the many rich precious treasures of his grace wherewith the Lord hath furnished sandrie of you above your Brethren which causeth us with great reverence to accept and receive what further light God may be pleased to impart unto us by you But as we have beleeved so have we hitherto practised and so have most of us spoken this our Answer to your particulars most of us we may say because there wants not some Brethren amongst us who proceed further even to looke at all set formes of Prayer invented by men of another age or congregation and prescribed to their Brethren to be read out of a book for the prayers of the Church as Images or Imaginations of men forbidden in the second Commandement But as we leave them to their libertie of their own judgements without prejudice so do we also concurre with the rest of them so farre as we all goe in bearing witnesse against any set formes or the corruptions in them In dispatching whereof we have been the more slow because it behoved us first to inquire into and to settle some controversies amongst our selves before we could well attend to entertaine discourse about forraigne questions which do not so neerely concerne our present estate and practise Besides your Letters being sent to the Ministers of the Churches and some of us dwelling farre asunder it was not an easie thing for all of us often to meet together to consider of these Questions much lesse to resolve upon one just answer But having at length by the assistance of God brought our Answers to this issue we commend it to the blessing of the Lord and in him to your Christian and judicious consideration where if all things bee found safe and duely warranted from Scripture grounds do you also as seemeth vigilant Watchmen of the Lords flock and faithfull witnesses to God If any thing seeme doubtfull to you consider and weigh it very well before you reject it If any thing appeare to be unsound and dissonant from the Word which we for our parts cannot discerne we shall willingly attend to what further light God may send unto us by you In the meane while wee intreat you in the Lord not to suffer such apprehensions to lodge in your minds which you intimate in your Letters As if we here justified the wayes of riged separation which sometimes amongst you we have formerly borne witnesse against and so build againe the things we have destroyed you know they separate from your Congregations as no Churches from the Ordinances dispensed by you as meere Antichristian and from your selves as no visible Christians But wee professe unfainedly we separate from the corruptions which we conceive to be left in your Churches and from such Ordinances administred therein as we feare are not of God but of men And for your selves we are so farre from separating as from no visible Christians as that you are under God in our hearts if the Lord would suffer it to live and die together and we looke at sundrie of you as men of that eminent growth in Christianitie that if there by any visible Christians under heaven amongst you are the men which for these many yeeres have been written in your foreheads Holinesse to the Lord which we speake not to prejudice any truth which our selves are here taught and called to professe but we still beleeve though personall Christians may be eminent in their growth of Christianitie yet Churches had still need to grow from apparent defects to puritie and from reformation to Reformation age after age till the Lord have utterly abolished Antichrist with the breath of his mouth and the brightnesse of his comming to the full and cleare revelation of all his holy Truth especially touching the ordering of his house and publick worship as a pledge of this our estimation of you and sincere affection to you we have sent you these Answers to your demand and shall be readie by the help of Christ to receive back againe from you wise and just and holy Advertisements in the Lord. Now the Lord God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ your Lord and ours lead us all unto all Truths purge out all Leaven out of his Churches and keepe us blamelesse and harmlesse in his holy Faith and feare to his heavenly kingdome through him that hath loved us In whom we rest Your very loving Brethren the Elders of the Churches in New-England Reverend and dearely beloved Brethren IT is not to be doubted but while we live here we shall have just cause to search and try our ways look back upon former courses and call things done to more strict examination For being over-clouded with ignorance compassed about with infirmities and beset with many temptations to sinne knowing what we know best but darkly and in part no marvell if in many things we offend ignorantly of frailty for want of due consideration rashly mistaking Errour for Truth condemning Truth for Errour suspecting evill without cause and not suspecting where is just reason drawing erronious conclusions from sound principles and maintaining truths upon weak grounds so that in examination of our wayes and endevours of their Reformation wee had need to looke warily that wee turn not to the right hand or to the left for in the one we add to the Word of God as well as in the oother and of our selves are apt to strike aside to both A loose conscience will be profane a tender scrupulous It stands us therefore upon to have our selves in suspition in as much as experience teacheth that many have swerved from the path of sound peace and comfort on each hand Wherefore Beloved Brethren if since your comming into New England upon serious Review of former actions you have discovered any truths heretofore not taken notice of we shal be so far from rejecting them because of your former judgment and practice that we shall heartily desire to know and imbrace the same with you and blesse God for you as the happy instruments of his glory our Instruction the advancement of the truth But if the discoveries be of the like nature with the positions mentioned in the Letter as before so still we conceive them to be new opinions and not warranted by Scripture which is the true Antiquity Opinions we say not practices for not changing your opinion you might lawfully alter your practice nay what you did tolerate formerly as a burthen in case not free you might well forgoe being at your liberty Your judgement being the same you might use your liberty in forbearance of a set Liturgie and yet retaine the same judgement of a stinted Liturgie that you had before you might forbeare for a time upon speciall Reason such as present state and occasion might suggest to receive to the Sacrament approved Christians not set members of a particular Congregation as some Brethren do who yet dare not think it unlawfull to communicate with such in the act of worship or deem
