spread forth in such fulness and plainess of speech as will not be unacceptable even to Scholars that are not wise in their own conceit But the careless and confused speaking of incoherent and undigested matter rudeness or baldness of expression is no part of this commended plainness which is orderly comely and weighty agreeable to the Majesty of Gods word A true Preacher of the Gospel rightly divides the word of truth and gives to all their portion He doth not make distinction where the rule of faith makes no difference nor doth he confound things that ought to be distinguished He is not partial towards parties for interest or affection And so he doth not promiscuously justifie or condemn the evil and the good together on any side but as he accounts it an odious thing to rail upon one party in the ambiguous terms of false Church false Worship false Ministry Idolatry Superstition Formality so he accounts it no less odious confusedly to inveigh against those of an other persuasion under the no less ambiguous terms as they are now commonly used of Hypocrites Pharisees Fanaticks Enthusiasts Separatists Humorists and such like He is constant in Preaching the word instant in season and out of season For in Preaching frequently he doth not do the work of the Lord negligently but duely feeds the flock and that with better prepared food than they use to bring that Preach but seldom upon pretence of greater preparation He watcheth over the flock with diligence and naturally cares for their estate for he knows the worth of precious souls He condescends to persons of low degree and is concerned for the souls of the poor and simple and illiterate as well as of the noble rich and learned for he knows their Redeemer paid alike dear for both And however the proud and covetous judge he doth not think it below him to intermeddle for the reducing of the simple that go astray and he seeks to recover them with gentleness and patience for he prefers the gaining of one Soul before all the preferments of this world He earnestly looks after that which some do little regard to wit the Seal of his Ministery in the saving efficacy thereof on the hearers and when he finds it he makes it the crown of his rejoycing And this Seal he takes not to be their meer owning of Sound doctrine or following an Orthodox party much less their abounding in notions their talking and outward Guarb of profession but their new birth or their Spiritual growth the promoting whereof is the scope of his labours and the dayly travell of his Soul CHAP. V. The due performance of Publick Prayer PRayer being a main part of Gods worship and chief act of devotion and such as doth accompany and Sanctifie every other Religious duty and the publick management thereof pertaining to the work of the Ministry its due performance must needs be of no small import to the increase of true Piety and no small part of the Ministerial excellency and sufficiency Among Spiritual gifts I doubt not to number the gift of Prayer also and I judge they speak too low of it that make it only a natural gift or acquired by practice and imitation Much indeed may lie in natural parts and observation and exercise but not all for over and above these things the Spirit of Christ presiding perpetually over his Church sets in and by a secret influence on men designed of God for this service indues them with a peculiar aptness of knowledge and utterance as well in Prayer as Preaching for the edifying of the Church And some unsanctified persons being thus gifted may preach and pray with a notable tendency to the saving of others when themselves prove cast-aways Private Christians also according to their measure are partakers of this gift in much diversity of degrees God giving to every man severally as he will Besides this there is a special and saving gift the Spirit of Prayer and Praying in the Holy Ghost or by his gracious assistance in a holy manner according to the will of God which is indeed lively and powerfull and apt to kindle a holy fervour in them that joyn in the service so performed And why that which is performed in such a manner and by such assistance may not be called a praying by the Spirit I see no reason They who thankfully acknowledge and bless God for so great a gift of his grace do not intend thereby a miraculous inspiration or an absolute infallible guidance of the Holy Ghost Much less do they think that their prayers are such dictates of the Spirit as would infer that the very matter and wordâ— thereof being written would become Canonical Scripture to which is requisite not only an infallible Spirit but also an attestation thereof by the same Spirit sufficient to convince others But this they maintain that the Spirit helps them against their indisposedness of mind and deadness of heart and manifold infirmities and strengthens their faculties and quickens their graces and enlarges their desires and elevates their souls and brings things to their remembrace specially the divine promises yea and in some particulars may guide the heart and tongue by a present immediate suggestion For why must the Spirit of God be thought to do less in exciting to good then the Devill ordinarily doth in prompting to evil And yet they are not to depend on the Spirits immediate suggestion for matter words and method without taking care or thought before hand It is an ordinary and not miraculous assistance which they expect and which is usually given according to mens preparations and suted to their several capacities The Spirit of Prayer is not confined to this or that exterior frame or order of Prayer but is ever found there where the heart hath a due sense of the matter A particular form whether stinted or not stinted is not of the essence of Prayer but only its outward shape and it pertains to it not as it is a Sacred thing but as an action in general and for that no action can possibly be performed but in some particular mode this holy action cannot otherwise be performed And whereas there are divers modes thereof they may be used as they are congruous to the substance of the duty according to mens choice and judgment unless they were as indeed they are not bound up to one by a divine determination The lawfulness of Set-Forms is further evinced from the Lords Prayer and other forms in Scripture and as much is owned by the general custom of singing Davids Psalms Wherefore to turn the back upon the publick Prayers of the Church meerly because performed in this manner is unwarrantable And there is aâ— little warrant to restrain all publick Prayer to a stinted Liturgy and leave no liberty at all to the Ministers godly zeal and prudence In this particular the interest of true godliness will be much better advanced by moderation than by contests and rigor on
either hand For it is very discernable that the Antipathy against either way is mainly caused by the animosity and mutual opposition between the parties of different persuasions and inclinations in this matter They are too weak and ill-advised at least if not humorous and self-conceited that reject all Sett-Forms and on the other hand to suppress the gift of Prayer in our selves or others is to sin against the grace of God and to hinder much good The use of a Set-Form without an imperious restraint of Prayer thereto will obviate the objection of Stinting the Spirit which means if there be any thing to the purpose in that Phrase a suppressing or undue restraining of this Spiritual gift against which a caution is here given In our addresses to the great God it concerns us to look well both to thoughts and words that in both he may be Sanctified by us and glorified as God indeed And in our publick addresses to him a more special care must be had that nothing be uttered before him that is unmeet to be offered to his dreadfull Majesty Rude clownish and homely expressions as also quibling jingling and all levity and trifling is very loathsome in Preaching but in Prayer much more Affectation of words curiosity and politeness becomes not the weightiness and awfulness of this duty Yea abruptness obscurity and all incongruity of speaking is to be shunned herein as much as possible and that only is to be used which is plain clear seemly weighty savory and affectionate In like manner all indecency of voice and gesture is to be watched against as an offensive thing and apt to expose the Service to the derision of proud scorners Yet a seasonable elevation of the voice or other apt expression of earnestness is not to be counted rudeness Sometimes a worthy man may not be aware of some uncomeliness in his tone or in the posture of his countenance or some other bodily gesture by reason of the fervour of his Spirit in the duty joyned with inadvertency towards those exterior and lesser things And sometimes an ill habit or custom is not easily broken off These inconveniencies are prevented or redressed by a wariness of disposition and a moderate self-distrust and the actual observation of what is gracefull or uncomely in others Prayer is a holy Converse with God wherein an humble confidence and Son-like freedom of Spirit with him is acceptable yet withall it calls for the greatest prostration of soul and the deepest reverence and Subjection Wherefore humbly to expostulate with God is no sauciness The whole current of the Prayers of Saints in Scripture doth warrant it and that not only now and then in extraordinary cases Indeed our ordinary concerns with God are no less than the safety of our immortal Souls the pardoning of our great and numberless offences the subduing of inveterate corruptions our escaping of many deadly dangers our victory over the adverse world the powerfull presence of his Grace the light of his Countenance as also the interests of his glory and of his Church and people and of the world in general that poor Souls may be delivered from the power of darkness and translated into the kingdom of his dear Son all which are of the highest moment and of themselves exceeding difficult though to God all things are possible and they all require vehemence and importunity not as if God needed to be moved or stirred up but that we may declare our selves duely affected Howbeit even the best things may be over-done and this over-doing is the marring thereof If in the expostulations of Prayer men shall utter perverse or frivolous things or speak absurdly daringly or irreverently they are highly culpable and guilty of abusing the most holy things and of contemning the most glorious and fearfull name of the Lord their God Our freedom of access to God and converse with him must not be turned into an irreverent and presumptuous familiarity Those that are guilty of this rashness are worthy of great rebuke But I-know well that the Spirit of Luke-warmness and profaness doth usually cast reproaches and scorns upon that zeal and fervency of Spirit that well becomes the Servants of the Lord and labours to make the most accceptable and profitable kind of Prayer to seem ridiculous It is against reason to think that the Ministers of the present age brought up under such eminent advantage for Ministerial abilities should not be able to speak to God in good and solid sense in an orderly method and in affective grave and seemly language as becomes the Solemnity of Gods Worship Experience will justifie the sufficiency of serious pious and painfull Preachers in general though the captious and curious and such as love to cavil have found fault and despised the profitable endeavours of those whom God hath owned Besides the offences that are committed in this matter proceed more from inadvertency and imprudence than from insufficiency and may be corrected by care and causion and good advice And it is no vanity to suppose such a competency of prudence easily attainable by all those that are competently qualified for this Office Indeed it cannot be expected but that some will be less able and less perfect than others in this performance and that the same persons may not be alike perfect therein at all times nevertheless there is no such want of Security that the Churches service will be well performed if any Prayer be used in the Church besides a prescribed Form For who can doubt but that persons of competent ability and prudence may upon due incouragement be spread throughout a Nation in such an Age of learning and knowledge And to say otherwise were to disparage the Reformed Religion And there is no just cause of doubt but that an able Minister may make use either of a precomposed or of an immediately conceived Form of words Yet in this matter there is great diversity of judgment and affection even unto much prejudice and opposition But the same minds might well be conciliated to both ways if rightly ordered The Question is here supposed to be of the outward mode in which two things are mainly to be regarded to wit that it be reverend and affective Such as are best persuaded of a pre-composed Form and find it expedient for them doubtless may rightly manage it to the edifying of themselves and others For which end they must needs in some parts thereof make use of occasional variation and inlargement though premeditated as minding the more particular requiries of several times and occasions But others by a habit of ready utterance and much exercise are well prepared to pray by the immediate conceptions of their mind in proper and decent words and can do it without any straining of invention and with much freedom of Spirit No more is here spoken that what impartial men will grant And why should any forbid them that are thus qualified to use their gift But if any should be
