a conjunction the ends of Church society cannot be had which are solemn worship and mutual Edification Ans What not without a conjunction with the catholick visible Church certainly meetings for solemn worship and mutuall Edification are not terms wherein Christians hold communion with the catholick visible Church for they are proper only to particular worshiping congregations I wonder in what Assemblies do the Christians in England and the Christians in Prestor Johns country meet for solemn worship and mutual Edification I know he thinks the matter if salved by telling us that Christians meeting in any congregation in England for worship and mutual Edification do thereby hold externall communion in those things with the whole Church throughout the world But I conceive this will not serve his turn without the could equally imagine how a man by holding communion with the City of London might be said thereby to hold a civil external communion with all mankind which I think is so wild a conceit as no man yet ever asserted for he must remember he is speaking of such an external communion that is proper to a politick visible Body to the constituting of which kind of communion it is not enough to have the same laws the same customes no nor the same kind of solemn meetings for worship to speak all visible Christians to be of the same external politick communion for suppose in France they had the same laws and customs the same kind of officers as Constables Justices Parliament and a King as we have in England and all under the Government of the very same invisible God it doth not follow so long as there is no dependance of these Kingdomes each on the other that therefore the people of England are of the same external politick communion with those in France Yea further though these two Kingdoms may mutually in times of peace advise with each other for their mutual profits and in case of differences betwixt them they may forbid trading or converse with each other which is a kind of civil excommunication yet for all this they may not be said to be of the same external civil politick communion and why because their respective Magistrates are independent and have no jurisdiction over each other Upon the very same ground I deny any such thing as an external Politick Communion betwixt the Members of the Catholick Church for though they have all the same Laws the same Sacraments the same kind of solemn meetings for Worship and all under the same kind of visible Governours and all this under the same invisible Head the Lord Jesus though so far as they can and the distances of places will admit they may advise with each other for their mutual good and in case that any prove Hereticks they may so far as may be disown or refuse Communion as in the instances before said yet all this no more proves them to be of the same external Politick communion than the like agreements might speak the Kingdom of France and that of England of the same politick civil communion and why but because Christ hath left no visible politick Head to have jurisdiction over the rest If you say this notion speaks a good word for the Headship of the Pope I Answer no such matter for there is no need of such a Head nor of any such external Politick Communion in the Church no more than in the World God hath well enough Governed the World without any such Universal civil Monarch and doth as well govern the Church without any such Universal visible Head And now let us see what of force then is in his second reason which is this such a conjunction in external Communion with he Catholick visible Church is necessary else we cannot possibly partake of the priviledges that Christ hath made over to this his Church as the Remission of Sins and the Graces of the Holy Spirit I Answer He says that Christ hath made over the priviledges of pardon of sin and the Graces of his Spirit to the Church primarily and that before any particular person can partake of pardon of Sin and the Graces of the Spirit he must joyn with the Church in external Communion But how absurd is all this by Church he here means the Catholick visible Church but I wonder how it can be truly said that pardon of sin or the Graces of the Spirit can be said to be made over to the visible Church as priviledges when as it is very certain that Christ never made over such priviledges to the Church as visible But I perceive he understands it ministerially that is to say that a man is pardoned or partake of the Graces of the Spirit but by the Ministry of the Church well let this be granted what will thence follow I am sure that will not follow which you say doth follow that therefore we must first be made Members of the Church before we can be pardoned or sanctifyed by the Spirit for suppose the Church meets for solemn worship and the minister is Preaching and there comes in one or more Infidels for curiosity to see and hear I hope you will not say that these Infidels because they are in the same place with the Church that therefore they are joyned as Members with the Church suppose now these Infidels are by the Sermon convinced and perfectly converted to a true Faith in Jesus Christ I now demand These men that thus are converted do they believe without or with the Grace of the Spirit again so soon as they have believed are they pardoned or are they not I say they could not have believed without the Grace of the Spirit and that so soon as they truly believed they were pardoned and you dare not I think say the contrary Now I pray you is not this Grace of the Spirit and pardoning of sin Communicated before these men were joyned to the Church as visible Members How then can you say that men are obliged to joyn with the Church as Members else they have neither Grace nor pardon the very Truth is the primary reason of Christs institution of visible Church Membership was not for the giving of the first Grace of the Spirit or giving pardon but it was appointed as a means of conveying further degrees of Grace and clearer assurance of pardon visible Church Membership doth suppose the Grace of conversion in the adult and pardon but doth not give or Communicate it I had now done with his first Proposition but that for two inferences he draws from a consideration of the whole as first saith he therefore their position is untrue who maintain that our obligation to Church Communion ariseth from a voluntary admission of our selves into some particular congregation But I say notwithstanding all he hath said that position may be true for he hath been all this while speaking of the Universal visible Church But they that hold that position maintain it only with respect to a particular Church
