rash with their mouths and hasty to utter any thing before God that is unmeet they are subject to the discipline of the Church to be censured for their errour Moreover heightened affections inlarge the heart and open the mouth and do not make a man at a stand for want of words Indeed astonishing affection or an extasie of Spirit may put one to such a stand but that rarely takes hold of any in a pubick performance But a calm admiration and reverence of God and seriousness and earnestness of address to him doth not hinder but further apâ—expressions For the use of one constant Form it hath been pleaded that a stranger may thereby the better know how we Worship God and that the people better understand and remember that to which they are continually used But on the other hand variety and newness of matter and words are more apt to quicken the affection and perfect the understanding also especially of the attentive whenas under the constant rehersal of one thing the faculties grow flat and dull Besides in the use of this liberty and variety the Prayer being ordinarily the same for substance in the main the vulgar apprehension and memory is help'd by the sameness of the main substance and scope and the affections are raised and the understanding further edified by that which is new in the frame and method and particular matter and the peoples more particular variable concernments are provided for by a more peculiar accommodation and respect thereto as occasions vary And by the received doctrine of Faith a stranger may be sufficiently ascertain'd of the substance of the Worship to be celebrated For a Doctrine of a Church governs its Worship and it is well known that one the same tenor thereof will pass through the several congregations of a nation that are not confined to a stinted Form yet combined in the same faith and order And when all is said that management and performance of this Service is the best that is most effectual to make the Comers thereunto more perfect in knowledge more devout and zealous towards God more pious and blameless in their conversation and every way more perfect in the divine life and it will be so acknowledged by them that are discerning and serious in the things of God But to conciliate the minds of men diversly affected in this matter and to prevent the inconveniencies and to obtain the good of either way a prescribed Form and a free Prayer will do best together in reference to the Churches peace and edification CHAP. VI. The right Administration of Ecclesiastical discipline THe Ministers of Christ and Stewards of the mysteries of God are Pastors of the Church and Pastoral authority includes both teaching and ruling and implies the peoples subjection in the Lord to their Doctrine and discipline To bereave the Church of discipline is to leave it unfurnished of that means which is necessary to the preservation of all orderly Socities of mankind It is to turn the Garden of the Lord by plucking up the fence thereof into a Common or Wilderness The power intrinsecal to this Office is not secular and coercive by temporal penalties but purely Spiritual which is in the name of Christ and by authority from him the chief Pastor to watch over the Flock to encourage them that live conformably to the Gospel by the consolations thereof and to warn them that walk disorderly and if any continue obstinate therein to declare them unworthy of Church-Communion and Christian converse and to require the faithful to have no fellowship with them to the intent that they may be humbled and reformed As the Discipline of all Societies is to be regulated by their true interest and and chief scope so is this of the Church of God Now the Christian Church looks mainly to the honour of Christ and the glory of Gods grace in him and to the Salvation of men for which ends it was ordained And consequently its true interest lies in the conservation and augmentation of true Christianity or the power of godliness but that Church interest which is elsewhere fixed and levelled to an other mark appertains to a carnal and worldly State set up in the room and pretence of this Spiritual Society The Churches true and proper excellency lies not in worldly splendor opulency and power nor in outward rites and formal unity nor in the stability and amplitude of a meer external State but in the inward light and life in the unfained faith and love in the purity and Spiritual unity of believers and in the security and advancement of this internal State and of the external State in order to the internal Wherefore the right end of discipline is not to promote temporal glory and opinions and formalities thereunto subservient but the Apostolick faith and worship and the regeneration of the professors thereof and their sincere devotion Godly unity Sobriety Righteousness Brotherly-kindness and common Charity and all the vital parts of Christianity and to keep and cast out Heresie Superstition Profaness Unrighteousness and all wicked error and practice that tends to frustrate the designs of Christs Gospel as also to prevent and remedy the causless tearing and renting of Churches and those alienations and animosities among Christians that proceed only from the wills and lusts of men And the management hereof to this right end is of far greater consequence than any scrupulosity or preciseness about its external form and order Nay if an external order could be proved to be primitive and Apostolical and were perverted and abused to inforce corrupt doctrines scandalous and insnaring inventions and impositions and in a Ceremonial strictness to indulge real profaness and discourage true Godliness it were no other then the mystery of a carnal state under a Spiritual name having a form of godliness but denying and suppressing the power thereof The right end of Discipline being such as hath been declared it follows that its proper work is to incourage Godliness and to disgrace open sin Accordingly being rightly managed it admonisheth the unruly casts out the obstinate and restores the penitent About these things it is active watchfull and vigorous What severity it hath it exerciseth in correcting real scandals and gross breaches of Gods Law and in maintaining the Churches peace against those that cause divisions and offences contrary to the Doctrine which we have received that is the Doctrine of Christ and his Apostles But it careth little for those matters wherein the life and power of Religion and the Churches peace and edification is unconcerned Much less doth it seek to quench godly zeal and to hinder the necessary means of the increase of true godliness or to afflict peaceable and pious Christians by any needless rigors CHAP. VII Religious Family-government IN the time of the Law the solemn Dedication of houses was in use the Solemnity expressing that holy exercises should be performed in it and that the houshold should be
