should be a several Diocess That there should be constituted in each Shire a Presbytery of Twelve Divines with a President as a Bishop over them That this President with the Assistance of some of the Presbyters should Ordain Suspend Deprive Degrade Excommunicate That there should be a Diocesan Synod once a Year and each third Year a National Synod A while after * * * A. 1644. Id. ibid. p. 117. it was voted by them that to have a Presbytery in the Church was according to the Word of God Many other Steps were made in favour of the Discipline The Common-Prayer-Book was removed an Assembly of Divines was Established Their Directory was introduced they were united in the Bond of a solemn League and Covenant There was sent up * * * Iâ— Sept. 15. 1646. Diurnal p. 1313. from the County of Lancaster a Petition signed with 12000 Hands for the settling of Classes in those parts A Petition of the like importance was framed by divers of the Common-Council of London They seemed Whitlock's Memoirs p. 187. nigh the gaining of their Point yet they widely missed of it There was in the Assembly it self a ferment of Dissension Mr. Sympson and some others favoured an Independent Mr. Selden and some of his Admirers an Erastian Interest There was a Party in the Nation who were then called Dissenting Brethren and to these the Directory was as offensive as
may they now hope to do it For there are now many hinderances which did not then lie cross their way First The Platform of Discipline so highly applauded so earnestly contended for during the Reigns of Queen Elizabeth and King James hath now been in part tryed and the presence of it to omit other Reasons hath abated the Reverence some had for it Secondly There is not at this time such an Union amongst Dissenters as appeared at the beginning of our late Troubles The number of those Dissenters who were not for the Discipline was then very inconsiderable But in a few years they brake as it were into Fractions of Fractions Insomuch that the Ministers of the Province of London expressed the Estate of things in the Year 47 on this manner * * * Testim to the Truth of J. Chr. p. 30. Instead of Vnity and Vniformity in Matters of Religion we are torn in pieces with Distractions Schisms Separations Divisions ano Subdivisions Thirdly Those who then favoured the Discipline are much departed from their former Scheme of Government inclining to Independency which they once denyed to be God's Ordinance * * * Mr. Herl c. and pleading for Toleration which they once called The last and strongest hold of Satan * The Title of Mr. Edwards 's book 1647. See Testim of Min. p. 20. Fourthly At the beginning of our Disturbances many Men of Quality and such who had a Zeal of God favour'd the Settlement of the Discipline in the simplicity of their hearts They had not then seen any Revolutions they had not discovered the secret Springs of publick Motions nor the vile Interests of many men which lay concealed under the disguise of Pure Religion They saw what all Men may see in all times abuses in Church and State and the very name of Reformation was sweet to them Now notwithstanding the sincere zeal and the power of these Men the Discipline could not long be carried on much less could it be perfected by them There is therefore at this time a much greater Improbability of Success in the like design For many consiberable men Piously inclin'd have seen their error and will not be a second time engaged And they will not say of our late changes as the Protector did * * * Oliver 's Speech in the Painted Chambâ—r Jan. 22. 54 at the Dissolv of the Parl. p. 29. 33. That they were the Revolutions of God and not humane designs That they were the Revolutions of Christ upon whose Shoulders the Government was stayed They are not of the same mind with him who told the Commons * * * Mr. Caryl in Ep. Ded. bef Ser. called the Arraign of Unbelief A. 45. That if they acted Faith then the Records of those Times on their side should bear thus to all Posterity the Book of the Wars and Counsels of God Also since those days through the luxation of Discipline during the licence of the War the discovery of great and black Hypocrisies the multiplication of Parties and Opinions the publishing of many lewd and irreligious books from Unlicens'd Presses Atheism hath made very formidable Advances And they say that some undisguised Sceptics and Atheists have some times since the King's Return been much used in the Cause of our Dissenters Now if well meaning zeal could not establish the Discipline it is not likely to be promoted much less settled by the help of such hands of which the outsides are not washed by so much as an External form of Godliness The Second Branch of the first End of Dissenters The second Branch of the 1st End of the Dissenters viz. Vnion by mutual forbearance seems more improbable than the first viz. The settling themselves as several distinct Parties giving undisturbed Toleration to each other This seems not probable upon many accounts First Some Dissenters believe some of the Parties to be incapable of Forbearance as maintaining Principles destructive