Scribes and Pharisees to let them alone because they were the blind leaders of the blind but he never forbade to communicate with them in the ordinances of God It is not then for private Christians to withdraw themselves from the ordinance of worship and communion of the Church because such are permitted to deale in the holy things of God whom they judge or know unfit when men joyne in the worship of God with unworthy Ministers they doe not countenance them in their place and office but obey the commandement of God who requires their attendance upon his highnesse in that way and meanes To goe no further then the text you quote Because thou hast despised knowledge I will also reject thee c. Properly the text is spoken of the ten tribes called Israel and the Priests among them who worshipped the Calves which Ieroboam had set up whom the Lord threatneth to reject because they had rejected knowledge being either wilfully ignorant or withholding the truth in unrighteousnesse Whether they were for the present absolutely rejected or the Lord threatens only to reject them we will not dispute This may suffice that it is not to be found either in this or any other Text of Scripture that the people joyning in the true Worship of God with unworthy Ministers do countenance them in their place thereby On the contrary if you will extend this Text to all unworthy Ministers of what sort soever whom the word of truth doth condemne as not approved Ministers of God the Scripture teacheth evidently not onely that the people by joyning do not countenance them in their place and office but that they must and ought to joyne with them in the worship of God and in separating from the Ordinance they shall sinne against God much lesse then do they in such joyning set those Idols and meanes of worship which God never appointed in his Word For the worship is of God and the Ministery is of God the person unworthily executing his place is neither set up by some few private Christians nor can by them be removed And warrant to withdraw themselves from the worship of God because such as ought not are suffered to entermeddle in the holy things of God they have none from God Dumbe Dogs greedy Dogs Idol-sheepheards false Prophets Strangers are unworthy Ministers but they that communicate with such in the ordinance of worship are never said to set up Idols or means of worship which God never appointed The sheep of Christ will not heare strangers in the Lords sense but outwardly they heard those strangers preach if the Scribes and Pharisees were such and by hearing them discovered them to be strangers i. e. false Prophets Some strangers at least of whom our Saviour speaks were of the true Church and of Israel but brought false doctrine tending to kill the soule such strangers none should heare that is believe and follow but as they be tolerated in the Church so they may hear them so long as they bring the truth Unworthy Ministers are no Ministers for themselves but they are Ministers for the people of God that is so long as they be in the place of Ministers the acts of their administrations are of force to the faithfull if they observe the forme of administration prescribed by Christ for Christs Ordinances have their efficacy from him not from them that serve about them and evill Ministers minister not in their own name but in Christs and by his Commission It hath evermore bin held for a truth in the Church of God that although somtimes the evill have chiefe authority in the ministration of the Word and Sacraments yet for as much as they doe not the same in their own name but in Christs and minister by his Commission and Authority wee may use their Ministery both in hearing the Word and receiving the Sacraments neither is the effect of Christs Ordinance taken away by their wickednesse nor the grace of Gods gifts diminished from such as by faith and rightly doe receive the Sacraments administred to them which are effectuall because of Christs institution and promise although they be ministred by evill men Beza de Presbyt et excōmunicat p. 25 26. Ista vero quia nonnulli à sacris caetib sacrament usu propter aliorum vitia ultro abstinent i. e. seipsos excommunicant magnam reprehensionem merentur The reasons whereby the ancient Churches condemned the Donatists and Catharists for their voluntary and seditious separation and the moderne Churches condemne the Anabaptists for their unwarrantable departure from and so renting of the body of Christ will hold against separation from the prayers of the congregation because they are read by an ungodly minister The second proposition Where the whole Liturgie is used though by an able and godly Minister it is not lawfull to joyne in prayer in that case Herein wee cannot be of your judgement for in the times of the Prophets and our Saviour Christ as great abuses no question were found in the Church of the Jews in the administration of holy things of God as can be imagined in our Liturgie or forme of prayer but the Prophets and our Saviour who taught the people to keepe themselves pure and undefiled never taught them to separate from the administration of the holy things of God And if the presence at our forms of prayer be not lawful by reason of the corruptions alleaged there can be no visible society named throughout the world since 200. yeeres after Christ or thereabouts wherein a Christian might lawfully joyne in Prayer reading the Scripture hearing the word or participation of the Sacraments For compare the doctrines prayers rites at those times in use in the Churches with ours and in all these blessed be the name of the Lord wee are more pure then they But no man will be so bold we hope as to affirme the state of the Churches within 200. yeeres after Christ to be so miserably decayed that the faithfull could not without sin hold communion with them in the aforesaid ordinances The prayers of the Minister whether conceived or stinted in a set forme be not his private prayers but the publike prayers of the whole assembly whose mouth he is to God both in the one and the other But you will not say the people ought not to joyne with their Pastor in the publique assembly if ought bee amisse in his prayer for matter or manner or both It is all one to the people in this case whether the fault be personall as some distinguish or otherwise knowne beforehand or not knowne For if simple presence defile whether it was knowne beforehand or not all presence is faulty And if simple presence defile not our presence is not condemned by reason of the corruptions knowne whereof we stand not guilty whether the corruption be through humane frailty or not it is not in us to enquire but rather whether we be called to come and the
