case estemed a prudent retraite to be in so me degree a victory But what shall we say of those who as you have done would neither resist nor fly What can we beleive of them but that they were resolved before hand to do what they did He that stayed at home to deny at last Iesus Christ said St. Cyprian (a) de Lapsis in the like case stayed of purpose to do so You will answer God forbid that you should have so wicked a thought We would have fled if we could All wayes of retraite were stopt and those that retired with pasports may speak at their ease what they please but for others the soldiers and Country were employed against them and double guards set at all places whereby they might escape the prisons are full of those they took either on the Frontiers or in seaport towns and terrible were the punishments inflicted on them every one is not Galy-proof nor can suffer the infection of a noisome Dungeon where those wretches dye a thousand times a day We must have done what we did sooner or later a few dayes make no great difference I confesse it is a sad case and if you had been detained in your flight it had made appear at least that you were willing to do your duty Then you might have alledged some specious excuse for your defence that you were Constrained and that there was no choice but of the Change of religion or a prison And as in the ancient Church they received with compassion the excuses of those who had suffered the extreamest pains for the profession of the truth who to obtain the peace of the Church used more their wounds then their tears and the marks of the tortures that tore their bodies than the voice of mourning as Cyprian said so likewyse we would have pitied your Chains and prisons But what right have you to speak of the Dangers of retreat who never tryed it You who never lost sight of your houses your excuse resembles that of the Loiturer who to have a pretence of his Lazyness said (b) Prov. 22. there is a lyon without You seek for a pretence of yeelding to the enemy Yousay the passages were stopt and a retraite was accompanied with a thousand dangers but why stayed you til the passages were stopt You had time enough to save your selves when they were all open Believe me Fear made the danger seem greater then it was You might perhaps have seen all the difficulties levelled before you if you had attempted to surmount them More then a hundred and fifty thousand of your brethren who escaped the vigilance of the Guards shew what you might have hoped for if you had had the courage to expose your bodyes for the safety of your souls The most of them that escaped retired since the Revocation of the Edict after they had beset all the frontier places with guards of souldiers Men women and children alone and in company disappointed the industry and diligence of those hunters of souls God wants not still his invisible thariots to save those that hope in him He can yet blind as he has often done those who oppose themselves to the retraite of his Children Let as then speak the truth that we may not disguise the cause of your defection The fear of men and love of the world have made you fall The dread of men has made you forget the fear of God You were affraid of the Dragoons these Missionaries of the red Dragon and the fear of falling into their hands made you forget that it was infinitely more terrible to fall into the hands of the Living God You remembred not that all the injuries of men can only afflict the body but that God can cast soul and body into Hell sire therefore he was more to be redoubted then men On the other hand your Goods stack to your heart (a) Cypr. de Laps The blinded love of thee good things of this world has deceived you and perhaps you were not in a condition to retire because you were chained by the affection you retained for your perishing riches so true is it that the heart cannot share the service of two Masters and that it is impossible at the same time to serve God and Mammon How unhappy is he who prefers the service of Mammon to that of God! What miserable gain is it to gain the whole world and to loose your own soul This love of your goods includes two things equally criminall Ingratitude and distrust First Ingratitude you received those benefits of the bounty of God and I do not beleive that in prostrating your selves before that Divinity made with mens hands which you have promised to adore you dare think that it is to it you are indebted for them It is God the living God not made with mens hands but by whom men are made who bounhfully bestowed them who preserved them by his Providence and encreased them by his blessing Has he given them preserved them and encreased them that you might love them more than him and prefer them as your occasion serves to his service Is this to give him the due acknowledgment of his goodness to choose rather to renounce his Covenant then the goods you received of him Has he been bountiful that you might be perfidious Can you do him a greater indignity then thus to set him at nought for the things that perish and to shew your selves more slaves to them than religious guardians of his truth Consult all ye Masters that can informe you of the nature of Ingratitude you will find it the blackest and most shamefull degree thereof to use benefits to the disservice of the Benefactor and to offend him by his own bounty This is that you have done to God you have abused his liberality to his dishonour If he had given you less to loose perhaps you would have served him more faithfully But because he made you live at ease and filled you with his treasure you could not resolve to quit for his sake that which you held of him Secondly You have discovered a shamefull distrust You were affraid you would never receive again what you had abandoned for his sake and forgat the (b) Mat. 19. promise he made to those who love him above all (c) Mark. 10. Luk. 18. to every one that hath forsaken houses or brethren or sisters or father or mother or wyfe or children or Lands for his names sake that they shal receive an hundred fold in this world and in the world to come everlasting life What think you Did you believe he was not true to his word or that he wanted power (a) 1 Ep. Ioh. 5. Have you made him a lyar by your misbelieif or (b) Psal 77. have you limited him by an injurious dustrust Did you think he was not able enough to remunerat you for that you were to sacrifice for his glory or that he was not rich enough