of Christian Faith and Piety This Opinion they still have for instance sake of Antinomians Quakers and Muggletonians And they formerly declamed against the Toleration of divers others They publish'd here by Authority so called an Act of the Assembly at Edinburgh * * * A 1647. Act of Assemb p. 2. Against Erastians Independents and Liberty of Conscience bearing as they speak their publick Testimony against them not only as contrary to sound Doctrine but as more special Letts and Hinderances as well to the Scottish received Doctrine Discipline and Government as to the Work of Reformation and Uniformity in England and Ireland The Ministers of the Province within the County Palatine of Lancaster in their Harmonions Consent * * * Harmon Consent A. 1648. p. 12. with the Ministers of the Province of London publish'd their Judgments in these zealous Words A Toleration would be a putting of a Sword into a Mad man's hand An appointing a City of Refuge in Mens Consciences for the Devil to fly to A proclaiming Liberty to the Wolves to come into Christ's Fold to pray upon his Lambs A Toleration of Soul-murther the greatest murther of all others and for the establishing whereof damned Souls in Hell would accurse Men on Earth Neither would it be to provide for tender Consciences but to take away all Conscience If error be not forcibily kept under it will be Superior It seems they were not then of the later Perswasion of the Protector who said * * * Protect Speech Jan. 22. 54. p. 28. concerning the People of several Judgments in this Land That they were All the Flock of Christ and the Lambs of Christ though perhaps under many unruly Passions and Troubles of Spirit whereby they gave disquiet to themselves and others And that they were not so to God as to us Again There is no firmness or social influence in the nature of this Union It is the Union of a multitude who meet and disperse at pleasure And he who proposeth this way as the means to knit Men into Christian Communion is like a Projecter who should design the keeping of the stones together in the strength of a firm and lasting House by forbearing the use of Cement The Union that lasteth is that of the Concord of Members in an Uniform Body Moreover It is to be consider'd that there are no Parties in this or any other Nation so exactly poised that they have equal Numbers and Interests There is always one of them which over-ballanceth the rest And one of the several ways must always be favoured as the Religion of the State And it is natural for the strongest side to attempt the subduing of the weaker And though this be not soon effected yet 'till one side getteth the mastery the Parties remain not as distinct Bodies settled in peace within themselves and towards each other but as Convulsions in the common body of the State Some think this Inclination to the swallowing up of all other Parties to be
found almost only in the Romish Church But here is something of it to be discerned I will not say in all Churches seeing I well understand the good Being of our own which suffered Bonner himself to live yet in all Factions and Parties though the inequality of Power makes it not seem to be alike in all of them The Catt hath the same inward Parts with the Lyon though they differ much in size And some such likewise they will find who dissect humane nature and Bodies civil There is this Disposition in Men whether they be the politick or the Conscientious The External practice of all Parties is answerable to this inward Disposition There is this inward Disposition in men who espouse any Faction whether their Ends be designs of State or of Religion Parties who are not otherwise than in shew concerned for Religion will perpetually covet Power after Power And Parties who are serious and Conscientious in their way whatsoever it is will not remain in an indifference of terms towards those who tread in contrary Paths and with whom they do not maintain Communion For therefore they withdraw from them because they believe Communion with them to be unlawful Otherwise they have no Judgment in the price of Peace and Unity if they willingly part with it when they may without sin enjoy it and if they esteem their way sinful and believe those persons who remain without their pale to be so gone astray as without Repentance to be eternally lost Charity it self will urge them to use all means probable towards the reducing of them And they will be apt to think that the suffering of them in their Wandrings declares them to be contented with their condition External Practice of all Parties do's shew plainly what is their inward Disposition All would do what is good in their own eyes but I do not perceive that any are willing to let others do so Where there is Power their is little Forbearance And the same men as their Conditions alter speak of Mercy or Justice Amongst those of the Party of Donatus whose Schism opened so dangerous a Wound in the Churches of Africa all pleaded earnestly for Forbearance whilst their Power was in its Minority Yet S. Austin remindeth one of them * * * Petil. ap S. Aug. cont Petil. l. 2. Absit Absit à nostra