Some of the brethren of the Nonconformists have been of the same Judgment whatever this or their practice now is Memorable to this purpose is that saying of Mr. Baxter to his People of Kiderminster I ever loved saith he a Godly peaceable Conformist better than a turbulent Nonconformist and should I make a party or disturb the peace of the Church I should fear lest I should prove a Firebrand in Hell for being a Firebrand in the Church And by all the interest I have in your judgments and affections I here charge you that if God should give me up to any factious Church-renting course against which I daily pray that you forsake me and follow me not a step It is an unhappy degree of wickedness to be a ring-leader in any schism Every accessory is faulty enough but the first Authour abominable Those who either by his example suggestion advice connivence or otherwise are taught to doe ill increase his sin as fast as they do their own Whosoever shall break one of the least Commandments and shall teach men so shall be called least in the Kingdom of Heaven An unruly beast breaks the hedge and feeds in forbidden Pasture the whole herd follows but the owner must answer for all the trespass that is committed Therefore is Ieroboam so often branded in holy Writ with this note of infamy Ieroboam the Son of Nebat that made Israel to sin His fault lived when he himself was dead and 't is often said by Divines that his torment increased in Hell according as his sin increased upon earth and that the wickedness of Israel will not be taken off from his Soul for ever It was shame enough to Israel that they were made to sin by Ieroboam but O the miserable Estate of Ieroboam that made Israel to sin his pretence was fair enough but that was no excuse to the foulness of his crime nor is it any mitigation to his present torment Let the Authours of schism in the Church pretend what they please to Religion and Truth yet how they can have the true love or power of either in thier hearts or lives that seek not the Church's Peace and Unity withall I cannot understand The Holy Ghost in Scripture joins both together Love truth and peace And speak the truth in love He follows neither that persues them not both It was an unquestionable Maxime amongst Christians in the ancient Church which is no less a truth now than ever non habet Dei charitatem qui Ecclesiae non diligit unitatem The Love of God abides not in them who do not love and keep the Unity of the Church Nay the practice in question tends not onely to the dividing and distracting the Church but even to the dissolving and destroying her being It puts the members of the body of Christ out of joint and causeth a Luxation of the parts and so hinders that spiritual Nutrition thriving and growth in grace that ought to be in the body of Christ. For as in the natural body of man if a member be separated from it it can receive no nourishment or growth nay if there be but a dislocation of a part so that it be onely out of joint it will not thrive or prosper but wither and consume till it be set right again so the mystical body of Christ can never increase with the increase of God if either there be not a right Union of the joints to the head or if that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the ligament and bond that knits and fastens one member to another be broken Now this Union of the members the Apostle saith is made by the Ligament of Love which he therefore calls the bond of perfection because as it unites Church-members among themselves so it is the cause that they communicate mutual help to the profit and preservation of the whole The members of the Church then being made so loose and set at such distance so divided and distracted one from another some hurried this way and some that it must needs argue that this bond is either quite broken or much loosned And if it be a truth which Philosophers affirm that every natural body desires no less its unity than its entity I fee no reason why the spiritual and mystical body of Christ the Church should not in like manner desire its unity since if it be and continue thus unhappily divided it cannot long subsist in its entity As a tottering wall of stones heaped up together without mortar or binding is easily shaken and thrown down so must the Church be soon brought to ruine if this distracting and dividing course be suffered and practised By concord and good agreement among Christians the Church grows and is enlarged So by their discords and divisions it will in short time perish and come to nothing Say I this onely Or say not the brethren of the Nonconformists the same He that is not the Son of peace is not the Son of God saith Mr. Baxter all other sins destroy the Church consequentially but division and separation demolish it directly Building the Church is but an orderly joining the materials and what then is disjoyning but pulling down Believe not those to be the Church's friends that would cure and reform her by cutting her throat Pro Ecclesia clamitant saith St. Cyprian of such they cry out for the Church but contra Ecclesiam dimicant their practice is a fighting against the Church And that not by open and professed hostility but by secret and unseen Policy Their pretences are friendly but their actions mischievous their voice like Iacob's but their hands like Esau's Thirdly it hinders the Communion of Saints that holy and sweet fellowship which all the Members of Christ's Church ought to have both with Christ their head and each with other When in the natural body of man the members are joined to the head and one with another they have by virtue of that Union Communion also and do impart bloud spirits and life from one to the other So in the mystical Body of Christ the members being joined to the Lord and one to another there will be a sweet Communion among themselves in heart and affections joy with them that rejoice and forrow with them that weep prayer each for and each with other the multitude of them that believe will be of one heart and one soul. Now one of the closest bonds of Union amongst Christians is in their communicating together in holy duties We are then most one when with one mind and with one mouth we glorifie God together When holy David would set forth the greatest intireness of facred friendship he described it by walking to the house of God in company together The end and effect of our joint partaking in the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper is to seal up this Unity As by one of the Sacraments we