Passeover in any societie in the place which God should chuse to put his Name there Exod. 12. 4. 47. Deut. 16. 1 2. So all baptised persons have true and intire right to the Lords Supper in everie true Church where God hath set his Name Thirdly there is not the same reason of every Church priviledge for one may have right to some who is not to meddle with others The members of one society may hear the Word joyne in Prayer and receive the Sacraments in another when they are not to meddle in the election and ordination of their teachers The Ministers of the Gospel may preach the Word and administer the Sacraments in another congregation and hereto he needs no other calling but that God offers an opportunitie there is much need of his help and he is intreated or hath leave from them in place or office but he is not to admit members into the societie or cast them out that be admitted And if the Pastor of one Church shall preach or administer the Sacraments in another contrary to the liking and approbation of the Society and Governours though the act be irregular it was never esteemed a nullitie but if he shall presume to excommunicate the members of another societie without the consent oâ— the Church and approbation of Pastors and Teachers under whose charge and jurisdiction they live it hath been judged a meer nullity Therefore the proposition is not so evident as to be taken without proofe that they have no power to admit a beleever into communion in any Church priviledge who have no power to excommunicate Fourthly that visible beleevers baptised into a true Church professing the true faith and walking in holy obedience and godly conversation that they and their seed should be judged such as are without in the Apostles sense because they be not externally joyned as set members to some particular congregation in Church-Covenant is affirmed not proved 1. It hath and may fall out many times through the ignorance rashnesse or pride of a prevailing faction in the Church that the true members of the Catholique Church and the best members of the orthodox visible flock or congregation of Christ may be no members of any distinct visible societie And shall their posteritie be esteemed Aliens and Strangers from the Covenant and debarred from the Sacraments because their parents are unjustly seperated from the inheritance of the Lord Surely as parents unjustly excommunicated do continue still not onely true members of the invisible body but visible members of the flock of Christ so the right of Baptisme doth belong to the Infants of such parents though not actuall and constant members of this or that present assembly in Church order 2. If they be without because no members of a politike bodie or spirituall fellowship then all members which are of one societie are without to another For they that be not of the bodie are not capable of Church censures or subject to the authoritie one of another And so not being under the judgement of that particular Church to it they are without whereas in ancient and moderne times distinct Societies did communicate together admit and receive each other as brethren to testifie their fellowship in the faith If the reason whereupon the Apostle saith the Church of Corinth was not to judge them that were without was because they were not within the Church of Corinth and so not under their censure or judgement this holds true of them that be of another society admitted to the Sacrament as well as of such as be no set members desiring to be received to the Lords Supper 3. The fornicators of this world do they not explaine whom the Apostle pointeth unto by the title of being without ver 10. 11. such as had not received the covenant of grace 4. Church order is necessarie we denie not but this order that a man should be a constant and set member of a particular societie by covenant to make him a true member of the visible Church or to give him title or interest to the publick order this is not taught of God 5. Paul divides all men into two ranks the first and greater without the last and lesser within but that beleevers who have received the holy Ghost and have been baptised into Jesus Christ that they and their children should be reckoned among them that are without that we read not in this nor any other Scripture but in phrase of Scripture hereticks themselves are within the Church 6. The beleevers not yet gathered as the godly learned think into a certain distinct body are called beleevers brethren disciples but that they should be comprehended under them that are without it hath not been beleeved in the Church 7. Without saith the Apostle whether alluding to this place or not let others judge are dogs inchanters whoremongers not such as are called faithfull and holy walking in integritie beleeving in and professing Jesus Christ to be their Saviour 8. They that are without in the Apostes sense are Aliens from the Common-wealth of Israel strangers from the covenant of promise having no hope and without God in the world but we hope you will not passe such rash and unadvised censure upon your brethren who be not gathered into your societie as set members 9. Let the interpretation stand and he is without not onely who is no set member of some congregationall Assembly but he that is not subject to the censure of the community of that particular combination few or many with or without Officers And so all the reformed Churches in the world who ascribe the power of the keyes to the Presbitry or Classes and not to the community and some amongst your selves if not the most shall be without also And therefore we cannot think approved Christians desiring to be received unto the Sacrament either to be without or uncapable of Church censures for the time being if they should offend though not set members of any particular congregation for desiring baptisme for their children or themselves to be admitted to the Lords Supper for the time they put themselves under the ordinance of Jesus Christ there And as they are members for the time so they might be proceeded against according to the rule prescribed by our Saviour as they would proceed with an offending member 10. If upon just and good reason a passage of Scripture can be cleared to prove that for which it was never alledged by any writer we are not to except against any truth of God because it wanteth mans testimonie Onely if we desire credit in such cases our reasons must be weightie and convincing But for your exposition of this text of Scripture as yet we have not observed one substantiall ground or approved author to be alledged Doctor Ames shewing the necessitie of Christians ioyning themselves to some particular Church giveth this reason Quoniam alias fieri non potest quâ—â— conturbentur signa illa quibus
