safe for any to follow such a President The Apostle pronounceth a woe to them that walk in the way of Cain Those that walk in his way can expect no less than to arrive at the place whither he is gone before And if ye would know who they are that so walk the Apostle tells you these are they that separare themselves Pareus his gloss on the words are not unworthy observation Quia sibi ipsi fâ—â—gunt peculiarem cultum ideo sese segregant ab eorum Ecclesia ac coetu They feign to themselves a peculiar way and manner of worship therefore they will not joyn with us in ours but withdraw from our assemblies as if he had purposely described the humour of the men of our times However such may pretend to the Spirit as if they were more Sanctified than their Brethren yet the Apostle by infallible guidance pronounceth them Sensual not having the Spirit And that is the reason they keep the Unity of the Church no better For as Fulgentius saith Tales itaque faciles sunt ad divisionem quia spiritum non habent in quo uno membra Christi charam servant Spiritualiter unitatem Such persons are prone to all divisions because they have not that Spirit in whom alone all the Members of Christ do Spiritually keep Unity among themselves as a dear and pretious thing As the Soul in man's Body doth cease to quicken any Member sundred from the Body and the scattered bones in Ezekiel's Vision received no life till they were incorporated and knit together in one by Sinews Flesh and Skin so the Spirit of God which is the Soul of this mystical Body denies the derivation of Grace and Comfort to those that separate themselves from it If they say we are a true Church and that they and their Party separating from us and meeting in private assemblies are a Church also and so they do not separate and withdraw themselves from the Church Then I say that their Church in that case refusing Communion with ours is at least a distinct Church from ours and so there are two Churches of England in this Nation And so they make Christ to have two bodies distinct under one head which is contrary to sundry plain Texts of Scripture Though there be threescore Queens and fourscore Concubines and Virgins without number yet my Dove my undefiled is but one We being many are one body in Christ. And As the body is one and hath many members and all the members of that one body being many are one body so is Christ. Again There is one Body one Spirit one Hope one Lord one Faith c. And is Christ divided There cannot be two such opposite Churches in one Nation but one of them must needs be an Harlot and not the Spouse of Christ. And that their Church as they call it and not ours is so may easily be made to appear to any man that will vouchsafe to weigh matters in the balance of Reason and Judgment The whole World is divided betwixt God and the Devil there is not a third Party that can challenge any share in the Race of mankind All Societies and Companies of Men and Women in the world are either the Church of Christ or the Synagogue of Satan Rev. 3. 9. An assembly of Saints or a congregation of evil doers Psal. 26. 5. And that theirs is not the Church of Christ appears thus Those assemblies or congregations where there is no true and lawfull Pastor nor true and lawfull Flock are not the Churches of Christ but of Satan for as it hath been shewed before out of the Scriptures and Fathers a lawfull Minister and a Flock or Congregation of People lawfully committed to his charge make up a Church that is the definition of a particular Church But their Churches as they call them have neither true and lawfull Pastors nor Flocks therefore they are not the Churches of Christ but the Synagogues of Satan and Congregations of evil doers That they have no true and lawfull Pastors is â—lear 1. Because many of them that head those unlawfull meetings and assemblies were never ordained by Prayer and Imposition of hands as by Gospel-Rules they ought to be but are mere Lay-men that take upon them to preach and perform Ministerial Duties that were never called thereunto This is true not onely in the assemblies of the Quakers but of others also by what name soever they may be called that separate from our Churches I know it to be so in divers places 2. Those of them that were ordained are as to the execution of their Ministry committed to them in their Ordination during the time of their Non-conformity under a legal suspension by the highest and fullest Power and Authority of this Nation to which we are all bound in Conscience to be in Subjection 3. Suppose that neither of the former were true yet they are not true and lawfull Pastors of those that flock after them seeing they have not the Pastoral cure and care of the Souls of any of them committed to their charge by any that under God have Authority in the Church but are commanded to contain themselves in quietness and silence And that they have no true and lawfull Flocks in their Congregations appears in this that their Assemblies Congregations consist altogether of wandring Sheep that are gone astray from their own lawfull Pastors and sinfully separated from the Congregations and Flocks to which of right they belong and gathered together into a Schismatical and separate meeting and Society and so make up a Congregation of evil doers and Synagogue of Satan If this were rightly and seriously considered I think it would startle the minds and shake the confidence of many of them who bless themselves in their new-found way of Religion and Worship boast of their number and compass Sea and Land to make Proselytes that at least they might be equally the Children of Hell with themselves If they say our Church is corrupt we have that amongst us that we should not have or not that which we ought to have I say then First Suppose it be so which I think will yet require more pains than have yet been bestowed to prove yet let them consider what Peter Martyr judiciously saith Non ob quamcunque maculam Christi Ecclesiam ita Excidere ut Dei non amplius appelletur Every little blemish in the face of a Church cannot cast her off from being God's The Church in Canticles is said to be fair as the Moon which in the Hebrew Tongue is called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Lebanah for her whiteness and bright shining And yet the Moon is not so white but still some spots remain therein and even uncapable of illumination from the Sun Coelum ipsum nulla serenitas tam colata purgat ut non alicujus nubeculae flocculo resignetur In the clearest Heaven some specled
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