under the Law deserved death without mercy (a) Deut. 13.6 Come let us serve other Gods. Thus by an unparalelled conspiracy you quickly turn'd the Vineyard of the Lord into a desart and made slaves of Superstition a multitude of people whom Christ had set free (b) The preacht Gospel and all Church priviledges are the fruit of Christs Death and thus the unconverted enjoying these may be said to be set free by Christ from paganisime Idolatrq superstition many thus bought 2 Pet. 2. v. 1. and redeemed by him who are not redeemed from sin wrath judgement whatever they themselves imagine or others in charity may judge of them What was then the reason that induced you to this deplorable Apostasy Were you ignorant that God marked all your Steps and would one day bring you to an account Were you ignorant that he sent you this severe tryall that he might prove you and know the power of those bonds that engaged you to the profession of his service Were you ignorant of the indignity done to his Majesty in Choosing other Gods before his face Or lastly were you ignorant of the threatnings he has pronunced against those who are ashamed of his Covenant and prefer in his sight the Worship of a Lye to that of the Truth You might in some sort be excused (c) John 9.13 if you were blind as Christ said to the Jews of his time but you are instructed and enlightned and therefore (d) Ibid. your sin remains in its ful power and guilt For you have not so soon forgot your Conductors nor their instructions so frequently repeated after which you went home contented perswaded and convinced of the truths they taught you triumphing over the Disorder you oft observed the enemies of your faith were put unto How comes it now to pass that you have abandoned all on the sudden and cast off the profession of so strong and so evident truths Have you observed that your teachers concealed to you any part of the Counsell of God Have you perceived that they wrapt up themselves in Mysteries to Disguise the truth Can you convince them that they have falsified the word of God Your Consciences bear witness against you in their behalf and tell you notwithstanding the silence you impose on them that you have done violence to their dictates and that to suppress them you have abused your light and judgement But after all you were willing to perish and it had been taken for an injury to have saved you but did not the interest of your families touch your hearts tho you had lost your own Had you no pity on your Infants born and to be born whom you your selves to say so sacrificed to impiety It is not long since I saw you overcharged with grief when you thought of loosing them at the seventh year of their age You were alarmed and trembled when you saw that inhumane design executed on some of your children and families Your groans tears with your sad and compassionate behaviour did then manifest the grief you were possessed with ah whence comes the change I now observe in you Ye then feared they would force your children into the Roman Church but now you freely carry them there your selves Some would have thought it a remnant of Comfort that others had done it for them but you loved rather to sacrifice them of your own accord This is a kind of worship like unto that of Moloch where the parents themselves were obliged to throw their children into the burning arms of the Idol with their own hands and not to give the least token of compassion at their innocent Cryes They have required of you something like this and you have done it having willingly destroyed and murdered your own children you have sacrificed together with your selves those already born have made them loose the sanctity the Covenant conferred on them as being born in the Church of Christ You have robbed them of it before they came to age wherein without you they might have preserved it But to say more you have lost before hand those that are not yet born You have bereaved them of the life of their soul before they enjoyed that of the body and have been their Parricides before you were their fathers What account will you then give of your proceedings when he shall require of you these infants which he had given you Dare you Confess that you have encouraged them by your example and Counsell to disown him before men and that you caried them in your armes to lay them down at the feet of idols when because of their tender age they could not follow you or that you devoted them to Idolatry before they came into the world What will you answer to the secret reproaches of those little babes who will accuse you of their misery One day will they say we might have been born children of the Covenant of God in the profession of the truth more happy than those that are born to Kingdoms and Empires We might have been born into the hope of the Kingdom of Heaven if our fathers had not envyed us the honor of this happy birth We have not willingly engaged our selves in a sinfull communion If we had once tasted of the Truth we would never have quitted it for a lye if we had known the table of the Lord and the Heavenly bread that is there Distributed we would never have partaken of the table of Idols Our Fathers have betrayed us and our deplorable misery is the effect of their perfidiousness What will you then answer to them what Defence will you make to an accusation so well founded I do not believe that five or six months profession of Popery has so hardned you as not