child of God And if you knew how every word of oblequy especially by back-biting against your brethren doth tend to infect the hearers with the same vices and kill their Love and lead them into divisions you would take heed for the sake of others Unless you are of those who are foolisher than the devil and would build Christs house and Kingdome by dividing it Math. 12. One raileth at Luther and another at Calvin and another at Arminius and another at this man and another at that for matters which are above their reach and the people are taught to rail at all and to make it also their talk behind mens backs â—o prate against this man and that man and the other and in time to shew it by breaking into sects In a word such carnal courses of their Teachers do make or harden carnal professors to be one for Paul and another for Apollo and another for Cephas but few sincerely and prudently for Christ so that instead of Holiness Love and Concord we have in almost all company little but ignorant censorious wrangling at the opinions of those that they never were acquainted with or at the controverted practises or circumstances of worship which are not suitable to their prejudice and custom and of which they never desired to be the impartial hearers of a just account If ever God will shew mercy to his Church he will give them Pastors after his heart who shall abound in Light and Love and lead the people into Concord upon the ancient terms and make it their work to bring this Love-killing spirit inâ—o hatred whether it work by the way of stâ—iving-disputes or dividing principles or practises or by reproaching others by corporal cruelty or by a Religious censorious cruelty which doth not strike men but unchurch and damn them and separate from them as men unfit for christian communion And whilest the Pastors take another course we must patiently wait and pity the Church and fore-see our further misery in this prognostick though the guilty being puffed up with the conceits of their preciousness to God do promise themselves the desires of their hearts Are not the sons of Levi yet refined when they have been in so many furnaces and so long When wisedom holiness and humility are their nature and selfish pride and worldliness are cured this wrinkled malignant ENVY will then cease and an honest emulation to excel one another in wisdome and Love and all good works will then take place And then we shall not like drunken men one day fight and wound each other and the next day cry out of our wounds and yet go on in our drunken fits to make them wider DIRECT XXII Lastly Let all the Ministers of Christ so deeply study their wonderfull pattern of Love and tenderness meekness and patience and all those passages of Holy Scripture which still commend those vertues to his servants till their souls are cast into this sacred mould and habituated to this Image and imitation of their Lord And then Vertue will go from them and they will be healing among all where-ever they shall come As fire goeth out from the flinty contenders by their collisions which maketh them still incendiaries and consumers of the Churches Peace I Will therefore end these Directions with the bare repetition of some more of those sacred words besides those forecited which may be fit to breed such a gracious habit in those that will faithfully study and receive them Isa. 9. 6 7. The government shall be laid upon his shoulder and his name shall be called Wonderful Counsellor the mighty God the everlasting father the Prince of Peace Of the increase of his Government and Peace there shall be no end Isa. 40. 11. He shall feed his flock like a shepherd he shall gather the lambs with his arm and carry them in his bosome and shall gently lead those that are with young Isa. 42. 1 2 3. 4. Behold my servant whom I uphold mine elect in whom my soul delighteth I have put my spirit upon him he shall bring forth judgement to the Gentiles He shall not cry nor lift up nor cause his voice to be heard in the street A bruised reed shall he not break and the smoking slax shall he not quech he shall bring forth judgement unto truth He shall not fail nor be discouraged till he have set judgement in the earth and the isles shall wait for his law Isa. 44. 3 4 5. I will pour water upon him that is thirsty and floods upon the dry ground I will pour my spirit on thy seed and my blessing on thy off-spring And they shall spring up as among the grass as willows by the water-courses One shall say I am the Lords and another shall call himself by the name of Iacob and another shall subscribe with his hand unto the Lord and surname himself by the name of Israel Psal. 110. 2 3. Rule thou in the midst of thine enemies Thy people shall be willing in the day of thy power in the beauties of holiness Ezek. 34. 