Conscientia ut ad nostram fidem aliquem compellamus c. of a Practice contrary to their Profession whilst they turn'd against the Maximianists the edge of the Theodosian Laws and abus'd the Power which they had gotten under Julian in oppressing as far as in them lay the Catholick Christians Amongst those of the Protestant Perswasion the Heads of the Discipline were plainly unwilling that any should have leave to make a separation from their body And one of them * * * Mr. Calamy in Ser. called The great danger of Covenant refusing A. 46. p 3. with a mixture of Grief and Expostulation thus discoursed before the Commons The Famous City of London is become an Amsterdam Separation from Our Churches is countenanc'd Toleration is cried up Authority lieth asleep Every one would have Power to rowse up it self and maintain his Cause And indeed it is and has been too often in Religion as it is and was in Philosophy Where the divers Sects do not contend meerly for the enlarging the bounds of Philosophical Arts in a sincere and solid inquiry * * * Lord Bacon's Pref. to Adv. of Learn but for the Translating the Empire of Opinion and settling it upon themselves The same men who pleaded for Forbearance in this Church and remov'd themselves into New-England as by themselves was said for the Liberty of their Conscience or Persuasion when once they arrived there and made a figure in that Government they refused Indulgence to the Anabaptists and Quakers and us'd them as to this day they do with great severity Those Commons who in the Year 47 * * * Whitlock's Memoires p. 276. made an Order For the giving of Indulgence to tender Consciences did at the same time make another Order That this Indulgence should not extend to tolerate such who used the Common-Prayer Some who do not well understand the Policy of the Dutch do believe it to be otherwise in those Netherlands But by their Constitution none have liberty to speak against any publick Error or Corruption on which the States shall stamp their Authority And Episcopius * * * Episc Exam. Thes Cap. Op. vol. 1. par 2. p. 185. complain'd that the Calvinists would tolerate none whom they had power to punish There are now great numbers of his own Remonstrant Party who when any juncture of Affairs gives them encouragment are apt to contend for Superiority The Parties in their Sermons and Writings speak with bitter Zeal against each other And where the ordinary Conversation of Men of different Judgments is peaceable amongst them divers who mind Traffick more than Religion seem rather to be an Heterogeneous body frozen together by a cold indifference than a Society united by Christian Love In the Church of Rome the several Orders who at present mortally hate one another if they were not restrain'd by the force of the common Politie they would soon devour one another We are not without a remarkable Instance in this kind published by a Dominican Bishop and a Capuchin Fryer Certain Dominicans * * * See Lettres Sinceres Trois partie Sixieme Lettre p. 111. had seated themselves nigh the River of Plate in Paraguay where there are Gold Mines in the Earth and Gold Sands in the Rivers Of this the Jesuits who have long ears had good intelligence They desired to go thither in order to the further instruction of the American-people and the education of Youth They obtained leave procured Letters of Credence were furnished with Money for the Voyage After having gotten sure footing they soon removed the Dominicans and Spanish Laity and established themselves Among the Socinians the great Asserters of Liberty in Religion both in thinking and speaking though they cannot impose because they have not yet been any-where that I know of the prevailing Party yet they shew sometimes what Spirit they are of Gittichius was beyond all good manners troublesom to a Socinian of better temper I mean Ruarus * because Ruari Epist par 1. p 415 416. he had chosen to fast one day in a week and had taken Friday for the day though without any fixed purpose Among the Quakers themselves whose Principle seems to be the Guidance of each man by his personal persuasion there want not signs of that fierce heat with which their Light is accompanied When some had form'd them into a Society and gotten the Governance into their hands they Excommunicated others they suffered them not to Marry or Bury in their manner who would not be guided by what they called the Light of the Body and the Light
