dishonour but rather their glory to condescend to those that are below and that those again whose standing is in the Valley would not think it too much to travel up the Hill to meet them And if it be thought too much to strive who shall go before another in giving Honour Rom. 12.18 yet if both sorts that differ would but go as far as they well may both in respect of Conscience and prudence towards compounding the difference how soon and how easily might both ends be brought together and the bond of Peace which hath been broken be pieced again To this end consider and lay to heart those few things which I shall lay before you 1. I shall commend to you the best patern which you can imitate and against which there can be no exception and that is God himself who though he be so infinitely above all as to stand in no need of the Friendship of Men yet out of the Infinite goodness of his Nature hath humbled himself not only to behold the things on Earth but even to seek the reconciliation of his Enemies to himself and to propose new and easie terms of Friendship when the old had been violated God was in Christ reconciling the World unto himself not imputing their trespasses unto them 2 Cor. 5.19 And not to reconcile them to himself only but also to one another in their common head and center of Union Christ Jesus That in the dispensation of the fulness of time he might gather together in one all things in Christ both which are in Heaven and which are on Earth Ephes 1 10. And to that end hath sent forth Ambassadours of Peace to beseech them to be reconciled to God and to bring them all to the Unity of the Faith and knowledge of the Son of God Ephes 4.13 And how can we think our selves to be partakers of a Divine Nature unless we find some resemblance of this goodness of God's Nature in our selves inclining and disposing us to concord and good agreement with fellow-Christians by removing out of the way all that unnecessarily hinders it Blessed are the Peace-makers for they shall be called the Children of God Mat. 5.9 And why the Children of God but because herein they resemble him who is the God of Peace that loves Peace and seeks Peace and delights to see Men designing it and labouring at it with heart head tongue and hand Be ye therefore one and all followers of God as dear Children and walk in Love Eph. 5.1 2. Be perfect be of one mind live in Peace and the God of Love and Peace shall be with you 2 Cor. 13.11 Can you be ambitious of any greater Honour then to be like God A likeness to God is the highest Honour and perfection the Nature of any Creature is capable of And to live in Love and Peace and to seek Peace and to be Peace-makers is the way to be like him If we love one another God dwelleth in us and his love is perfected in us 1 John 4.12 2. If you count it either matter of Honour or comfort to be of a temper like Christ or if you think it will give you any confidence towards him for the present and at his coming as undoubtedly it will then by this be perswaded likewise to endeavour with all your might that the Unity of the Spirit may be kept in the bond of Peace For the heart and Soul of Christ is exceedingly set upon Union and good agreement of all that believe in him though they cannot all know alike and think alike in every thing yet for all that he is greatly desirous they should all hold together as one in Faith and Love And therefore in that solemn Prayer of his to his Father John 17. when he was leaving the World he singles out this in special as the matter of his request to his Father in one of the last Prayers he was to make in this World that they all might be one and be perfected in one His heart and desire was so full of this and so set upon it that he is at it over and over mentioning it no less then four times in the same Prayer ver 11.21 22 23. And why was his heart so much in this Was it think you for himself or for us For his own sake or for ours He desired no greater thing for himself then to be Glorified with the Glory he had with the Father before the World was before ever he entred upon his Mediatory Office ver 5. No it was for us Men and for our comfort and benefit that he so much desired it as knowing how much the Peace comfort and Edification of his People depended upon it and how much the Conversion of the World depended on it as necessary to make a right representation of Christ to the World that they might believe that the Father had sent him And was his heart so much in it And did he concern himself so much about it for our sakes And shall we our selves value it so little as to prefer little and inconsiderable things before it and that rather for will and humour then any tye of Conscience O God forbid If we do it is a sign we do not yet well understand the things that belong to our peace but that they are hid from our eyes And if Christ's heart was so much set upon the Unity and Concordance of his followers we must needs think they are Men according to his own heart that heartily design desire and endeavour it too And is not that honour enough Which sounds of most Honour to David That he was a King Or that he was a Man after God's own heart And who are like to be most dear unto Christ but those who are most like him and make one heart with him The more you shall find your hearts run out to this thing as Christ's did the more you find your selves of his mind spirit and temper herein the better assurance you will have and the greater comfort in that assurance of your dwelling in him and he in you Hereby we know that we dwell in him and he in us because he hath given us of his Spirit 1 John 4.13 But if any Man have not the Spirit of Christ he is none of his Rom. 8.9 Truly if Men were but as forward to gratifie and please our Lord in this that is so pleasing to him as they seem to be in some other things in which he never discovered himself to take any such pleasure things would be quite at another pass among us And yet if pleasing him be the business and not somewhat else why should not we be most for that in which he most delights 3. Your contentions and Divisions if you will still live in them and maintain them will hinder your Spiritual improvement and keep you from thriving by the means of grace which you enjoy It was a sad thing that St. Paul charged upon the Corinthians viz. That