2 3 4 5. Wo to the shepherds of Isâ—ael that feed themselves should not the shepherds feed the flocks Ye eate the fat and cloath you with the wool ye kill them that are fed but ye feed not the flock The diseased have ye not strengthened neither have ye healed that which was sick neither have ye bound up that which was broken neither have ye brought again that which was driven away neither have ye sought that which was lost But with Force and with Cruelty have ye ruled them and they were scattered because there is no shepherd Read the rest of that Chapter Isa. 11. And there shall come forth a rod out of the stem of Iesse and a branch shall grow out of his roots And the spirit of the Lord shall rest upon him the spirit of wisedome and understanding the spirit of counsel and might the spirit of knowledge and of the fear of the Lord and shall make him of quick understanding in the fear of the Lord and he shall not judge after the sight of his eyes nor reprove after the hearing of his ears but with righteousness shall he judge the poor and reprove with equity for the meek of the earth and he shall smite the earth with the rod of his mouth and with the breath of his lips shall he slay the wicked The wolf shall dwell with the lamb and the leopard shall lie down with the kid and the calf and the young lion and the faâ—ling together and a little child shall lead them And the cow and the bear shall feed their young ones shall lie down together and the lion shall eat straw like the oxe and the sucking child shall play on the hole of the asp and the weaned child shall put his hand on the cockatrice dâ—n They shall not hurt nor destroy in all my holy mountain for the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord
your foul back-biting reviling censorious contentious tongues do not prove the contrary 13. who is a wise man and endued with knowledge among you Let him shew out of a good conversation his works with meekness of wisedome that is Let him that would be thought more knowing and religious than his neighbours be so much more blameless and meek to all men and excel them in good works v. 14. But if ye have a bitter zeal for so is the Greek word and strife in your hearts glory not in such a zeal or in your greater knowledge and lie not against the truth 15. This wisdome descendeth not from above as you imagine who father it on Gods word and spirit but is earthly sensual or natural and devillish O doleful mistake that the world the flesh and the Devil should prove the cause of that conceited spiritual knowledge and excellency which they thought had been the inspiration of the spirit v. 16. For where zeal and strife 〈◊〉 that is a striving contentious zeal against brethren there is confusion or tumult and unquietness and every evil work O lamentable reformers that set up every evil work while they seemed zealous against evil v. 17. But the wisdome that is from above is first pure then peaceable gentle and easie to be intreated full of mercy and good fruits without partiality or wrangling and without Hypocrisie And the fruit of righteousness is sown in peace of them that make peace when peace-breakers that sow in divisions and contention shall reap the fruit of unrighteousness though they call their way by the most religious names Thus I have briefly shewed you what Vâ—nity and Division are that wrong apprehensions draw you not to sin DIRECT VIII When any thing needeth amendment in the Church remember that the best Christian must be the forwardest to reformation and â—he backwardest to Division and must search and try all means of Reforming which make not against the concord of the Church I Do not here determine in what cases you may or may not separate from any company of faulty Christians I only say that you must never separate what God hath conjoyned the Holiness and the Vnity of believers If corruptions blemish and dishonour the Congregation Do not say Let sin alone I must not oppose it for fear of division But be the forwardest to reduce all to the will of God And yet if you cannot prevail as you desire be the backwardest to divide and separate and do it not without a certain warrant and extream necessity Resolve with Austin I will not be the chaff and yet I will not go out of the floor though the chaff be there Never give over your just desire and endeavour of Reformation And yet as long as possibly you can avoid it forsake not the Church which you desire to reform As Paul said to them that were ready to forsake a sea-wrackt vessel If these abide not in the ship ye cannot be saved Many a one by unlawful flying and shifting for his own greater peace and safety doth much more hazard his own and others DIRECT IX Forget not the great difference between casting out the wicked and impenitent from the Church by discipline and the godlies separating from the Church it self because the wicked are not cast out The first is a great duty The second is ordinarily a great sin THe question is not Whether the impenitent should be put away from Church-Communion That 's not denied But whether you should separate from the Church because they are permitted This is it which we call you to beware Not but that in some cases a Christian may lawfully remove from one Church to another that hath more light and purity for the edification of his soul. But before you separate from a faulty Church as such as may not lawfully be communicated with you must look well about you and be able to prove that thing which you affirm Many weak Christians marking those Texts which bid us avoid a man that is an Heretick and to have no company with disorderly walkers and not to eat with flagitious persons do not sufficiently mark their sense but take them as if they call'd us to separate from the Church with which these persons do communicate Whereas if you mark all the Texts in the Gospel you shall find that all the separation which is commanded in such cases besides our separation from the Infidels or Idolatrous world or Antichristian and Heretical confederacies and no-Churches is but one of these two sorts First either that the Church cast out the impenitent sinner by the power of the Keyes Secondly or that private men avoid all private familiarity with them And both these we would promote and no way hinder Thirdly but that the private members should separate from the Church because such persons are not cast out of it shew me one Text to prove it if you can Let us here peruse the Texts that speak of our withdrawing from the wicked 1 Cor. 5. Is expresly written to the whole Church as obliged to put away the incestuous person from among them and so not to eat with such offenders So is that in 2 Thes. 3. and that in Tit. 3. 