are contrary minded yea even such as before they were infected with that Leaven were patterns of all Love Modesty and Humility unto others so will they not acknowledge nor reverence any of the most excellent graces that God hath given to any of his Servants amongst us nor so much respect them as Papists will do No they profess greater detestation and despite to the most godly and most sincere men amongst us than they do to such as are most notorious in profaneness and malice to the truth And for shameless lying spitefull railing and scurrilous and Ruffian-like profaneness which they observe and describe at large in them I have not found that these come any whit short but rather I fear overpass the deeds of their Predecessours So that I find that note of St. Augustine to be most true which he observes out of the Parable concerning the man that fell among Thieves 'T is said of him that he went down from Ierusalem to Iericho Ierusalem was the Church of God the holy City There was the Temple and publick place of the worship of the God of Israel Iericho a type of the world unkind to God's spies as the world is to his Ministers where God had no publick worship at all Betwixt it and Ierusalem there was a Desart infamous for frequent Robberies and Murthers there committed in which respect it was called ADOMIM for the store of Bloud there shed There was King Zedekiah taken by the Army of the Chaldeans when he fled from Ierusalem And thither the man bended his course Whereupon St. Augustine notes si non descendisset in latrones non incidisset had he not gone down from God and his Church he had not faln into the hands of Thieves so long as he had kept himself in God's way he would have kept him from all harm and danger But if he will goe from the Chruch let him go whither else he please God will give him over into the hands of Thieves who shall strip him wound him and leave him half dead Our Church-forsakers in these days have sped no better than that man did then but since they left out Ierusalem the place of God's publick worship they have faln into the hands of Thieves that great and old Cheater the Devil and his Instruments the Seducers of our times who craftily lye in wait to deceive And these have stript them of their Raiment all that external appearance of Peace Charity Modesty and Humility that formerly they seemed to be clothed withall and have not left them so much as one ragg remaining to hide their Nakedness wounded them in their minds and judgments with errours and falshoods in their Consciences with Superstition and vain devotion in their affections with utter aversness and crosness to all that is orderly and imposed by Authority insomuch that they are left half dead some life remains in them to any thing that is evil and forbidden they are quick and active but to any thing that is truly good and enjoined as dead as a stock wise to do evil but to do good they have no knowledge Such is God's Justice and Severity on those that leave Ierusalem for Iericho In a word if all of this sort of People throughout the Nation be as those with whom I have to doe and I know there is the same corruption in the Natures of all though there may not be the same eruption in all God and Godliness have not greater enemies nor the Devil greater instruments to advance his Kingdom in the introduction of Atheism and Prophaneness than themselves God's publick worship and worshippers are matter of their loathing and scorn and if ever any of them afford their presence to any part of it it is of purpose either to quarrel at or deride it And as he whom they serve goes about like a roaring Lion seeking whom he may devour so do they make it their business to beget prejudice in the hearts of all with whom they converse against their own Ministers and Ministry and to make Proselytes to themselves and their party of the worst and easiest sort of People The pretext of Piety and Conscience is both the Veil wherewith they hide their unparallelled Pride Malice and Hypocrisie and their Bait wherewith they catch simple Souls in their Net As at the building of the Temple under Zerubbabel the adversaries making shew of helping forward the work by setting their hands to it pretending they sought the same God the Jews did proved themselves to be the greatest Enemies to God's People and hinderers of the building by their coloured Friendship so I know not any whose courses are more to the disturbance of the peacâ— and prejudice to the inlargement of the Church and furtherance of Religion than these men that would be noted for a Form of Godliness but indeed deny the Power of it I heartily wish that in their lives they would henceforth stoutly consute this Character I have given of them which yet comes far short of what by wofull experience I have found in them And when I see it done I shall as gladly retract what I have written as with sorrow of heart I have uttered it In the mean time I return from what I have digressed If a greater excellency of gifts and parts in one Minister above another be pretended as a cause of their wandring they forget what St. Paul wrote to the Corinthians when there grew Schisms and Divisions amongst them upon the account of the diversity of gifts which they observed in their Teachers I am of Paul saith one his matter is powerfull his Doctrine sound his Method plain I am of Apolla saith another he is an Eloquent man mighty in the Scriptures him I prefer I am of Cephas saith a third his preaching I most affect I am of Christ saith a fourth I care for none of all the former they are but men I will therefore have my dependance wholly on Christ with neglect of the instrument But what saith St. Paul to all this Is Christ divided Can he be the head of such divers and disagreeing bodies being himself but one Is he divided from his Ministers so as not to work by his Spirit in the hearts of his People with his word preached by one as well as by another Can ye allow of one self same Gospel as Christ's being uttered by one Man and loath it being uttered by another Will ye acknowledge Christ to be the chief Shepherd and Bishop of your Souls the great Doctour and Prophet of his Church and yet think that he will not make his word successfull for the Salvation of those whom he hath ordained to Eternal life by what Ministry soever he shall appoint For who is Paul and who is Apollo But Ministers by whom ye believe even as the Lord gave to every man They are but the Ministers of Christ and such as doâ— nothing of themselves but God so worketh by them as