as erroneous we hope you will not be offended You know how oft it hath beene objected that Non-conformists in practice are Separatists in heart but that they goe crosse to their own positions or smother the truth for sinister ends They of the Separation boast that they stand upon the Non-conformist's grounds A vainglorious flourish and sleight pretence But both these are much countenanced by your sudden change if you be changed as it is reported How shall your brethren bee able to stand up in the defence of their innocencie and the uprightnesse of their cause when your example and opinion shall be cast in their dish Must they leave you now with whom they have held society Or will you plead for Separation which you have condemned as rash and inconsiderate You know that thy who have run this way have fallen into manifold divisions and may not you justly feare lest the same befall you Some warnings you have had already and have you not cause to feare every day more and more Errour is very fruitfull and will spread apace A cracke in the foundation may occasion a wide breach in the building where there will not be means or mind to amend it Experience every day may tutour us herein But to let passe all inconveniences our request in all meeknesse and love is that if these or any of the forementioned opinions be indeed your Tenants you would be pleased to take a second review of your grounds and send us your strongest reasons that have swayed you in these matters and if we shall find them upon due examination to be such as will carry weight we shall be ready to give you the right hand of fellowship if otherwise you shall receive our just and modest animadversions in what we conceive you have erred from the truth You will not judge if we cannot apprehend the strength of your grounds it is because we love not the truth or bee carryed with by-respects though these conceipts prevaile too much Such rigid and harsh censures cannot lodge in meeke and humble breasts Weighty reasons promote the truth not unadvised judging You your selves have judged that to be errour which now you take to be truth when yet you were not blinded with by-respects nor hudwinked your eyes that you might not see the light And if you have just warrant from God to pull downe what you have builded and to build what you have pulled downe we desire you would lovingly and maturely impart it for as yet we have scene none which we are not ready to prove and shew by the rule of truth to be too weake to carry any burthen We adore with you the fulnesse of the Scripture and we know the Counsell of the Lord shall stand if you can shew that you walke in the wayes of God we shall heartily rejoyce to walke with you but if you have turned aside we shall earnestly desire that you would be pleased seriously to consider the matter and speedily reforme what is out of order Thus not doubting of your favourable interpretation of this our motion for the preventing of distraction maintenance of peace and searching out of the truth whereby we may be directed to live to the praise of God the good of his people and comfort of our soules beseeching God to lead and guide us into all truth and holinesse and keepe us blamelesse untill his glorious appearance we rest Your loving Brethren An Epistle written by the Elders of the Churches in NEW-ENGLAND to those godly Ministers fore-mentioned that sent over the Positions Reverend and beloved Brethren IN these remote Coasts of the earth whereunto the good hand of God hath brought us as we doe with much comfort of heart call to mind the many gracious blessings which both with you and from you we injoyed in our Christian and holy communion the memory and fruit whereof we hope shall never be blotted out so we have also seen cause to looke back to our former administrations there and to search and trie our wayes that wherein soever we have formerly gone astray we might judge our selves for it before the Lord And that seeing now God hath set before us an open doore of libertie wee might neither abuse our libertie in the Gospel to runne out into any groundlesse unwarrantable courses nor neglect the present opportunitie to administer by the helpe of Christ all the holy ordinances of God according to the patterne set before us in the Scripture In our native Countrey when we were first called to the Ministery many of us tooke some things to be indifferent and lawfull which in after-times we saw to be sinfull and durst not continue in the practise of them there Afterwards some things that we bare as burthens that is as things inexpedient though not utterly unlawfull we have no cause to retain and practise the same things here which would not have been not onely inexpedient but unlawfull such things as a man may tollerate when he cannot remove them hee cannot tollerate without sinne when he may remove them Besides some things we practised there which wee speak to our shame and griefe which we never took into serious consideration whether they were lawfull and expedient or no but took them for granted and generally received not onely by the most Reformed Churches but by the most godly and judicious servants of God amongst them which neverthelesse when we came to weigh them in the ballance of the Sanctuarie we could not find sufficient warrant in the Word to receive them and establish them here of one of these three kinds will these our present practises appeare to be which you call our new opinions or Innovations here except it be some few of them which though they have been reported to you to be our Judgements and practises yet are indeed farre from us The partieulars are too many and too weightie to give you account of them and the ground of our proceedings about them in a Letter But to give you if it be the will of God the better satisfaction we have sent you a short Treatise touching each particular that according to your desire you might understand from us how farre we do acknowledge any of these tenents and upon what ground hoping that according to your promise if upon due examination you shall find any weight in them you will give us the right hand of fellowship But if otherwise you will send us your just and faithfull animadversions and we doe not suspect your loves to the truth or your sincere speaking according to your conscience in the sight of God Neither taxe we you as siding from the truth with by-respects whereof you complain verily we abhorre such rash harsh and presumptuous notoriousnesse we see as much cause to suspect the integritie of our own hearts as yours and so much the more as being more privie to the deceitfulnesse of our own hearts then to yours And we cannot but with much thankfulnesse of heart acknowledge
