when they are but placed in circumstances that will bring them to do it actually in the Issue And thus the Children of the Rohathites of a month old were numbred with their fathers as with them keeping the charge of the Sanctuary when they were but in a way of being trained up to it Numb 3.28 And in this respect perhaps it was that our Saviour spake of some little Children as believing in him of which I shall say more afterwards Mat. 18.6 And for the same reason it may be little Children were said to enter into Covenant with God when their Parents did so Deut. 29.11 12. To conclude this enquiry Most certain it is that Infants were then received into the Church and were a part of it as all acknowledge and it must be in the respects which I have mentioned that they were so unless any more likely can be named which I cannot imagine For other Infants of the Heathen which were not under these circumstances were not reputed Church Members nor were in any immediate capacity of the Church initiating Ordinance The next thing after this which would be enquired into is whether the visible Church membership of the Infants of believing Parents was discontinued or terminated by the taking place of the Gospel ministration or by any new Church state under it And I doubt not to say that there are many things which will determine this question against you in the Negative I will begin with that in Rom. 11.29 where it 's said for the gifts and calling of God are without repentance These words relating to the calling of such Jews who as concerning the Gospel were then Enemies for the sake of the believing Gentiles and yet beloved for the fathers sake that which I chiefly note from them is That the calling of God or his antient way or method of bringing the Jews to be his people is not now under the Gospel recalled no more than his donation or gift conferred on Abraham and his Seed is when he promised to be their God on the terms he did but both are still continued without any repentance in God The way into the Church is as open the terms of admission as touching the general nature of them as easie and the means of procuring it vouchsafed by God as sufficient now as ever they were God hath not repented of any favour or grace that was antiently granted to the Jews whether old or young in reference to their being of his Church and People And in that very prediction in Isa 59.20 21. which the Apostle here in Rom. 11.26 27. recites touching the calling of the Jews in Gospel times it is foretold that the same way of propagating Church-members and the true Religion which God used in old Testament times by Parents training up their seed in the true Religion and by that means transmitting it from Generation to Generation shall continue in the Church to the end of the World For it is there said As for me this is my Covenant with them saith the Lord My spirit which is upon thee and my words which I have put in thy mouth shall not depart out of thy mouth nor out of the mouth of thy seed nor out of the mouth of thy seeds seed saith the Lord from henceforth and for ever And accordingly we find in point of event that except in the first planting of Christian Churches in an extraordinary way by extraordinary means the ordinary way of propagating the Christian profession and professors from age to age hath been the very same with that which was used by Gods appointment by the Jews of old which was by receiving their Infant Children into the Church and so educating them in the true Religion professed by the grown members of the Church For further light in this matter let us consider what doctrine our Saviour taught and what his Apostles after him in relation to it Our Saviour saith Suffer the little Children to come to me and forbid them not for of such is the Kingdom of God Mark 10.14 Which words for of such is the Kingdom of God are the reason here given by our Saviour why little Children should be suffered and not forbidden to be brought to him Which shews that when he says of such is the Kingdom of God he meant it of such little Children properly as those were which were brought to him and not of men like little Children in humility innocency or docility as you would have it For if we should understand it in your sense then that which our Saviour gives here for a reason seems to be no reason For what consequence is there in this or how would it follow thaâ— because the Kingdom of God is of other persons like little Children in other things but altogether unlike them in what was the matter of exception against their being brought to Christ which was their minority that therefore little Children properly meant ought to be suffered and not forbidden to be brought to Christ And if it be meant of little Children properly then our Saviour in these words asserts such little Children to be of the Church whether you understand by Kingdom of God Heaven it self or the Church on Earth For none are of the Kingdom of Heaven above who are not first of the Church on Earth for it is his Body the Church only that Christ is thus the Saviour of But if this Text were to be understood in your sense yet it would prove that for which I alledg it by parity of reason For if that which makes adult persons like little Children in that for which they are propounded as a pattern will qualifie them for the Kingdom of God then it must needs qualifie the Children themselves for it If you say that this way of arguing as well proves Doves Lambs and Sheep qualified to be of the Kingdom of God as little Children because they in some respects are set for patterns unto men and good men upon account of resembling them in some respects are called by their names I answer it follows not because these Creatures have not rational natures as Children have and therefore are not capable of spiritual benefits as Children are Nor were ever constituted Church-members heretofore as little Children have been By reason of which difference it will not follow that the one are not Church-members because the other are not though both are propounded as patterns in some respect of that which will qualifie rational Creatures for Church-membership So that take it which way you will the argument from the Text for Infants Church-membership is far stranger than any thing which can be offered against it Again in Luke 9.48 Our Saviour speaking of a little Child which he had set by him saith Whosoever shall receive this Child in my name receiveth me Here you have no room to pretend it meant of men qualified like Children For it is not said whosoever shall receive such as this Child in my name but