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 baptized into one body so by the other we are made to drink into one spirit And therefore the Apostle from our Communion together at the Lord's Table concludes our Union one with another incorporation into not the essential but the spiritual body of Christ. We being many are one bread and one body for we are all partakers of that one bread A Father thus comments on that place Omnes unum corpus sumus in Christo quia etsi multi sumus unum támen in eo sumus omnes enim de uno pane participamus We are therefore all one body in Christ because though we are many in our selves yet in him we are all one for we all partake of one bread Nam si in humanis mensoe salis communicatio amoris causa est signum quanto magis id erit in communione mensoe panis Domini If among men the communicating together at one table and in one dish is both a cause and sign of love how much more then would it be so in the communicating together at the Table and of the bread of the Lord Yea the very assembling of Christians together in the Church is by St. Chrysostome called the Communion of Saints That then which tends to make rents and parties in the Church and divides Christians each from other in external Conjunction of publick duties as well as internal concord of hearts and affections as the practice in question hath been proved and by experience is found to doe must needs hinder the Communion of Saints Union being broken there can be no Communion for it flows from Union and is no other in the Etymology of the word than common Union And as there is nothing that obstructs Christian Communion so much as divisions do so when once they are made there is nothing more hard to be composed again A Brother offended is harder to be won than a strong City and their contentions are like the barrs of a Castle For as no bond is so strong as that of Religion so no Hostility so cruel and outragious as that which difference in Religion occasioneth Think not saith our Saviour that I am come to send peace on the earth I came not to send peace but a sword for I am come to set a man at variance against his Father and the Daughter against her Mother and a man's foes shall be they of his own house This is commonly through the policy of Satan and malice of men the fruit of divisions in point of Religion amongst Brethren And if the bond of Communion betwixt the members be broken I see not but that the bond of Union with Christ their head must be broken also How can they exist as members of Christ's body which have left their coupling and conjunction with the other members of the same Neither they nor those that cause it can in the judgment of St. Austine Ii qui a compage corporis membra alia avellere conantur seipsos a Christi unitate separant They that draw the members from Communion one with the other do cut off themselves from their Union with Christ. Impium enim sacrilegum divortium est eos qui in Christi veritate consentiunt distrahere Saith Calvin It is an impious and sacrilegious divorce to divide those who would otherwise agree in the truth of Christ. The same is acknowledged by the Presbyterian Divines If we be the body of Christ do not they who separate from the body separate from the head also And by the unanimous consent of the ancient godly and learned Nonconformists in their grave and modest confutation of the errours of the Brownists and Separatists where in the first words of their Book they say That the Church of England is a true Church and such a one as from which whosoever wittingly and willingly separateth himself cutteth himself off from Christ. And they prove it at large by unanswerable arguments in the following pages of their Book A proesumptione igitur illicitâ excusari nequeunt qui nimis amando sententiam suam usque ad proecidendoe communionis audaciam perveniunt They are therefore no way to be excused from sinfull presumption who out of a fondness to their own opinion proceed to that boldness and hardiness as to interrupt Christian Communion Malunt nullam habere quam non suam They had rather there should be no Religion at all than that their own should not take place They that are any way instrumental to break unity that true-Lovers knot which every Christian should wear in his breast all days of his life will find at last by miserable experience that destruction will follow it if repentance precede not to prevent it For if the God whom we serve be the God of peace Iesus Christ our head and Saviour be the Prince of peace the spirit of Holiness the worker of peace the Blessed Trinity in Unity of Deity the authour of peace and lover of concord as our Church expresseth it how then can it join it self with the disturbers of both and not rather separate from those which separate from their Brethren and are instrumental to draw as many after them as they can Fourthly It gratifies at least two main sinfull Corruptions to which people are naturally prone both mentioned together by St. Paul in one place The first is their discontent with their own Pastors who are regularly and orderly sent of God to them After their own lusts they will heap to themselves teachers 1. The great fault here prophesied to be in the latter times was heaping up many teachers One will not serve a peoples turn but they must have a multitude A woman that forsakes her Husband's bed will be ready to pour out her fornications to every one that passeth by and not content her self with the embraces of one single stranger alone but be ready to prostitute her body to any one 2. And there is an Emphasis in the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to themselves They will be their own chusers They will not accept nor submit to those who by the hands of the Rulers of the Church God shall place over them but take to themselves upon their own judgment and choice whom they please This is according to his opinion who expounding the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 used in this place by St. Paul saith quod sine judicio temere sunt collecturi doctores suos They shall rashly gather together teachers of their own 3. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Teachers as they esteem and use them in contradistinction to Pastours for they will not admit of any to have a pastoral rule and care over them but teachers to tickle their Ears and please their fancies And which is yet worse 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 according to their own Lusts. Such as do best please their humours such as are of the same party with themselves that are in