the things here principally looked after are the receiving and propagating of holy Doctrine drawn out of the pure fountain of Sacred Scripture the right administration of true Gospel worship by which God is glorified as God and the worshippers are made more godly The due preaching of Gods word and dispensation of other divine ordinances by personslawfully called thereunto for the conversion of sinners and edification of converts Holy discipline truly and faithfully administred by the Pastors as the necessity of the Church requires and the State thereof will bear Religious family government Private mutual exhortations pious conferences and profitable conversation The predominant influence of religion in the civil government of a nation yet without usurpation or incroachment upon the civil rights of any especially of the higher Powers The unity of Christians and their mutual charity conspicuous and illustrious and lastly in order to all these intents a good frame of Ecclesiastical polity Holy Doctrine is the incorruptible seed of Regeneration by which the new creature is begotten It is not here intended to represent a perfect scheme thereof for it sufficeth to signifie that extracts thereof from holy Scripture are drawn out in the ancient Catholik Creeds and in the harmonious confessions of the present Reformed Churches Nevertheless our design requires the observation of some most important things about the Doctrine of Salvation As that there be first an earnest and hearty belief of the existence and providence of God and his government of mankind by laws congruous to their nature and of the immortallity of human souls and of a life of retribution in the world to come which is the foundation of all religion 2ly Right apprehensions of Gods nature and attributes more especially of his Holiness comprehending as well his purity and justice as his mercy and goodness that as he is ready to procure his creatures happiness and refuseth none that come unto him so that he cannot deny himself and that he receiveth note but upon terms agreeable to his Holiness 3ly An Idea of Godliness in themind not as shaped by any private conceptions but as expressed by the Holy Ghost whose workmanship it is that Christianity in the hearts and lives of men may be the same with Christianity in the Scriptures 4. The receiving of the great mystery of Godliness not as allegorized in the fancies of some Enthusiasts wherein it vanisheth to nothing but as verisied in the truth of the History wherein it becomes the power of God to Salvation and so not to sever the internal spirit of the Christian Religion from its external frame the basis whereof is the Doctrine of the Trinity in the Unity of the Godhead and of the incarnation of the eternal word Lastly Soundness of judgment in those great Gospel verities that are written for the exalting of Gods grace and the promoting of true godliness and the incouraging of the godly in opposition to ungracious ungodly and uncomfortable errours of which sort are these following truths That the study and knowledge of the Scriptures is the duty and priviledge of all Christians that according to their several capacities being skilfull in the word of righteousness they may discern between truth and falshood between good and evil and offer to God a reasonable service according to his revealed will That internal illumination is necessary to the saving knowledge of God the Holy spirit in that regard not inspiring new revelations but inabling to discern savingly what is already revealed in nature and Scripture That man was created after the image of God in righteousness and true holyness and that in this state he was indued with a self-determining principle called Freewill and thereby made capable of abiding holy and happy or of falling into sin and misery according to his own choice and that God left him to the freedom of his own choice having given him whatsoever power or assistance was necessary to his standing That the first man being set in this capacity fell from God and it pleased God not to annihilate him nor to prevent his propagating of an issue in the same fallen state which would follow upon his fall but left the condition of mankind to pass according to the course of nature being now fallen That by the sin of Adam all men are made sinners and corrupt in their whole nature and are under the curse of the Law and liable to eternal condemnation and being left to the wicked bent of their own wills are continually adding to their original sin a heap of actual transgressions and so are of themselves in a miserable and helpless condition That the Lord Jesus Christ according to his full intention and his Fathers commandment hath made propitiation for the sins of the whole world so far as thereby to procure pardon of sin and Salvation of soul to all that do unfeignedly believe and repent That man being dead in sin cannot be quickned to the divine life but by the power of Gods grace raising him above the impotency of lapsed nature That the culpable impotency of lapsed nature to saving good lies in the fixed full aversation of the will by a deplorable obstinacy nilling that good to which the natural faculties can reach and ought to incline as to their due object That the root of godliness lies in regeneration and inward Sanctification That God calleth some by the help of that special grace which infallibly effecteth their conversion and adhesion to him without any impeachment of the natural liberty of the will That whatsoever God doth in time and in whatsoever order he doth it he decreed from eternity to do the same and in the same order and so he decreed from eternity to give that special grace to some and by it to bring them to glory which decree is eternal election to which is opposite the pure negative of Non-election As for preordination to everlasting punishment it passeth not upon any but on the foresight and consideration of their final abode in the state of sin That the more common convictions inclinations and endeavours towards God in persons unregenerate are good in their degree and the ordinary preparative to a saving change and they are the effects of that divine grace which is called common That deligent seeking after God by the help of common grace is not in vain it being the means to some further attainment towards the souls recovery and it is regarded of God in its degree and God doth not deny men further degrees of help till they refuse to follow after him by not using the help already given them and by resisting his further aid That God hath made all men savable and though he doth not simply and absolutely will the conversion and Salvation of all yet he willeth it so far and in such manner as is sufficient to encourage the diligent in their endeavours and to convict the careless of being inexcusable despisers of his grace towards them That there is an
inherent righteousness by which the faithful are truly named righteous not only before men but in the judgment of God himself and which can be no more without good works then the sun without light That this is so perfect as not to lack any thing necessary to the true nature of righteousness nor to be maimed in any principal part thereof though in respect of degrees and some accidental parts it be imperfect That the faithful cannot by this inherent righteousness abide the strict tryal of divine justice but they are acquited from the guilt of sin and their deserved punishment by the meer grace of God in Christ. That Christs righteousness is so far bestowed on believers and made theirs that in the merit and consideration thereof they are freed from the curse of the Law and the condemnation of hell are justified unto eternal life and adopted to the inheritance of the heavenly kingdom And imputed righteousness in this sense cannot be gain-said That no faith is justifying but that which works by love and brings forth the fruit of good works That the condition of the new covenant for the remission of sins and everlasting life is faith alone not as excluding repentance and new obedience but as excluding the works of the Law or legal covenant and this is no derogation from the freest grace That the faithful keep the commandments of God and in some sense may be said to fulfill the Law that is not in the strictness of the covenant of works but in the observance of duty without reserves in the sincerity of love towards God and man as the Scripture saith love is the fulfilling of the Law That obedience every way perfect is required of the faithfull as their duty but not under the penalty of eternal death yet under that penalty they are obliged to sincere obedience That good works have relation to eternal life as the means to the end in that manner as the seed to Havest as the race and combat to the Prize as the work to the Reward not according to equality or condignity or merit strictly so called but according to free compact or congruity That the faithfull may be assured of their own justification by a true fixed persuasion that excludes hesitation and suspense and causeth holy security peace and joy and that they ought to labour for such assurance which ariseth partly from the divine promises and partly from the sense of their own infeigned faith That though godliness stands not in absolute perfection yet it stands in that integrity of heart and life an indubitable evidence whereof cannot be had without a very carefull and close walking with God and continued earnest endeavours of perfecting holiness in his fear That all human actions must have an actual or habitual reference to Gods glory and that all things are to be done in the best manner for that end That notwithstanding the power of divine grace which works mightily in Gods chosen whosoever will be saved must watch and pray and strive and bestow his chiefest care and pains therein and so continue to the end and particularly in the constant exercise not of a Popish outside formal but a Spiritual and real mortification and self denial in continual dependance on Gods grace who worketh in us to will and to do of his own good pleasure In the positions aforegoing all nice obscure perplexed and unnecessary notions are avoided and the plain sense of Gospel doctrine is attended This simplicity and plainess makes the truth much more intelligible and less controvertible where a multitude of nice terms and notions are vain and hurtfull superfluities that muffle the truth and cloud mens judgments and multiply controversies and cause much confusion CHAP. III. The due ordering of Gospel Worship FOrasmuch as divine Worship is the first and nearest act of Piety and aims immediately at the glorifying of Gods name and the keeping of the soul devoted to him the due ordering thereof must needs be one of the highest concernments of true religion Whereupon such an order thereof must needs be most desirable as hath most tendency to exalt the honour of Gods name and to advance the souls pure devotion And doubtless that hath most tendency thereunto which is most according to the nature and will of God Notwithstanding the fetches of mens wit in commending their will-worship God best knows what service will please him best and do us most good It becomes us neither to contemn Gods authority in the neglect of his institutions nor to controle his wisdom in the addition of vain inventions And this will bring us into the way of a reasonable service most acceptable to God and profitable to our selves In the fulness of time our Lord Christ being to establish a more perfect way than what had been before lays this foundation God is a Spirit and they that worship him must Worship him in Spirit and truth Accordingly he antiquated the old legal form great in outward furniture and visible spendor but comparatively small in substance and inward power and instituted an other of a far different strain wherein the rituals and externals are few and plain but their substance and inward power is great and mighty And when he abrogated former things which for their time had the stamp of divine authority because they suited not with the Gospel state and were in a comparative sense called carnal ordinances that were not good doubtless it was not his mind and will that men should erect new frames of their own devising after the similitude of those old things that are passed away To worship God in the Spirit after the simplicity that is in Christ according to the Gospel dispensation as it is most agreeable to the nature of the divine Majesty which is Worshipped and best fitted to glorifie him as God indeed so it is also most efficacious to make the Worshippers more knowing in religion more holy and heavenly in Spirit and conversation and every way more perfect in things pertaining to life and godliness Irreverence rudeness sordidness or any kind of negligence in the outward service of God is not here commended under the simplicity and Spirituality of Gospel worship Due regard must be had to all those matters of decency the neglect whereof would render the Service undecent such as are convenient places of assembling commonly called Churches comely furniture and convenient utensils therein a grave habit not of special sanctity but of civil decency for a Minister all which should not be vile and beggarly but gracefull and seemly likewise a well composed countenance and reverent gesture is requisite in all that present themselves before the Lord. Sitting or lolling or covering the head or having the hat half-way on in prayer is among us unseemly except natural infirmity call for indulgence herein but laughing talking gazing about in our attendance on religious exercises is no better than profaneness and to come into the congregation walking with our hats on