steddiness purity and soberness This new nature while it is lodg'd in the earthly tabernacle is clogg'd with many adverse things especially the relicks of the old nature which cause much vanity of thoughts indisposedness of mind motions to evil and aversations from good and somtimes more sensible disorders of affections and eruptions of unruly passion and aberrations in life and conversation The same divine principal is in some Christians more firm lively and active than in others yet it is habitually prevalent in them all and it resists and overcomes the contrary principle even in the case of most beloved sins and strongest temptations and perseveres in earnest and fearful indeavours of perfecting holiness in the fear of God And whatsoever degree of sanctity is obtained it ascribes wholly to the praise of Gods grace in Christ and the power of his spirit Christianity being known what it is it may easily be known what it is not and so the false disguises of it may easily be detected Forasmuch as it looks far higher than the temporal interests of mankind in the settlings of this life though it doth not overlook them it cannot be thought to have done its work in making men meerly just-dealers good neighbours and profitable members of the Common-wealth for such may be some of them that are without Christ without the hope of the Gospel and without God in the world Moreover it cannot lie so low as in a bare belief of the Gospel and an observance of its external institutes accompanied with a civil conversation As for such as rest in these things what are they more in the eye of God than the heathens that know him not And wherein do they differ from them except in a dead faith and outward form taken up by education tradition example custom of the country and other such like motives Nor doth it lie in unwritten doctrines and ordinances of worship devised by men nor yet in curiosities of opinion or accidental modes of Worship discipline or Church-government nor in ones being of this or that Sector party nor in meer Orthodoxality all which being rested in are but the false coverings of hypocrites It is not the lax and easie low and large rule by which Libertines and Formalists yea some pretended perfectionists do measure their own righteousness who assert their perfectness by disannulling or lessening the law of God In a word it is not any kind of morality or vertue whatsoever which is not true holiness or intire dedication to God and therefore much less is it that loose and jolly religion of the sensual gang who keep up a superficial devotion in some external forms but give up themselves to real irreligion and profaneness and bid defiance to a circumspect walking and serious course of Godliness And now it is too apparent what multitudes of them that prophess the faith of Christ are Christians in name only and not indeed Their alienation from the life of God and their enmity against it and their conformity to the course of this world in the lusts thereof doth testifie that they have not received the grace of God in truth But Christians indeed according to the nature of Christianity above expressed which is now in them though not in the highest yet in a prevalent degree do make it their utmost end to know love honour and please God to be conformable to him and to have the fruition of him in the perfection of which conformity and fruition they place the perfection of their blessedness In the sence of their native bondage under the guilt and power of sin they come to the Mediator Jesus Christ and rest upon him by the satisfaction and merit of his obedience and suffering to reconcile and sanctifie them to God and accordingly they give up themselves to him as their absolute Teacher and Ruler all-sufficient Saviour Having received not the Spirit of the world but that which is of God they are crucified to the honours profits and pleasures of the world and have their conversation in heaven and rejoyce in the hope of glory and prepare for sufferings in this life and by faith overcome them The law of God is in their hearts and it is the directory of their practice from day to day by the touchstone of Gods word they prove their own works and come to the light thereof that their deeds may be made manifest to be wrought in God They draw nigh to God in the acts of religious worship of his appointment that they may glorifie him and enjoy spiritual communion with him and be blessed of him especially with spiritual blessings in Christ and as God is a Spirit they worship him in Spirit and in truth It is their aim care and exercise to keep consciences void of offence towards God and towards men and to render to all their dues both in their publick and private capacities and to walk in love towards all not excluding enemies and to do all the good they can both to the souls and bodies of men but those that fear God they more highly prise and favour The remainder of corruption within themselves they know feelingly and watch and pray and strive that they enter not into temptation and maintain a continual warfare against the Devil the world and the flesh under the conduct of Jesus Christ their Leader according to the laws of their holy profession with patience and perseverance In the midst of a crooked and perverse generation they indeavour to be blameless and harmless as the Sons of God and to shine as lights in the world and by the influence of their good conversation to turn others to righteousness Such is the Character of those persons upon whose souls the holy doctrine of the Gospel is impressed and in whom the Christian religion hath its real being force and vertue These are partakers of the heavenly calling and set apart for God to do him service in the present world and afterwards to live in glory with him for ever These are the true Church of God the Church being here taken as mystical not as visible and these are all joyned together by one Spirit in one Body under Christ their Head in the same new nature having one rule of their profession and one hope of their calling These are a great multitude which no man can number of all nations and kindreds and people and tongues yet hitherto not proportionable to the rest of mankind And they continue throughout all ages but in greater or lesser numbers and more or less refined from Superstition or other corruptions and more or less severed from the external communion of the Antichristian State according to the brightness or darkness of the times and places wherein they live CHAP. II. Things pertaining to the Sound State of Religion And first holy Doctrine THe advancement of the Christian life which hath its beginning in the new birth being the great end propounded in this discourse in reference to this end
the things here principally looked after are the receiving and propagating of holy Doctrine drawn out of the pure fountain of Sacred Scripture the right administration of true Gospel worship by which God is glorified as God and the worshippers are made more godly The due preaching of Gods word and dispensation of other divine ordinances by personslawfully called thereunto for the conversion of sinners and edification of converts Holy discipline truly and faithfully administred by the Pastors as the necessity of the Church requires and the State thereof will bear Religious family government Private mutual exhortations pious conferences and profitable conversation The predominant influence of religion in the civil government of a nation yet without usurpation or incroachment upon the civil rights of any especially of the higher Powers The unity of Christians and their mutual charity conspicuous and illustrious and lastly in order to all these intents a good frame of Ecclesiastical polity Holy Doctrine is the incorruptible seed of Regeneration by which the new creature is begotten It is not here intended to represent a perfect scheme thereof for it sufficeth to signifie that extracts thereof from holy Scripture are drawn out in the ancient Catholik Creeds and in the harmonious confessions of the present Reformed Churches Nevertheless our design requires the observation of some most important things about the Doctrine of Salvation As that there be first an earnest and hearty belief of the existence and providence of God and his government of mankind by laws congruous to their nature and of the immortallity of human souls and of a life of retribution in the world to come which is the foundation of all religion 2ly Right apprehensions