then it is a reason to prove that the Lord hath not received them St. Peter thought it a good reason why the Christians should make no difference between believing Jews and believing Gentiles though they were of different perswasions about the necessity and non-necessity of Circumcision wherein the one erred because the Lord made no difference but gave to one the Holy Ghost as well as to the other and purified the hearts of the one by Faith as well as the other Acts 15.8 9. His reason is not setcht from the Nature of the things wherein they differed but from God's giving them an equal interest in his grace notwithstanding their difference When God had vouchsafed the gift of his grace and Spirit to the Gentiles as well as to the Jews St. Peter thought that if after this he should have kept the same distance from them as before he thought he was bound to do he should have withstood God in so doing Act. 11.17 For as much then as God gave them the like gift as he did unto us who believed on the Lord Jesus Christ what was I that I could withstand God To keep at a distance from those to whom God draws nigh in the Communication of his grace and Spirit is it seems to steer a course against God or to withstand him 3. The Anabaptists and Pedobaptists if Godly do by Faith hold Communion one with another in eating the same Spiritual meat and drinking the same Spiritual drink the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ which is the thing signified in the Lord's Supper Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood ye have no Life in you Joh. 6.53 And therefore they cannot duly deny Communion with them in the Lord's Supper it self which is the sign 1. Because if they do they thereby cross one great end and design of God in that Ordinance which is to increase and strengthen Love and Unity among Christians in communicating together in the sign upon account of their joynt-interest in and Relation to Christ the Substance Christians by their Communion in that Ordinance are made to drink into one Spirit or into one-ness of Spirit 1 Cor. 12.13 But by their thus refusing to Communicate one with another they do not only sin in not using the Lord's appointed means to increase and strengthen Love and Unity upon account of common interest in the same Saviour but also in that by such their refusal they destroy Unity and weaken diminish Love they pull down instead of building up steer a contrary course to Christ in appointing that Ordinance 2. Men's right to the sign proceeds upon the best account from their right to the thing signified though not from that only As those who have right to such or such an Estate in Land have thereby a right to the deeds and evidences by which such a right is to be declared So those that have a right to the Body and Blood of Christ through Faith have thereby a right to the Lord's Supper as an evidence appointed by God by which such their right is to be declared and acknowledged And therefore as a detaining of such evidence from him who by having right to the Land hath right to the evidence would be an injury even so for any as much as in them lies to detain the Lord's Supper from them who by having right to the Body and Blood of Christ have right to the Lord's Supper as an evidence and sign thereof would be an injury likewise and that so much greater too as Spiritual things are of more value then temporal 3. It is absurd and against common reason for them to grant that the Godly Pedobaptists have Communion with them in the greater and better part and yet for a supposed errour consistent with saving Faith Love to deny it them in the less whenas the greater alwayes includes the less But for the Godly Pedobaptists to be partakers of like precious Faith with them and thereby to eat of that Flesh which is meat indeed and to drink of that Blood which is drink indeed together with themselves a thing which the Anabaptists will not deny is certainly to have hold and enjoy Communion with them in the greater better more Spiritual and more substantial part of Communion and therefore to deny it them in the out-side and letter of it which is far less considerable is very incongruous and contradictious What was objected by distinguishing between an immediate and remote right if it should be here brought in again hath been answered before and the answer need not be repeated but only applyed here And let it be remembred alwayes that there is a vast difference between those who deny and those that hold the necessity and usefulness of water Baptism in these latter Ages of the Church The Pedobaptists are as much for water-Baptism as the Anabaptists are and hold themselves as firmly engaged by their Infant-Baptism as they do by their after-Baptism If this were not so their case would not be so pleadable as now it is And for any to separate from them upon account of their being Baptized in their Infancy as it is without ground from Scripture I conceive so it is without all president in the Church of Christ for the first fifteen hundred years and more Though some in the ancient Church were Baptized in Infancy and some at Age yet there was never any breaking of Communion among them upon that score so far as ever I could learn untill a Reformation of a Reformation was set on foot the one to puzle and confound the other I mean the attempt of the Anabaptists in Germany to Reform the Reformation by Luther and others Which may be a motive to reflect upon what they have done and to review their grounds Can they think to out-do the Church in her purest times in point of Communion Me-thinks they should greatly suspect themselves in their undertaking wherein they go so manifestly contrary to the Universal Church in all places and Ages till so lately as afore-said II. Dividing Principle to be avoided That it is unlawful to hold Communion with parochial Congregations notwithstanding they have been Baptized into the Profession of the true Faith and continue in that profession This is another grand dividing Principle indeed They who hold this and practice accordingly must prove such Communion unlawful or else lye under the guilt of a sinful Schism or causless separation and of all the evil and mischievous effects and consequences of it And to prove it unlawful they must prove it is so either by proving 1. That all the Members of each Parochial Assembly from which they separate are destitute of saving grace or 2. By proving that the mixture of bad with good makes Communion unlawful or 3. By proving the constitution of such Congregations bad upon account of that distribution by which the whole Nation is divided into its parts and precincts or 4. By proving the worship