trifle with holy things he shuns vanity and curiosity and doth not ramble into impertinences and cares not to utter any thing for ostentation He hath in his eye the end of his Ministry and the usefulness and importance of what he hath to communicate that as it said of the Scripture from whence he takes it it may be profitable for Doctrine for Reproof for Correction for instruction in Righteousness that it may come home to the hearts and lives of men and be fit to raise their attention by their own concernment in it He considers withall what the hearers can best receive that is not what the flesh can well digest for then the most necessary truths must be forborn but that which carries its own evidence to that it must be owned or the gain-sayers must be self-condemned And this is to prepare mens minds and to make way for such harder sayings and stricter precepts as must be manifested in due season Moreover the Dispensation of the word of God should be as the word it self is quick and powerfull and in all reason that is to be most esteemed such which is most apt to be effectual to the end for which God hath ordained it which is to open mens eyes and to turn them from darkness to light and from the power of Satan to God that they may receive forgiveness of sins and an inheritance among them that be sanctified through faith in Christ. That kind of preaching that hath most tendency to convince direct and move toward this end is without controversie the most powerfull The pressing of Doctrines with solid and cogent reason provided they be made plain and obvious to the capacity of the hearers appertains to this manner of preaching and in a chief point therein Strong reason may be so delivered as to be too hard and strong for plain people to receive and digest it Here Condescention is a great Duty and perspicuity a great Gift But the bare evidence of reason doth not all For to gain the Will which is the man besides the judgment the fancy and affections had need be gained We find it the condescention of God himself in his word to deal very much with these lower faculties which belonging not to brutes only but to men also it is not brutish but human to be moved by them in subordination to the judgment Even the most learned and prudent men are found to take no small impression from them and therefore the most proper ways of soliciting and exciting them are not to be neglected much less contemned Now dry reason though strong enough is not so fit to take the affections or raise the fancy Wherefore some other helps among which there are comparatively little things are herein used as familiar expressions apt similitudes expostulations lively representations and such like to which may be added a voluble tongue a moving tone and taking gesture And though much noise and action make not a powerfull Preacher yet earnestness of speech and elevation of the voice is not of little force and especially with vulgar hearers who being the greatest number in most Auditories are very regarnable And truly the weight of the business requires due fervour Should the matters of life and death eternal be delivered without feeling as by men half asleep And people's drowsiness doth no less require it Yea possibly the apprehensions and affections of the common people may better be roused up by a somewhat boysterous way of excitation which for this reason should not displease the learned or most judicious sort who are in this case to consider not what would most affect themselves but the greater multitude who stand in greatest need of help and whose souls are not less precious nor redeemed with a lesser price than the souls of the greatest Scholars and Sages of this world Indeed much judgment and and circumspection is here called for that all rudeness and homeliness of expression all curiosity levity and loathsom affectation and all manner of undecency be avoided and that what is comely and congruous and apt to convince and move be used and that nothing be overstrained And in this matter self-distrust if not too excessive will do better than Self-confidence and conceitedness Here it should be considered that very worthy men may have some indecencies in voice and gesture which they cannot well remedy and others who are very usefull and whose Service in Gods Church could not be well spared may be liable to some lesser mistakes and incongruities in expression which critical hearers may discern yet they hinder not the efficacy of the word And withall let it be considered whose work they do that aggravate such weaknesses to make sport for themselves and others to the contempt of Gods ordinance And for them that pour out scorn upon the most Pious Serious Solid and profitable kind of Preaching and make ridiculous representations of it to the world because it suits not their seeming wisdom I am rather inclined to lament their folly then to emulate their Wit or envy their Applause with some men We read that the wise Preacher sought out acceptable words that is words pleasing to edification that would reach home and were piercing as goads and nails The Preachers inward feeling of what he speaks hath a secret force to cause his words to be felt by others and what comes from the heart is aptest to go to the heart by a Sympathy in the Spirits of men And that any should speak of Seeing and Feeling in some sort the things that are written in Gods word will not seem strange to them who have tasted that the Lord is gracious The powerfull dispensing of the word depends chiefly on the assistance of the Holy Spirit though both natural and acquired parts and the industrious exercise thereof be likewise necessary For which cause the spiritual man hath unspeakable advantage of the meerly natural man in this Service The special presence of the Spirit with him and the grace of God in him causeth him to speak in a strain more apposite and sutable to the forming of the new creature Yea such illumination and conviction and tast of heavenly things as proceeds from a more common or less than regenerating grace will do more in this business with less abilities of art and nature than far greater abilities in those kinds can do by themselves alone The common Sense of the faithfull is a witness to the truth hereof And it must needs be so that he who hath some savour of the things of God should speak more Savorily of them then he can to whom they are tastless or unsavory Wherefore there is a Spiritual kind of preaching not indeed opposite to rational nor taken so to be by any that talk of it with understanding though the Assertors of it have been abusively personated as holding such a dotage They do not say that the Spirit shews any thing about the sense of Scripture or divine matters which is
not consonant to right reason or that whatsoever is darted into their mind is to be taken for an irradiation from the Holy Ghost or that any may presume upon the Spirits immediate help in the neglect of rational search and Study But their meaning is that as heretofore in extraordinary persons there were extraordinary inspirations so there have been are and always shall be the ordinary teachings and inspirations of the Spirit in regard whereof it is stiled in Scripture the Spirit of wisdom and revelation which teaching as all the Faithfull stand in need of so more especially the Ministers of the Gospel and that this divine assistance doth elevate or heighten the gifts of nature and learning and guides us to sound reasoning yea and sometimes brings things into the mind without previous reasoning yet rational and found to be so upon due Scanning There is no great evidence in reason that St. Pauls demonstration of the Spirit and power is to be restrained to the miraculous confirmation of his Doctrine or any extraordinary gift though that sense be not excluded For the contexture of his discourse in that Chapter sets forth a certain faculty perceptive and expressive of the things of the Spirit of God belonging unto spiritual men as such And they are no Fanaticks that to this day own the more common interpretation of the words namely to Preach from the special help of the illuminating and quickning Spirit with a lively perception and feeling of the things that are delivered But whatsoever the meaning of those words be verily they are besotted with reason that in the pride thereof regard not this illumination from above and scoff at those that look after it To Preach Christ is the matter of this dispensation and to Preach moral duties is not extraneous to the Preaching of Christ but comprized under it Yet it must be acknowledged that morality in its best estate as it is vulgarly taken for temperance and righteousness towards men and other vertues of that rank as proceeding from a meerly natural principle which an Aristotle might describe in his Ethicks is far below Christianity For it is found in many that are alienated from the life of God and lead meerly by the Spirit of this world But this name may be given to some higher thing as first to the whole observation of Gods moral law founded in our Creation and that not only in the outward work after a common manner performable by the unregenerate but in a duemannerfrom a right principle to a right end that is from the love of God unto his glory And in this sense we acknowledge that it is a great part but not the whole of the Christian Religion nor indeed the whole of morality taken not vulgarly but Theologically and that in its full extent For so taken it is no other then the conformity of our minds and actions to God and his laws and faith in Christ is a main part thereof Indeed to preach Christ is to preach the whole Duty of man and more especially those duties that are consequent to and founded in our redemption as also to set forth the whole mystery of the Gospel which is the ground and reason of our duty For God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself and accordingly hath ordained the Ministery of reconciliation by which there is made known the lapsed and lost estate of mankind the abundant grace of God in Christ for their recovery remission of sins and free justification through his righteousness regeneration and inward sanctification the inhabitation of the spirit in believers and their mystical union with Christ their living by the faith of him and deriving of spiritual life and strength from him and growing up into him till they be filled with all the fulness of God in him their spiritual warfare and conflicts between the flesh and spirit within them their temptations desertions and renewed consolations and the earnest and sealing of the Holy Spirit given unto them Surely these are fit Subjects to behand led by a Gospel Preacher though the Preaching of these matters or of many of them is by some called Canting and phrase Divinity yet they are the Sacred expressions of the Holy Ghost in Scripture And dare any say they are but a sound of words without matter agreeable to the Stile No they are real and deep mysteries and intelligible to them that obey the truth It is heartily