15 16 42 43 44 1 Thes 5.20 1 John 4.6 and he will teach us his waies and we will walk in his paths Heb. 10.24 25. And let us consider one another to provoke unto love and to good works Not forsaking the assembling of our selves together as the manner of some is but exhorting one another and so much the more as ye see the day approaching Till his second coming 1 Cor. 11.26 for as often as ye eat this bread and drink this Cup ye do shew the Lords death till he come Matth. 28 20. Eph. 4.12 13. Heb. 2.25 Rom. 8.9 11. 1 Cor. 3.16 2 Tim. 1.14 I beleeve that the holy Spirit dwelleth John 14.17 even the Spirit of truth whom the world cannot receive because it seeth him not neither knoweth him But ye know him for he dwelleth with you and shall be in you and worketh Joh. 16.13 he will guide you into all truth In all that are drawn to beleeve in Christ Rom 8.14 Phil. 2.13 Heb. 13 21. 1 Joh. 3.23 24. with 4.15.16 Ephes 3.16.17 That he would grant you according to the riches of his glory to be strengthned with might by his Spirit in the inner-man that Christ may dwell in your hearts by Faith c. Who being united to him their Head Eph. 5.23.30 Joh. 17.21.22.23 that they all may be one as thou Father art in me and I in thee that they also may be one in us Eph. 1.10.22 23. with chap. 2.19.20 3.15 4.12 13 14 15. 5.23 with Heb. 12.23 c. that they may be one even as we are one I in them and them in me that they may be made perfect in one c. Make up one Catholick Church which is his body 1 Cor. 12.12 13 14 27. For as the body is one and hath many members and all the members of that one body being many are one body so also is Christ For by one Spirit we are all baptized into one body whether we be Jews or Gentiles whether we be bond or free and have been all made to drink into one Spirit for the body is not one member but many Now ye are the body of Christ and members in particular 1 Cor. 1.9 2 Cor. 13.14 Phil. 2.2 1 Cor. 2.12 2 Cor. 4.13 John 17.20 21 Eph. 3.17 with 4.4 5 Acts 2.42 44 46. Rom. 12.5 6. 1 Cor. 12.25 26 27. Gal. 6.2 Eph. 4.2 3 4 15 16. Phil. 2.1 2 3 4 Acts 10.4 and 26.18 Col 1.14 Rom. 8.1 2. John 15.4 5. Gal. 5.25 1 John 5.12 1 Cor. 15.51 52. 1 Thes 4.16 17. Luke 12.32 Col. 5.4 Rom. 6.8 1 Tim. 2.11 1 Thes 4.17 John 1.3 2. Matth. 25.46 2 Thes 1.8 9. Rev. 22.8 Mark 9.24 1 Pet. 3.15 The members whereof having fellowship with the Father the Son and the Holy Spirit by Faith 1 John 1.3 Our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ And with one another in love 1 John 1.7 But if we walk in the light as he is in the light we have fellowship one with another Do receive here on earth forgiveness of sins Eph. 1.7 In whom we have redemption through his blood even the forgiveness of sins according to the riches of his grace With the life of grace in Christ Ezek. 26.27 A new heart will I give you and a new Spirit will I put within you and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh and I will give you an heart of flesh and I will put my spirit within you and cause you to walk in my Statutes and ye shall keep my Judgements and do them Gal. 2.19 20. For I through the Law am dead to the Law that I might live unto God I am crucified with Christ neverthelesse I live yet not I but Christ liveth in me and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the Faith of the Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me And at the last Resurrection of the bodies of all men then dead Acts 24.15 there shall be a Resurrection of the dead both of the just and of the unjust Shall ever enjoy the life of glory with God in heaven Mat. 5.8 Blessed are the pure in heart for they shall see God Mat. 25.46 But the righteous into Life Eternal When the wicked shall go into everlasting punishment in hell Psal 9.17 The wicked shall be turned into hell and all the people that forget God I do heartily take Is 44.5 One shall say I am the Lords and another shall call himself by the name of Jacob and another shall subscribe with his hand unto the Lord and surname himself by the name of Israel John 1.12 But as many as know him to them gave he power to become the sons of God This one God for my only God Exod. 20 2 3. Josh 24.21 22 24. Psa 48.14 with 63.1 Psa 4.6 7. Deut. 26.17 Thou hast avouched the Lord this day to be thy God and to walk in his waies and to keep his Statutes c. And chief good Psal 73.25.26 Whom have I in heaven but thee and there is none upon earth that I desire besides thee And this Jesus Christ for my only Saviour and Redeemer Job 19.25 26 27. Luke 1.47 John 20.28 Rom. 8.2 Gal. 2.20 1 Pet. 1.2 Act. 4.12 Neither is there salvation in any other for there is none other name under heaven given among men whereby we must be saved And this Holy Ghost for my Sanctifier 1 Pet. 1.22 Seeing ye have purified your selves in obeying the truth through the Spirit c. Psal 51.11 Take not thy holy Spirit from me By his grace giving up my self wholly to this one God 2 Cor. 8.5 Deut. 26.17 Isa 