separations and multiplied more and more monstrous Sects than ever there were in the Nation before Notwithstanding the sad experience of all which and notwithstanding the means used by the Higher Powers to reduce them yet it seems these several divided parts have thought themselves concerned upon one account or other still to carry on their esteemed Reformation in their several different ways and rather to run the hazard of all the ill consequences of their division in common from the Church of England and of their several subdivisions among themselves than to return to our Parochial Communion Now then the endeavour of the following Address is to shew these two things especially The one is That both the Principles and practice in many things wherein this Reformation endeavoured by them doth consist are really corruptions and things which ought themselves to be Reformed The other is that if any Emendation in matters Ecclesiastical shall be found convenient for the peace unity and stability of the Church of England as I will not deny but there may the present genius and temper of many of this Nation considered for Moses for the hardness of the peoples hearts by Gods direction put that into the body of the Law which otherwise would not have been ncessary Yet to seek this by separation from our Parish Churches and by gathering Churches out of them and by keeping assemblies in opposition to them is no good method of proceeding therein but such as tends to hurt the Church of God much more than to do it good and to set people back and not to bring them forward in that wherein the heart and spirit of true Christianity lies And for my Justification in this undertaking I have the old Non-Conformists so far on my side as that as Mr. Baxter saith Such as Mr. Cartwright Egerton Hildersham Dod Amesius Parker Bains Brightman Ball Bradshaw Paget Langly Nicols Hering and many such wrote more against separation than the Conformists did And the former writings of the present Presbyterians abound also with invectives against the practice of gathering Churches out of our Parish Churches Yea those who have been chief in the Congregational way have in their Apologetical Narration told the World That all that Conscience of defilement they conceived cleaved to the worship of God in our Parish Churches or of the unwarrantable power of Church Governours exercised therein did never work in any of them any other thought much less opinion but that multitudes of the Parish Congregations were the true Churches and body of Christ and the Ministry thereof a true Ministry And again We have always profest say they and that in these times when the Churches of England were most either actually over-spread with defilements or in the greatest danger thereof that we both did and would hold a Communion with them as the Churches of Christ I shall not offend you by making that improvement of these Concessions by reflections which the matter is capable of Only I heartily wish That for the honour of our Religion we may all be careful to do that which is good and commendable not only in the sight of God but also in the sight of men and that nothing may be done but what we can give some competent account of unto men A thing wherein you have left even such as wish you very well much to seek as not knowing how to reconcile your principles and your practice What hath been offered by some in order to it from the consideration of the different circumstances of former and present times Doctrine of Schism opened and applyed to gathered Churches A stop to the course of separation I must needs say falls very short of it and hath met with such a return from other some as hath even left it without any strength at all especially in that which relates to Lay Communion Now the God of love and peace at last lead us out of all those distractions and confusions into which our own weakness and folly hath betrayed us into paths of purity peace and love and bestow upon us all a spirit of love and of a sound mind that so we may all come to keep the unity of the spirit in the bond of peace A Serious and Friendly ADDRESS TO THE Non-Conformists Beginning with the Anabaptists SIRS NOW I am upon leaving the World by reason of Age some reasons have prevailed with me to leave behind me for you a few words not of bitter Contention but of Peace and to Edification and such only as are agreeable to a following the Truth in Love And in doing so methinks I might promise my self that what shall be thus offered will with a like mind be pondered and weighed by all such among you as in whom passion prejudice and partiality do not prevail more than that wisdom which is from above which is first pure then peaceable and easie to be intreated How unfit soever I may in other respects be thought for this undertaking yet my former experience in your way and the many serious and impartial considerations I have had about it may possibly have given me so much advantage for it as may excuse my present undertaking And besides if he that digged a pit Ex. 23.33 was to cover it no man need to wonder if I concern my self more than many others by endeavouring what in me lies to Cure the almost Epidemical Disease of Schism in some and to prevent it in others For however the general prevailing of it seems to have worn out that sense of the hainousness of it which the Church of God and all the famous Guides in it anciently had of it and to have changed its name and to be now adopted into the number of Virtues and to be esteemed an Ornament among too many yet I assure you it is not so with me who have seen and observed the dismal effects of it And doubtless it is not grown any whit the less hainous by prevailing so much as it hath done unless a thing becomes the less evil by how much the more mischief it does This evil took place presently after the Reformation from Popery and became a clog to it then as it hath been ever since And I know nothing so like to subvert the Reformation and at last to deliver us up again unto a Papal Power as this Sin of Schism Therefore blame me not if you find me endeavouring to awaken you into the same sense of it which I my self have If you will but take your measure of what it is like to produce among the whole Protestant party in the end if a stop be not put to it by what the divisions among your selves in the greatest part of your Congregations in this Nation hath brought forth especially in the West the prospect will be sad enough and such as one would think should create in you a great jealousy touching the practice of separating from other Protestant Congregations I should think it might well