here asserted and earnestly contended for that the Gospel calls us as much to vertue as to glory and that its true intent is to reduce us to a holy life yet withall the Counsel of God therein is to set forth the glory of his free grace the all-fulness of Jesus Christ and the mighty working of his Spirit and the wonderfulness of Salvation through him to the intent that we might glory not in our selves but in him who of God is made unto us Wisdom Righteousness Sanctification and Redemption And indeed who do more powerfully and successfully preach Christian duty than they that most insist on this unspeakable grace and lay open the treasures thereof The love of Christ is so to be spoken of as to beget in us a love towards him not imaginary and conceited but real and substantial made good by an intire subjection to him And therefore the Doctrines of free grace and of good works are to be sounding together in our Pulpits What Christ hath done for us is not to save us the pains of a continual mortification and of the agony to be endured therein and of aspiring to the most perfect state of holiness that is attainable We are to live as strictly as if we were to be saved by the perfection of our own obedience And indeed none lead more holy lives than they that desire to be found in Christ and when they have done all that they can rely wholly upon the mercy of God in him It is most true that Gospel mysteries do not lie in meer Phrases nor is new matter always brought with new forms of speech nor are people much the wiser by having their heads filled with them There are empty sounds and terms unintelligible swelling words with windy notions expressions that seem to draw deep whose meaning is but shallow There is a sollicitous stating of points with a seeming exactness that is indeed weak and injudicious and a niceness in distinguishing which is but frivolous Many controversies much agitated are but a strife of words and too great stress is often laid upon little fancies And a greater mischief there is that in cloudy language pernicious doctrines take shelter and dangerous Sects are known to hide themselves in this covert And therefore he that doth his work rightly will know the true significancy and import of what he utters He vents not meer words but sound matter and good substance for the souls of men are fed with solid sense and not with phrases Howbeit as touching expressions there is a certain
Spiritual strain which is most agreeable to the things of the Spirit of God and which as coming from life and Spirit is better discerned than described There is a speaking not in words which mans wisdom teacheth but which the Holy Ghost teacheth And though this more eminently took place in the Apostles and such other extraordinary persons yet there is no sufficient reason to restrain it to them alone St. Paul may well be understood to speak of this as a gift received by them that had received not the Spirit of the world but that which is of God and as something suted to the perception and taste of all Spiritual men It doth not exclude the use of human wisdom though the wisdom of the Spirit sway in chief For no doubt even Paul's human learning and prudence was herein serviceable though in subserviency to the influence and conduct of the Spirit This Spirituality of expression is conformable to that of the Spirit of God in Scripture though not confined to the words thereof Surely the mysteries of Salvation cannot be better handled than in those terms in which they were first delivered to wit in Scripture expressions or others consonant thereto solidly and pertinently used and to call this canting savours to much of that Spirit to which holy language is unsavory Without controversie the strongest reason is of greatest force to gain the wills of men to imbrace true Religion For that which crosseth sensuality selfishness and all the depraved appetite of our lapsed nature as Religion doth must needs have its greatest strength next under the power of divine grace in the force of right reason But care and skill is requisite that it be so prepared offered and set home that it may be sutable to them that should receive it and that the cogency thereof may so reach unto and fasten upon their judgments as to gain their wills Philosophical ratiocinations are too remote not only from low and dull capacities but also from the greater part of them that are competently apprehensive and intelligent and so being too much estranged from them they do not touch them to the quick A familiar natural plain and obvious way of reasoning comes home to all men and is most felt at the heart and that by Scholars themselves though their intellect may be more delighted in more accurate or reserved Speculations Scriptural preaching is indeed the most rational as coming with such reason as is of greatest force with men in matters of Salvation For Gods written word is a treasure of divine wisdom that throughly furnisheth the man of God Besides the infallible testimony thereof hath more authority than Philosophical reason though sound and true can have upon Christian hearers and it peirceth deeper and sticks closer And arguments taken and words spoken from Scripture wherewith the people converse dayly are more easily apprehended and retained and so are more instructive and every way more usefull than other reasonings Though numerous citations of sentences out of human Authors be an unprofitable kind of ostentation yet the Sentences of Holy Writ which is the evidence of our Christian hope and the testimony of him who is truth it self are most effectual to edification And whosoever is able to speak reason in divine matters is to make a rational use of Scripture and if any quote it impertinently and absurdly it is through defect of reason and they would be as injudicious in their Sermons without those quotations But nice and haughty wits mostly cavil without cause and charge profitable Preachers with injudiciousness meerly through their own vain curiosity and inconsiderateness Scripture quotations are sometimes used by way of allusion or for illustration not for strict proof and that which is brought for proof if it be not full and cogent yet it may add some weight and then it is not abused Besides if a passage be used in a sound and pious though not in its proper sense it is pardonable It is fit indeed that in citing Texts we know their true import and go more by weight than number shunning impertinency and superfluity yet it is not unfit to note that all sound and good Preachers are not alike judicious and those that are very solid may be guilty of some oversights and 't is a bad matter that their Ministery which God hath owned and honoured with good success in his Service should be set at nought for a few mistakes perhaps more pretended than real about the sense of some Scripture when it is not applyed otherwise than the Analogy of faith will bear and nothing is defended but known truth I have known a pious but strangely mistaken sense of a Scripture sentence cast into the mind and there fixed to have been the first occasion of seriousness in Religion to one that afterward lived and dyed a godly Christian. Now that which was causal in this conversion was the godly truth it self which was written in Gods word and the mistaking it to lie in such a sentence where it did not being but accidental was no hinderance I do in no wise countenance the irrational use of Scripture but am sensible of the importance of good judgment and due care about the sense thereof yet I cannot approve the scornful haughtiness of some men who deride godly persons well instructed in the Scripture as having nothing but words and Phrases and senseless notions either because they come short of Scholar-like exactness or because they speak of the things of God in a more Evangelicall and Spiritual strain than these can well bear In speaking the best use of art is to speak to best purpose and for that end in divine matters to speak with greatest Majesty and authority And this is done not by ostentation of wit by puerile and effeminate rhetorications by a rapsody of flanting words by starched speech by cadency of sounds or any too elaborate politeness that please the shallow fancy but by the evidence of reason set forth in a masculine and unaffected Eloquence that hath power over the wills of men which are tough and knotty peices Perspicuity is a great vertue and felicity in discourse for hereby what is offered gains attention and enters the mind and abides therein but intricacy and obscurity is a bar to its entrance and entertainment Hereunto an easie and obvious method evident coherence and plainness of expression conduceth mainly Wherefore he that minds what he hath to do is not careful by a more curious artifice to please the fancies of some itching hearers but hath most regard to that composure that makes most for a general benefit and edification And for this cause as he would not multiply words without need and become tedious so he would not be too succinct and close and by that means either too dark or too quick to inform or effect the people In vulgar auditories a dilating of the matter is most necessary so that idle tautologies and prolixity be avoided and it may be
Their Union and Fellowship being chiefly mystical and invisible their Unity is far greater than what outwardly appears to the World and sometimes than what themselves can discern among themselves in particular by reason of many inferior yet very disquieting differences and discords Nevertheless it behoves them to provide that it might appear as much as may be what it is indeed and that it be conspicuous and illustrious in the sight of Men by their walking in love and peace Unity is the Churches strength and beauty the honour of the Faithfull and an argument for the certainty of their most holy Faith It makes Religion lovely and draws forth blessing praise from the Beholders of it and wins the World to a love and reverence of that Piety which makes the Professors of it to live in brotherly kindness and mutual charity But Division is the Church's weakness and deformity the reproach of Christians and a scandal against Christianity and an objection put into the mouths of Infidels against the Faith and an occasion of stumbling unto many In the present divided state of Religion each Party is apt to appropriate Godliness to themselves or at least to carry it towards others as if they did so And they that are loudest in accusing Dissenters of uncharitableness in this kind are themselves as uncharitable as any others It is true that God hath a peculiar People distinguished from all others by a peculiar Character but it is not confined to any Party of this or that Persuasion or Denomination that is narrower than meer Christianity And all true Christians are to receive one an other as God hath received them Indeed the best Christians are to be best esteemed and their fellowship is most desired But if they should be severed from the universality and in a strict combination set up as divided Party it tends to the Churches Ruine For a Kingdom divided against it self cannot stand and if the nobler parts of the Body forsake the rest the whole must needs die Christian Concord doth not signifie an aggregation of things inconsistent as the fellowship of righteousness with unrighteousness the communion of light with darkness the concord of Christ with Belial To set up Unity against Piety is a conspiracy against Christ who is King of righteousness and to pretend Piety against Unity is to oppose Christ the Prince of Peace whose Kingdom is the Reign of Love in the Soul Holiness and Peace must kiss each other and as inseperable Companions walk together It is the unity of the Spirit we are charged to keep in the bond of Peace But concord in any external Order without fellowship in the Divine Life is not the unity of the Spirit which is to partake of the same new nature and to walk together in the same holy way This is far more excellent than the greatest compliance in matters of meer external order and consequently much more regardable in our estimation and reception of Persons Though to meet in one place be not of so great importance as to be joyned in one Spirit yet it must not be counted a small matter The unity of Faith and Love is much concern'd in the unity of Church Communion it will be a matter of some difficulty for them to live together in Love whom one Church cannot hold Church divisions commonly divide affections and draw men into Parties and divided Interests and make them seek to strengthen their own Party by weakening all others to the great dammage of true Religion in general For which cause the unchurching of Churches and renouncing of Communion with them that are sound in the Doctrine of Faith and Sacrament and