44.5 First Luke 10.27 Deut. 6.5 Acts 11.23 Joh 24.15 16 18 21 22 23 24.1 Sam 12.24 Luke 1.6 Deut. 4.2 with 5.32 12.32 Rev. 22.18 Job 14.14 Psal 48.14 Luke 1.74 75. Revel 2.10 Psal 119.106 115. Esa 2.3 Mich 4.2 Acts 2.42 44 46. Heb. 10.23 25 Rom. 12.3 4 5 to the 10.17.2 Thes 3.6 11 12 14. Col 2.5.1 Cor. 11 12 13. with ch 14.32 33 34 37 40. they gave their own selves to the Lord. To love and obey him sincerely and faithfully Mat. 22.37 Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart and with all thy soul and with all thy mind According to all his Laws contained in the holy Scripture Psa 119.6 Then shall I not be confounded when I have respect unto all thy Commandements And all this unto the death Psal 119.112.117 I have enclined my heart to perform thy Statutes alway even unto the end I will have respect unto thy Statutes continually Also I consent and resolve in the strength of Christ Josh 24.15 I and my houshold will serve the Lord. To hold constant Communion with the Church of Christ in the publick Worship of God Jer. 50.5 They shall aske the way to Zion with their faces thitherward
saying Come and let us join our selves to the Lord in a perpetual Covenant that shall not be forgotten And to submit to the Government and discipline which Ghrist hath ordained If thy Brother shall trespasse against thee go and tell him his fault between thee and him alone if he shall hear thee thou hast gained thy Brother but if he will not hear thee then take with thee one or two more that c. and if he shall neglect to hearken then tell it unto the Church but if he shall neglect to hear the Church let him be unto thee as a Heathen man and a Publican For his own glory and his peoples good 2 Cor. 10.8 For though I should boast more of our Authority which the Lord hath given us for edification and not for destruction and Chap. 13.10 The power which the Lord hath given me to edification and not to destruction And that I may have the opportunity of the enjoyment of these priviledges for the advancement of mine obedience I resolve and promise Isai 44.5 One shall say I am the Lords and another shall call himself by the name of Jacob and another shall subscribe with his hands unto the Lord c. 2 Cor. 8.5 And this they did first gave themselves to the Lord and unto us by the will of God 2 Cor. 9.13 They glorifie God for your professed subjection to the Gospel of Christ To submit to the Ministerial Guidance and over-sight exercised according to the rule of the Word in this Congregation Acts 14.22 And when they had ordained them Elders in every Church Acts 20.28 Take heed therefore unto your selves and to all the Flock over the which the Holy Ghost hath made you over-seers to feed the Church of God Heb. 13.17 Obey them that have the rule over you and submit your selves to such for they watch for your souls as they that must give an account that they may do it with joy and not with grief for that is unprofitable for you And to the Brotherly advice and admonition of fellow-Christians here Rom. 15.14 I am perswaded that you are filled with all knowledge able also to admonish one another Col. 3.16 Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdome teaching and admonishing one another Jude 20. Ye beloved building up your selves in your most holy Faith keep your selves in the love of God and of some have compassion making a difference others save with fear pulling them out of the fire 1 Thess 5.11 Comfort your selves together and edifie one another Heb. 3.16 Exhort one another daily Heb. 10.24 Let us consider one another to provoke to love and to good works The Exhortation to Union IT will readily be yielded that the great work of Christians here is to advance to their utmost the Superlative interest of Christ his Kingdome and Glory That the way conducing hereunto lies First for a sure foundation to begin with a Totall and free subjecting themselves to Christ Then for suller furtherance to endeavour after the largest Heart and most publike Spirit for doing very much for Christ And as a yet more full and proportionate meanes to put themselves into the best posture of the fullest and firmest Union and Conjunction for exalting together of the Name and Cause of Christ without which Generall Union neither the Churches Edification Reformation or Preservation can be sufficiently provided for as necessarily requiring a conjunction of hearts knit together in Love of heads united in counsels and contrivances and of hands affording their best assistance and help Among others there are these three things in the reformed Churches which are the great Dolenda the greatly to be bewailed 1. That great defect and want of Union and good correspondencies for mutuall help 2. That height and depth of hazzard and danger they daily run by that want of good Union 3. That so great so great neglect of applying any just and proportionate remedy to heal divisions and prevent the danger Certainly 't is no small one but one