10. A man that is an Heretick after the first and second admonition avoid Unless it be a Heretick that hath already separated himself from our communion And then it can be put private familiarity which we are further to avoid In brief there is no other place of Scripture that I know of which commandeth any more I have before shewed that abundance of Church corruptions or of scandalous members were then among them and yet the Apostle never spake a syllable to any one Christian to separate from any one of all those Churches Which we cannot imagine that the Holy Ghost would have wholly omitted if indeed it had been the will of God Obj. But then why did Luther and the first Pretestants separate from the Church of Rome and how will you justifie them from Schisme Ans. Its pity that sloth and sortishness should keep any Protestant or Papist either in such ignorance as to need any help to answer so easie a question at this day Let not equivocal names deceive us and the case is easie By the word Church the Scripture still meaneth first either the Universal Church which is the body or Kingdome of Christ alone Secondly or particular Congregations associated for personal communion in Gods worship But the Pope hath feigned another kind of thing and called it The Church That is The Vniversality of Christians as headed by himself as the constitutive and governing head Whereas first God never instituted or allowed such a Church Secondly nor did ever the Universality of Christians acknowledge this usurping Head Shew me in Scripture or in Church-History that either there ever was de facto or ought to be de jure such a thing in the world as they call the Church and I profess I will immediately turn
are very few that take their impulses and resolutions for the spirits answer of their prayers but they had before an understanding most inclined to that opinion or else a byas upon their affections bending them that way or something in themselves which occasioned the scales to turn that way Obj. But I did bring my mind to a pure impartiality and prayed to God that he would shew me the truth be it what it would be and that if this were not right he would blast it and never suffer it to go on And the more I prayed the more I was confirmed that this is the right Answ. All this may be without any of Gods approbation of the conclusion which you think is his answer to your prayers For whilest you prayed that God would turn your mind from it if it were not right yet at that time your judgement was inclined to it or your affections at least And it is an easier thing to speak impartial words in prayer than to get an impartial unprejudiced mind And when you think that your mind is brought to an impartiality alas there may be many deep roots of prejudice which you observe not And there is scarce one of a thousand who thinketh that he prayeth with a pure impartiality but his opinion disposition inclination interest or secret affection doth byas and ponderate his mind more to one side than to the other But if you were never so willing to know the truth yet there are passions in you and corruptions and ignorance and former errours which may all do much to hinder you from knowing it and may breed many false apprehensions in your mind and yet may cherish them with as dear an espousal and affection as if they were certainly from God And moreover you have been gilty of former sins And whether God for any of them may leave you to run into mistakes you know not Or whether any present self-conceitedness may occasion him to leave you to mistakes But the principal part of my answer is this God hath no where promised to reveal all his truth to you because you desire him so to do It is not every prayer of yours which he hath promised to hear and grant but only those which are agreeable to his will His will is either his Decree his Command or his Promise Though the first be not it that is meant in the text yet it is certain that your prayers cannot change Gods decrees The will of his command doth more concern the sense of the text but it is only a negative which may hence be gathered that is that if your prayers be contrary to Gods commands they are your sins and have no promise of his grant But it will not follow that God will grant all the prayers which are put up in obedience to his laws But only that you shall be no loosers by such obedience but he will give you that or something which shall be as good for you It may be Gods command that godly children should pray for the lives of their sick parents and that parents pray for the conversion of their ungodly children and that we pray for all men And yet it doth not follow that we shall have the very thing which we obediently pray for But it is his Promising will which is the measure of our hope as his Commanding will is the rule of our obedience Whatsoever he hath promised he will certainly give us Now God hath no where promised in