in the substance of Divine Worship should be dreaded by all sober Christians yea all unnecessary distances should be avoided least they lead to greater alienations and direct enmities and oppositions Those Churches that cannot hold local communion one with another by reason of differences that destroy not the essentials of Christianity should yet maintain a dear and tender Christian love one to another and profess their owning of each other as Churches of Jesus Christ and should agree together upon certain just and equal Rules for the management of their unavoidable differences so as may least prejudice charity and common good and least harden the ungodly and grieve the weak or dishonour God or hinder the success of common great and necessary truths upon the Souls of men amicably promoting the common cause of Christianity and every part thereof in which they are agreed and opening their disagreements to the People as little as they can Schism is an unwarrantable separation from or division in a Church and without controversie it is a heinous sin and to be detested both for its exceeding sinfulness and wofull consequents But it hath been so disguised and the odious name hath been so confusedly cast abroad and so unreasonably and maliciously misapplied that it is too slightly thought of where it should be sadly laid to heart For it is common with the strongest Party be it right or wrong to call themselves the Church and to have no better name for others than Schismaticks And so the reproach is but contemned by them that suffer it and the sin it self is too little feared on all sides But it is not a Temporal Law nor Secular Power nor any prevalence of Strength or Interest that makes a Church and none of these things will excuse them from Schism that act uncharitably against their Brethren and obstruct the progress of the Gospel and the increase of Godliness Nor are they forthwith to be counted Schismaticks who cannot in all points observe the Commandments of men and cannot neglect to yield their help to the saving of Souls that would otherwise want due means of Salvation when God hath called them to that Service with a woe unto them if they Preach not the Gospel For as much as all must dread the guilt of Schism truly so called let it be well considered that Ecclesiastical Superiors are as much concerned to take heed of Schismatical impositions as the People are to shun Schismatical Recusancy and Disobedience As well the Pastors Wisdom as the Peoples due submission is here importunately called for When Superiors know how to Command and Inferiors how to Obey things will go as well as may be hoped for in this our imperfect state here upon Earth As the Peace of a corrupt state of Religion is best assured by suppressing all conscientious inquiries into its Decrees so the Peace of the true Church and of the sound state of Religion is most secured by the most perfect exercise of sound Judgment and upright Conscience in all its adherents That Church that claims to her self an infallibility or challenges and obtains from her partakers an implicit Faith in her determinations without further enquiry needs not fear the breaking of the bond of her Peace if she multiply constitutions and impose any devised Doctrines and Ordinances sutable to
hath hurried some under pretence of erecting the fift Monarchy to rend and tear Kingdoms and Nations to attempt the dissolving of all Government in Church and State which is indeed the most ready way to subvert Gods Kingdom by the subversion of Christian Magistracy and Ministery and to dispossess the Gospel of the Territories it hath gained Some have proceeded so far in the pretended Reign of the Spirit as to abrogate the external Frame of the Christian Religion and to turn the Gospel History into mystical Allegories yet such as might be conceived and shaped in a vulgar fancy and are low and despicable things in comparison of the great mystery of Godliness according to the Historical sense of Scripture And which is yet worse some have been so gross as to turn into an Allegory the great hope of our Christian calling even the Resurrection of the dead and the life of the World to come and so pervert the mysteries of the Gospel into a mysterious Infidelity and Apostacy from Jesus Christ. Yea some perverting the high expressions of fellowship with God and dwelling in God and being made partakers of the Divine nature and the like have impiously talked of their begodded condition and blasphemously intituled the most High and Holy One to their abominable extravagancies and impurities And besides all these some are perpetual Seekers having no fixed belief in the most important points Persons so far inlightened as not to see the necessity of a higher way than the common dead formality and having some tast of Spiritual things and thereby raised above the general indifferency and Luke-warmness unto a kind of strictness seriousness and fervour of Spirit in Religion yet falling short of true Conversion and especially if they be well conceited of their own gifts and parts and seeming graces are apt to be carried away with a full gale of fancy into the gulf of these delusions And a tincture of this contagion though in a lower degree may sease on some who stand in the true grace of God being deceived by a shew of purity and Spirituality and peradventure lying under the disadvantage of some insnaring occasions which work upon the remainder of pride levity curiosity and other corruptions which the present imperfect State leaves in the hearts of real Christians And some of these may sooner fall into absurd opinions than many that receive not the truth in love who may easily abide among the Orthodox either because they do not concern themselves in Religious inquiries or because they are held by worldly advantages which stand on truths side The fancy is sooner filled with notions and the affections thereby raised than the judgment is well informed and the heart established in grace Hence proceed a sickliness in the Souls appetite a satiety of plain Saving truths and of sound wholsom Preaching a desire of novelty Self-conceitedness pragmatical confidence rash censures partiality in hearing the Word a lessening of the Pastoral Authority incroachments upon the Pastors Office dividing principles and practices and innumerable inconveniences Moreover well meaning People associated in a stricter profession are apt to be sequacious of some leading persons among them and some will follow the rest for company And the high pretensions and heightened confidence of Enthusiasts is a kind of Enchantment to bewitch those that unwarrantably approach to near them especially such as are predisposed by temper or complexion towards Enthusiasm In these things men forsake the Law and the Testimony to walk by false Lights and to follow blind Guides The Holy Ghost bids us trie the Spirits and hath given us an infallible rule of Tryal and leaves us not to any unaccountable impulse or impression The whole Tenor of Evangelical Doctrine shews that the Christian Spirit is both pure and peaceable that it doth not divide break and scatter a Christian people but unites heals and settles them that it doth not overturn Churches and civil States nor inflame Rulers against subjects nor subjects against Rulers nor dissolve Magistracy and Ministery but that it turns the hearts of the Fathers to the Children and the disobedient to the wisdom of the Just and conciliates the minds of Magistrates and Ministers and People of all degrees in righteousness and peace which is the right and sure way of erecting Gods Kingdom It doth not cancel reason but maintain its interest in Religion as being under the power of God and the great prop and proof of the Christian Faith It is a Spirit of judgment and soberness and suppresseth the wild Dominion of the unruly imagination It doth not turn men from humanity and civil behaviour unto a surly and cynical pride and Fanatick melancholy and austerity but it disposeth them to all the duties of human life and civil Converse But there must be Heresies and it is impossible but that offences should come Where the light of the Gospel is broken forth Sectarianism and Fanaticism is the Devils After-Game So it sprung up in Germany upon the birth of Protestantism so it sprung up in the Primitive Church upon the birth of Christianity in the Gnosticks and such like Sectaries and so it continues in our times These irregularities and extravagancies are a great dammage and reproach to a serious zealous and strict profession and it is a stone of stumbling before many Nevertheless the greatest and most dangerous Degeneration from the Sound state of Religion lies not this way The conceptions and motions of Fanaticism having a kind of Spiritual strain though in a delusion take not with the greater number whether of high or low degree the learned or unlearned sort And in case it seases on a greater multitude it may trouble and unsettle a State but it can never settle it self and if it domineer a while its Tyranny cannot hold because it hath no foundation and it can never obtain to be a national Religion because it is inconsistent with the stability of civil Government It s greatest mischief to a State is that it may serve the designs of others to work out a more lasting misery For which cause the Romish Emissaries under a vizor have overacted this wild Spirit that by its confusion and Anarchy they might make way to introduce their own Tyranny But the more extensive dangerous and lasting depravation of Christianity lies on the same side with Popery which is formidable indeed being founded in power and policy and suted to worldly interests and to which mens innate propensions do generally more incline them For that their fancies and affections are inveagled with its outward wealth and glory and their consciences laid a sleep by its loose principles and lifeless forme of devotion CHAP. XIV The way of preserving Religion uncorrupt THe truth and purity of Religion lies in its conformity to its rule which is Gods revealed will or law and its deviation from it is its depravation From this rule men are easily drawn aside being inticed by their own vain imaginations perverse inclinations
aggravations of Sin before the Lord and with their acknowledgment and bewailing of such scandals before the World as have been given by some among them as also with their publick Testimonies against Errors and Corruptions that have risen in their times and so they reproach them for their humility sincerity and impartiality in abusing themselves and giving glory to God and condemning Sin where ever they find it They scoff at those that speak of communion with God spiritual experiences desertions and the like matters and use in scorn Scriptural words and phrases and other holy expressions used by the Religious and profane the terms of Holy Godly Saint Sanctified by the use thereof in scandalous Ironies and so they make sport for profane men and harden them in their irreligion They would render holy things contemptible by nothing some little oversight and indecencies mostly involuntary in those that perform the same as perhaps in the Preachers tone or gesture And to say the truth it is one of the easiest things in the World for licentious wits to play upon the most serious and sacred things and to make the most acceptable Service of God and his choicest Servants seem ridiculous These are some of the many vile and wretched ways of disgracing true Religion And I will add one more to wit that madness of opposition on what side soever it be which to make a different Party odious will not fear to expose Godliness it self to the contempt and scorn of them that scorn all Religious Parties Surely it is a fearfull thing to be a hater reviler and scorner of Persons and things dear to God and precious in his sight What is it to provoke the Lord to jealousie if this be not Wherefore he doth no ill service that detects this perillous folly And men would easily shun such mistake and prejudice as makes them misjudge and condemn the Pious if they would but deal fairly and exercise the same equity and candor towards them which is due to all sorts and which towards themselves all do justly challenge But Godliness will be still Godliness let presumptuous wits imploy their Tongues and Pens to transform into never so ugly shapes Invectives Sarcasms odious and ridiculous Tales and Stories Scenial representations and disguises will not confound it nor sink its authority and reputation On the other hand the fairest coverings and best contrived Apologies the most notable and advantageous Policies will not make corrupt things savoury nor insipid things relishable nor little empty things great and weighty nor uphold the estimation of a degenerate carnal outside