one to the conscionable performance of the duties of their particular places and callings so be ye perswaded to do the like in this juncture of time Press upon your Hearers and charge upon their Consciences who are forward enough to make profession of the Duties of the First Table to be conscionable in the observance of the Duties of the Second and especially of that Fifth Command to which the Promise of long life is made and the violation whereof we have cause to fear hath shortned the daies of many in this Nation and sent them to their Graves in Coffins of Blood Many there are I suppose which have offended in this kind through Ignorance for want of Information from their Teachers But that both good Ministers and People are apt to forget themselves as to this Particular though the Drums should never have beaten it out of their Heads is evident by the memento that Paul giveth to Titus Chap. 3. v. 5. Put them in mind to be subject to Principalities and Powers and that they be obedient to Magistrates Certainly this Duty was never more in season than now to urge upon your Hearers to be subject to Principalities and Powers and to be obedient to all the Lawful Commands of Magistrates without disputing their expediency to judge whereof they have no Call from God or man And as a further means to reconcile us unto one another insist much upon those Duties which follow in the next verse and pathetically exhort them thereunto and disswade from those contrary impediments to Peace and Love V. 2. That they speak evil of no man be no Brawlers but gentle shewing all meekness to all men Doubtless were but this Gospel Precept in this verse conscionably practised it would exceedingly tend to the healing of all our Breaches and the making up of our Rents and Divisions by which we are almost consumed We have in order hereunto bitten and devoured one another not so much with our Teeth as with our Tongues To cure us Put them in mind that they speak evil of no man There is none of us but take too much liberty even to this day to speak contumeliously of those which are not of their own Party whereas there is nothing more clear than this that we are under a Divine Charge and prohibition to speak evil of no man of what Party soever And that we be no Brawlers but gentle shewing all meekness to all men is also another Gospel Precept To be affable gentle and peaceable towards those of our own judgments and that are of our own Party is no singular Act of Humanity Our Saviour tels us if we be friendly only to our Brethren What singular thing do ye Do not even the Publicans the same But to shew all meekness to all men of what Party soever you see is the bounden duty of those to whom the Grace of God hath appeared Make use therefore of your Divine Oratory to urge these aforesaid Duties upon your Hearers by all those Arguments which are drawn up by the Holy Ghost to your Hands in the 3 4 5. verses of the same Chapter and I doubt not but by Gods Blessing who is the God of Peace he will once more bless his people with Peace according to his Promise The Lord who sitteth upon the Flood yea the Lord who sitteth King for ever the Lord will give strength unto his People the Lord will bless his People with Peace Psal 29. 10 11. And that this Peace may not be obstructed but as vigorously pursued and followed after as Holiness to both which we are equally engaged Jure Divino Let me now make my particular address to ye of the Independent To the Independent Party or Gathered Churches Party and of the Gathered Churches to whom though I have many things to say which lie upon my heart and I find my self bound in Spirit to make mention of yet in this time of trouble and day of Rebuke which the Righteous Lord hath most justly brought upon us for our sins I find the sense of our many Provocations very much afflicting my heart with grief and soul with sorrow under this aggravation That though I have all this while looked upon my self and all that were in our congregational way as the only Saints of the most High separated from the rest of the world by the strictness of our Profession of Purity of Ordinances and Church-Administrations and that I judged those who joyned not with us therein either as the Prophane Rabble of the world or at the best but as a company of Carnal Moral and Formal Persons yet that many of us by our Practises in reference to the publick Affairs of the Common-wealth and to our righteous Administrations in order thereunto have not only fallen very short of many of those whom we have thus censured but have acted in such waies that some Heathen Patriots that knew not God would blush and be ashamed of Ye may peradventure look upon this as a very uncharitable or at least a very unseasonable passage from a Friend in this day of our calamity But if you do consider what I have already spoken to ye amongst the rest wherein I sincerely discover the reason of my plain dealing and if God hath awakened any of you by his stupendious and amazing Providential Dispensations as I hope he hath done many who for these late years have been fast asleep and have had many Golden Dreams of being Godly in Christ Jesus without suffering and of ruling others while our Lusts ruled us you will be of another mind I do profess unfeignedly that were our miscarriages to be concealed I should as David in another case admonish all that have any respect to the Honour of the Gospel that they tell them not in Gath that they publish them not in the streets of Askelon lest the Daughters of the uncircumcised rejoyce But alas our sinful and irregular actings for these late years have been committed in the sight of the Sun They are like the sins of Judah written with a Pen of Iron with the point of a Diamond they are recorded in the several Declarations and Remonstrances of the Army In the first and second Part of the History of Independency and such other Books of that nature which now walk abroad without Controul And now while I am speaking of Books I cannot but tell you of that which should be a very cutting Consideration and should deeply humble us That although in that hour of Temptation that power of darkness we were under some of the Episcopal and Presbyterian Party by their publick addresses in Print did pathetically diswade from and bear witness against those unwarrantable waies into which some of us were running in a full Career in Anno 1648. Yet amongst our selves I do not find any dissent or disswasion from them published to the world by any of our Congregational Party but rather such Books as did justifie and approve the same Excepting