of the great scarrs seen this day in the Face of the Protestant Churches that sinfull division and want of Union which interrupts those good correspondencies and joynt actings thereupon to the securing and propagating the Protestant interest that would upon conjunction follow Our Lord indeed tells us Luke 16. The Children of this world are wiser in their generation then the Children of Light and besides former our own present age and experience do abundantly prove and seale unto it Divers adverse parties though smaller they can hit it they can be closely united among themselves and strongly combined against the reformed But Papists the greatest enemies and the greatest party are the most eminently and observedly prudent and wise as to matter of Union and combination against the reformed They though so scattered over the earth as to places of habitation yet are all one in heart for to unite still strongly against the Protestants And for a spring and feeder of all their affairs and dangerous actings they have one chief the deepest and most impenetrable counsel They have the choicest instruments exactest correspondencies surest intelligences and the most equall and unwearied prosecutions of their grand design the propagating of their own and extirpating of the reformed party and way But the Protestants though for numbers no whit despicable and by good conjunction would be sussiciently formidable are so defective towards themselves as they neither do nor will piece together in any entire and generall Union for Counsels correspondencies and joynt prosecution of their own interest and preservation And as this 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and inconsistency becomes a daily derision and reproach among their adversaries and makes them look upon the Protestants as a very simple party and wanting that wisdome of self-preservation by union So it is the great ground given them to place their destructive Engines carry on their mines and lay their trains But for any just and speedy remedy as yet undertaken effectually This is rather the Object of our Desires Prayers and Tears then of our Hopes and not to be expected untill God rebuke that spirit of division gone out among the Churches breathe a Spirit of Love and Unity and bow the clashing interests of States and Kingdoms into a due subserviency to that Supream interest of the Kingdome of Jesus Christ When therefore disunion and division is so great a scarr in the face of the Churches in generall It can be no small blemish in any particular Nations and Churches but is more especially so in this Nation of ours That so many Nations divided in situation and of such different Languages and interests more especially do not so perfectly unite is not altogether so strange But for those of our Nation and which formerly were so united to be so rent and torn in pieces and so remain without a healing up into unity to behold the great and growing divisions among us to hear the continuall scorns and
all disintending and neglect of a duty arises from over intending and following something else that should not be done The neglect of the publick must have some ill unworthy ground and occasion There 's some evil that infects the Heart of Men that breeds this animi deliquium this heartlessness unto the publick It was holy Paul's complaint in his time All seek their own and none the things of Christ. The defect of publicknesse of Spirit seeking the things of Christ breeds from a private Spirit and sinfull seeking our own things There is a very private narrow Spirit gone out into the Nation that like Pharaoh's lean and ill favoured Kine eats up the fat and good Many Christians many publick persons many Ministers for their own safety ease self-enjoyments and attendance on their own private affairs design retiredness and please themselves in unprofitable Privacies lying hid and lying still withdrawing themselves from the publick in a great measure when the publick cals so loud to all for help There is a very sinful unworthy Spirit in divers this way suffering themselves to be of little use in comparison of what they might and hiding much of their Talent in the Napkin of an unprofitable privacy This is as if the Springs and Rivers should seal up themselves or hide themselves under ground and bid us go seek our water As if the Sun should stand still draw a Curtain before it and then bid the Moon and Stars to warm the world and make day Ah how sinfull is it to be all self Center-self and Circumference self aimes and actings all self Or to prefer a mans own petty privacies and particularities before the publick to have all the heart on the one no heart on the other or in an exceeding great disproportion Never any Christian yet had his license made him or his quietus est given him to retreat from the publick and lie still in meer unactivenesse It is the alone prerogative of him that is immutably self-sufficient and from whom all things