of Gods nature and attributes more especially of his Holiness comprehending as well his purity and justice as his mercy and goodness that as he is ready to procure his creatures happiness and refuseth none that come unto him so that he cannot deny himself and that he receiveth note but upon terms agreeable to his Holiness 3ly An Idea of Godliness in themind not as shaped by any private conceptions but as expressed by the Holy Ghost whose workmanship it is that Christianity in the hearts and lives of men may be the same with Christianity in the Scriptures 4. The receiving of the great mystery of Godliness not as allegorized in the fancies of some Enthusiasts wherein it vanisheth to nothing but as verisied in the truth of the History wherein it becomes the power of God to Salvation and so not to sever the internal spirit of the Christian Religion from its external frame the basis whereof is the Doctrine of the Trinity in the Unity of the Godhead and of the incarnation of the eternal word Lastly Soundness of judgment in those great Gospel verities that are written for the exalting of Gods grace and the promoting of true godliness and the incouraging of the godly in opposition to ungracious ungodly and uncomfortable errours of which sort are these following truths That the study and knowledge of the Scriptures is the duty and priviledge of all Christians that according to their several capacities being skilfull in the word of righteousness they may discern between truth and falshood between good and evil and offer to God a reasonable service according to his revealed will That internal illumination is necessary to the saving knowledge of God the Holy spirit in that regard not inspiring new revelations but inabling to discern savingly what is already revealed in nature and Scripture That man was created after the image of God in righteousness and true holyness and that in this state he was indued with a self-determining principle called Freewill and thereby made capable of abiding holy and happy or of falling into sin and misery according to his own choice and that God left him to the freedom of his own choice having given him whatsoever power or assistance was necessary to his standing That the first man being set in this capacity fell from God and it pleased God not to annihilate him nor to prevent his propagating of an issue in the same fallen state which would follow upon his fall but left the condition of mankind to pass according to the course of nature being now fallen That by the sin of Adam all men are made sinners and corrupt in their whole nature and are under the curse of the Law and liable to eternal condemnation and being left to the wicked bent of their own wills are continually adding to their original sin a heap of actual transgressions and so are of themselves in a miserable and helpless condition That the Lord Jesus Christ according to his full intention and his Fathers commandment hath made propitiation for the sins of the whole world so far as thereby to procure pardon of sin and Salvation of soul to all that do unfeignedly believe and repent That man being dead in sin cannot be quickned to the divine life but by the power of Gods grace raising him above the impotency of lapsed nature That the culpable impotency of lapsed nature to saving good lies in the fixed full aversation of the will by a deplorable obstinacy nilling that good to which the natural faculties can reach and ought to incline as to their due object That the root of godliness lies in regeneration and inward Sanctification That God calleth some by the help of that special grace which infallibly effecteth their conversion and adhesion to him without any impeachment of the natural liberty of the will That whatsoever God doth in time and in whatsoever order he doth it he decreed from eternity to do the same and in the same order and so he decreed from eternity to give that special grace to some and by it to bring them to glory which decree is eternal election to which is opposite the pure negative of Non-election As for preordination to everlasting punishment it passeth not upon any but on the foresight and consideration of their final abode in the state of sin That the more common convictions inclinations and endeavours towards God in persons unregenerate are good in their degree and the ordinary preparative to a saving change and they are the effects of that divine grace which is called common That deligent seeking after God by the help of common grace is not in vain it being the means to some further attainment towards the souls recovery and it is regarded of God in its degree and God doth not deny men further degrees of help till they refuse to follow after him by not using the help already given them and by resisting his further aid That God hath made all men savable and though he doth not simply and absolutely will the conversion and Salvation of all yet he willeth it so far and in such manner as is sufficient to encourage the diligent in their endeavours and to convict the careless of being inexcusable despisers of his grace towards them That there is an
authority and reverend esteem of their Persons and Office yet it regulates the same as much as may be to prevent ambition avarice sensuality idleness haughtiness that the worst of Men may not be incouraged to aspire to its Promotions and that good Men may not degenerate and that the sacred name of the Church may be held by a society of Men not carnal but truly spiritual It is constituted as much as may be to secure a succession of wise and godly Pastors and Teachers from age to age which is the surest means of the Church's perpetual good Estate It is not framed to uphold things only serviceable to a carnal interest but to inforce things acceptable to God and profitable to Men and to suppress whatsoever tends to defeat the power of the Gospell or disgrace the Profession of it and to reform abuses impartially and effectually According to the true end of Ecclesiasticall Authority which is for edification and not for destruction it inlargeth the power of doing good and restrains the power of hurting as much as the ends of Goverment will permit such restraint accordingly its greatest severity takes hold of the worst Men and the best are left most at liberty and secure from unnecessary molestation It is directed to the satisfying of the just and reasonable demands of conscience which is a choice and tender thing and therefore it is very tender of intangling and perplexing the same unnecessarily It makes the Pastors government truly pastoral that is not imperious and violent but Paternal proceeding by Exhortation and Doctrine and gentle instruction and love and when correction is necessary by the rod of Discipline It aims at the forming of Mens minds and the governing of their conversations by good and sound Principles and to make them aâ—… much as may be a Law to themselves yet aâ—… supposing the exceeding pravity of Mans nature and the infirmities of the best of men iâ—… leaves not the safety of Religion meerly to Mens good dispositions and inclinations buâ—… by due restraints curbeth the remainder oâ—… Mans perverseness It seeks not to debase the People and de press their faculties that they may be the more easily led captive by politick Men at their pleasure but to ennoble them as much as they are capable and to advance their understandings to the best improvement and accordingly it takes care that they may be throughly instructed in things pertaining to Faith and Godliness In a word it would make even the lowest and meanest of them not Brutes buâ— Men and not meer natural men but Christians or spiritual Men. The subject here