Selected quad for the lemma: state_n
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A75971
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The agreement of the associated ministers of the county of Essex: proposed to their particular congregations, and to all such of the county that love the churches peace; with a word of exhortation to brotherly union.
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1658
(1658)
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Wing A776; Thomason E955_2; ESTC R207612
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42,278
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62
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saying Come and let us join our selves to the Lord in a perpetual Covenant that shall not be forgotten And to submit to the Government and discipline which Ghrist hath ordained If thy Brother shall trespasse against thee go and tell him his fault between thee and him alone if he shall hear thee thou hast gained thy Brother but if he will not hear thee then take with thee one or two more that c. and if he shall neglect to hearken then tell it unto the Church but if he shall neglect to hear the Church let him be unto thee as a Heathen man and a Publican For his own glory and his peoples good 2 Cor. 10.8 For though I should boast more of our Authority which the Lord hath given us for edification and not for destruction and Chap. 13.10 The power which the Lord hath given me to edification and not to destruction And that I may have the opportunity of the enjoyment of these priviledges for the advancement of mine obedience I resolve and promise Isai 44.5 One shall say I am the Lords and another shall call himself by the name of Jacob and another shall subscribe with his hands unto the Lord c. 2 Cor. 8.5 And this they did first gave themselves to the Lord and unto us by the will of God 2 Cor. 9.13 They glorifie God for your professed subjection to the Gospel of Christ To submit to the Ministerial Guidance and over-sight exercised according to the rule of the Word in this Congregation Acts 14.22 And when they had ordained them Elders in every Church Acts 20.28 Take heed therefore unto your selves and to all the Flock over the which the Holy Ghost hath made you over-seers to feed the Church of God Heb. 13.17 Obey them that have the rule over you and submit your selves to such for they watch for your souls as they that must give an account that they may do it with joy and not with grief for that is unprofitable for you And to the Brotherly advice and admonition of fellow-Christians here Rom. 15.14 I am perswaded that you are filled with all knowledge able also to admonish one another Col. 3.16 Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdome teaching and admonishing one another Jude 20. Ye beloved building up your selves in your most holy Faith keep your selves in the love of God and of some have compassion making a difference others save with fear pulling them out of the fire 1 Thess 5.11 Comfort your selves together and edifie one another Heb. 3.16 Exhort one another daily Heb. 10.24 Let us consider one another to provoke to love and to good works The Exhortation to Union IT will readily be yielded that the great work of Christians here is to advance to their utmost the Superlative interest of Christ his Kingdome and Glory That the way conducing hereunto lies First for a sure foundation to begin with a Totall and free subjecting themselves to Christ Then for suller furtherance to endeavour after the largest Heart and most publike Spirit for doing very much for Christ And as a yet more full and proportionate meanes to put themselves into the best posture of the fullest and firmest Union and Conjunction for exalting together of the Name and Cause of Christ without which Generall Union neither the Churches Edification Reformation or Preservation can be sufficiently provided for as necessarily requiring a conjunction of hearts knit together in Love of heads united in counsels and contrivances and of hands affording their best assistance and help Among others there are these three things in the reformed Churches which are the great Dolenda the greatly to be bewailed 1. That great defect and want of Union and good correspondencies for mutuall help 2. That height and depth of hazzard and danger they daily run by that want of good Union 3. That so great so great neglect of applying any just and proportionate remedy to heal divisions and prevent the danger Certainly 't is no small one but one of the great scarrs seen this day in the Face of the Protestant Churches that sinfull division and want of Union which interrupts those good correspondencies and joynt actings thereupon to the securing and propagating the Protestant interest that would upon conjunction follow Our Lord indeed tells us Luke 16. The Children of this world are wiser in their generation then the Children of Light and besides former our own present age and experience do abundantly prove and seale unto it Divers adverse parties though smaller they can hit it they can be closely united among themselves and strongly combined against the reformed But Papists the greatest enemies and the greatest party are the most eminently and observedly prudent and wise as to matter of Union and combination against the reformed They though so scattered over the earth as to places of habitation yet are all one in heart for to unite still strongly against the Protestants And for a spring and feeder of all their affairs and dangerous actings they have one chief the deepest and most impenetrable counsel They have the choicest instruments exactest correspondencies surest intelligences and the most equall and unwearied prosecutions of their grand design the propagating of their own and extirpating of the reformed party and way But the Protestants though for numbers no whit despicable and by good conjunction would be sussiciently formidable are so defective towards themselves as they neither do nor will piece together in any entire and generall Union for Counsels correspondencies and joynt prosecution of their own interest and preservation And as this 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and inconsistency becomes a daily derision and reproach among their adversaries and makes them look upon the Protestants as a very simple party and wanting that wisdome of self-preservation by union So it is the great ground given them to place their destructive Engines carry on their mines and lay their trains But for any just and speedy remedy as yet undertaken effectually This is rather the Object of our Desires Prayers and Tears then of our Hopes and not to be expected untill God rebuke that spirit of division gone out among the Churches breathe a Spirit of Love and Unity and bow the clashing interests of States and Kingdoms into a due subserviency to that Supream interest of the Kingdome of Jesus Christ When therefore disunion and division is so great a scarr in the face of the Churches in generall It can be no small blemish in any particular Nations and Churches but is more especially so in this Nation of ours That so many Nations divided in situation and of such different Languages and interests more especially do not so perfectly unite is not altogether so strange But for those of our Nation and which formerly were so united to be so rent and torn in pieces and so remain without a healing up into unity to behold the great and growing divisions among us to hear the continuall scorns and