necessity must go before Repentance even Consideration before Conversion Psal 119. I considered my waies and turned my feet c. Now therefore let me entreat you to consider The Nation being as I have said before divided into three Parties which of them have longest persisted in those waies that Mr. Sedgwick chargeth upon the Army and in the justification of them which of our Gathered Churches declared the trouble of our hearts and our great dislike of the Armies disobedience to the Authority of the Lords and Commons that raised them that bewailed the great severity and John of Leyden-like cruelty they afterwards exercised when fire came out of the Bramble and consumed the Cedars of Lebanon which of us professed with Holy Jacob Gen. 49. 6 7. Into their secret let not my Soul come my Glory be not thou joyned with their Assembly Cursed be their wrath for it was fierce their anger for it was cruel But rather blessed them and God for it joyning with them in daies of Rejoycing and Thanksgiving accounting the other Parties refusing but old and new Malignants I desire you also to consider what Party have enriched themselves with the spoil which Mr. Sedgwick speaketh of That have as I said before not only bid the Army God speed and so are partakers of all their evil deeds but have joyned with them and have owned them in all those woful changes and Revolutions that our eyes have seen we have been for all Governours and Government but the right except a few fifth Monarchy men that are only for King Jesus We have been for a Common-wealth without King and House of Lords for a Protector and his Son for a Common-wealth again and then for that most dangerous Committee of Safety erected by the Souldiery that did so much threaten the Ruine and Eradication of the Magistracy and Ministry of this Nation and last of all for the last Sediment of the House of Commons also many of us unnaturally complying with them in their horrid violence upon the City for declaring for a free Parliament To which Free Parliament also how much we have shewed our aversness and how well we have wished to Col. Lambert and his Party whom many of us hoped would interrupt their Meeting together is notorious to the world otherwise I should not have spoken so freely thereunto Let us therefore upon these Considerations take shame to our selves get our proud hearts humbled our Soules softned our Spirits cooled the heates and animosities of our minds abated and make all our harsh censuring judging and accusing of others to terminate in the accusing judging and condemning of our selves And let us in these dayes wherein of late we have seen our selves so much neglected by the Nation so few of us being put either into the Militia in City or Country or by the people of this Nation chosen for their Representatives in Parliament let us be so far from censuring and judging of them for prophane and ungodly in so doing imputing it only to the enmity that is in the hearts of all unregenerate and unconverted men to the power of Godliness But let us who have so much denied the Power of it as we have done judge and condemn our selves for that Cruelty Injustice and Usurpation of ours over them of which we have given them just occasion to be so sensible of for these many years I do profess it is that which much saddens my Spirit to observe that we that do profess our selves to be Saints and to be of such scrupulous and tender Consciences that in the Circumstantials of the Worship of God we will do nothing without an express Command though it be no where forbid but all must be according to the Pattern in the Mount dare not communicate with any at the Lords Table but such as we account for Saints like our selves though Christ did with Judas or baptize our young Infants because we find no express Command for it in the New Testament Many of which Judgment renouncing the Ministry of this Nation as coming from the Pope and yet that many of us should carry on the * See Mr. Strongs Serm. Preached at Pauls Nov. 5. 1653. Pag. 19. Papists designs all this while and act from their Popish and Antichristian Principles against Magistrates because Hereticks or ungodly and go against the express Precepts and Presidents of our Lord and Master Christ I say this should very much humble us especially to consider That such as make not that high Profession with us should stumble at the Scandals we give and they take at our Principles and Practises in reference to Civil Government And that the Prophane Rabble of the world Swearers Drunkards and Sabbath-breakers Whoremongers and such like Flagitious Sinners should exceed us in Loyality to our Native Prince when as the Scriptures even the New Testament is as clear and express in the charging of that upon our Consciences as to hear to pray to meditate to walk with God and to fear his Dreadful Name And therefore we shall find that to fear God and honour the King are joyned together by the Holy Ghost 1 Pet. 2. 