described hath different degrees of excellency as it is more or less answerable to its rule and available to its end But notwithstanding divers defects and errours if that which is wholsom and good be predominant it is to be esteemed a good Constitution yet the best is most desirable Of such consequence is the structure of Ecclesiastical Polity that if it be naught it hath a continual evil influence on all Church affairs and perverts the whole course thereof and the making of many particular good Laws or Rules will not help it for in that case they are rendred almost useless It is notably observed by a Person of eminent worth Church Government is a fort or castle if Traitors to the Kingdom of Christ get the possession of it it were desirable that the Castle were ruin'd and the Christian Religion left to support it self by the innate evidence of its own Truth than be forcibly maintain'd for contrary ends and prove a mystery of Ungodliness and Tyranny CHAP. XII The corrupt state of Religion and first Externalness and Formality EVery kind of excellency in the present World hath its counterfit or false resemblance which in things of a moral nature is the depravation or degeneration thereof And so the true Religion hath its degeneration which is destructive to it yet in this corruption of Mankind is easily mistaken and exalted in the room of it It is a dead image of Christianity without the inward life of Christ and the works thereof are dead works being not wrought in God It is the dominion of the spirit of the World and of unmortified lust under pretence of the rule of the Spirit of God It is a zeal of some unnecessary Opinions and unprofitable Observances received sometimes from a more peculiar and private fancy sometimes from the general custom and tradition or at the best a zeal of Orthodoxality when that form of sound Doctrine is not obeyed from the heart It is a self-chosen godliness and not of Gods making taken up to delude the Conscience and lift up the Soul with high but ill-grounded hopes and in the mean while to excuse it from that which is the root of the matter the renouncing of the carnal life and all worldly lusts and the obtaining of the spirit of Power Love and of a sound mind and a life of Purity Goodness and impartial Righteousness The best of it is but a gloss or varnish of superficial Religiousness accompanied with a dead kind of Morality which hath its rise from education or from complexion otherwise called good Nature but springs not from the root of love towards God and of a living faith in Jesus Christ. The several impostures disguises and false pretences by which Men delude themselves and abuse the World in this matter are almost numberless yet they generally fall into one of these two main currents of religious Aberrations either the Political popular and broad way of Externalness and Customariness or the devious path of Sectarian dissetledness and extravagancy The more ample degeneration of Christianity is the meerly formal external and political State thereof that hath prevailed far and near over the Christian World This externalness is very plausible and specious but very consistent and for the most part accompanied with a large indulgence to the Flesh and with much licentiousness of Principles and Practice and it casts the mind into a deep forgetfulness of that which is spiritual and substantial in Religion It is the common rode and broad way because most obvious and easie to the carnal spirit of all sorts of Men who having some conscience of Religion gladly take up with a form that with more security and peace they may deny the power thereof as also because it seems most servicable to Superiors for shaping and swaying the consciences of Inferiors to their wills and to the ends by them designed Accordingly as it gets ground it erects a frame of things which hath a shew of Piety Unity and Order but is really an engine devised to destroy whatsoever may be truly called by those lovely names When Mens false and vain inventions rule instead of Gods Oracles when the truth of the Gospel is mingled with such Doctrines Institutions and Observances as corrupt the Purity enervate the Power and frustrate the ends of the Gospel when the misapprehension or misapplication of true
And though we may not please them in doing that which is evil yet we may in that which is lawfull but less edifying and so we may let go some good in the manner of performance rather than omit the whole Service Here is indeed a sinfull defect yet not on our part but on theirs who urge the way that is less edifying and refuse the better The exercise of Church Discipline being a means and not the end must be govern'd by rules of Prudence among which this is a chief one that the means must not be asserted so stifly as to indanger or destroy the end The exercise of Spiritual Authority is necessarily more regulated by the determination of the Civil Magistrate in a State that maintains the true Religion than in a State that either persecutes or disregards it If it were supposed that Spiritual Power is radically the same in all Ministers of the Gospel let it be considered whether the exercise of that Power may not be more restrained in some and let forth to a larger extent in others upon prudential grounds provided it be not inlarged in some to an exorbitancy and streightened in others to an extream deficiency Likewise if there be a dissent or doubting about a Superiority or Pre-eminence of Spiritual Power in some distinct Ecclesiastical Office let it be considered how far submission may be yielded to a Power objectively Ecclesiastical but formally Political derived from the Civil Magistrate and seated in Ecclesiastical Persons by Temporal Laws Lastly in reference to things imposed there is a wide difference between a quiet submission and an approving free choice It may be the duty of Subjects to do that which may be the sin of Governors to command For in the same things wherein Governors refuse the better way Subjects may do their parts and choose the best way they can If these considerations or others of the like Catholick tendency be found allowable and will pass among Brethren of different judgments they may prevent and heal many breaches and unite dissenters in the bond of Peace and Love and afford unto such as have been intangled a more free scope and large capacity for publick aims and actions CHAP. XXIX Whether the purity and power of Religion be lessened by amplitude and comprehensiveness A Doubt may arise in this place whether it ben ot safer to make the Church-doors narrow and to keep a strict guard upon the entrance into it and to insist upon the exactest purity that Religion may continue uncorrupt and that the Church be not defiled nor its Interest ravished by Strangers In resolving this doubt I forget not that the way is narrow and the Gate is straight that leadeth unto Life But self-denial and real mortification and a conversation in Heaven and not strictness of opinion in Church Order is this narrow way and straight Gate and our Salvation lies upon purity of heart and life and not upon Church purity Besides God hath made the Gate of the visible Church much wider than the Gate of Heaven and Church Discipline cannot be set in that strictness in which the Doctrine of Salvation is to be preached For Doctrine directly judgeth the heart and requireth truth in the inward parts but Discipline judgeth only the exterior conversation and must be satisfied in the credibility of Profession In walking by rigid rules of Discipline though with an aim to advance purity we may easily shut out those whom Christ hath taken in True Piety may be found in many who retain such things as some