only are to be solely for himself Weigh it seriously there are but two sorts of Creatures in the world that have made themselves a license to be meerly and only for themselves and they are Divels and wicked men left to themselves There is nothing in the whole Creation but as it is stampt with a principle of self-preservation so likewise it hath a strong inclination and will accordingly on occasion to bestir it self into a zealous activity to preserve the universe Many heathens though moved only by principles of Morality yet were often Persons of a most Publick and Heroicall Spirit eminently carried forth and acted to undertake and adventure for the publick good Holy persons in Scripture are purposely put upon the file of a glorious Record for their excellent publick Spirit their being so studious and zealous for promoting the publick and not regarding their own private as to estates liberties lives or whatsoever might be dear and precious to them As Moses David Nehemiah Paul and many others The Saints in Heaven though so secure and happy yet are all of a most publick transcendently publick Spirit engaging for the Church Militant in their requests continually The glorious Angels are of this publick Spirit being daily most freely ministring Spirits for the good of the Heires of Salvation The most Blessed God although he needeth nothing and is under no obligation to any but as himself pleases yet hath the largest heart and most liberall hand doing good to all especially his Churches and guides continually every thing as to his own glory so the good of his That private Spirit that designing of and pleasing it self in unprofitable recesses latencies and lying still That Spirit which is under a Spirituall Listlesness and Cowardize for doing and adventuring any thing to promote or preserve the publick is the most improper and irregular thing in the world The most excellent Christians have the most publick lively Spirits the greatest thoughts highest aimes largest affections most abundant Zeal activity and equality of endeavours for the publick These when private narrow listless Spirited men that overminded their own will have but a bad account to give in to Christ These will render up their account with greatest joy and confidence This the first great Obstruction to our healing and relieving Union want of a publick Spirit and this from being so much of an unprofitable private Spirit set upon and seeking our own and not the things of Christ The second and which also greatly grounds the former is that very great want of Love First To Jesus Christ his cause and Gospel-Brotherly Love Love which is exclusive of a meerly private and narrow of a listless cold and dull distemper introduces a free and enlarged active adventurous and zealous disposition and way and is one of the great Fountains and Feeders of publickness of Spirit One of the great Legacies the Lord Jesus bequeathed to his Disciples when he was leaving the world was peace And one of the great Commandments given in charge by him was Brotherly Love the ground of peace and unity let that be well considered Brotherly Love which besides that great weight of the golden Scepter of Christ lying on it all the Scriptures over and the clear stamps of his authority in those frequencies of strictest Scripture Precepts to make it more passable and currant it received from Christ himself a peculiar Stamp and new Signature and is that alone in all the Scripture which is stiled the new Commandment required to be the proper Gospel-badge of Christs Disciples Herby shall all men c. And Brotherly unity is the genuine and rare fruit of Brotherly Love by every Christian to be endeavoured to the utmost extent of Gospel possibility Nothing in our own Spirits of corrupt distemper carnal ends or undue prejudice should hinder it nothing in our Brethren sound in the Faith and of Godly Conversation though not absolutely agreeing with us in way disposition or opinion in all things Christians cannot be all alike here All have not the same intellectuall complexion It is a great defect of meekness of wisdome to refuse all agreement with others because they agree not with us in all things Neither may any other Christian precepts hinder us Ah that we could duly consider of this new this one new Commandment our Lords peculiar charge given upon ground of great necessity in Gospel times foreseen perfectly by the Lord the all-knowing Law-giver and King of his Church Certainly when Christ will heal and stablish a people he fills their Spirits with over-powering Brotherly Love to smooth off heart-unevennesses of disinclinations distrusts and misunderstandings and makes them firmly piece together in Godly unity Love as the Apostle hath it is the bond of perfectness Yea Love is the fulfilling of the Law 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 That will encline and enable wise for and make willing with it and constrain us into it into all the latitude of