of Antient Friends * * * See Spirit of the Hart. p. 12 13 c. George Fox declar'd he had Power to bind and loose whom he pleased †††p â—7 and said in a great Assembly * * * p. 41. that he never lik'd the Word Liberty of Conscience and would have no Liberty given to Presbyterians Papists Independents and Baptists From the Subordinate End of the Dissenters I pass The Principal End of the Dissenters the first part of it to the Principal and begin with the first part of it the removal of Popery A very good and commendable end And I heartily pray to God to prosper all Christians who persue it by fit and lawful ways But the Methods of Dissenters do not so well lead to it as those of the established Church Bare Reason maketh this manifest It may be also proved to us by Historical Inference This likewise is the Judgment of the Papists themselves who take their measures from this Principle that they shall enter in through the Breaches of the Church of England First Common Reason sheweth that the Interruption which may by Dissension be given to this Church will rather weaken than improve the Protestants Interest both at home and abroad Abroad the Protestant Interest will suffer much in the overthrow of this Church For by such means a principal Wheel is taken out of the Frame of the Reformation Nay Signior Diodati * * * Florentissima Anâ—lia Ocellus ille Ecclesiarum Peculium Christi singulare c. was wont to praise it in a more excellent Metaphor and to call it the Eye of the Reformed Churches and it is plain to considering Men that the Church of England which had greater regard to the Primitive Pattern than some others of the Reformation can give a more full and unperplexed answer to all the Objections of the Romanists than some other Churches who are cramped in a few points unwarily admitted If therefore Dissentions put out this eye of the Protestant Churches the dark Doctrines and Traditions of Popery will the sooner spread themselves over Reformed Christendom At Home the Dissettlement of the Church of England will sooner introduce than root out Popery I am constrain'd thus to judge by the following Considerations First the design of keeping out Popery by the Ruine of this Church is like the preposterous way of securing the Vineyard by pulling up of the Fence or of keeping out the Enemy by the removal of our Bullwark Under that name this Church is commonly spoken of and they do not flatter it who give it that Title â—ts Constitution is Christian and it is strong in its Nature and if such a Church hath not ability with God's assistance to resist the assaults of Romish Power much less have they who dissent from it And it is Fanaticism properly so called or Religious Frenzie to lay aside a more probable means and to trust that God will give to means which are much less probable supernatural aid and success God supporteth a good Cause by weak means if they are the only means he hath put into our power against a bad Cause though externally potent But he who in cases of emergence assisteth honest Impotence and Infirmity will never work Miracles in favour of Mens Presumptions and Indiscretions The Romanists are a mighty body of Men and though there are Intestine Fewds betwixt the Secular and Regular Clergy as likewise betwixt the several Orders yet they are all united into one common Politie and grafted into that one stock of the Papal Headship They are favoured in many places by great Men they have variety of Learning they pretend to great Antiquity to Miracles to Martyrs without number to extraordinary Charity and Mortification they have the Nerves of worldly Power that is banks of Money and a large Revenue They have a Scheme of Policy always in readiness there are great numbers of Emissaries posted in all places for the conveying of Intelligence and the gaining of Proselytes they take upon them all shapes and are bred to all the wordly Arts of Insinuation There is given to their way in the Jargon of Mr. Coleman * * * Coll. of Lett. p. 8. c. a very fit name of Trade Traffick Merchandize Against all this Craft and Strength what under God can Protestants oppose which is equal to the Power of the Church of England A Church Primitive learned pure and nor embased with the mixtures of Enthusiasm or Superstition A Church which is able to detect the Forgeries and Impostures of Rome which hath not given advantage to her by running from her into any extream which is a National Body already formed a Body both Christian and Legal a Body which commendeth it self to the Civil Powers by the Loyalty of its Constitution a body which hath in it great numbers of People judiciously devout and who are judged only to be few * * * See L. de Moulin's Advances c. p. 26. because they are not noysie but prudent though truly exemplary in their Religion And there is in the Church of England something more considerable than number for Union is stronger than Multitude Take the Character of this Church from Monsieur Daille * * * De Confess Advers H. Hammond c. 1. p. 97. 98. a Man whose Circumstances where not likely to lead him in this matter into any partiality of judgment and who at that time was engag'd in a learned Controversy with one of our Divines The Character is this As to the Church of England purged from Forein wicked Superstitious Worships and Errors either Impious or dangerous by the Rule of the Divine Scriptures approved by so many and such illustrious Martyrs abounding with Piety towards God and Charity towards Men and with most frequent examples of good works flourishing with an increase of most learned and wise men from the beginning of the Reformation to this time I have always had it in just esteem and till I die I shall continue in the same due Veneration of it And indeed it is to me a matter of astonishment that any men who have been