faults such as one Christian cannot or must not tolerate in another without breach of charity For if the errour be such as may be tolerated and I am called to be present by such fault I am not defiled though knowne before If the error be such as in conscience may not be tolerated though not knowne before hand I am bound if present some way to professe against it This distinction of personall and ministeriall faults in this case untill it be cleared by some Text of Scripture or sound reason from the word must goe for the devise of man A Church a Minister or a Christian may be stiffe in an error being misperswaded it is a truth after many meanes long used to convince them with whom yet we must hold communion in the ordinances of Religion and the error may be such as we cannot without hypocrisy or denyall of the truth hold communion though such meanes of conviction have not gone before But the corruptions alleadged against our forme of prayer for matter or manner are such as one Christian may and must tolerate in another where he hath no power to redresse them Hath not Christian wisdome and experience of humane frailties lessoned you deere brethren to beare one with another in matters of greater consequence then any have or can be objected truly against the form of prayer in use among us And why such corruptions should not be ascribed to humane frailty we see not For if a godly Minister make use of a book in things which he judgeth lawfull for matter and manner the corruption in him that useth it according to his judgement from what cause can it spring but humane ignorance and frailty We rest assured you question not the integrity of many who make much more use of the booke then onely in a few select prayers From the bottome of our hearts we desire and pray that God would remove out of his Church and worship whatsoever offendeth for matter or manner and that all things may be so done not onely that they may be tolerated but that they might be approved in the conscience of all men But we are perswaded that not onely some few select prayers but many prayers other exhortations may lawfully be used with fruit and edification to Gods people To aggravate faults especially when it tends to draw away people from the Ordinances of God is no lesse fault then to excuse them it may be greater and therefore we dare not esteeme the prayers read by a godly and faithfull Minister according to the booke in use among us a corrupt sacrifice whether in such as read them or them that be present In them that join according to Christs command and liberty of absence from Christ hath not beene shewed notwithstanding the corruptions we hold the prayers to be an holy and acceptable sacrifice to God and pleasing to Jesus Christ The corrupt sacrifice is that which the deceiver bringeth voluntarily and out of neglect having a male in his flock but the faithfull bringeth himself and his godly desires according to the will of God and as for corruptions whether respecting matter or forme they are none of his they cleave not to his Sacrifice to staine or pollute it As for the Text of the Prophet Mal. 1. 13 14. it is cited by many in this businesse and to many purposes applyed but we cannot finde that in the Prophet for which it is here brought The deceiver is accursed that offereth a corrupt thing to the Lord. This we reade and beleeve but that a godly man being present at this forme of prayer among us read by a godly and faithfull Minister is the deceiver who offereth a corrupt thing unto the Lord that is not proved No argument can be brought from this place to the purpose but by analogy which is a kinde of arguing of all other most ready at hand but lyable to most exceptions and apt to draw aside if great care be not had which in this place we finde not to take the proportion in every materiall point just and right And we desire such as alleadge this passage of Scripture against simple presence at the prayers of our Liturgy advisedly to consider whether God allow them to make such application of his truth which wee much doubt of to say no more Your third proposition That as you are very tender of imputing sinne to those men that joyne in some select prayers read by an able and godly Minister so on the other side you are not without feare least such joyning may be found unlawfull unlesse it may appeare that the Ministers with whom the people have communion in reading those Prayers neither give any scandall by reading them nor give unlawfull honour to a thing abused to Idolatry and Superstition nor doe suffer themselves to be sinfully limited in the reading of them 1 We cannot conceive how you should imagine the practice of a godly Minister in reading some few select prayers to be scandalous or offensive in their congregations when the people generally not in their assemblies onely but throughout the whole land were perswaded of the lawfulnesse of that course till now of late some have beene drawne away to separate who yet by warrant of Scripture produce nothing of weight to countenance that practice 2 If the booke should be as you take it an idolathite latent offence doth not oblige If any man say unto thee this is sacrificed to Idols eat it not so that if it doe not manifestly appeare that this practice is scandalous it is not lawfull for the people to withdraw themselves 3 The book we speake of the Liturgie so far as it is sound and good by your confession is no Idolathite neither was it taken out of the Masse-book in such sense as you object but rather the masse other Idolatrous prayers were added to it for popery is as a scab or leprosie cleaving to the Church and many truths belonging to the Church as her proper legacie were stollen and heaped together in that denne And why the true man may not challenge his goods where ever he finds thē or the thiefe plead title to the true mans goods by prescription we know not It is no hard taske to shew that our Service-booke was reformed in most things according to the purest Liturgies which were in use in the Church long before the masse was heard of in the world And if that could not be shewed yet formes of speech generally taken we speak not of this or that speciall word or phrase is no more defiled by Idolatry then the light aire or place where Idolatry is committed It is not unlawfull to pray Lord helpe or Lord have mercy or to give thankes praised bee God because the Papists say Lady helpe or praised be God and the Virgin Mary Fourthly Put case the Minister in reading such prayers gives offence or attributes unlawfull honour to a thing abused to Idolatry and Superstition or suffer himselfe