Godly Christians judge Erroneous or Superstitious and Godly sincerity may be found in many whom some of greater zeal but too censorious may judge to be but formalists It is not good to neglect sober and serious People though in a lower degree of profession who conform to Gods Ordinances and regard a sound Ministery and shew themselves teachable lest we reject those that would help to uphold and honour Religion more than many who will put themselves forward among the strictest sort but indeed are either carnal projecters or busie bodies or froward and fickle Persons and a stain to the Profession in which they seem to glory This narrowness of Church-communion and other reservedness of some strict Professors tends neither to the increase nor stability of pure Religion Zealous Christians are a kind of good leaven like that in the Gospel Parable which if kept alone is of no efficacy but being diffused will season the whole lump If they sever themselves into distinct visible Societies from the body of a Nation professing the true Religion their vertue cannot spread far but they leaven the whole mass of People by being diffused throughout the whole And then they gain reverence and reputation and by their example profane and dissolute Persons may be convinced and much reformed and among those that walk orderly many may be carried on from common to saving Grace Hereunto may be added this inestimable benefit to wit the apparent hope of the propagation of true Religion to the Generations to come which otherwise being unfixed might in time wear away and fail in such a Nation Furthermore sincere Christians are comparatively but a little Flock and of that little Flock the greater number are of low capacities and very defective in political prudence and if they were wholly left to govern themselves in separated Societies they might easily be insnared into Parties and Breaches and manifold inconveniencies Indeed those of them that are best able to govern themselves are most convinced of the need of publick Government Wherefore it is the security of the faithfull to live under a publick and fixed rule and order and consequently to be imbodied with a Nation if it may be in one way of Communion CHAP. XXX Factious usurpations are destructive to Religions interest REligion is by the maligners of it too often called Faction But the name is not more reproachfull than the thing it self is hurtfull to it And the prudent promoters of it will avoid Factious usurpations and all such ways as would turn to a general greivance But if any number of men in a higher degree of profession should seek the ingrossing of profits and preferments within themselves upon the account of their being Religious and the assuming of such power as cannot be maintained but by injury or disregard really or in appearance offered to all others and should so act in Civil Affairs as if they only were the people and think to do this for the advancement of Religion they would much mistake their way For besides the iniquity of this practice the vanity and weakness of it is manifest The intrinsick and permanent strength of strict Religion must be well considered For that which is adventitious is very mutable and may be soon turn'd against it Occasional advantages may suddenly raise it up to reputation and power among men and as suddenly leave it to sink and fall again Wherefore its friends and followers may
time as the present case requires As the Wisdom of a Housholder will direct him how far to bear with faults and weaknesses in his Family so the Magistrate by Wisdom will discern what may be born with in his Common-Wealth so far as is sufficient to the true and just ends of Government CHAP. XXXIII The Churche's true interest to be pursued by Ecclesiastical Persons NOthing is more precious and among Christians nothing should be more valued than the good of Gods Church for it is Christs and Gods great interest in the world but the misery is that the Churches name is abused and its interest mistaken most perversly For none have more pretended for the Church than they whose business is to get and keep worldly pomp and power with carnal ease and pleasure and to make laws and rules serviceable to these ends and to corrupt the minds and debauch the lives of men that they may bring them into blind obedience to such laws and maintain their worldly dominion over Christs heritage and who value all men howsoever qualified as they stand affected to their estate and accordingly stick not to reject the eminently good and to receive the notoriously bad In the Romish Church all this is palpable Now let these be called the Church by them that list to give that name to a state of Pride and Luxury of Tyranny and oppression of carnal and Devilish Policy under which the souls of people are betray'd to everlasting perdition Wherefore those in the Ministery that are sollicitous of the Churches welfare should state the interest thereof aright which indeed is not for the service of the flesh or the carnal mind but for the promoting of the Divine life in men and the increase of the mystical Society of Regenerate Persons united in Christ their Head by his Spirit dwelling in them and in order thereunto for the increase of the visible Society of persons externally owning such an internal State And therefore it is to promote and propagate the sound knowledge of God in Christ and to make the people of their charge really good and to advance them what they can in grace and wisdom according to their several capacities and to deal with them in meekness and love and to walk before them as examples of all purity and goodness and to be more sensible and sollicitous about the corruptions and sinfull disorders than the sufferings of the Church and to be more zealous for Gods honour and the good of Souls than for their own honour wealth or power and in a word to seek the things of Christ more than their own things The Ministers that discharge their Office well are in Scripture declared Worthy of double honour And that they be indowed with honorable settled maintenance is necessary for the support of a Religion that for its excellency requires to be supported by the help of excellent Gifts as Learning Eloquence and Prudence not now to be obtained by Miracles but in the ordinary use of means with much cost and labour And questionless the withdrawing of these supports tends to the Churches ruine nevertheless an inordinate and licentious collation and accumulation of Preferments making for the Service of Covetousness Ambition and depraved appetite and for the decay of Sobriety Vigilancy and Industry in the Pastors is no less dangerous This exorbitancy after the Roman Empire became Christian allured and brought in the men of this World who have their Portion in this life and gave them advantage by carnal arts to possess themselves of the chief Seats of Power in the Church by which means Religion degenerated into externalness and carnality and that which was then named the Church was at length turned into a worldly State which grew more and more corrupt till the mystery of iniquity was fulfilled in it Where Christianity hath recovered it self out of the degeneracy of the later times and knowledge is generally diffused among the people the sufficiency industry and faithfulness of Ecclesiastical persons will be inquired after negligence in their Administrations and irregularities in their lives will not pass without noting the ignorant idle and scandalous will fall into contempt outward Formalities will be no covering as in darker times they were distinctive Habits and Reverend Titles alone will not procure veneration the Ecclesiastical Authority will sink and fall