beyond the Seas and made Observations upon other Churches and States should be displeased at Ours which so much excel them Now is it probable that such a Church as this is should have less strength in it for the resisting of Popery than an inferior number of divided Parties of which the most Sober and most Accomplish'd is neither so Primitive nor so learned nor so united nor so numerous nor so legal And against which it will be objected by the Romans that it is of Yesterday Amongst these Parties there are some who have not fully declared themselves And who knows whether they have not a Reserve for the Romish Religion against a favourable Opportunity though sometimes they speak of Rome as of Babylon I mean those People who are called Quakers who speak in general of their Light
Church since the Apostles Times that had not its Rites and Ceremonies as many if not more in number and as liable to exception as those that are used in our Church at this Day nay there are few things if any at all required by our Constitution which were not in use in the best Ages of Christianity This were it my design I might demonstrate by an Induction of particulars but it is fully done by other Hands I shall therefore only as a Specimen instance in One and the rather because 't is so much boggled at viz. The Sign of the Cross in Baptism which we are sure was a Common and Customary Rite in the time of Tertullian and St. Cyprian the latter whereof says oft enough that being Regenerated Cypr. adv Demetr p. 203. de Vnit Eccl. p. 185. vid. de Laps p. 169. Bas. de Spir. S. c. 27. Tert. de Coron mil. c. 3. that is Baptized they were Signed with the Sign of Christ that they were Signed on their Foreheads wbo were thought worthy to be admitted into the fellowship of our Lords Religion And St. Basil plainly puts it amongst those Ancient Customs of the Church which had been derived from the Apostles Nay Tertullian assures us that they used it in the most common Actions of Life that upon every motion at their going out and coming in at their going to Bath or to Bed or to Meals or whatever their Occasions called them to they were wont to make the Sign of the Cross on their Fore-heads and therefore 't is no wonder that they should never omit it in the most Solemn Act of their being initiated into the Christian Faith And now let our Dissenting-Brethren seriously reflect whether the Constant and Uniform Practice of the Church in all times be not a mighty Testimony against their Separating from us upon the account of those things which were used in the wisest best and happiest Ages of the Gospel and when their Separation upon this account can in point of Example pretend not to much more than a Hundred Years Countenance and Authority to Support and Shelter it And yet it has not that neither for I could easily shew that most if not all the Usages of our Church are either practised in Foreign See Durels view of the Government and publick worship of God 1662. Churches or at least allowed of by the most Learned and Eminent Divines of the Reformation whose Testimonies to this purpose are particularly enumerated and ranked under their proper Heads by Mr. Sprint in his * * * p. 123 124 c. Cassander Anglicanus which they that are curious may Consult VI. Sixthly We beg that those who by their Conformity have declared that they can close with our Communion would still continue in the Communiâ—n of our Church This is a Request so reasonable that I hope it cannot fairly be denied Whatever Dissaâ—tsfactions others may alledge to keep them at a distance from us these Men can have nothing to pretend having actually shewed that they can do it For I am not willing to think that herein such Men acted against their Consciences or did it meerly to secure a gainful Office or a place of Trust or to escape the Lash and Penalty of the Law These are Ends so very Vile and Sordid so Horrible a prostitution of the Holy Sacrament the most Venerable Mystery of our Religion so deliberate a way of Sinning even in the most Solemn Acts of Worship that I can hardly suspect any should be guilty of it but Men of Proflâ—gate and Atheistical Mindâ— who have put off all Sence of God and Banished all Reverence of Religion I would fain belâ—eve that when any of our Brethren receive the Sacrament with us they are fully persuaded of the lawfulness of it and that the Principle that brings them thither is the Conscience of their Duty But then I know not how to Answer it why the same Principle that brings them thither at one time should not bring them also at another and that we should never have their company at that Solemn and Sacred Ordinance but when the fear of some Temporal Punishment or the prospect of some Secular Advantage prompts them to it 'T is commonly blamed in those of the Romish Church that they can dispence with Oaths and receive Sacraments to serve a turn and to advance the Interest of their Cause But God forbid that so heavy a Charge should ever lie at the Doors of Protestants and especially those who would be thought most to abhor Popish Practices and who would take it ill to be accounted not to make as