lifeless state of Religion where better things are known The wit of man may adorn or palliate any folly and deform true Wisdom but in a lucid Region where knowledge is diffused Wisdom will shew it self and the folly of fools cannot be hid But let the Religious know that it behoves them to take care that they suffer not so many things in vain for these indignities may do them more good than the vain applause of men If their Enemies give them advantage as indeed they do for the learning of more Wisdom Sobriety and Circumspection let them receive it it is pity they should not make the most of such harsh Instructions What manner of Persons should they be in all Holy Conversation and Godliness that as much as in them lies there might not be that wo to the World because of offences and that with well doing they might put to silence the ignorance of foolish men More especially they should do their uttermost to shun even the appearance of the sins more peculiarly charged upon them as Hypocrisie Pride Wildness of Fancy Affected Singularity and Self-Flattery and to be adorned with a conspicuous sincerity humility and charity And whatsoever contumely they indure let them by no means retaliate in the same kind remembring their blessed Lord who being reviled reviled not again but committed himself to him that judgeth righteously Wickedness cometh from the wicked scurrility petulancy bitterness and all intemperate language is more agreeable to their adversaries than to them And it is observed that the flinging of witty sarcasms biting jears and scoffs and railing words against a Party do vex and gall more than hurt or break them and provoke but not convince them and serve indeed to feed a humour and make sport and do some present feat but do not carry the main cause or prevail in the end but turn rather to the dammage and blemish of those for whose service they were designed CHAP. XVI Religions main strength next under the Power of God lies in its own intrinisick excellency THe propagating of true Christianity and the sound state of Religion agreeable thereunto against the enmity of the adverse World is worthy of the utmost indeavours of all pious men and to search into the right ways and means thereof is a necessary and noble speculation But it must first be known that its Stability and Victory in the World depends primarily upon the Wisdom Truth and Power of God ingaged for it and therefore it cannot fall by the Power and Policy of Adversaries nor sink and lose it self by the weakness or defectibility of its Professors but it remains firm and sure and the same for ever Next after the Power of God its main strength is its own intrinsick excellency It is upheld chiefly by its own principles which are mans perfection and place our nature in its due state and put both Persons and Societies into the only right frame and reduce all things into their own place and order They have nothing in them of iniquity impurity vanity or unfitness but are perfectly holy just and good and give unto God his due and unto men theirs and that upon the most excellent grounds that can be laid as the Glory of God our conformity to him our fellowship with him our reward from him and in him and all in and through a Mediator who is God and Man in one Person and the Head of all the faithfull who are his Body The Godly practice conformable to these principles is from a cause that faileth not to wit the inhabitation and influence of the Holy Spirit of God Though true Christianity be far above the strain and reach of meer nature yet it is practicable by Divine grace and notwithstanding the imperfect state of its Professors it faileth not of its end which is to bring into the Possession of the heavenly Kingdom the fruition of God and everlasting glory yea it doth effect great and excellent things in the present world Its rules are pure and perfect its motives are great and high and of indubitable verity They that live after it are a Law to themselves and an aw to others No other institution Philosophical or Religious is so powerfull to restrain inordinate affection and to settle the minds and affairs of men in the greatest peace and order as far as human imperfection can arrive It denies all
Men stupid and foolish that they may the better Lord it over them as besotted Vassals It cannot invite or ingage any to its Side by â—arnal allurements and provisions made for â—he lusts of Men. The making of such Provisions would extinguish its life and power and bring forth a spurious carnal Brood that always with deadly hatred pursues its true Proâ—essors It cannot lift up it self by serving the deâ—â—gns and lusts of earthly Potentates though it â—ives them their due honour to the full yet it â—empts them not by flattery to think of themselves above what they are nor doth it proâ—itute its Sacred Rules to patronize any enorâ—ities in their Conversations or political Adâ—inistrations It cannot subdue a People and hold them unâ—er by armed violence and usurpation for his were to subvert it self and undermine its â—wn foundation which is truth meekness and â—â—ghteousness It seeks not by any irregular motions to perâ—rb a settled State though adverse and injurious to it It cannot enter into the recesses 〈◊〉 wicked Policy its principles will not bear 〈◊〉 out in the cunning and close ways of dishonâ—… sty It abhors such ingagements as draw oâ—… necessity of proceeding in unrighteous or daâ—… gerous Counsels and especially such iniquiâ—… as would not pass away in a transient action but would hold up a lasting usurpation or iâ—… jury to its perpetual reproach and repugnanâ—… to it self It neither hath nor in human judgment 〈◊〉 like to have the sufficiency of an arm of Flesâ—… or worldly Puissance for its intrinsick and aâ—… biding strength untill it comes in a more exâ—… tensive power and more ample victory that hath been yet manifested in the World Thâ—… mutable Advantages of certain times and occaâ—… sions are but loose and hollow ground and nâ—… settled foundation for it to build upon It is not furthered by a course of subtilties and of intricate and cloudy projects which be get suspition of evil but by an openess an frankness of dealing in all certainty and clearness For in it self it is clear as the Sun anâ—… regular and certain as the ordinances of Heâ—… ven or the Motions of the Celestial Bodies Whatsoever degree of obliquity or uncertainty happeneth to it is only extrinsical proceeding from Mens corruptions and frailties who neâ—… ther are can be here absolutely exact and perfect in it It rejects the fury of passion bitterness clamours wrath tumult and all outrage In a word it can admit nothing that is inconsistent with intire honesty And it is not weakened by this strictness For Truth is great and powerfull and by a weak and gentle yet sound and solid manifestation of it self it maintains a conquest answerable to its own condition in this present World CHAP. XVIII The Interest of true Religion lies much in its venerable Estimation among Men. A Corrupt state of Religion nourishing Pride and Sensuality and yielding it self managable to the designs of Men after the course of the World is commonly upheld by an arm of Secular power which by ways of its own it can make sure to it self But pure Religion abhorring base compliances and residing in the hitherto lesser number that walk in the narrow way is not so well suted for a settled and continued potency in that kind Wherefore by how much the more it fails of an assurance of worldly Power and Greatness by so much the more it needs the advantage of venerable estimation for its own intrinsick excellence A desire of vain glory and an ambitious catching at the praise of Men is opposite to this interest and destroys the ends thereof But because things that appear not are of the same reason with things that are not in regard of influence upon the minds of Men Christianity should be made appear to be what it is indeed that it is not a meer Idea in the imagination or intellect but a wisdom and power that may be practiced and its glory is displaid in a Life of integrity purity and charity by the brightness of which graces in the primitive Times it became illustrious and was exalted over all the learning and vertue and potency of the Heathen World in such an Age as had all civil disciplines in their perfection and it is never so much indangered as when the sanctity of its Professors is fallen or exposed to scandal Eminent Holiness is after miracles the next great testimony to the truth and is now in the room of Miracles and its influence is very powerfull Wheresoever it is it invigorates others of this Fellowship that are near it and it commands aw and reverence from all Men. T is a great happiness when Persons indued herewith are in proportionable number fixed like stars of the first magnitude throughout the firmament of the Church when there are Men of strong Parts much prudence active spirits firm resolution who are filled with the Holy Spirit inflamed with love to God and devoted to seek the things that are Christs and fitted thereunto by real mortification and self-denial also when Persons of a lower sphere for the perfections of Nature or Learning have attained to a large measure of the primitive Spirit of Faith love meekness brotherly kindness and charity whereby they are made ready to every good work and provoke others thereunto As the eminent piety of some so the approâ—ed piety of the generality of serious Professors imports exceedingly to the reputation and reverence of true Religion The spiritual Man discerneth the excellency of the Divine life and the beauty of Holiness and the natural Man also can discern humility chastity temâ—erance patience charity integrity as things morally good and profitable to Men and by â—…ese things the truth is vindicated and mainâ—…ined To defile the purity of this Professiâ—… is to stain its glory and to stain iâ—s glory is 〈◊〉 render it weak and despicable None thereâ—…re may pass for the allowed Disciples of this â—ay but such as keep themselves pure from 〈◊〉 foul sins of Sensuality and from all palpaâ—… dishonesty Howbeit the lawfull favour â—…d assistance of any others may with due cauâ—… be admitted in its concernments A harmless life if barren and unprofitable is of little value in it self and also of little force to advance any Profession Nay a fruitless life is scandalous and unchristian They are the words of Christ herein is my Father glorified that ye bear much fruit so shall ye be my Disciples The root of such fruitfulness in good works is love out of a pure heart and good conscience and faith unfeigned to which belong those praises that it is the end of the Commandment and the fulfilling of the Law Now because they that walk circumspectly are often censured by the looser Sort to be uncharitable it doth the more concern them really to shew forth the laudible fruits of Charity and to maintain all good works before Men though not to be seen of Men and to hate narrowness of Soul and base selfishness What do ye more