without remedy if real worth doth not uphold it In such times men will not be to learn that an arm of flesh doth not constitute a Christian Church and that the aid of the secular Power is not enough to prove one Party to be Orthodox and the rest Heretical or Schismatical External violence which is the common support of false Religions will in this case do little good but it will render them that call for it the more odious and more discover the weakness of their Cause Wherefore the Clergy must resolve to do Worthily and fulfill their Ministery or they must extinguish the Light of the Gospel or the Light of the Gospel will extinguish them But if as faithfull Shepherds they watch over the Flock and tender the state thereof if they labour in the Word and Doctrine and Teach with meekness and patience if they pitty and succour the weak and heal that which is lame that it may not be turned out of the way if they use the rod of Discipline with judgment and Paternal affection if they discard and lay by mens unprofitable institutes and maintain all Divine ordinances in their due honour and chiefly urge the observance of the indispensable Commands of God and turn men from externalness and make it their chief aim that Christ by his Word and Spirit may Reign in the hearts of Professed Christians then shall they magnifie their Office and establish their Authority and hold their Flocks in an unfeigned Reverence and submission as feeling the force of the Ministerial warfare in their Consciences And the inferior differences shall not be able to cause disgust or aversation or break those strong bonds of the Peoples sincere regard toward their Pastors but they would rather be swallowed up in love which is the bond of Perfectness The Conclusion NO greater thing can fall under the consideration of Mankind than the Security and increase of true Religion The Glory of God among men and their eternal Salvation depends upon it T is as far above the concernments of the Kingdoms of this World and their Politick Administrations all Secular Affairs and Philosophical speculations as the Heavens are high above the Earth An inquiry into the Sound state and true interest thereof is a contemplation worthy of the greatest minds and the advancement of it is the chiefest honour of the highest Powers T is the Royal interest of that Potentate who is King of Kings and Lord of Lords and of that Blessed Society which are incorporated under him their Lord and Head And who that in any degree hath truly known the felicity of this Kingdom and hopes for a
Subordination in the several parts thereof either in way of proper authority or of mutual agreement And the Associated Churches and particular Members therein are naturally bound to maintain the orderly state of the whole Association and to comply with the Rules thereof when they are not repugnant to the Word of God A Bishop or Pastor and the People adhering to him are not declared to be the only true Church and Pastor within such a Precinct by their conjunction with the largest Combination of Bishops or Pastors and their Churches For the greater number of Bishops may in such manner err in their Constitutions as to make rightly informed Persons uncapable of their Combination A National Church is not a particular Church properly so called but a Combination or Coagmentation of particular Churches united under one Civil Supream either Personal as in a Monarchy or Collective as in a Republick And the true notion thereof lies not in any Combination purely Ecclesiastical and Intrinsecal but Civil and Extrinsecal as of so many Churches that are collected under one that hath the Civil Supremacy over them The National Church of England truly denotes all the Churches in England united under one Supream Civil Church-Governour the Kings Majesty Civil Magistrates as such are no Constitutive parts of the Church The Christian Church stood for several Centuries without the support of their authority But Supream Magistrates have a Civil Supremacy in all Ecclesiastical matters and a political extrinsecal Episcopacy over all the Pastors of the Churches in their Dominions and may compell them to the performance of their Duties and punish them for negligence and mal-Administration and they may reform the Churches when they stand in need of Reformation The possession of the Tithes and Temples doth not of it self declare the true Pastor and Church nor doth the Privation thereof declare no Pastor and no Church For these are disposed of by the secular power which of it self can neither make nor make void a Pastor or Church A Diocess is a collective body of many Parishes under the Government of one Diocesan If the several Parishes be so many particular Churces and if their proper and immediate Presbyters be of the same order with those which in Scripture are mentioned by that name and were no other than Bishops or Pastors then a Diocess is not a particular Church but a Combination of Churches and the Diocesan is a Bishop of Bishops or a Governour over many Churches and their immediate Bishops If the Parishes be not acknowledged to be Churches nor their Presbyters to be realy Bishops or Pastors but the Diocess be held to be the lowest Political Church and the Diocesan to be a Bishop of the lowest rank and the sole Bishop or Pastor of all the included Parishes I confess I have no knowledge of the Divine right of such a Church or Bishop or of any precept or precedent thereof in Scripture For every particular Church mentioned in Scripture was but one distinct stated Society having its own proper and immediate Bishop or Bishops Elder or Elders Pastor or Pastors who did Personally and immediately Superintend over the whole Flock which ordinarily held either at once together or by turns Personal present Communion with each other in Gods Worship But a Diocess consists of several stated Societies to wit the Parishes which are Constituted severally of a proper and immediate Presbyter or Elder having cure of Souls and commonly called a Rector and the People which are his proper and â—…rge or cure And the People of thâ—… not live under the Personal and inâ—…rsight of their Diocesan but under â—…legates and Substitutes Nor do they oâ—…ly hold Personal present Communion with each other in Gods Worship either at once together or by turns Nevertheless which way soever a Diocess be considered I have nothing to object against submission to the Government of the Diocesan as an Ecclesiastical Officer established by the Law of the Land under the Kings Supremacy There is nothing in the nature of the Office of Presbyterate which according to the Scripture is a Pastoral Office that shewe it ought to be exercised no otherwise than in Subordination to a Diocesan Bishop Christ who is the Author and only proper giver of all Spiritual Authority in the Church hath not so limited the said Office and men cannot by any act of theirs enlarge or lessen it as to its nature or essential state or define it otherwise than it is stated of Christ in his word No power Ecclesiastical or Civil can discharge any Minister of Christ from the exercise of his Ministery in those circumstances wherein Christ commands him to exercise it nor any Christians from those duties of Religion to which the Command of Christ obligeth them As the Magistrate is to judge what Laws touching Religion are fit for him to enact and execute so the Ministers of Christ are to use a judgment of discretion about their own Pastoral acts and all Christians are to do the same about their own acts of Church-Communion The too common abuse of the judgment of discretion cannot abrogate the right use thereof it being so necessary that without it men cannot act as men nor offer to God a reasonable Service CHAP. II. Of true Church-Unity WHen the names of Unity and Schism are by partiality and selfishness commonly and grosly abused and misapplied the nature of the things to which those names do of right belong ought to be diligently inquired into and clearly and distinctly laid open For a groundwork in this inquiry I fix upon two very noted texts of Scripture The one is Eph. 4. 