17. Giving us to understand that the contempt of this Precept which answers to the Fifth Commandment is not only inconsistent with the true fear of God but also drawes after it the Breach of all the rest of the Commandments of the Second Table Rebellion Treason Regicide Paracide and all kind of Murder Injustice Cruelty and Oppression the slanderous defaming and devouring of our Neighbours Good name of all which I could wish that our own times did not give too full proof and evidence of the same Let us therefore upon all these Considerations be moved to the exercise of Repentance as to these particular sins To think upon Restitution without which as one of the Fathers hath it non remittitur peccatum nisi restituetur ablatum And let us be perswaded to give over the reproaching of such who are for a regulated Monarchy that desire the Throne may be established in Righteousness I say let us no longer revile them with the odious Name of Cavee and Malignant which words ye know are frequent amongst us with which now we are apt to brand all that are not of our Party Whereas if we would look into the first remonstrance of the Parliament we should find the Malignant Party to be described to be such as would introduce erroneous Doctrines into the Church endeavour to subvert the Fundamental Lawes and Government of the Nation to erect an arbitrary power to distemper the Army that then was in the North and to bring it up to overaw the Parliament By all which Characters my Friends I fear the Name doth most properly belong to our selves And let us now get out of these Extreams into which we have so madly run for some misse-governments in the King to cut him off and cast off all Kingly Government and upon selfish designs to erect a
use should be made by them so many of the Nobility and Gentry from Somersetshire Northamptonshire Kent and about the City of London and other places having most piously and Christianly Declared That they do reflect upon their past sufferings as proceeding from the hand of God and that they do abhorre all revengefull thoughts or actions against any party or persons whatsoever Which Declarations of theirs have very much won my heart and I desire that they may have the like effect upon all of our Party towards those truly noble and gentle Persons who have thus prevented us with their love and goodness Let us therefore no longer harbour any jealous and uncharitable surmises against them Let us not say it is an easie matter to give good words though they never intend it The Apostle tels us Love it neither thinketh or speaketh evil But let us all who have seen how evil and destructive divisions and contentions are amongst Brethren now come and see how good and joyfull it is for Brethren to dwell together in unity for doubtless we are Brethren and all have one Father though we most unhappily like Josephs brethren have fallen out by the way And that this good work may be prosecuted and carried on in all our Congregations As I have spoken in particular to the Episcopal Clergy and to the Presbyterian Ministers so I shall address my self to ye who are the Pastors and Teachers of our Congregations such as labour in the Word and Doctrine being lawfully called thereunto Oh be ye instant in season and out of season at all times and upon all occasions more frequently then ever pressing upon your hearers and faithfully applying to them the Doctrine of Self-denial the want of which I fear is the cause of all that selfishnesse which is in our party which selfishnesse is the summe of Vice the capital enemy of God and the King of Order and Government of all grace and vertue of every holy Ordinance and duty especially of unity and Brotherly-love of the welfare of the Publick and our own true good and eternal happinesse Oh therefore let the Doctrine of Self-denial be more preached be more practised then ever Make also Conscience of preaching more then ever against hypocrisie against disobedience to the fifth Commandment And as the most of your hearers profess themselves to be such as have the Spirit of God see to take heed of those ungodly lusts which Jude tels us argue v. 19. that they have not the spirit And perswade them above all things to shew forth in their conversations for the time to come those fruits of the spirit which the Apostle speaketh on Eph. 5. 9. The fruit of the spirit is in all goodnesse righteousnesse and truth Such fruits of the spirit as these breaking out in our lives and conversations will make them winning and draw those that are without to like and approve of the Religion we professe These are such fruits which have but little appeared to the world in these late years amongst us And therefore be perswaded and entreated to charge it upon the consciences of your hearers that they bring them forth The Apostle tels us indeed of other fruits of the spirit as faith love c. these do unite our souls to God and God to us but goodnesse benignity an affable and charitable disposition Righteousnesse in our converse and commerce in the world Truth veracity and faithfulness in our words and promises these unite and tye the souls of men to us all These things saith the Apostle are profitable to men All other our gracious qualifications our most elevated common gifts of the spirit though we could be never so Seraphical in our Contemplations though never so Angelical in our expressions though we had the tongue of men and Angels though we should consume our lungs by our long prayers and even weep our selves blind for many of our sins yet should these be abstracted from goodnesse righteousnesse and truth which the Apostle calleth 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the fruit of the spirit we should shew our selves to be but of a selfish and solitary disposition and no way allure others to be in love with Religion Perswade therefore your people to shun that supercilious morosness of many in their conversation saying unto their neighbours Stand by for I am more holy then thou that hard-heartedness that commonly appeareth in many Professors towards poor and indigent persons For though the houshold of faith are to have the preheminence yet we are expresly commanded to do good unto all even to Gal. 6. 