duties we owe to fellow-Christians and preserve us therein Get we but that sincere and ardent Love the Gospel calls for and unity will be both easily brought about and kept a firm and full unity that may answer the Churches present necessity If there be any defect in Union 't is from a deficience in this Bond this affection of Love Were there among other Gospel requisites this publick Spirit were this Gospel Brotherly Love put on this would recover and reduce us to happy unity without which the breaches and distempers are not likely to be healed For to provoke us those especially that are the backward and unactive oh that we could consider things together and once more in Christs name be entreated to endeavour it For is Brotherly Union meerly arbitrary and left to our liberty and not of a Scripture and Gospel necessity Are not divisions among Christians carnall Are not sowers of discord among Brethren abominable to the Lord 1 Cor. 3.3 Prov. 6.12 Rom. 16.17 Must not those that make divisions be marked and also avoided Hath not God in Scripture straitly Commanded Unity Christ most signally and peculiarly enjoyned it Do not his Apostles very frequently in the New Testament Eph. 4.3 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. both require and perswade to it yea must we not look to keep it studiously solicitously and zealously endeavour it And that as in other Scriptures is there urged upon very General and equitable reasons that extend to all Christians There are seven ones and all respecting all the People of God as those Ephesians It is not to be endeavoured only with some single persons whom we shall please to pick out to our selves Or with those particular Congregations we are fixed in but with all Christians in General as their condition requires and opportunity is afforded to us And accordingly have not good Christians in all Ages both assented to the Doctrine and earnestly endeavoured the practice of it Doth not all experience of the Churches Evidence the Necessity of it Did not those Churches so excellently constituted by the Apostles themselves soon discover the use and Necessity of it as we see in the case of the Church of Antioch Acts 15. which occasioned that Application to the Church of Jerusalem and thereupon the first and exemplary Christian Synod Whereby that and likewise other Churches were established in the Faith Let matters be never so well Constituted in Churches yet there ever will be New Emergencies and after cases which will call for and still Necessitate union and correspondencie and that cannot be relieved otherwise At this day those Divisions among the Reformed are not they acknowledged and bewailed as sinfull and greatly desired by the Godly of any moderate spirits of all parties to be healed Yea among our selves is it not so acknowledged and bewailed and accordingly are not our desires and Prayers still a going after it Do we not Evidently see the evils and mischief that will unavoidably every day encrease and Grow upon us without Union Ah! What will become of Truth of all Gospel-Truths and the purity of Doctrine which is preserved by Union When the house is burnt and the Gold and Treasure in it melted is it not hard finding it among the Rubbish Pearles if they should be buried in great heaps of sand will they not hardly be recovered How hard will it be for people to find the Treasure the Pearles of Gospel-Truth in the Rubbish and sands of multiplicities of errours And what will become of the life and power of Godliness when mens zeale and fervour still evaporate and breathe forth in contentions and Christians become engaged to maintain Parties rather then Godliness it self Yea how must Ignorance and Prophaness encrease And how will Popery gaine upon us Yea and how will that be kept out at last look seriously to the close What can Magistrates and Ministers do if unity be not recovered At the best must not the Doctrine be highly hazzarded and hardly be saved Must not the Power of Godliness needs sink and be swallowed up in these Quick-sands of Division yea and withall the civil state When hearts are divided and mens wayes and Conscience so continually clash and run cross must not that needs be but in a crazie condition in comparison of that which General union would produce which also would in time work out a happy settlement in the Civil State What though some are of the opinion that disunion is best that makes it not so in it self But why should union the entirest fullest and largest union in States and Kingdoms be best and not in the Church of Christ and among Christians If single persons or small Townes and particular places cannot carry on the Civil Interest without Civil Union nor never sufficiently provide for the security of the Civil State then why must it or how can it be that single Christians or particular Congregations without Consociation can carry on and preserve Religion in a Nation As all former so late Experience proves and after Experience will ever prove the contrary Thus New England it self also acknowledges and practices the contrary and that upon Experience And they accordingly even the strictest of them do not only wish but encourage and provoke the Godly of different Judgements in this Nation to endeavour Unity And certainly this must be very considerable that they of New England who left this Country for liberty of Conscience and went into a desolate wilderness They that had such excellent Christians and Eminent Ministers to form and make up their Congregations They that had so full a Liberty to choose their own way of Church Government and withall had so great countenance and assistance from the Civil Magistrate as ever Churches in the world had yet these these so accommodated and assisted after almost thirty yeares experience find a Necessity of union of Churches and of godly Christians of different Judgement are in expectation daily of it here blame those that are opposite to it or slothfull in it And certainly this fresh experiment brings a cogent and conclusive Argument that out-weighs all colours and pretences made by any for refusal or neglect of unity But to adde no more we our selves Generally see a Necessity of unity we wish it pray for it and expect it also but this layes great blame and sin to our charge that we do so little for it That our Judgements and Prayers concurre in it but our hands stir not and we do not to any purpose endeavour after it What then is and must be the Obstacle to this so Necessary Unity Is it private advantage like men that having a private Trade are enemies to joynt Stocks and Trading in Companies Is it listlesness and a spirit of slothfulness like the sluggard that will not pull his hands out of his bosom A lothness to be unhinged and taken off our old wonts of unactiveness and doing nothing but for our own particulars and so being