his word that he will reveal the true meaning of every text of scripture to every godly person that asketh it Praying is but one of the means which God hath appointed you to come to knowledge Diligent reading hearing and meditation and counsel of the wisest is another means Even to dig for it as for silver and to search for it as for hidden treasure and to continue so doing and wait at the posts of wisdoms doors that knowledge may come into you by degrees in time God hath not promised you true understanding upon your prayers alone without all the rest of his appointed means Nor that you shall attain it by those means as soon as you desire and seek it For then prayer would be a notable pretense for laziness and they that would not be at the labour of study meditation or conference might save all their pains and go to God and ask wisdome of him and he would give it them Even as idle beggars think without working to get an alms to maintain them in their slothfulness If instead of all our reading hearing and meditation we could but pray and so get all the knowledge which other men study labour and wait for it would be too cheap a way to wisdome Solomon that got it by prayer extraordinarily commandeth us very great diligence to get it It is very considerable not only that Christ increased in wisdome in his youth but also that he would not enter upon his publick Ministery as is aforesaid till he was about thirty years of age When it had been more easie for Christ to have got all knowledge by two or three earnest prayers than for any of us Moreover you must pray according to Gods will of precept not only in the matter but in the manner of your prayers And there may be more selfishness and many other corruptions in the manner of them than you discern And there are many things which submissively you may lawfully pray for which God hath never promised you at all You may pray for the life of the sick and for the conversion and salvation of all your relations and of thousands of others which God will not give you Otherwise all the relations of every true Christian should be saved yea and all his enemies and all the world To apply all this It may be you are in doubt whether this or the other be the meaning of such a text of scripture Or whether you should joyn with such a Church in the use of such preaching and prayers or not And when you have prayed earnestly you are confirmed for one way and against the other And perhaps all this is but to be confirmed in your errour For first you came with a secret prejudice secondly or you came with distempered affections or with such a fear of going one way rather than the other that the very fear doth much to cause your apprehensions Thirdly or you come with the gnilt of former sin Foâ—rthly or you have some partiality on your spirit and a secret inclination to one side more than to the other or some overvaluing of your own understandings persons or prayers Fifthly Or you are lazy and presumptuous and think God must teach you that in one hour and at a wish or prayer which others better than you must learn with prayer and twenty years study diligence and patience Sixthly or you think God must needs resolve you of that which he never promised to resolve you in Where hath he promised
abundance more some taking him for the Messiah and some by his breathing on them thinking that they received the Holy Ghost When David George in Holland and Iohn of Leyden in Munster and Behmen Stiefelius and so many more pretended Prophets in Germany could deceive so many persons as they did When the pretended revelations of the Ranters first and the Quakers after could so marvellously transport many thousand professours of religion in this land I think we have fair warning to take the counsel of St. Iohn Believe not every spirit but try the spirits whether they be of God It is a pitiful instance of the good old learned Commenius who so easily believed the prophesies of Daubritius and the rest which he hath published Yea when he saw the prophesies fail yet when he adjured the prophet to speak truth and got him to swear as before the Lord that it was truth this seemed enough to confirm his belief of him whereas if he had been as well acquainted with the nature of Melancholy and Historical passions as many others are he would have known that as strange things as that he recordeth of the man or women may be done without any Divine inspirations and that it is no wonder if that person swear that his words are true who is first deceived himself before he deceive others For a crackt brain'd person to believe his delusions to be real verities is little wonder I have many a time my self conversed with persons of great honesty and piety though of no great judgment who have some of them affirmed that they had angelical revelations and some of them thought that the Spirit of God did bring this Scripture or that Scripture to their mind in answer to their prayers and were so very confident that what they affirmed was the certain truth or voice of God that I have been stricken with a reverence to their professions and with a fear lest I should resist God in resisting them But resolving to take none on earth for the master of my faith but to try the Spirits whether they be of God by going to the Law and Testimony I was constrained to turn my reverence into pity For I found that their seeming revelations were some of them Scripture-doctrine and some of them contrary to the Scripture As for that which is already in the Scripture what need I further revelation for it Is it not there sufficiently revealed Can their words add any authority to the Word of God And have I not Gods own Ministers and means to help me to the knowledge of his word And as for that which is contrary to Scripture I am sure that it is contrary to the will of God And if an Angel from Heaven should preach another Gospel to me I must hold him accursed Gal. 1. 