3. Indeavouring to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of Peace The other is Rom. 16. 17. Mark them that cause Divisions and Offences contrary to the Doctrine that ye have learned and avoid them The former guides us to the knowledge of true Church-unity and the latter shews us the true nature of Schism By the former of these Texts all Christians are obliged to maintain that Spiritual Unity which they have one with another under Christ their Head by the Holy Ghost in all due acts of holy Communion in Peace and Concord Several important things are here to be taken notice of 1. There is a Spiritual unity between all Christians in the form of one mystical Body as there is a natural unity between all the members of the natural Body The members being many are one body and members one of another 2. This Unity is under Christ as the Head of it What the head is to the natural Body that is Christ and much more to his mystical Body the Church 3. This Unity of Christians one with another under Christ is by the Holy Ghost and therefore called the Unity of the Spirit The Spirit of Christ the Head doth seize upon and reside in all the Faithfull by which they become Christs mystical Body and are joyned one to another as fellow-members 4. This Unity of
unnecessary things if they be not in themselves unlawfull nor of mischievous consequence may be of Gods allowing as to the submitters Thereupon they are guilty of Schism who meerly for the sake of those unnecessary things yet lawfull as to their use though wrongfully urged upon them forsake the communion of the Church or their Ministerial station where things are well settled as to the substantials of Religion and the ends of Church order and when they themselves are not required to justifie the imposing of such unnecessaries Here I speak of contumacious refusers who will rather make a breach than yield But refusers out of conscience believing or with appearance of reason suspecting the said lawfull things to be unlawfull are either accquitted from Schism or guilty but in a low degree and much less culpable than the Imposers who might well forbear to impose Be it here noted that when Superiors sin in commanding a thing exempt from their authority it may be the Subjects duty to observe the thing commanded In this case the said observance is not an act of obedience for that can arise only from the Rulers authority to command But it is an act of prudence equity and charity and it is good and necessary for the ends sake and in that regard t is an act of obedience though not to the Earthly Ruler yet to God who commands us to follow Peace and maintain Unity in all lawfull ways and means In the judgment of the Apostle it is no slight matter to act against conscience rationally doubting or suspecting a breach of Gods Law Rom. 14. 5. Let every man be fully persuaded in his mind v. 14. To him that esteemeth any thing to be unclean to him it is unclean ver 23. He that doubteth is damned if he eat because he eateth not of Faith for whatsoever is not of Faith is sin The command of Rulers is no good security for acting against a rational doubting conscience When I am in doubt touching the lawfulness of the thing injoyned I have no certainty of being on the safer side by complying with Rulers For though in general obedience to Rulers be a certain Duty yet in the particular doubted case I cannot be certain that my compliance is right and warrantable obedience and not a breach of Gods Law Is it plain that I ought to obey the commands of Rulers in things that have Gods allowance so t is as plain that I ought not to obey their commands in things which God hath forbidden Moreover it is as plain that I ought not to act against my own conscience which as being the discerner of the will of God concerning me is of right the immediate director of my actions Indeed my conscience cannot alter Gods Law or make that which God hath made my duty to be not my duty yet it will not suffer me to act in disconformity to its directions Seeing the Unity of the Spirit is always in conjunction with Faith and Holiness to which the Unity of external order is always to be subservient it follows that when Unity of external order doth not tend to advance but hinder sound Faith and true Holiness then a false Unity is set up and the true Unity is abandoned and divisions and offences are caused And it is no Schism but a duty not to adhere to a Unity of external order so set and urged as that it tends to the destruction or notable detriment of Faith and Holiness which are the end of all Church Order The means are good in reference to their end and must never be used in a way destructive to it Of the hinderance of the said ends there be these following instances Here laid down in general without intendment of particular application to any Churches now in being which are left to be tryed and judged by that rule by which all must stand or fall 1. When a Church or Churches a Congregation or Congregations have an establishment of external Polity and an ordained Ministery and a Form of Divine Worship but are destitute of such Ministers as are qualified to feed the Flock and are burdened with such as are altogether unfit to have the charge of Souls committed to them who are either unable to teach or teach corruptly either teaching corrupt Doctrine or abusing mishandling and misapplying sound Doctrine to encourage the Ungodly and discourage the Godly 2. Where there are some Ministers able and apt to teach and duly qualified but their number is in no wise proportionable to the number of the People and there be multitudes that cannot have the benefit of their Ministery so that if they have no more placed among them than those few they have in effect none 3. Where sincere Christians or credible Professors of Christianity are cast out of an established Church by wrong sentence or are debarred from its communion by unlawfull terms injoyned them or unnecessary terms which are to them unlawfull by real doubts of conscience and which Christ hath not authorized Rulers to injoyn as terms of Church communion 4. When Ministers whom Christ hath furnished and called are driven out of their publick station by unlawfull terms injoyned or by terms unnecessary and to them unlawfull by real doubts of conscience and which Christ hath not authorized Rulers to injoyn as terms of the publick Ministery Upon the cases here mentioned I inquire whether the said Ministers and People may not draw together into new congregations Let it be considered whether the determinations of men may be a perpetual bar to true visible Christians it may be to multitudes of them against the injoyment of those most important priviledges to which God hath given them right Yea suppose their consciences were culpably weak in scrupling things imposed yet they may suffer wrong by such an excess of punishment as so great a deprivation And Christ doth not reject them for such weaknesses Let it be also considered whether such injured as Christians are wrongfully excluded from Gods Ordinances and such neglected Souls as are left destitute of the necessary means of Salvation may lawfully be deserted by Christs Ministers Should not the Stewards of the mysteries of God indeavour to supply what is lacking to such by reason of the rigourousness or negligence of others If it be said we may not do evil that good may come nor break the laws of Unity for such respects the answer is that this is not to do evil but a good work and a necessary duty and here is no breach of Unity that is of Gods making or allowing The necessary means of saving Souls are incomparably more pretious than uniformity in external accidental order especially when t is unwarrantably injoyned and attended with such evil consequents If within any local bounds assigned for the Pastoral charge of any Ecclesiastick the People be left destitude of competent provision for their Souls it is no intrusion or breach of Unity if an other Pastor perform the work of the Ministery within