much if not more Conscience of their ways than other Men. Now I beseech our Dissenting or rather Inconstant Brethren to reason a little if our Communion be sinful why did they enter into it if it be lawful why do they forsake it is it not that which the Commands of Authority have tied upon us and whose Commands we are bound to submit to not only for Wrath but for Conscience sake Are not the Peace and Unity of the Church things that ought greatly to sway with all Sober Humble and Considering Christians Does not the Apostle say that if it be possible and as muâ—â— as in us lies we are to live Peaceably with all Men And shall Peace be broken only in the Church where it ought to be kept most entire And that by those who acknowledge it to be possible and within their power Are they satisfied in their Consciences to join in Communion with us and will they not do it for the sake of the Church of God Or will they refuse to do what is lawful and as the Case stands necessary in order to Peace only because Authority Commands it and has made it their Duty Oh Sirs I beseech you by all that 's Dear and Sacred to assist and help us and not strengthen the Hands of those who by a Causeless and Unjustifiable Separation endeavour to rend and destroy the best Church in the whole Christian World VII Seventhly We beg of them that they would Consider what Sad and Deplorable Mischiefs have ensued upon bearing down the Constitution of the Church of England This is matter of Fact and whereof many yet alive were made sensible by Woful Experience Omitting what may seem of a little more remote Consideration the Blood and Treasure the Spoils and Ravages of the late War the Enslaving and Oppressing all Ranks of Men and what is above all the Murder of an excellent and incomparable Prince I shall instance in a few particulars which were the more immediate Effects of it And First No sooner was the Church of England thrown down but what Monstrous Swarms of Errours and Heresies broke in upon us both for Number and Impiety beyond whatever had been heard â—f in the Church of God And here I need go no further than the sad account which Mr. Edwards has given us in the several parts of his Gangraena
and in such doubtful manner that Inquisitive Men cannot yet understand from what quarter of the Heavens it shineth The Men of design amongst them may embrace any Religion and the melancholy will make a tolerable Order amongst the Romans and the Priests will find for them a second St. Bruno Again There are some who though they have declared themselves against Popery yet they have scarce any formed way of keeping it out For what hindreth a crafty Jesuit from gathering a particular Congregation out of many others and modelling of it by degrees according to his pleasure and what a gap do they leave open for Seducers who take out of the way all Legal Tests and admit Men who are Strangers to them to officiate amongst them upon bare pretence of Spiritual Illumination Furthermore the Romanists have more powerful ways of drawing Men from the Parties of the Dissenters than they have of enticing them from the Church of England for such Men too frequently go out from us through weakness of imagination for which the Church of Rome hath variety of Gratifications They will offer to the Severe such strictnesses as are not consistent with the general Laws of a National Church which being framed for Men of such various Conditions must have some Scope and Latitude though no licence in it and many of those who now joyn themselves to the Dissenting Parties would then chuse to be admitted as Members of this or the other Superstitious Fraternity And it is at least my private Conjecture that if the Revenue of the Religious Houses which were dissolved had been judiciously applyed to the service of Men either weak in mind or indisposed by temper or singular in their Inclinations amongst the Reformed there might have been a Diversity here I mean such as there is in our present Colleges without a Schism Likewise they have Mental Prayer and as they call them Spiritual Eructations for those who contemn or scruple forms * * * See Rational Discourse of Prayer chiefly of Mystic Contemplation chap. 14. pag. 74. They have mystical Phrases for such who think they have a new Notion when they darken understanding with Words And accordingly the third part of the Rule of Perfection a very mystical Book written by Father Benet a Capuchin was in the Year 46 reprinted in London * * * A Bright Star centring in Christ our perfection Printed for H. Overton in Popes-Head Alley 1646. with a new Title and without the Name of the Author and it passed amongst some of the Parties for a Book containing very sublime Evangelical Truths And it pleased some Enthusiasts when they read in it That Christ's Passion was to be practis'd and beheld as it was in our selves rather than that which is considered at Jerusalem * * * Ch. 18. p. 189. Also they use much gesture and great shew of Zeal in preaching and have singular ways of moving the zealous temper of the English from whence some of them in Rome it self had the Name of Knock-breasts * * * Picchia-Petti Inglesi S. R. C. Pâ—sth p. 125. given to them A Romish Preacher comes forth out of an obscure Cloyster into the Pulpit and appears all heavenly in the Exercise And having excited a warmth in their affection he retires again and does not mix with Conversation and is not observed as other Ministers by many eyes and the People never seeing him but in this Divine Figure look upon him as an Angel coming to them out of Heaven and then ascending thither again It may be observed also that the Romanists have greater shews of self-denial for the moving of English Piety than the Dissenters They have rough Cords mean Garments bare Feet Disciplines Whips Pretences of not touching Money or enjoying Property though some of these are often no other than Arts used by ordinary Beggars Again they have ways not only of humouring the infirmity but even the Foppishness of Humane Nature Processions and other Rites of the Romish Religion are so ordered as to be Games for Diversion and the Mass with Scenes pleaseth though it be not understood Dissenters do now think that Popery may be very easily subdued by their Arms But if Recluses were once crept out of their dark Cells as Serpents from under the deadly night-shade they would have cause to alter their Opinions and not to think too highly of themselves after a wilful removal of the Church of England which is sufficient under God for this Encounter This Church designs to make Men good by making them first Judicious as far as means can do it But some others desire to bring them to their side by catching of their Imaginations and by that way they can neither reform nor fix them Some new Device shall in time bring them over to a new Party Dissention it self amongst Protestants weakneth their Interest and that which weakens one side strengthens another And many men entangled in Controversy and wearied with endless wrangling are too apt for mere ease and quiet sake to cast themselves in servile manner into the Arms of pretended Infallibility Our Dissentions have already introduced too much of that which is the very spirit of Jesuitism the doing of Evil that pretended Good may come of it the serving of a Cause by any means whether they be just or unjust Some Dissenters do accidentally prepare the way for Romish Religion by running into an other extream upon pretence of avoiding Popery by decrying the Church of England as Antichristian and Popish and by condemning that as Popish which is Christian and decent As Episcopacy Liturgy Observations of the Nativity of Christ and other Festivals Reverence of bodily Gesture particularly in receiving the Holy Communion Preservation of places and things set apart for Holy uses with reverend care By this means they bring Popery into Reputation Men will be apt to say if such a Body as the Church of England be Popish it is sit we sit down and consider of it for surely they are not so inclined without weighty Reasons If the Clergy of it be inclined to that Religion the Introduction of which together with great numbers of the Popish-Clergy will diminish their preferment it must be the Power of the Truth which moveth them against their worldly Interest They will continue their Argument and say further If such good things as these abovementioned be Romish and it be lawful to judge of the whole by the parts of it which are before us surely that which is Popish is also Primitive and Evangelical That which we have examin'd is good and that which we have not may probably be of the same kind Secondly the History of our late Revolutions sheweth that Popery will not be smother'd in the Ruines of the Church of England but rather be advanced upon them It made great Progress in the late Times insomuch that the Dissenters do remove the Odium of the late King 's execrable Murther from themselves and
lay it upon the Jesuits thereby tacitly acknowledging that they had so great a power over some of them as to make them to become their Instruments for the cutting off the Lord 's Anointed For if they will not allow Cromwell and Ireton and some others of that Order to have been Dissenters properly so called yet certainly they must not deny that Name to Mr. Peters Mr. John Goodwin and many like to them who appeared publickly in that very black and insolent wickedness How far it is true that the Jesuits influenc'd those Counsels I do not now examine nor do's my Talent lie in Mysteries of State But that in the late Revolutions Popery was not routed out no Man can remain ignorant who is of competent Age and had not perfectly lost the use of his memory though he has made the most negligent Observations Robert Mentit de Salmonet * * * Hist des troâ—bles de la grand Bret. a Parâ—â— 1661. lib. 3. p. 165 See sport view of the late Troubl p. 564. a Scotchman and a Secular Priest in actual exercise of Communion with the Church of Rome hath publickly taken notice of the many Priests slain at Edge-Hill and of two Companies of Walloons and other Catholicks as he is pleased to style them in the Service of the States It hath been commonly said * * * Arbitr Government p. 28. that Gifford the Jesuit appeared