7 8. so that if these persons should have the appearance voice of an Angel speaking to them I would despise it as well as the words of a mortal man if they be against the recorded word of God But by what I have seen and heard I know that it is a great temptation to some weak Christians to hear one that is much in prayer say Take heed what you do Have no Communion with this sort of men nor in this or that way of worship nor in this or that opinion for I am sure it is against the mind of God I once thought as you do but God hath better made known his mind unto me But saving the due respect to the honesty of such persons ask them How shall I know that you are in the right If they say I will not reason the case with you but I know it to be the mind of God Tell them that God hath made you reasonable creatures and will accept no unreasonable service of you and you have but one Master of your Faith even Christ Therefore if they believe that themselves which they can give you no reason to believe they must be content to keep their belief to themselves and not for shame perswade any other to it without proof If they say that God hath revealed it to them Tell them that he hath not revealed it to you and therefore that 's nothing to you till they prove their divine revelation If God reveal it to them but for themselves they must keep it to themselves If he reveal to them for others he will enable them to make some proof of their revelations that others may be sure that they sin not in believing them If they say that the Scripture is their ground Tell them that the Scripture is already revealed to all And if indeed what they speak be there you are ready to believe it But if they pervert the Sâ—â—pture by false interpretation or abuse it and mâ—â—apply it none of this is the work of the Spirit of God If they say that the spirit hath told them the meaning of the Scripture say as before that is not told for you which is not proved to you The Scripture is written in such words as men use of purpose that they might understand it and is to be understood by all men that hear it though they have no revelation God hath set Pastors in his Church to teach it If therefore revelations be still necessary to the understanding of the Scripture revelations then the Scriptures seem to be in vain and these last revelations must again have new revelations to the right understanding of them also The truth is it is very ordinary with poor fanciful women and melancholy persons to take all their deep apprehensions for revelations And if a text of Scripture come into their minds they say This text was brought to my mind and that text was set upon my spirit As if nothing could bring a text to their thoughts but some extraordinary motion of God And as if this bringing it to their mind would warrant their false exposition of it To conclude Decry not the necessity of the ordinary sanctifying work of the spirit to bless the Scripture to your true illumination and sanctification And if any pretend to any other revelations or inspirations or expositions of the Scripture which they cannot prove to youâ— despise them not but modestly leave them to themselves But take heed that the reverence of any ones holiness tempt you not to depart from the certain sufficienâ— word of God and draw you not into any 〈◊〉 Heresie or Separation or Opinion contrary to Gods standing Law DIRECT XXIX Take heed lest the trouble of your own disquieted doubting minds do become a snare to draw you to some uncouth way of cure and so make the fancy of some new Opinion Sect or Practise to seem your Remedy and give you ease and thereby perswade you that it is the certain truth THis is the pitiful Case of the ignorant and ungrounded and troubled sort of religious persons that they are looking every way for ease and comfort And having not wisdom enough to
because God useth to work by means and vary the success according to the quality of the means and instruments we may well conclude that the Gifts and Holiness of the Pastors is a very excellent and needful help to the peoples setled Piety and Pence And that where this help is wanting that ordinary means is wanting by which God useth to convey this blessing I have met with many who are either insufficient or ungodly themselves or are guilty of bringing such into the Churches who use to make very light of this and say God is not tied to mens goodness or abilities in distributing his graces which is true but nothing to the purpose He is not tied by any force or necessity nor is he so tied as that he cannot do otherwise But yet this is his ordinary way of working which hath made it a maxime that as to means Infused graces are obtained in the same way as acquired gnifts And let the contrary minded answer me these questions First If it be only the Office of the Ministery and not the Gifts and Graces that are ordinarily needful to their success why doth Religion decay and perish in all parts of the world where the Gifts and Graces of the Ministers decay Why are almost