which was the Catholike visible Church the society of men professing the faith of Christ throughout the world divided into many particular Churches whereof some are pure others impure some more others lesse sound Hereunto it may be added that every multitude and society of believers are indefinitely called the Church I persecuted the Church of God The house of God which is the Church of the living God In which sense all the Churches in the world may truly be called one And thus the Apostle Peter writing to many dispersed Churches who could not assemble in one place nor be fed by one Shepherd speaketh of them singularly as one flock Feed the flock of God which is among you But that flock are the strangers dispersed through Pontus Galatia Asia Cappadocia and Bythinia which could not possibly joine together in the Ordinances of Worship or make one distinct congregated assembly And if the Catholike Militant Church be one Society the Seals that are given as a prerogative to the Church are given unto it and the true Members of the Catholike Church have right and title to them in due order though they be not admitted into the Church fellowship you speak of For as the flock or society is one so is the Ministery Faith Covenant and Sacraments which are given as a communion prerogative unto the whole Church and not appropriated to this or that part ormember as separated from the whole which is further evidenced hereby that sometime it hath and too often it may fall out that a Christian may be a true member of the universall visible Church i. e. he may hold professe and maintain that holy Catholike Faith pure and undefiled without which no man can be saved who for the present is no actuall member of any particular or visible society in Church order As for example a man may be cut off by Excommunication from all commerce with the present visible Church wherein hee was bred and born when hee is not cut off from the Catholike Orthodoxall Church Hee may be deprived of participation of the Ordinance in every particular society when his right and title to them is much better then these who have most injuriously cast him out or debarred him of the means of salvation The communion of Saints whether visible or invisible is the effect and property of the Church Catholike and agreeth to the severall parts and members thereof as they be members of that body under the head and if particular Churches have communion together it must of necessity be that they bee parts and members of the whole body which is one 4. Though there be no universall congregation or assembly nor can be imagined yet there are and have beene many visible assemblies or societies true Churches of Christ to whom the Prerogative of the Seals is given which have not beene united and knit together in Church-order into one congregationall body or society For every society in covenant with God is the true Church of God for what is it to be the flock people or sheepe of God but to be the Church of God And where there is a Covenant there is the people of God They that are of the faith of Abraham are the children and seed of Abraham and within the Covenant of Abraham though but two or three and so of the same Church with him by that covenant The communication and accepting of the tables of the covenant is an undoubted token of a people in covenant or confederate but every society professing the true and entire faith joyning in prayer and thankesgiving receiving the truth of God to dwell among them and in some measure conforming themselves to the obedience of Gods Commandements is in covenant with God It is simply necessary to the being of a Church that it be laid upon Christ the foundation which being done the remaining of what is forbidden or the want of what is commanded cannot put the society from the title or right of a Church For Christ is the foundation and head corner stone of the Church and a people comming unto Christ united unto him built upon him having communion with him and growing up in him are the true Church of God and if the seals be annexed to the covenant by God himselfe as we cannot deny a people in covenant to be the Church so we must not deny their right and title to the Sacraments If therefore the meaning of the proposition be that the seales be given to the Church that is to true and sound Christians and people in covenant with God as a priviledge whether in ordinary or extraordinary dispensation we accept it as good and sound but it makes against your judgement and practice in keeping away such as have right and title to the ordinances If you meane the seales are given to the Church that is onely to set members of some particular society combined by covenant as it is among you we cannot receive it because it implieth a distinction not taught in Scripture and crosse to your selves And for the thing it selfe the Scripture hath nothing but many things against it as hath beene shewed 5 If it be granted that the seales are the prerogative of a particular visible Church known and approved Christians among us and their seed are members of true and visible Churches and so to be esteemed among you before they be entred into Church membership as you call it For every society professing the intire and true faith and joyning together in the right use of the Sacraments in matters substantiall is the true Church of God and every visible beleever receiving the word and professing the true intire faith admitted to the right and lawfull participation of the Sacraments is a visible member of the true Church if he have neither renounced that society nor deserved justly to be cast out by excommunication or Church censure For the intire profession of the truth the dwelling of the truth among men the right use of the Sacraments which is ever joyned with truth of Doctrine and to be esteemed by it is proper to them that be in covenant with God And they that truly partake of the Seales must needes be of a Church for the seales are not without but within the Church an ordinance given unto it and if they be true members of the true Churches of Jesus Christ other Churches are bound to hold communion with them in the ordinance of worship as divine providence shall minister occasion In answer to the ninth position you say the members of other Churches well known and approved by vertue of communion wich Churches doe mutually and with good acceptance communicate each of them at others Churches even so often as Gods providence leads them thereunto and themselves desire it In your preface to this consideration you say you admit to fellowship of the seales the known approved and orderly recommended members of any true Church and if knowne and