it pleaseth him I will not dare saith one of them to speak of any of those things which Christ hath not wrought by me to make the Gentiles obedient by word or deed The Ministry is God's ordinance and depends not upon the worthiness of him that is employed in it but it hath its virtue force and efficacy from the blessing of God and inward operation of his Spirit which worketh where and in and by whom he will Christ himself converted very few in comparison of the many converted by his Apostles Those Ministers whose parts are most Seraphical cannot at their pleasure infuse grace into their hearers hearts A Paul may plant and an Apollos may water but it is God that must give the increase So as that neither the one nor the other are any thing in themselves without God's blessing which the weakness of the instrument shall not hinder as making most for the Honour of the supreme Agent to work by it We have this treasure in Earthen vessels that the excellency of the power may be of God and not of Men. All God's Servants are not alike gifted some have five talents some ten some but one yet all may be his faithfull Servants and may have their gifts given them to profit withall And from any of their gifts any may learn and profit if the fault be not their own Who thâ—ives more in grace than they who conscionably attend and depend on their own godly Pastours Who go more empty away with the shell of Religion onely when others have gotten the kernel but such as love to wander and heap â—p to themselves Teachers of their own chusing The first sort find the pâ—eaching of God's word to prove wholsome food to them which though it seem coiurse and to be served in with great simplicity like Daniel's diet which was but Pulse and Water yet because it is God's allowance allways hath his blessing with it and makes his Children so to thrive that their Countenances do appear fairer and they are fatter in flesh than the other who though they feed upon Varieties and perhaps more curiously cook'd dishes yet have Souls that are still thin and lean and depart from their banquets without any great satisfaction for want of that blessing without which all manner of Varieties prove but wind and vanity For Man lives not by bread onely but by the word of blessing that comes forth of God's mouth Neither say I this of mine own private opinion but the brethren of the Non-conformity say the same He that keepeth in God's order under a meaner honest Minister is like to be a more humble thriving Christian than he that breaks that order under pretence of Edification Saith Mr. Baxter The ancient and godly Fathers of the Church taking into consideration this order that God hath established amongst his People have both in their publick Councils and private writings always disallowed and forbidden the liberty that People are apt to take of their own heads to wander from their own Pastours to hear Strangers In the third Council of Carthage where Saint Augustine himself was present there was this decree made Placuit ut a nullo Episcopo usurpentur plebes alienae nec aliquis Episcoporum supergrediatur in Dioecesi suum Collegam Be it ordained that no Bishop usurp or have any thing to doe with another's People or enter into the Diocese of his Compartner in office to meddle or make there And this Canon extends its obligation to Ministers of inferiour order in reference to each others Congregations as well as to Bishops in relation to their Dioceses For Sicut Episcopus se habet ad Dioecesim suam sic sacerdos ad suam parochaim saith Aquinas As it is with a Bishop with respect to his Diocese so 't is with a Minister in respect of his Parish Sine spe sunt saith that holy Martyr St. Cyprian perditionem maximam de indignatione Dei acquirunt qui schisma faciunt relicto Episcopo alium sibi foris Pseudoepiscopum constituunt They are without hope and procure to themselves the greatest destruction through the just indignation of God who make Schisms in the Church and leaving their own Bishop appoint and set up another a false Bishop to themselves Again singulis pastoribus portio gregis est ascripta quam reger quisque ac gubernet rationem sui actus domino reddat To every Pastour there is a portion of God's People committed which he ought to Rule and Govern as one that must give an account to God for them And saith the same holy man farther Oportet eos quibus praesumus non circumcursare nec Episcoporum concordiam cohaerentem sua subdola fallaci temeritate collidere It behoves those over whom God hath set us not to run about hither thither nor by their false and crafty temerity to break the Concord and good Agreement that ought to be amongst Ministers In the Canon-law it is ordained Vt dominicis festis diebus presbyteri antequam Sacra celebrent plebem interrogent si alterius parochianus sit in ecclesia qui proprio contempto presbytero ibi velit Sacris interesse si inveniatur statim ab ecclesia abjiciant That on Festival and Lord's days the Ministers before they beg in Divine Service shall ask the people if there be any Person of another Parish in the Church who neglecting his own Pastour desires to be present at divine Worship there and if any such be found they shall forthwith thurst him out of the Church And in another pleea it is thus decreed Omnis quilibet confiteatur proprio Sacerdoti siquis autem alieno Sacerdoti voluerit justa de causa coufiteri peccata licentiam prius postulet obtineat a proprio Sacerdote cum aliter ipse illum non possit absolvere vel ligare Let every man confess his faults to his own Minister but if any upon just cause desire to confess to another Minister let him first ask and obtain Licence so to doe from his own Minister seeing otherwise no other can absolve or bind him Of the same judgment in this case have the reverend Brethren of the Presbyterian perswasion declared themselves to be not onely in their Sermons to their people which I have sometimes heard but I have seen an Act and can produce it of the assembly of Scotland Entitled An act against such as withdraw themselves from the publick worship in their own Congregation Wherein the said Assembly in the zeal of God For preserving order unity and peace in the Kirk for maintaining that respect which is due to the ordinances and Ministers of Iesus Christ for preventing Schisms noysome errours and all unlawfull practices which may follow on the peoples withdrawing themselves from their own Congregations do ordiain every member in every Congregation to keep their own Paroch Kirk to communicate there in the Word and Sacraments and