SEPARATION YET NO Schisme OR NON-CONFORMISTS NO SCHISMATICKS BEING A full and Sober VINDICATION of the NON-CONFORMISTS from the Charge and Imputation of SCHISME IN Answer to a Sermon lately Preached before the Lord Mayor By J. S. Isaiah 66.5 Hear the Word of the Lord ye that tremble at his Word your Brethren that hated you that cast you out for my Names sake said Let the Lord be glorified but he shall appear to your joy and they shall be ashamed London Printed in the year 1675. To the Reader Reader IF thou wouldst have a reason of publishing these sheets the Author will tell thee That it is now about four years since the People he pleads for among whom he believes there are thousands in the Land that are Worshippers of God in Spirit and Truth according to the Gospel have through the good Providence of their great Shepherd the Lord Jesus Christ and through the granted license of an indulgent Prince enjoyed a sweet and blessed Calm But observing lately the Clouds again to gather and to have begun to discharge themselves upon many of this People about England and withal lately meeting with a Sermon wherein this People are not sparingly charged with Schism and the penalties where with the laws threaten them are pleaded for as very innocent harmless things that Sober men as he says may be ashamed to call persecutions I could not but thence conclude that the Authors drift was to stir up and encourage the chief Magistrates of the City for to them the Sermon was preached to a rigorous Execution of those gentle punishments which are but such little things as banishing or imprisoning or spoyling them of their Goods and so undoing them and their Families which are very trifles in his account Now what can probably be the consequents hereof except the Magistrates as David prove wiser than their Teachers but that this people must needs be smitten impoverished scattered and as to their outward concernments ruined But if this shall come to passe and who knows what their God may permit for a time for their tryal what will they have left to support and comfort them under such pressures except the innocency of their Consciences and the Righteousness of the cause for which they suffer And this I say whether their cause be good or bad doth not as to the determination depend upon the meer dictates of any Mortals and I am very verily perswaded it is not prsedtsdih be bad by all this Author hath said although he ha oved to cour and reasoned against it as if in his conceit he had spoke nothing but demonstrations which I should now have immediately begun to reply to but that I thought it most expedient first to give the Reader a view of the case and cause of the Non-conformists for which they are charged of Schism and are thought to have deserved all those severities which the law threatens The Non-Conformists case is this There are some hundreds of true Ministers of Jesus Christ commissioned by him to Preach the Gospel and to administer the Sacraments for so all true Ministers are those according to their commission do Preach and there are many thousands likewise of visible professors of Christianity do willingly hear and joyn with these Ministers in the Worship of God and in a participation of Sacraments as the Gospel requires These meet in dictinct Congregations separate from the legally established Congregations in the Land with whom they Will not because they Cannot hold Communion Because they thus separate and refuse Communion they are charged with Schisme The reason why they thus separate and refuse Communion is because they cannot have it with them I say they Cannot have it because they cannot or ought not to sin or to speak modestly because they cannot do such things which they extreamly suspect to be sinful and if they do but strongly suspect them it is enough for no man can be bound to act against a doubting Conscience and herein I have the suffrage of the Apostle which every good Christian ought much to preferre before any other who may presume to Philosophize to the contrary who says Rom. 14. he that doubteth is damned if he eat because he eateth not of Faith for whatsoeover is not of Faith is sin If it be demanded what those things are which this people suspect as sinful It may be answered they are too well known as that any among us should stand in need of an information but briefly those that are Ministers either they suspect the sinfulness of admitting a re-ordination or of abjuring or of assenting and consenting to the use of all and every part of the Liturgy and therein of every Ceremony Now this I say though the Friends of these impositions shall with the highest confidence affirm the lawfulness of them all yea and endeavour with a thousand arguments to prove them such yet if those Ministers herein concerned upon a serious weighing of these arguments find them too light and after much prayer to God for a resolution yet find themselves to doubt in this case they ought not upon the Apostles rule now named to yeild to any such impositions against their doubting Consciences If it be here replyed why do they not then degrade themselves or quietly suffer themselves to be degraded of their Ministry and in the condition of private Christians Communicate with this Church for so they may do and free themselves from these impositions It will be answered that this is an imposition they suspect as sinful as the rest for so long as they are perswaded that their mission is originally from Christ they cannot believe that it is either in their own Power or in the Power of any other Inferiour to Christ to give them a discharge from executing this their Office except it be for Heresie or obstinate scandal against some known laws of Christ and then indeed Christ hath left an order not only for excluding them from their Office but also from the Church but neither of these latter are in the least pretended and therefore it is they cannot without suspicion of sin either degrad themselves or quietly suffer themselves to be degraded And still I adde if any reasons be urged for the lawfulness of this degradation but such that are short of their conviction so that still they doubt it will continue yet their duty to serve the Church as Ministers and not to list themselves among private Christians as is advised If it be asked but may not supream Magistrates if they cannot divest Ministers of their Office may not they within their Dominion suspend some of them from the exercise thereof when they conceive it is for the Peace of the rest It will be answered that that Lord of Lords who giveth the Office and the Commission and hath by divers Providences designed the men thereto hath certainly with the Office designed them to the exercise thereof for else verily the Office is in vain and hath