a word of Church-Covenant either in the Institution or administration of the Seales before they were admitted to them That Christians are solemnly ingrafted into the body of Christ and into particular Societies by the Seales is a truth acknowledged on all sides but that ever it was deemed necessarie that a Christian should be a set member of a particular Congregationall Church before he were admitted to the Seales or that by divine institution any such thing is ordained as necessarie thereunto that upon the grounds before mentioned we denie and cannot account it lesse then an addition to the institution For if the Sacraments be seales of the Covenant of grace and baptisme by divine Institution belong to Disciples faithfull Saints who have gladly received the Word of grace are justified by faith sanctified by the Spirit adopted to be the children of God by grace and heires apparent to the kingdom of heaven then to debarre such from the Seales and their seed from Baptisme because they be not in Church-Covenant as you speake is an addition to the ordinance of grace and many wayes injurious to the people of God V. POSITION That the power of Excommunication is so in the body of the Church that what the Major part shall allow must be done though the Pastors and Governors and the rest of the Assembly be of another minde and that peradventure upon more substantiall reasons Answer IF the Question had been Whether the power of Excommunication lies in the body of the Congregation consisting of officers and members our Answer should be Affirmative and according hereunto is also our practise and wee hope your judgement and ours are not different herein But seeing the Question is Whether it is so in the body of the Congregation that what the Major part doth allow that must be done though the Pastors and Governors and the rest of the Assembly doe dissent upon more substantiall reasons Our Answer is Negative viz. that the power of Excommunication is not sealed in the Congregation neither ought it to be so in any of the Churches of the Lord Jesus who ought not to carry matters by number of votes against God as this Position implyeth but by strength of rule and reason according to God The power of the Apostles was not to doe things against the truth but for the truth 2 Cor. 13. 8 and not for destruction but for edification 2 Cor. 10. 8. And the same may be said concerning the power which God hath given to the Church and if any Church among us have swerved from the rule which is more then we know we doe not allow them in such a practise but should be ready as the Lord should helpe to convince them of their sin therein Reply THis Question is much mistaken for the demand is not whether in the Congregation matters should be carryed by number of votes against God as you interpret the Position but whether the power of Excommunication so lye in the body of the Congregation as that sentence must proceed in externoforo according to the vote and determination of the Major part and so whether power of admission of members doe so reside in the communitie as that they must be refused whom the Major part refuse though the Pastors and Governors and part of the Congregation be of another judgement and he admitted whom the Major part doth approve And though the Church hath received no power against God but for God yet in the execution of the power no doubt the members of that Church may be of different judgements and affections wherein the one side or other doth erre and is deceived Now the Question hereupon moved is whether the power of the keyes be so given and committed to the society of the faithfull as that in externall Court that act or sentence must stand and be in force which the greater part shall determine amongst them which hold the power of the keyes to be given to the Church Some distinguish betwixt the power it self which they give to the Church and the execution and exercise of it which they confine to the Presbytery Others give the power of the keyes with the exercise thereof to the whole body of the Church or if in the dispensation they attribute any thing to the Officers it is but as servants of the Church from whom they derive their authoritie By Church also some understand the communitie of the faithfull together with their officers and guides And here lyeth the stone at which they of the Seperation stumble and which we conceive to be your judgement and practise wherein we required your plaine answer with your reasons but have received no satisfaction You referre us to Mr. Parkers reasons to prove the power of the keyes to belong to the whole Church who are of farre different judgement from Mr. Parker in the point it selfe And if your judgement and practise be according to that of the Seperation which we feare you dissent from him and we cannot but dissent from you upon these considerations 1. No power agreeth to the multitude or communitie of the faithfull but that which is given them of the Lord by his positive Law For the whole spirituall power for the gathering and government of his Church is given to Christ as Mediator And if the power of the keyes be derived from and communicated by Christ unto his Church of necessitie it must draw its originall from divine positive Law and can agree to none but as it is communicated But the communicated power of the keyes with the execution thereof Christ hath not given immediately to the whole multitude but to some persons and Officers designed and appointed thereunto Peruse the severall passages of Scripture wherein power and authoritie of preaching the Gospel administring the Sacraments binding and loosing is given to the Church and it is apparent that distinct severall persons are spoken of and not the whole communitie Goe teach all Nations and baptize them c. Whose sinnes yee remit they are remitted c. Feed my Lambes feed my sheepe c. Were these things spoken to the whole communitie or to speciall persons 2. If Christ gave this power to the communitie was it from the beginning of the Church or tooke it effect after the Churches were planted and established by the Apostles Not the first for then the Apostles themselves should derive their power from the communitie and societie of the faithfull which they did not but from Christ immediately both in respect of gifts and graces their calling it selfe and the designation of their persons It is said the power of the keyes given to the Apostles was given to the Church In tuitu ejusdem tanquam finis totius And it is true the Apostles were given to the Church and the power they received was for the good of the whole but this is not enough That power may be said to be received immediately by the Church as the first