how little the endeavours of others have had which have been of somewhat a like nature But this diffidence proceeds not at all from any suspicion I have touching the sufficiency of the reason and argument which is offered to perswade you by but from the rootedness and strength of your prejudice by which the strongest reasoning is many times resisted Elihu saith Job 34. that the ear tryeth words as the mouth tasteth meat Now we know that that meat which is good and savoury in it self and pleasant to the tast of those who are in a healthful habit of body is unsavoury and perhaps nauseous to those of a vitiated palate And there is just a like difference between the tast which men have of the same argumentation upon the account of the corruption and uncorruptness of their Judgments And therefore it will be your wisdom in order to your making a right Judgment to divest your mind as much as possible you can of all prejudice when you come to peruse discourses of this nature Some I understand have taken up a prejudice against somewhat I have done formerly of this Nature from a mistake and misinformation as if the turn of times had caused that alteration which hath been made in my mind about the things discussed in this Address But to the end that none may be taken off from perusing and considering this discourse upon any such pretence they may certainly know the untruth of such suggestions by this to wit that I published my Retractation of separation in the year 1659. when separation was in greatest repute and the turn of times they speak of then out of prospect to such as my self Saint Paul counted it but a small thing with him to be judged by men or of mans Judgment because he was to stand or fall not by their Judgment but by Gods And considering that every one of us may say as he did in this it very much concerns us in our enquiry what is and what is not to be done and practised by us not much to mind what this or the other party will think or say of us or whether this or that way will best accommodate us in our Worldly interest but with uprightness to do all as unto God in the sight of God to whom every one of us must give an account for himself And because we must do so therefore we should take as little as may be upon trust no not from those we have the best esteem of but every one to try his own work that so he may have rejoycing in himself and not in another as the Apostle speaks And because there are not many that are willing to be at the pains to put themselves into a capacity of doing so in things controverted among us Therefore it greatly concerns you who are Leaders of the people to be very diligent and very faithful in trying the grounds on which you now go in ways so much differing as they do from all in a manner that have gone before you yea even from the old Non-Conformists themselves And if you have any convictions or misgivings touching the unsafeness or unaccountableness of the way in which you conduct the people let no Worldly interest or fear of displeasing or of losing them prevail upon you to conceal it from them but trust God in dealing faithfully which will both bring inward peace and satisfaction and interest you in his special care I Will add one thing more and that is to put you upon considering whether by this Dividing way in which you are you either have or are ever like to promote the Power of Religion among us in this Nation as you might have done if you had continued Communion in the Parochial way as heretofore For I freely confess to you that I vehemently suspect that you neither have nor are like to do it so well in the way you take as you might in that The power of Religion I conceive does very much consist not in external modes of worship or in a zealous crying up one and crying down another but in the operation of the mind and inward and profound devotion of Soul to God in reference to the spiritual substance of his worship whether in this form or that and in our being like to our Lord Jesus Christ in humility meekness gentleness peaceableness universal Charity in seeking the good of all men by word and deed in a patient bearing of unkind usage from men without expressing any bitterness of spirit towards them for it by word or deed but rather returning them good for evil and the like But now division in Churches making of parties rending and tearing and separating hath quite another tendency than to promote these things It tends to discompose the spirits of men in their reverend and awful approaches to God in the duties of his worship to imbitter their spirits one against another so that it becomes far more difficult than otherwise it would be to lift up holy hands without wrath and doubting It tends to fill the minds of men with uncharitable opinions of and uncharitable affections to one another and to exasperate their spirits one against another It tends to the despising and contemning one another and to a proud and disdainful magnifying of one party against another to a swelling and grudging one against another It tends to whispering backbiting and slandering and to minister provocation and evil speaking one against another And these things are the opposites to the power of Religion and if you will believe St. James tend to overthrow it