Lot of inheritance in the glory of it doth not value the concerns thereof above all his chief joys that are but of this World A zeal for the common Faith and a constraning love to all the Faithfull hath excited a very mean and weak one to do what he was able on this important Subject impartially searching after their common good Let the Prince of this Society one of whose names is Counsellour deliver his Flock from all dangerous and disadvantageous error and from wandring in broken Parties by unstable and divided Counsels and shew them graciously the right way of maintaining a consistency among themselves and of gaining upon the reconcilable part of men And forasmuch as this Prince and Leader is the Lamb of God whose Banner is Love let his people every where be acted by the Spirit of Love and shew forth the meekness of Wisdom in all good Conversation with Humility Patience and Long-suffering having this Principle deeply imprinted in them The Wrath of Man worketh not the Righteousness of God The point of CHURCH-UNITY AND SCHISM Discuss'd CHAP. I. Of the Church and its Polity THe Church is a Spiritual Common-wealth which according to its primary and invisible State is a Society of regenerate Persons who are joyned to the Lord Christ their Head and one to another as fellow Members by a mystical Union through the Holy Spirit and are justified Sanctified and adopted to the inheritance of Eternal Life but according to its secondary and visible state it is a Society of Persons professing Christianity or Regeration and externally joyned to Christ and to one another by the Symbals of that Profession and made partakers of the external priviledges thereunto belonging There is one Catholick Church which according to the invisible Form is the whole company of true Believers throughout the World and according to its visible Form is the whole company of visible Believers throughout the World or Believers according to human judgment This Church hath one Head and Supream Lord even Christ and one Charter and System of Laws the Word of God and Members that are free Denizons of the whole Society and one Form of Admission or solemn Initiation for its Members and one kind of Ministery and Ecclesiastical Power This Church hath not the power of its own Fundamental Constitution or of the Laws and Officers and Administrations intrinsecally belonging to it but hath received all these from Christ its Head King and Lawgiver and is limited by him in them all Nevertheless it hath according to the capacity of its acting that is according to its several parts a power of making Secondary Laws or Canons either to impress the Laws of Christ upon its Members or to regulate circumstantials and accidentals in Religion by determining things necessary in genere not determined of Christ in specie As the Scripture sets forth one Catholick Church so also many particular Churches as so many Political Societies distinct from each other yet all compacted together as parts of that one ample Society the Catholick Church Each of these particular Churches have their proper Elder or Elders Pastor or Pastors having authority of teaching and ruling them in Christs name An Ecclesiastical Order of Presbyters or Elders that are not Bishops is not found in holy Scripture For all Presbyters or Elders being of a sacred Order in the Gospel Church that are any where mentioned in Scripture are therein set forth as Bishops truly and properly so called and are no where set forth as less than Bishops These Elders or Bishops are Personally to Superintend all their Flock and there is no grant from Christ to discharge the same by Delegates or Substitutes A distinction between Bishops and Presbyters and a Superiority of the former over the latter was after the Scripture times anciently and generally received in the Christian Church Yet it was not a diversity of Orders or Offices essentially different but of degrees in the same Office the essential nature whereof is in both The Bishop of the first Ages was a Bishop not of a multitude of Churches but of one stated Ecclesiastical Society or single Church whereof he was an immediate Pastor and he performed the work of a Bishop or immediate Pastor towards them all in his own Person and not by Delegates and Substitutes and he governed not alone but in conjunction with the Presbyters of his Church he being the President Though several Cities in the same Kingdom have their different municipal Laws and Priviledges according to the diversity of their Charters yet particular Churches have no Divine Laws and Priviledges diverse from each other but the same in common to them all because they have all the same Charter in specie from Christ. Therefore each of them have the same power of Government within themselves And the qualifications requisite to make men Members or Ministers of the Universal Church do according to Christs Law sufficiently qualifie them to be Members or Ministers of any particular Church to which they have a due and orderly call Local presential Communion in Gods Ordinances being a main end of erecting particular Churches they should in all reason consist of Persons who by their cohabitation in a vicinity are capable of such Communion and there may not be a greater local distance of the Persons than can stand with it A Bishops Church was anciently made up of the Christians of a City or Town and the adjacent Villages who might and did Personally meet together both for Worship and Discipline All Christians of the same local Precinct are most conveniently brought into one and the same stated Church that there might be the greatest Union among them and that the occasion of straggling and running into several Parties might be avoided Yet this local partition of Churches is not of absolute necessity and invariable but if there be some insuperable impediment thereof the partition must be made as the state of things will admit No Bishop or Pastor can by Divine right or warrant claim any assigned circuit of Ground as his propriety for Ecclesiastical Government as a Prince claims certain Territories as his propriety for Civil Government so that no other Bishop or Pastor may without his Licence do the work of the Ministery in any case whatsoever within that Circuit It is not the conjunction of a Bishop or Pastor with the generallity or the greater number of the People that of it self declares the only rightfull Pastor or true Church within this or that Circuit For many causes may require and justifie the being of other Churches therein Seeing particular Churches are so many integral parts of the Catholick Church and stand in need of each others help in things that concern them joyntly and severally and they have all an influence on each other the Law of Nature leads them to Associations or Combinations greater and lesser according to their capacities And the orderly state that is requisite in all Associations doth naturally require some regular
Subordination in the several parts thereof either in way of proper authority or of mutual agreement And the Associated Churches and particular Members therein are naturally bound to maintain the orderly state of the whole Association and to comply with the Rules thereof when they are not repugnant to the Word of God A Bishop or Pastor and the People adhering to him are not declared to be the only true Church and Pastor within such a Precinct by their conjunction with the largest Combination of Bishops or Pastors and their Churches For the greater number of Bishops may in such manner err in their Constitutions as to make rightly informed Persons uncapable of their Combination A National Church is not a particular Church properly so called but a Combination or Coagmentation of particular Churches united under one Civil Supream either Personal as in a Monarchy or Collective as in a Republick And the true notion thereof lies not in any Combination purely Ecclesiastical and Intrinsecal but Civil and Extrinsecal as of so many Churches that are collected under one that hath the Civil Supremacy over them The National Church of England truly denotes all the Churches in England united under one Supream Civil Church-Governour the Kings Majesty Civil Magistrates as such are no Constitutive parts of the Church The Christian Church stood for several Centuries without the support of their authority But Supream Magistrates have a Civil Supremacy in all Ecclesiastical matters and a political extrinsecal Episcopacy over all the Pastors of the Churches in their Dominions and may compell them to the performance of their Duties and punish them for negligence and mal-Administration and they may reform the Churches when they stand in need of Reformation The possession of the Tithes and Temples doth not of it self declare the true Pastor and Church nor doth the Privation thereof declare no Pastor and no Church For these are disposed of by the secular power which of it self can neither make nor make void a Pastor or Church A Diocess is a collective body of many Parishes under the Government of one Diocesan If the several Parishes be so many particular Churces and if their proper and immediate Presbyters be of the same order with those which in Scripture are mentioned by that name and were no other than Bishops or Pastors then a Diocess is not a particular Church but a Combination of Churches and the Diocesan is a Bishop of Bishops or a Governour over many Churches and their immediate Bishops If the Parishes be not acknowledged to be Churches nor their Presbyters to be realy Bishops or Pastors but the Diocess be held to be the lowest Political Church and the Diocesan to be a Bishop of the lowest rank and the sole Bishop or Pastor of all the included Parishes I confess I have no knowledge of the Divine right of such a Church or Bishop or of any precept or precedent thereof in Scripture For every particular Church mentioned in Scripture was but one distinct stated Society having its own proper and immediate Bishop or Bishops Elder or Elders Pastor or Pastors who did Personally and immediately Superintend over the whole Flock which ordinarily held either at once together or by turns Personal present Communion with each other in Gods Worship But a Diocess consists of several stated Societies to wit the Parishes which are Constituted severally of a proper and immediate Presbyter or Elder having cure of Souls and commonly called a Rector and the People which are his proper and â—…rge or cure And the People of thâ—… not live under the Personal and inâ—…rsight of their Diocesan but under â—…legates and Substitutes Nor do they oâ—…ly hold Personal present Communion with each other in Gods Worship either at once together or by turns Nevertheless which way soever a Diocess be considered I have nothing to object against submission to the Government of the Diocesan as an Ecclesiastical Officer established by the Law of the Land under the Kings Supremacy There is nothing in the nature of the Office of Presbyterate which according to the Scripture is a Pastoral Office that shewe it ought to be exercised no otherwise than in Subordination to a Diocesan Bishop Christ who is the Author and only proper giver of all Spiritual Authority in the Church hath not so limited the said Office and men cannot by any act of theirs enlarge or lessen it as to its nature or essential state or define it otherwise than it is stated of Christ in his word No power Ecclesiastical or Civil can discharge any Minister of Christ from the exercise of his Ministery in those circumstances wherein Christ commands him to exercise it nor any Christians from those duties of Religion to which the Command of Christ obligeth them As the Magistrate is to judge what Laws touching Religion are fit for him to enact and execute so the Ministers of Christ are to use a judgment of discretion about their own Pastoral acts and all Christians are to do the same about their own acts of Church-Communion The too common abuse of the judgment of discretion cannot abrogate the right use thereof it being so necessary that without it men cannot act as men nor offer to God a reasonable Service CHAP. II. Of true Church-Unity WHen the names of Unity and Schism are by partiality and selfishness commonly and grosly abused and misapplied the nature of the things to which those names do of right belong ought to be diligently inquired into and clearly and distinctly laid open For a groundwork in this inquiry I fix upon two very noted texts of Scripture The one is Eph. 4. 3. Indeavouring to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of Peace The other is Rom. 16. 17. Mark them that cause Divisions and Offences contrary to the Doctrine that ye have learned and avoid them The former guides us to the knowledge of true Church-unity and the latter shews us the true nature of Schism By the former of these Texts all Christians are obliged to maintain that Spiritual Unity which they have one with another under Christ their Head by the Holy Ghost in all due acts of holy Communion in Peace and Concord Several important things are here to be taken notice of 1. There is a Spiritual unity between all Christians in the form of one mystical Body as there is a natural unity between all the members of the natural Body The members being many are one body and members one of another 2. This Unity is under Christ as the Head of it What the head is to the natural Body that is Christ and much more to his mystical Body the Church 3. This Unity of Christians one with another under Christ is by the Holy Ghost and therefore called the Unity of the Spirit The Spirit of Christ the Head doth seize upon and reside in all the Faithfull by which they become Christs mystical Body and are joyned one to another as fellow-members 4. This Unity of