openly in the Year 47 amongst the Agitators and that his Pen was used in the Paper drawn up at a Committee in the Army and call'd the Agreement of the People * * * See Whitl Memoirs p. 279 280 282. K. Charles the Martyr speaketh of such things as notorious in one of his printed Declarations * * * Exact Col. p. 647. All Men know said he the great number of Papists which serve in their Army Commanders and others In the Year 49 * * * Id. ibid. p. 405. Those in the House were acquainted with divers Papers taken in a French Man's Trunk at Rye discovering a Popish Design to be set on foot in England with Commissions from the Bishop of Chalcedon by Authority of the Church of Rome to Popish Priests and others for settling the Discipline of the Romish Church in England and Scotland Mr. Edwards * * * Gangrena p. 1â— p. r. 2 reports from Mr. Mills a Common-Council-man who was so informed by a knowing Papist that the Romanists did generally shelter themselves under the Vizor of Independency It is certain that a College of Jesuits was established at Come * * * Narr sent up to the Lords from the Bishop of Heâ—eford p. 7. in the Year 52. And in a Paper found there mention was made of 155 reconcil'd that year to the Church of Rome Oliver himself used these words in a Declaration publish'd by the Advice of his Council * * * Prot. Declaration Octob. 31. 1655. It is not only Commonly observed but there remains with Us somewhat of Proof that Jesuits have been found among some discontented Parties in this Nation who are observed to quarrel and fall out with every Form or Administration in the Church or State Dr. Bayly * * * In the Life of Bish Fisher p. 260 161. the Romanist openly courted Oliver as the present hopes of Rome and with a Flattery as gross as the Jingle was ridiculous call'd him Oliva Vera And one of his Physitians * * * V. Elench Mot. par 2. p. 341. hath said of him that he was once negotiating with the Romanists for Toleration but brake off the Bargain partly because they came not up to his price and partly because he feared it would bâ— offensive to the People It is also publickly told us * * * H. Indep part 2. p. 245 c. that an Agreement was made in 49 even with Owen ô Neal that bloody Romanist and that he in pursuance of the Interest of the State so called raised the Siege of London-derry A great door was opened to Romish Emissaries when the Oaths of Allegiance and Supremacy were by publick Order taken away For they were Tests of Romamism Likewise the Doctrine of the unlawfulness of an Oath revived in those days by Roger Williams * * * See Mr. Cotton's Lr. Exam. A. 44. p. 4 5 Simplicit defence A. 1646. p. 22. Min. of Prov. of Lond. Testim p. 18. Samuel Gorton and others helped equivocating Papists to an evasion as I fear it may do at this day among the Quakers So we may be induced to believe by comparing present with former Transactions For we are informed that in the Reign of King James * * * Gee's Foot out of the Snare p. 58 59. A. 1621. Thomas Newton pretended to have had a Vision of the Virgin Mary who said to him Newton See thou do not take the Oath of Allegiance And being of this publickly examined at the Commission-Table and asked how he knew it to be the Virgin Mary which appeared He answer'd I know it was she for she appeared unto me in the form of her Assumption It was the Church of England which in our late Troubles principally fortify'd and entrench'd the true Protestant Religion against the Assaults of Rome This Church was still in being though in Adversity She had strong Vitals and did not die notwithstanding there was some Distemper in her Estate There was still a Constitution where Primitive order and decencie might be found and in which Men of Sobriety might be fixed And great numbers of the Church-men by their constant adherence to their Principles under publick contempt and heavy pressure gained daily on the People and convinced the World that they were not so Popish and Earthly-minded as popular clamour had represented them Also their learned Books and Conferences reduced some and establish'd many and we owe a part of the stablity of Men in those times to God's blessing on the Writings of Arch-bishop Laud Mr. Chillingworth Dr. Bromhall Dr. Cosins Dr. Hammond and others Last of all It is the Opinion of the Papists themselves that their Cause is promoted by our Dissensions and according to these measures of Judgment they govern their Councils This was the Opinion of the Jesuite Campanella in his Dâ—scourse touching the Spanish Monarchy written about the Year 1600 and in 54 publish'd at London in our Language * * * Campan Disc of Span. Mon. c. 25. p. 157 Concerning the weakning of the English says that Jesuit there can no better way possibly be found out than by causing Divisions and Dissentions among themselves And as for their Religion it cannot be so easily extinguished and rooted out here unless there were some certain Schools set up in Flanders by means of which there should be scattered abroad the Seeds of Schism c. And whether these kinds of Seeds have not come from hence to us as well as those better ones of the