those bounds Subjects may not by coercive power reform the publick State and change the Laws which is the work of the Supream Magistrate But let it be considered whether they may not have their voluntary Assemblies for Gods Worship when they are driven from the communion of the legal Churches by the imposition of unlawfull terms or unnecessary terms apprehended by them to be unlawfull For in this case they are forced either to hold such Assemblies or to abide perpetually without those Spiritual priviledges which are their due and the ordinary means of their Salvation There is a great difference between inimical Separation like Sedition in a Common-wealth and Secregation upon necessary causes without breach of charity And among the necessary causes this may be one that all sober Christians who for conscience sake cannot submit to the way of the Established Churches may be relieved and that none may be exposed for lack of that relief to be lead aside into the error of the wicked as Heresie Infidelity or any other course of Impiety Indeed here is some variation from the ordinarily regular bounding of Churches But the partition of one Church from another by local bounds is not of absolute necessity and invariable but naturally eligible from the convenience thereof when it may be had But the state of some Christians may be such as to compel them to vary from it The scope hereof is not to set up Churches against Churches but either occasional and temporary Assemblies or at the most but divers Churches distinguished by their several places of assembling or by diversity of external order as the allowed Congregations of Foreigners in London are distinguished from the Parish Churches If any object the inconveniencies that may follow the permitting of Church Assemblies besides those of the Established Order the answer is That the wisdom and clemency of Rulers in any Nation where this case may be supposed can provide that as few as may be should stand in need of that permission by fixing the terms of Church communion and Ministerial liberty to such a latitude as may comprehend all the more moderate Dissenters And after such comprehension Christian charity will plead that all tolerable Dissenters that is all who believe and live as Christians may be tolerated within such limits as may stand with publick Peace and safety That which is here proposed may make for the relief of many thousand serious Christians without breach of the external order which is necessary to be maintained and is not set up to the hinderance of things more necessary It is to be noted that the offenders expresly marked out by the Apostle in the Text Rom. 16. 17. were ungodly men that opposed or perverted the Christian Doctrine and being Sensualists and deceivers disturbed and polluted the Christian Societies and seduced the simple into destructive error and practice Wherefore the Text is ill applied to the rigorous condemnation of honest and peaceable men that dissent only in some accidental or inferior points of Religion for which the Apostle forbids Christians to despise or judge one another Yet not only false Teachers but all Schismaticks are here condemned under this description viz. those that cause Divisions and Offences And though they be not direct opposers of sound Doctrine yet being Dividers or Disturbers they practice contrary to the Doctrine of Christ which teacheth Unity Love and Peace But still it must be observed that the reality of Schism lies not in being divided or disordered but in causing the division or disturbance or in a voluntary violation of or departing from true Church-Unity They that cause Divisions are not excused from Schism by the support of Secular Power nor are others convicted of it meerly by the want of that Support The Magistrates power in Sacred things is accumulative not destructive or diminitive to the rights of Christs Ministers and People It takes not from them any thing that Christ hath granted them but gives them a better capacity to make use thereof CHAP. IV. Of the Schisms that were in the more ancient times of the Church and the different case of the Nonconformists in these times OF those parties which were anciently reputed Schismaticks as violating the Unity of the Church yet not Hereticks as denying any Fundamental point of the Christian Faith the Novatians and Donatists are of the chiefest note Forasmuch as both these are looked upon as the greatest instances of Schism it may be requisite for me to consider the true state of their separation from the main body of the Christian Church passing by accidental matters and insisting on the merits of their cause according to their main Principles and Practices As concerning the Donatists the breach made by them had this rise Donatus with his Complices vehemently opposed Cecilianus who had been chosen Bishop of Carthage in design to thrust him out of his Bishoprick They accuse him of being ordained by one that had been a Proditor and of having admitted into Ecclesiastical Office one that was guilty of the like fault This Cause was by the Emperor Constantine's appointment heard before several Councils and many Judges The Accusers still fail in their Proofs of the things objected Cecilianus is acquitted and confirmed in his Office The Party of Donatus failing in their design were carried in a boundless rage of opposition to a total and irreclaimable Separation from all the Churches that were not of their Faction and became very numerous upon a pretence of shunning the contagion of the wicked in the Communion of the Sacraments Their principles were that the Church of Christ was no where to be found but among themselves in a corner of Africa also that true Baptism was not Administred but in their Sect. Likewise they proceeded to great tumult and violence and rapine And a sort of them called Circumcelliones gloried in a furious kind of Martyrdom partly by forcing others to kill them and partly by killing themselves The Novatians took their name and beginning from Novatus a Presbyter first at Carthage afterwards at Rome who held that they who lapsed in times of Persecution unto the denying of Christ were not to be readmitted unto the Communion of the Church though they repented and submitted to the Ecclesiastical Discipline of Pennance He separated from the Roman Church and was made a Bishop by Bishops of his own judgment in opposition to Cornelius Bishop of Rome Cyprian gives a very bad character of him as a turbulent arrogant and avaritious Person But of what Spirit soever he was his Judgment and Canon was received among many that were of stricter lives and he himself is reported to have suffered death in the persecution under Valerian At the Council of Nice Acesius Bishop of the Novatians being asked by Constantine whether he assented to the same Faith with the Council and to the observation of Easter as was there derceed answered that he fully assented to both Then being again asked by the Emperor why