the Spirit among Christians is witnessed maintained and strengthened by their holy communion of Love and Peace one with another but is darkened weakened and lessened by their uncharitable Dissentions Hence it is evident that the Unity here commended is primarily that of the Church in its internal and invisible State or the Union and Communion of Saints having in themselves the Spirit and Life and Power of Christianity T is the unity of the Spirit we are charged to keep in the bond of Peace But concord in any external order with a vital Union with Christ and holy Souls his living members is not the unity of the Spirit which is to partake of the same new Nature and Divine Life Secondarily it is the Unity of the Church in its external and visible State which is consequent and subservient to the internal and stands in the profession and appearance of it in the professed observation of the duties arising from it Where there is not a credible Profession of Faith unfeigned and true Holiness there is not so much as the external and visible Unity of the Spirit Therefore a sensual Earthly generation of men who are apparently lead by the Spirit of the World and not by the Spirit that is of God have little cause to glory in their adhering to an external Church order whatsoever it be Holy love which is unselfed and impartial is the Life and Soul of this unity without which it is but a dead thing as the Body without the Soul is dead And this love is the bond of perfectness that Cement that holds altogether in this mystical Society For this being seated in the several members disposeth them to look not to their own things but also to the things of others and not to the undue advancement of a Party but to the common good of the whole Body Whosoever wants this love hath no vital Union with Christ and the Church and no part in the Communion of Saints The Church is much more ennobled strengthened and every way blessed by the Communion of holy love among all its living members or real Christians than by an outside uniformity in the minute circumstances or accidental modes of Religion By this love it is more beautifull and lovely in the eyes of all intelligent beholders than by outward pomp and ornament or any worldly splendor The Unity of the Church as visible whether Catholick or particular may be considered in a three-fold respect or in three very different points The first and chief point thereof is in the essentials and all weighty matters of Christian Faith and Life The second and next in account is in the essentials and integrals of Church state that is in the Christian Church-Worship Ministery and Discipline considered as of Christs institution and abstracted from all things superadded by men The third and lowest point is in those extrinsecal and accidental Forms and Orders of Religion which are necessary in genere but left in specie to human determination Of these several points of Unity there is to be a different valuation according to their different value Our first and chief regard is due to the first and chief point which respects Christian Faith and Life The next regard is due to that which is next in value that which respects the very constitution or frame of a Church And regard is to be had of that also which respects the accidentals of Religion yet in its due place and not before things of greater weight and worth Things are of a very different nature and importance to the Churches good Estate and a greater or lesser stress must be laid upon Unity in them as the things themselves are of greater or lesser moment The Rule or Law of Church Unity is not the will of man but the will of God Whosoever keeps that Unity which hath Gods word for its Rule keeps the Unity of the Spirit And whosoever boasts of a Unity that is not squared by this Rule his boasting is but vain An Hypothesis that nothing in the Service of God is lawfull but what is expresly prescribed in Scripture is by some falsly ascribed to a sort of men who earnestly contend for the Scriptures sufficiency and perfection for the regulating of Divine Worship and the whole state of Religion God in his Word hath prescribed all those parts of his Worship that are necessary to be performed to him He hath likewise therein instituted those Officers that are to be the Administrators of his publick Worship in Church Assemblies and hath defined the authority and duty of those Officers and all the essentials and integrals of Church state As for the circumstantials and accidentals belonging to all the things aforesaid he hath laid down general Rules for the regulation thereof the particulars being both needless and impossible to be enumerated and defined In this point God hath declared his mind Deut. 4. 2. Ye shall not add unto the word which I command you neither shall ye diminish ought from it Deut. 12. 32. What soever thing I command you observe to do it Thou shalt not add thereto nor diminish from it The prohibition is not meerly of altering the Rule Gods written Word by addition or diminution but of doing more or less than the Rule required as the precept is not of preserving the Rule but of observing what is commanded in it Such human institutions in Divine Worship as be in meer subserviency to Divine institutions for the necessary and convenient modifying and ordering thereof are not properly additions to Gods commandments For they are of things which are not of the same nature end and use with the things which God hath commanded but of meer circumstantials and accidentals belonging to those things And these circumstantials are in genere necessary to the performance of Divine Institutions and are generally commanded in the Word though not in particular but are to be determined in specie by those to whom the power of such determination belongs They that assert and stand to this only Rule provide best for the Unity of Religion and the Peace of the Church For they are ready to reject whatsoever they find contrary to this Rule they are more easily kept within the bounds of acceptable Worship and all warrantable obedience they lay the greatest weight on things of the greatest worth and moment they carefully regard all Divine institutions and whatsoever God hath commanded and they maintain Love and Peace and mutual forbearance towards one another in the more inconsiderable diversities of Opinion and Practice Those things that are left to human determination the Pastors Bishops or Elders did anciently determine for their own particular Churches And indeed it is very reasonable and naturally convenient that they who are the Administrators of Divine institutions and have the conduct of the People in Divine Worship and know best what is most expedient for their own Society should be intrusted with the determination of necessary circumstances within their
own Sphere But forasmuch as the Supream Magistrate is intrusted of God with the care of Religion within his Dominions and hath a Civil Supremacy in Eclesiastical affairs and a great concern in the orderly management of publick Assemblies he is authorized of God to oversee the determinations and actings of Ecclesiastical Persons and may assume to himself the determination of the aforesaid circumstantials for the honour of God the Churches edification and the publick Peace keeping within the general rules prescribed in Gods Word For the maintaining of Church-Unity that is according to Gods word it is the part of Subjects to submit to what their Governours have determined so far as their submission is allowable by the said rule and it is the part of Governours to consider well the warrantableness of their determinations More especially their wisdom and care is much required in settling the right bounds of Unity In this regard the terms of admission to the Communion and Ministery of the Church must be no other than what the declared will of God hath made the terms of those priviledges and which will shut out none whom God hath qualified for and called to the same The setting of other boundaries besides the iniquity thereof will inevitably cause divisions The Apostles Elders and Brethren assembled at Jerusalem Acts 15. 28. writing to the blieving Gentiles declare It seemed good to the Holy Ghost and to us to lay upon you no greater burden than these necessary things From which it is evidently inferred that the burden of things unnecessary ought not to be laid on the Churches The things injoyned by that Assembly were antecedently to their Decree either necessary in themselves or in their consequents according to the state of things in those times and places And whatsoever is made the matter of a strict injunction especially a condition of Church Communion and Priviledges ought to have some kind of necessity in it antecedent to its imposition Symbolical Rites or Ceremonies instituted by man to signifie Grace or Duty are none of those things which being necessary in general are left to human determination for this or that kind thereof They have no necessary Subserviency to Divine institutions they are no parts of that necessary decency and order in Divine Worship without which the Service would be undecent And indeed they are not necessary to be instituted or rigidly urged in any time or place whatsoever The being and well being of any rightly constituted Church of Christ may stand without them St. Paul resolves upon the cases of using or refusing of meats and the observance or non-observance of days which God had neither commanded nor forbidden and of eating of those meats which had been offered in Sacrifice to Idols Rom. 14. and 1 Cor. 8. That no man put a stumbling block or an occasion to fall in his Brothers way The Command here given extends to Pastors and Governours as well as to other Christians and is to be observed in acts of Governments as well as in other acts St. Paul was a Church Governour and of high authority yet he would not use his own liberty in eating Flesh much less would he impose in things unnecessary to make his Brother to offend In the cases aforementioned there was a greater appearance of reason for despising censuring or offending others than there can be for some impositions now in question among us viz. on the one side a fear of partaking in Idolatry or of eating meats that God had forbidden or of neglecting days that God had commanded as they thought on the other side a fear of being driven from the Christian Liberty and of restoring the Ceremonial Law Nevertheless the Apostle gives a severe charge against censuring despising or offending others of different Persuasions in those cases And if it were a Sin to censure or despise one another much more is it a Sin to shut out of the Communion or Ministery of the Church for such matters The word of God which is the Rule of Church-Unity evidently shews that the unity of external order must always be Subservient to Faith and Holiness and may be required no further than is consistent with the Churches Peace and Edification The Churches true Interest lies in the increase of regenerate Christians who are her true and living Members and in their mutual love peace and concord in receiving one another upon those terms which Christ hath made the bond of this Union The true Church Unity is comprized by the Apostle in these following Unities One Body one Spirit one Hope One Lord one Faith one Baptism one God But there is nothing said of one ritual or set Form of Sacred Offices one policy or model of Rules and Orders that are but circumstantial and accidental in a Church state and very various and alterable while the Church abides the same CHAP. III. Of Schism truly so called HEre I lay down general positions about Schism without making application thereof Whether these positions be right or wrong Gods Word will shew and who are or are not concerned in them the state of things will shew Schism is a violation of the Unity of the Spirit or of that Church-Unity which is of Gods making or approving This Definition I ground on the afore-cited Text Mark them that cause Divisions and Offences contrary to the Doctrine that ye have learned Separation and Schism are not of equal extent There may be a Separation or Secession where there is no Schism For Schism is always a Sin but Separation may be a Duty as the Separation of the Protestants from the Church of Rome Moreover there may be Schism where there is no Separation The violation of Unity or the causing of Divisions may be not only by withdrawing but by any causing of others to withdraw from the Communion of the Church or by the undue casting or keeping of others out of the Church or by making of any breaches in Religion contrary to the Unity of the Spirit By looking back to the nature and rule and requisites of true Church-Unity we shall understand the true nature and the several kinds and degrees of Schism As holy love is the life and Soul of Church-Unity so that aversation and opposition which is contrary to love is that which animates the sin of Schism and is as it were the heart root of it Whosoever maintains love and makes no breach therein and whose dissenting or withdrawing from a Church is no other than what may stand with love in its extent is no Schismatick The Unity of the Spirit being primarily that of the Church as mystically the breach thereof lies primarily in being destitute of the Spirit and Life Spiritual much more in being opposite thereunto under the shew of Christianity also in the languishing or lessening of Spiritual Life especially of the acts of holy love The Unity of the Spirit being secondarily that of the Church as visible in its external state and the first and