and to introduce an ill spirited Religion in the room of it For where envying and strife is there is confusion and every evil work Jam. 3.16 These things which are the natural fruits of Schism are so like the fruits of those who are described to have a form of godliness without the power of it as may well drive you from the Schism which you have made only for a form sake I would we had not too much experience of the truth of what I say to need any proof from Scripture However I will give you St. Pauls Judgment in the Case I have told you before that the Schism in the Church of Corinth when St. Paul wrote to them had not proceeded to any such height as to break the Church in pieces by separation and disclaiming Communion one with another and yet upon the single account of their divisions and the effects of them they were yet but carnal and walked as men as he tells them 1 Cor. 3.3 although otherwise they were in every thing inriched in all utterance and in all knowledge coming behind in no gift Chap. 1.5.7 And upon this very account their coming together their solemn meetings for divine worship were not for the better but for the worse did not only keep them from growing but set them backward 1 Cor. 11.17 18. And then by what he says Chap. 4.6 and 2 Cor. 12.20 we may
see what the fruits and effects of their Schism were which made them socarnal in the Apostles account such as were their being puft up for one Teacher against another and their debates envyings wraths strifes backbitings whisperings swellings and tumults that were among them Just such as your Schism hath brought forth among us in this Nation only I fear the effects of our Schism hath as much exceeded theirs then as our Schism it self hath exceeded theirs And if these things have been are and will be the natural effects of Schism which are so directly contrary and destructive to the power of Religion Then you will do well calmly to consider whether you have not mistaken the right method of promoting the power of Religion when you made so wide a breach as you have done in the Church to effect it If instead of this each Christian of you had kept to Parochial Communion and each outed Minister had kept their residence among them and Communion with them as private Members in the Parish way and had also in a private capacity joined with those Ministers which have succeeded them in doing all the good they could in the Parish as by a private application and improvement of the publick labours of their Minister together with Catechising and other personal instruction and exhortation privately administred to the several Families in the Parish I say if such a thing as this had been done instead of gathering separate Congregations I nothing doubt but that by so doing you would have taken an unspeakably far better course to promote the power of Religion in the Nation than by what you have done and to have procured a removal also of your burdens long before now and to have been competently provided for in the mean time But separation hath always of old been counted an undue irregular and dangerous way of seeking what you desire even by the ancient Non Conformists themselves and was as much inveighed against by them in those times as it was by the Conformists themselves You know right well that when Sacrificing observation of Sabbaths and other instituted parts of Gods worship came in competition with mercy Charity and the like it by no means pleased him when these were thrust out that the other might take place Much less have you reason to think that he is in such love as you are with one external manner and form of administration of worship when another may be used as that he would have that contended for to the loss of Charity Peace and Unity when as he hath commanded us above all things to put on charity Col. 3.14 and above all things to have fervent charity among our selves 1 Pet. 4.8 and that peace should rule Col. 3.15 Certainly to think that God is in such love with one form above another under such circumstances cannot proceed but from a misapprehension of the nature of God and the nature of his worship If this then be true and I cannot see how it can be denied but that your separation as all unlawful separation in the Church is be of such ill abode to the power of Religion as I have shewed Then if you be in any measure convinced that it is so I hope it will not be grievous to any of you to whom the Commandments of God are not grievous to make a stand and bethink you how you may take your selves off this way And if the Higher Powers over us shall perceive any relenting in you for what hath been done I dare not suspect but that they will take your Case into compassionate consideration and be willing to do their part towards the making up the great breach that hath been made in the Church and in a healing way to hinder the growing mischiefs of it Which God of his infinite mercy grant before it be too late That which hath occasioned all this unhappiness under which the Church of God among us groans and Religion in the most spiritual and most concerning part of it extreamly suffers is a want of a right understanding and due use of our Christian liberty It was that which occasioned divisions and the unchristian effects of them in the Churches first planted by the Apostles And the same thing hath produced the same and perhaps much worse effects among us in this Nation Very many of the Jews who believed did not at the first understand their Christian liberty but thought themselves still under the obligation of the Ritual Law of Moses But others did especially the believing Gentiles And the want of a knowledge of it in the one and the want of a due use of it in the other begot an unchristian carriage in them one towards another Upon occasion of which St. Paul said Gal. 5.13 Brethren you have been called unto liberty only use not liberty as an occasion to the flesh but by love serve one another When he saith ye have been called unto liberty his meaning doubtless in special was that by the Christian Ecconomy the believers were set at liberty from being tyed to the observation of a great variety of external modes and