so in your sence I am sure not all or but very few for Christianity objectively is the doctrine of Christ subjectively the same Doctrine as believed by us with a resolution to obey it but assuredly the Doctrine of Christ is first preached and heard and believed and a resolution taken up to obey it and all this is antecedent in the adult to baptisme or ought to be so As for Baptisme it is but a professing sign of my being a Christian or a seal of the promises that God hath made to me as such and is not a Ceremony that makes me a Christian or gives me my Christianity Abraham was a Believer and a Friend of God and justified by his faith antecedent to circumcision and so are the seed of Abraham they are believers friends of God justified by their Faith in Christ antecedent to Baptisme But it is added doth not Paul say we are all by one Spirit baptized into one body True he doth so But I deny your consequence thence deduced that therefore Christ died primarily for his Church and but secondarily for the individual members thereof or that we have primarily a relation to the Church and but secondarily to Christ i.e. by virtue of the former relation There is not one word or syllable in the text tending that way For First what is there in these words we are baptized into one body to signifie a priority of our relation to the Church any more than in those Rom. 6.3 where it is said we are baptized into Christ to signifie a priority of our relation to Christ and by him to his Church reconcile these if you can to the sence of your consequence and give us some evident reason why we must needs understand that thereby is meant we are baptized into the Church primarily and into Christ secondarily But I shall be bold to tell you such an interpretation is evidently absurd as is manifest in several instances in other kind of relations Whoever said that King Charles the 2d was only related to Charles the First as he is related to his brother James Duke of York and the rest of the Royal Family certainly as he is the Elder Brother his relation to his Father was first both in nature and time to any relation he stood in to his younger brethren Or whoever said that the individuals of a Kingdome cannot be considered in relation to their King and Soveraign antecedently to their being considered as fellow subjects when certainly the relation of fellow subjects doth arise upon the supposed relation of those individuall subjects to their soveraign for the formal reason why you and I are fellow subjects is because we are individually related to the same King and therefore relation to him is antecedent to our relation to one another as subjects The sence of this text now urged so far as I understand is only this that all that are baptized upon a just title are supposed to partake of the sanctifying operation of the Spirit of which the washing of the water of baptisme is a sign by which they are declared to be animated by one and the self-same Spirit as all the living members of Christ are and consequently that they are one with them and that therefore they ought all of them to be both internally and externally as usefull and helpfull to each other as possibly they can But how you can draw such a conclusion hence that therefore these individuals are no ways related to Christ but as they are thus united to one another I cannot understand for the reasons before given The other text is Eph. 5.22 where it is said that Christ hath sanctified or separated his Church by the washing of water and the word Very well what of this we grant you that every Church member if adult is converted by the word and afterward if it may be ought to be baptized upon this account it is said that the Church is separated by water and the word because all its individual members are or ought to be so converted and baptized Therefore saith he every individual Christian is saved as incorporated into the Church I deny the consequence for conversion by the word is antecedent to Baptisme or to a Visible Church State and of it self gives a title to Salvation though never any such visible Church state by baptisme follows But if Baptisme follows I say again Christians are not saved primarily as baptized and as externally Church members but primarily as true believers and internally united to Christ And certainly a believer as such speaks no necessary relation to any Church or visible society whatever and therefore it could not possibly be the Apostles intendment in that place or the other to signifie that Christians had no relation to Christ or saving interest in him but what they derived from a participation of Baptisme and a conjunction with a visible Church Having thus finished his proof that all Christians are members of the catholick visible Church he proceeds to the proof of the second part of the proposition which is that therefore every Christian is bound to joyn in external communion with the said Church This he thinks is clear upon two reasons First because without such a conjunction the ends of Church society cannot be obtained which ends are the solemn worship of God the publick profession of our religion and the mutual edification one of another Secondly Because without such a conjunction in external communion with the Catholick visible Church we cannot be made partakers of the benefits and priviledges that Christ hath made over to the members of his Church such are the pardon of sin and the grace of the holy Spirit and so he concludes we have no promises of spiritual Graces but of those means so that in order to the partaking of them there is an absolute necessity laid upon us of joyning and communicating with the Church Thus far he I answer first whereas he says that he hath made it evident that every Christian upon the account of his very being so a member of the catholick visible Church that I have already denied and upon what grounds and reasons I have denied it is before shewn as for his consequence that therefore every Christian is bound upon the very account of his being so to joyn with the Church catholick visible in external communion That I have also denyed and the reasons why I have shewed as First there is no such external communion to be had with that vast body as the catholick Church is besides if there were it might be unlawfull because if communion could not be had but upon sinfull conditions or without a manifest hazard of my salvation or in case one were wrongfully excommunicated there is in these cases no obligation on a Christian as such to any such external communion but a Christian may be still a Christian without it But let us see how he proves his consequence His first reason is because without such