10. such as upon whom our heavenly Father causeth his sun to shine and his rain to fall which are the bad as well as the good Matth. 5. 45. Tertullian relates of the Primitive Professors in his time that they were called not Christiani but * 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 unde venit 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Chrestiani from 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a word which signifieth good bountiful 1 Pet. 2. 3. sweetness of manners and disposition profitableness 2 Tim. 2. 14. and that fruit of the spirit Gal. 5. 22. translated gentleness It should seem then they were such close followers of the gentleness of Christ and of his goodnesse who went about doing good and that they were so profitable unto humane society by their sweetness of disposition their gentlenesse their bounty benignity and goodnesse they did so abound in such fruits of the spirit that they were called Chrestians Now if we that live in these evil times could be brought but to this excellent temper how should we adorn and crown our holy profession and draw in others to a love and liking of our zeal for God in matters of the first Table and make all our present divisions to vanish Especially if it be in conjunction with Righteousness which will make us give to all their due Obedience and Loyalty to the King as Supream and to all other Governours sent by him and to all our equals love By this means then shall all parties be united together and the effect of these works of Righteousnesse shall be peace and a quiet settlement of these three Kingdoms I have now but a few words to speak unto ye of the Congregated Churches in reference to the extreams into which we have run in relation to matters of Religion and Church Government and to press you to moderation therein also as I have done the Episcopal and Presbyterian parties and so I shall conclude my Discourse Though I must needs say the parties before named have not run into that extream with us in reference to the Civil Government of the Nation and therefore I have not had that occasion to speak to them on that subject which I have so largely insisted on to our selves Yet in Reference to Church Government or matters of the soul and conscience there are none of us all can wash our hands in innocency What just occasion was given to all truly
conscientious and pious men to be offended at the persecutions of the Prelates and their superstitious injunctions and innovations and consequently what need there was of a Reformation in Church Government Sir Edward Deering my Lord Digby and others of their own party have declared by the former quotations But how this blessed work hath miserably miscarried in all our hands hinc illae lachrimae I know the Presbyterian party are apt to say if we Independents had not interposed this work of Reformation had gon on with speed their Government had been setled in the Nation not considering that the progresse that they had made therein by the sword would like the Commonwealth we have been raising all this while require the continuance of the same to support and bear it up at vast charges The Government aforesaid being not only dissatisfactory and displeasing to our late King but to the greatest part of the Nobility Gentry and Commons of the Land besides our selves especially as universal conformity thereunto by the Covenant was intended Now to avoid these extreams into which we saw both others run before us even of a violent absolute and universal compulsion of conformity that nothing in Matters of Religion might be urged that might go against our Consciences and that according to our Principle that particular Congregations are Independent and subject to no Censure from any other Church but that of non-communion We have given a boundless lawless toleration to all corrupt and erroneous Opinions from the Anti-Trinitarian to the Quaker wherein though we have run into much Confusion and Disorder yet have we therein come nearer to the Judgment of Mr. Hales before quoted than either the Presbyterian or Episcopal Party themselves who in his Discourse about dealing with erring Christians doth neither approve of the High Commission Court or of a Covenant to swear down the Extirpation of Errour Heresie and Schisme * Or any other way of severity For saith he P. 55. Severity against and separation from Heretical companies took its Beginning from the Hereticks themselves and if we search the Stories we shall find that the Church did not at the first arising thrust them from her themselves went out And as for severity that which the Donatists sometimes spake in their own defence Illam esse veram Eccclesiam quae persecutionem patitur non quaefacit She was the true Church not which raised but which suffered persecution was de facto true for a great space For when Heresies and Schismes first arose in the Church all kinds of violence were used by the erring Factions but the Church seemed not for a long time to have known any use of a sword but only of a Buckler and when she began to use the Sword some of her best and chiefest Captains much disliked it The first Law that ever was made in this kind was enacted by Theodosius against the Donatists but with this restraint that it should extend against none but such as were tumutuous and till that time they were not so much as toucht with any mulct though but pecuniary til that shameful outrage committed against Bishop Maximian whom they beat down with Bats and Clubs even as he stood at the Altar so that not so much the Errour of the Donatists as their Riots and Mutinies were by Imperial Lawes restrained Thus sar Learned Pious and Moderate Mr. Hales of whose Judgment