all the Greek Churches the Armenians the Russians the Abassians so lamentably ignorant and most of them as vicious as ignorant in so much that the notorious wickedness of their lives and contemptibleness of their understandings doth keep Christianity out of most of the Heathen and Infidel Nations of the world that are acquainted with them and keepeth up the reputation of Mahometanism and Heathenism Is not the experience of all the Christian world a sufficient proof The Greeks and other such corrupted Churches have a truly ordained Ministery as well as we if that were enough to serve the turn Secondly What is more evident among our selves than that Parishes do much vary in piety and concord as their Pastors vary in ability piety diligence and fidelity Thirdly Though Parents have all equal authority to instruct and rule their children and families is any thing more notorious than that notorious ignorance and impiety prevaileth in most families where the Rulers are ignorant and impious Yet they have as true a power from God to do their duty as the Pastor hath to do his yea and promises from God for the success Fourthly What is the Office but an Authority and Obligation to do the Ministerial work And will work succeed well that is not done Or will it be done by bare Authority and Obligation to do it Will it serve to the building of your house to the conduct of an Army to the healing of your sores or sicknesses that you have an Architect a Captain a Chyrurgeon and Physician whose office is to do these works Fifthly What need men study or bestow so many years at the University if Ordination and Office be enough Sixthly Interpreting the Original Text is one part of the Ministerial work If the bare Office without the Tongues did never make any of you a good Translator and Expositor why should the bare office serve turn for other parts of the work without proportionable abilities Seventhly Why do you lay so much blame on the Ministers who dissent from you or that are the teachers of the dissenting people as if all the divisions were caused by them if the difference of teachers make no difference in the work and flocks Eighthly Why is it that in most ages of the the world the Pastors of one mind have desired the silencing or deposing of those that were against them as being injurious to the flocks if all Ministers be alike to them what need there so much silencing imprisoning and banishing as the world hath seen if the Office alone do make sufficient Pastors Ninthly Why also is there so much difference between the Pastors reputations and their labours when they are dead Why is the name and works of an Augustine a Hierome a Basil a Nazianzen more honourable than of any other Pastor who had as true ordination and office as they Tenthly Why should the Kingdome be at so much cost upon the Ministery And why should one have more maintainance than another If the Office alone be all that 's necessary one Abâ—na may serve for ordination in all the Empire of Abassia and a few Priests may be had for ten pounds a year who have the same ordination as the ablest men But having sufficiently shamed this errour I dismiss it If the reverence due to the Office be once lost the labours of all the Ministery will be obstructed And if only the Person lose the reverence of his place his own labours will be hindred The contempt of the Office and so the whole Ministery tendeth to Infidelity or Atheism And the contempt of particular Ministers tendeth to Schism and to the ignorance and corruption of their flocks And though the contempt of the person is bad enough of it self yet if it fall on many and there remain not a considerable number who preserve their necessary reputation it turneth to the contempt of the Office it self and consequently of the Gospel And it must be apparent worth that must preserve the persons honour The silver lace did make the Apprentices in Apelles shop to reverence a foolish gallant a while but when he began to talk they all fell on laughing at him Our grave attire will go but a little way to keep up our reputation without some better testimony of our worth An empty head a stumbling and hesitant tongue dry and dull and disorderly preaching and sensless cold or confused praying a vain and frothy kind of talk a common and carnal conversation all these or any one of these will more abate the reverence of our persons than the title of Doctors or the length of our clothing or the enlarging of the philacteries will advance it Math. 23. 5. Mark 12. 40. Luk. 20. 47. It is their double measure of the spirit of wisdome and Goodness which must procure a double measure of honour to the Ministery And if we excel them never so much in Learning it will not suffice unless we excel them in our proper Ministerial gifts of preaching exhortation and prayer which are the works of our Office it will neither preserve the honour of our Office nor attain its ends When many of the people can open the case of their souls in prayer in more orderly clear and congruous expressions than the Pastor can it tendeth to bring down the honour of the Pastor in the peoples esteem Some think to repair this by casting out all prayer except that which is read out of a book or recited by memory alone that so there may be no observable difference of mens abilities But this is so far from curing the peoples disease that it increaseth it And they still say all this is no more than we can do our selves or then a child of ten years