their coming together and exercising themselves in the Holy Ordinances of the Lord was not for the better but for the worse 1 Cor. 11.17 Now in this that I declare unto you I praise you not that you come not together for the better but for the worse But what was the cause of this or upon what doth he ground this charge of their going backward in Religion Verily it was their Divisions that was the cause of this mischief For first of all saith he when you come together in the Church I hear that there are divisions among you ver 18. That Church abounded in Spiritual gifts being enriched in every thing in all utterance and all knowledge so that they came behind in no gift Chap. 1.5.7 They thrived in these indeed but then they went backward in their Humility and Charity and goodness of their Spirit and temper which made the Apostle to spend almost a whole Chapter in commending Charity above Spiritual gifts to them besides the several hints he gives of their being puffed up Though they might well have been Spiritual Christians considering the opportunity and means they had to make them such yet because of Euvring Strife and Divisions among them some following one Teacher and some another in opposition St. Paul could not as he saith write to them as to Spiritual but only as to Carnal such as were but Babes still and unthriven in the Life and Spirit of Christianity their envying strife and divisions keeping them thus low under the means of higher attainments in grace 1 Cor. 3.1 2 3. The truth is Divisions Wranglings and Janglings and Contentions eat out the very heart of Religion Men may grow rich in a Form of knowledge and express a great zeal for the out side of Religion and yet in the mean time be languishing in the very vitals of Christianity when that knowledge and zeal is not improved and spent for the farthering of Peace and Love with other Christian Virtues Your Divisions and Contentions Christians will be as a Worm at the root of your Tree that will keep it from thriving whatever cost you otherwise bestow upon it If then you have any mind to keep up Religion in heart among us and not to have your Wine to become as Water having lost its Spirit If you would have the Gospel-Ordinances yield their increase and your Religion not degenerate into Form If you would yield the Lord the acceptable and pleasant Fruit of all his cost and not such as is starvie harsh and unsavoury If you would not turn the Fruit of Righteousness into Hemlock If you would be free from such a distemper as will hinder your Spiritual relish and convert your food to a noxious humour and subject you to a spiritual languishing in the midst of a plentiful provision for Spiritual health and growth Then lay aside your divisions about matters of doubtful disputation and follow after the things which make for peace and things whereby you may edifie one another in love What knowledge soever you have and what zeal soever you express for any truth as you conceive it to be yet if while you hold fast other things you let go Charity your knowledge of and your zeal in prosecuting and promoting the same though it were to the losing of your life will profit you nothing 1 Cor. 13.2.3 I hough I understand all mysteries and all knowledge and though I give my Body to be burned and have not Charity it profiteth me nothing A thing which neerly concerns all such to mind that are more careful and tender lest some other controverted and supposed truth should suffer then charity peace and concord should suffer and care not what rents and divisions they make so they may but propagate their particular opinion If there be bitter zeal as some translate it glory not of thy knowledge and lie not against the truth in saying that 's the way to promote it Jam. 3.14 If you would thrive under the means of grace indeed and be growing up to perfection then be sure to be much for Charity and Unity You have much talk of perfection among some and many that pretend to it that are far from it but I think it consists in nothing more next our love to God then in the Saints Love and Unity This is the cry of the Scripture That they made perfect in one John 17.23 Be perfect be of one mind live in Peace 2 Cor. 13.11 Above all these put on Charity which is the bond of perfectness Col. 3.14 If we love one another God dwelleth in us and his love is perfected in us 1 John 4.12 If some do grow in grace after they have fallen into dividing wayes and separating practises as I am not so uncharitable but to think that they do while the errour lyes not in their will but in their judgment yet this growth is not to be attributed at all to that wherein they differ from other good Christians not of their way who grow in grace too but to those sound Principles of Christianity wherein both the one and the other are agreed And I have good reason to think that the same improvement of those unquestionable Principles by which they grow in grace their separation notwithstanding would set them much forwarder in that growth in case they were at Liberty from the intanglements of separation then under them it can Because those wayes of Division and Separation do Naturally tend to narrow Men's Spirits and Charity and to cause them to think that many are not of the Church of Christ which indeed are and to have low thoughts of many that yet are highly eminent in the Church for their worth and Service and all because they are not of their way and besides through prejudice they deprive themselves of many happy advantages of Spiritual growth which otherwise they would make use of And those that abound most in a well-grounded and regular Charity have doubtless the more of God's presence and assistance with them for their Spiritual growth and comfort too as others for want of it have the less If he that dwelleth in Love dwelleth in God and God in him 1 Joh. 4.16 then those that abound most in Love must needs have most of God's presence both to assist quicken and comfort them Live in Peace and the God of Love and Peace shall be with you to increase these and to help you to propagate them 2 Cor. 13.11 and to give you great Peace in so doing as some have found by Experience But though the wayes of separation among us do but as the Rickets hinder some in their growth and not totally deprive them of it yet it is to be feared they make some others much worse then they were before they came into them more goodly and self-conceited more proud and imperious slighting and despising others that are much better then themselves and over-valuing themselves quite upon account of the Form and Church they are got