had the Episcopal Party been in the time of their Government these troubles in the Church had never been raised nor had these miseries come upon the King and Kingdom And were but what he hath written seriously pondered by considering Christians of all Parties it would pluck up the cause of all our Divisions by the roots As I shall therefore commend to you all * Who shall be called to advise about matters of Religion his Works set forth by Mr. Pearson aforesaid so this one particular Passage more amongst the rest It is not saith he p. 54. It is not the variety of Opinions but our own perverse wills who think it meet that all should be conceited as our selves are which hath so inconvenienced the Church Were we not so ready to anathematize each other where we concur not in opinion we might in hearts be united though in our tongues we were divided and that with singular profit to all sides It is the Unity of the Spirit in the Bond of peace and not Identity of Conceit which the Holy Ghost requireth at the hands of Christians This short Quotation giveth us a true account of the Cause and Cure of all our Church Dissentions and Divisions Now that these Rents and Schisms may not grow wider but be healed up and I hope therein offer the sense of very many Church-Members I say I shall humbly propound this expedient Let but the Episcopal and Presbyterian Parties abandon and renounce their Principle of universal Conformity and compulsion and we of the Gathered Churches ours of a universal toleration and liberty for Conscience They exercising no other compulsive power over tender Consciences than what they are furnished with from the Word of God and we expecting and requiring no other liberty from them than what the Word of God allowes us And no doubt but we shall find the Son of Righteousness arising upon us with healing under his wings and give us all that unity of Spirit which is the Bond of Peace though we have not Identity of Conceits and Apprehensions and will make us all to be of one Heart though we are not all of one mind By what way of Government this may be best effected I leave to the Advice of an Assembly of Religious and Learned Ministers of all Parties whom no doubt the Parliament will speedily summon and to the Result and determinations of the Parliament thereupon in reference to Church-matters I hope all sober and moderate Independents if not very weak in judgment or strongly possest with prejudice and many other corruptions therein will humbly submit to acquiesce therein And not only so but also to the judgment of that great Council in reference to what they have voted not only of the way of Government by Monarchy but also to the Government of his Majesty Whose Gratious Declaration of a free and general pardon to all his Subjects how faulty soever excepting only such as shall be here after excepted by Parliament which cannot now be many considering the chiefest are gone down into the dust And also of Liberty to tender Consciences and that no man shall be disquieted or called in question for differences of Opinion in matters of Religion that do not disturb the Peace of the Kingdom I say these Offers of Grace and Mercy from his Majesty whom many of our Consciences tell us we have so much offended and exposed to such great afflictions and Sufferings should now melt our hearts through great contrition and penitential remorse for what is past and work us to Resolutions of all due Loyalty and Subjection to his Government for the time to come and that not for fear but for Conscience sake Methinks God having as we ought to judge in Charity by his Gracious expressions turned his Royal heart towards us how should it turn our hearts to be Loyal towards Him and make us now to make good what I now believe 〈…〉 by his Royal Father in the Advice he gave to him before 〈…〉 when Prince In his 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of Wales saith he None will be more Loyal and Faithful to you and me than those Subjects who sensible of their Errours and great Injuries shall feel in their own Soules most vehement Motives to Repentance and earnest desires to make some reparation for their former defects Nay this Confidence his Late Majesty had of his most offending Subjects that he further saith in the said Advice For those that repent of any defect in their Duty to me I believe ye shall find them truly zealous to repay with Interest that Loyalty and Love to You that was due to Me. Surely by what I have so largely insisted upon in all this Discourse we of the Gathered Churches cannot be so stupid but needs must be brought to a sense of this that we have been exceeding defective in our Duty to the Late King The Presbyterian Party in England and Scotland about the Late Kings Death and since have Some of them suffering death and banishment c. testified their Repentance for their Defects in their Duty to the Late King by their Loyalty to his Majesty Methinks we should no longer lie under the same reproof as they did 2 Sam. 19. 12. Wherefore are ye the last in bringing back the King Well nunquam sera est ad bonosmores via Let us therefore though we have set out after others yet let us overtake them in the speedy and vigorous expressions of our Repentance for the Defects of our Duty to the Late King by our Love and Loyalty to our present Soveraign Let our Contentions now be turned into this Christian emulation which Party of us shall be most pious towards God most Loyal toward the King and most loving to one another And then no doubt if our waies please the Lord he will make not only our enemies to be at peace with us but us to be at peace amity with all dissenting brethren they with us will give us favour in the eyes of the Authority of the Nation the King and Parliament AMEN FINIS In the Integrity of my heart have I done this Gen. 20. 5. Salem Philalathes and a Church-member