the Scripture willeth that one should admonish another it is not onely a command to every singular man towards his fellow but also to any whole company too another societie Bellarmine asketh quo jure unus populus Episcopum alterius populi elegere potest Junius answereth Certe charitatis jure communione sanctorum And Paul when he teacheth that all the faithfull are members of one mysticall body of Christ who ought to have a mutuall care one of another laid the foundation of this policie It is a blemish in the calling of a Minister if either the people be not fit to choose or being fit they be shut forth from the choice but this maime doth not make a nullitie in his calling for in every true Church where the word is preached and received and the Sacraments for substance rightly administred there is a true and lawfull Ministery and a true and lawfull calling of that Ministery though in some things defective In the Church of God all sound and saving truth is to be found for it is the pillar and ground of truth and where the true profession of all saving truth with the right use of the Sacraments for substance is to be found there is the Church which ordinarily cannot be had maintained and continued without a lawfull Ministery nor that without a calling The saving truth of God a lawfull Ministery are both essentiall to a true Church Something of this remaines in every compleat societie that hath any thing of the Church and for essence and substance they are true in every true lawfull compleat societie The profession of the truth may be true and sound in all necessary and fundamentall points though mixed with diverse errors and the Ministery for truth and substance lawfull though many wayes deficient In the true Church there is a true Ministery but the true Church hath continued there by the blessing of God where the election of Ministers hath been given away by the people or taken from them In the primitive Church when the people had a voyce in the choice of their Pastor oftentimes there were factions in the Church the people stood against their guides and challenged the whole power of election to themselves Sometimes they were divided among themselves Sometimes they gave away their power at least in part and sometimes Ministers were set over them without their councell and advice whose Ministery notwithstanding was not reputed voyde and of none effect If it be objected that many things were amisse in those primitive elections what will follow thence but that the Ministery may be lawfull and good where there be many wants in the manner of calling If this be not granted what shall be done when the people and their Elders be divided in the choice of a fit Officer If the people prevaile against their Elders he whom they choose is no Minister to them because not chosen by their suffrages if the Elders against the people he whom they approve is no Minister unto theirs because not chosen by their suffrage And so if there be dissention they must seperate from or excommunicate one another because he is no Minister to the one whom the others approve The Orthodox Pastors did professe so that the Donatists would returne to the true and Apostolicall doctrine they would not disallow their Bishops that they might understand that Catholiques did not detest Christian consecration as Augustine speakes by humane error The high Priesthood was bought and sold for money and sometimes made annuall and every yeare new high Priests created Sicut isti praefecti quos singulis annis promutant reges as Sol Jarchi saith That as every man would lay out more or lesse money he should get or lose the Priesthood which may be seene in the examples of Jason or Menelaus Neverthelesse so long as the Jewes continued the true Church of God the Priesthood was true also The reformed Churches who have seperated from the abhominations of Rome professe the first reformers among them received some ordinary calling in the Romane Synagogue They that thinke the basest of Rome will acknowledge Baptisme unduely administred by Priests or Jesuites to be for substance the holy Sacrament of Christ And if the Baptisme of God may be derived from the Ministery it is no absurditie to thinke that the first seekers of reformation derived authoritie from Christ to preach the Word and administer the Sacraments by them as Stewards used of God to set them in that office for the seekers of reformation derived their authoritie from God and that which is instituted by Christ is not made voyde by the corruptions of men The third and fourth consideration we will passe over because from what hath been spoken it is easie to understand in what sense they may be admitted and in what denyed and we have no desire to trouble you with the examination of that which falleth not into question As for the second branch of your Answer that in case the Church shall without cause or without sufficient weightie cause rashly or wilfully set him aside whom Christ hath set over them yet he still remaines a Minister of Christ untill he accepts of a call from another people in whose account notwithstanding such Depositions he hath true right of administring among that people We know not well your meaning if this be your minde that a Minister lawfully called and set over one Congregation is to be esteemed a Minister in the usuall Church as the particular Church hath unitie with and is part of the universall or Catholique and as a partie baptized is not baptized into that particular Congregation onely but into all Churches and that the Ministery is one Cujus à singulis in solidum pars tenetur as Cyprian speakes and therefore though the Minister be unjustly cast off by one Congregation yet he is not to be esteemed as no Minister we freely consent But if your meaning be that he is onely by right a Minister of that particular Congregation because unjustly deposed as formerly in the execution of his office he was a Minister to them onely and to none other societie whatsoever or in what respect soever your opinion is contrary to the judgement and practise of the universall Church and tendeth to destroy the unitie of the Church and that communion which the Churches of God may and ought to have one with another for if he be not a Minister in other Churches then are not the Churches of God one nor the Ministers one nor the flocke which they feed one nor the Communion one which they have each with other And if the Pastor derive all his authoritie to feede from the Church when the Church hath set him aside what right hath he to administer among that people If they erre in their deposition it is true they sinne against Christ But as they give right to an unworthy man to administer among them if they call him unjustly so they take