forms of worship to which the Jews by the Law of Moses were obliged But though they were at liberty in these yet they were still as strictly obliged to the spirit and moral substance of the Law as ever one part whereof consisting in our love one to another according to the Apostles words in the next Verse where he saith for all the law is fulfilled in one word even in this Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thy self Now his counsel therefore to them was that they would use this liberty of theirs so as that in the use of it they might serve one another in love that they would suffer Christian Charity to govern them in the use of their Christian liberty and not to do any thing to the prejudice of that And then cautions them that by no means they should use this liberty as an occasion to the flesh by gratifying any carnal selfish humour under colour of Christian liberty to the diminishing or quenching love or to the ingendering variance emulations wrath strife envying or the like which are part of the works of the flesh which he after reckons up Ver. 20. And intimates in the 14. ver that if they did thus abuse their Christian liberty what the consequence of it would be and that was their biting one another first and then their being consumed one of another Contrary to which counsel of the Apostle those Christians abused their Christian liberty when they put such a stress on it and on standing unmoveably in it without giving any ground to those Christians which did not understand it and in placing so much of Christianity in it as to despise slight and set at naught those Christians who did not understand and use it as they did and that to such a degree as to cause division strife and uncharitable censuring one another by means whereof their good
have been the very case of those St. Jude speaks of that separated themselves being sensual not having the Spirit Jude 19. Now then when there have been Churches of Christian Professors in this Nation and distinguished by the civil bounds and Precincts for order and government sake in like sort as they were in the Apostles times for you in this case to rend from them and set up other Churches in the same places and renounce Communion with the first by word or deed without a necessity to do so or sin though you should not perhaps sin against the Civil Power in doing so in case you had their leave yet this would not free you from Schism in making a causless breach in the Church Secondly I have shewed that a gathering out the better people from among those which are not so good and to make a new Church thereof is cross to one principal end of Church Consociation which is that the better might help the worse and the strong bring forward the weak the more spiritual part help to spiritualize the more carnal The contrary is as if the grown persons in a Family should withdraw from the Children and the healthy from those that are sick which every body would cry out of And if the Higher Powers should connive at such disorders the thing would be never the better in it self Thirdly I have shew'd what bad effects Schism does naturally produce and how contrary it is in it self to the Doctrine of the Apostles and if it be and do so leave from the Civil Powers to perpetrate this evil would never sanctifie it or make it other than it is in its own nature that is sinful HAving said thus much as you see I shall not need to make any farther Apology why I have done it than what you have in the beginning of this Address And as to what it consists of I shall Trust it to speak for it self if you will but make that allowance to the Author which considering his circumstances I am confident ingenuity will not deny him Only this I can and therefore may say that I am not conscious to my self of having offered any abuse to the Scriptures by any undue interpretation or to you by any mis-application of them nor by any mis-representation of you in principle or practice though I do not think you are all of a piece in both And therefore all that 's said is not to be applied to all alike all being not alike guilty of the Schism so much complained of in this Address As my intention in the undertaking of which was the publick good so upon review I cannot perceive that I have said any thing but what is one way or other agreeable to that design nor unbecoming any man of a modestly publick spirit And if the removal of a publick grievance out of the Church and the procuring its publick benefit hath made the mention and discovery of those things necessary the mention and discovery of which are likeliest to offend some yet the necessity off that as a means to so worthy an end will I hope plead my excuse with them and satisfie them upon after thoughts And if this Address may contribute any thing to the publick good either while I am alive or after my Death though but in the least degree of which I do not altogether despair I shall not lose my â—end Wherefore to conclude If you would not then have the power and spirit of Religion cease from among us or degenerate into form and unkindliness of temper If you would not leave the people in superstition into which you seem to have led them nor be guilty of adding to Gods word by making them believe he hath forbidden and commanded what he hath not forbidden nor commanded but left to such direction as general rules and emergent circumstances shall suggest to prudent men If you would not vary from the Primitive pattern by separating from the Christian Congregations where you reside when you are not necessitated to it or to sin If you would not tempt men to think that Religion is but an uncertain thing and matter of squable If you would not give occasion of jealousie that due regard is wanting in you to order and Government If you would not betray our Posterity into the hands of Popish Policy and Power nor expose the Church of God in this Nation to that ruin which hath befallen other Churches in other places and Ages of the World through divisions among themselves Then be perswaded I beseech you to consult some better things than the keeping still open the wide breach among us can possible promise you Farewel THE END