to perceive the truth of these complaints What excuse will you make Perhaps that some favour was shown you and that they did not require of you an abjuration of those truths you alwayes beleived as also that you managed the interest of your salvation so far as yow were able and that under hand you were dispensed with in those things your consciences did most stick at But can you say this with any colour of truth Did you so little examine the Formularies of Confession they made you read or the Generall clauses of submission to the Church of Rome that you subscribed as not to understand that they obliged you to approve all that the Church approves of and to condemn all that she condemnes and by consequence to embrace her errors and to practice the worship authorized by her Councils as also to renounce those truths your are convinced of because her Councils have condemned them How could you be catcht in such palpable snares when pretending to dispense with some things the more easily to dazle you they engaged you to the whole by a captious generality Moreover where learn'd you the use of those ensnaring accommodations Could you without doing despite to God
the Father and Protector of Truth yeeld any thing to its prejudice or compromise its rights under the good faith of its ennemies Truth suffers no shuring it is indivisible and where you consent to loose a part you loose the whole It has something in its nature so pure that it is violated when associated with the smallest errors The least mixture corrupts it and a corrupted truth is no longer Truth The Jealousie of God suffers no more a mixture of another Worship with his own than to preferr another to it For it is the propertie of true Religion to be inconsistent with any other Therefore by thinking to save a part under the pretence of the generall terms of your engagements you have abandoned the whole and after having submitted to so many errors you can no longer glory in the truth that remains it is too much altered to bear ever afterward the honour of that name But suppose it were not thus Did you hope they would let you enjoy the small remains of your old Religion while you were not thorow Papists They promised it you will say But could you beleive they would keep their word to you Had not you experience enough of the perfidiousness of your pretended converters to be assured you had nothing to hope for from their promise How often have they since the persecution began openly violated all the Laws Oaths and agreements that might give you the least occasion of confidence in them Are their new promises more solemn and sacred than the Edict of Nantes that you have seen revoked Or then the Edict of the Revocation it self in the last Article whereof they promised a forbearance to the rest of the Protestants on whom the very next day after they sent dragoons to quarter if once perfidious It suffices to be ever after suspected You should have been on your guard against the promises of your seducers whom so many fresh experiences had convinced you to be uncapable of observing them But you will reply that they have forced you to nothing since you subscribed It may be so yet this calm ought to be suspected it is a trick of the Devil to lull you a sleep by an appearance of rest A too great force had kept you awake tho it would have made you comply with what they pleased yet it might have rooted a deep and lasting resentment in the bottom of your hearts and have made you detest in secret that which they had wrested from you by force But however the Devil cannot long bely himself nor suffer long in peace those he intends to destroy tho at present a deceitfull peace be more advantagious to his designs And what needs he more now seing he has obtain'd of you the abjuration of the truth if it be not to secure you in this condition He cannot drive you into another that is more mortall His design is to accustome you to slavery and to render that worship familiar to you who at first so much abhorred it He would manage your Conscience so that the alarms of it may daylie diminish and the sentiment of your grief may be little and little abate He knows well that the Custome of that Communion will in time afford you a reason not to come out of it He knows well enough that repentance is made more difficult by a long contracted habit of doing evil and expects by this dangerous calm that many of you will arrive at the last period of life before you think of recovering your selves by repentance Will you say you were surprized and the storm reached you before you could forsee it Can you say so in Conscience How oft did I advertise you of the danger that threatned you both by word and writting Did I not publickly and privately together apart pursue you with Counsells and warnings I have wearied you with importunities and frequent repeatings of the same things which I inculcated in season and out of season present and absent every manner of way I thought capable of moveing you You received the same advices from a hundred other hands and therefore you cannot say without being convinced of the contrary that you did not expect it But Consider further how God hath dealt with you in respect of others You saw all the other Provinces of the Kingdom ransackt with violence before it approached you in your own Province error had conquered all the Towns before it attached you You saw therefore the storm arise at a distance You saw it advance towards you by remarkable Steps and break in on your neighbours before it made the least havock among you Was not this a timely advice for you to be on your guard and to prepare you selves for the fight or for a flight to take up the armes of God whereby you might have resisted the evill day or used those prudent precautions whereby you might have shunned that Apostasie into which you are fallen Was not this as a voice from Heaven to you to fly from the Storm and to secure your selves from the Inundation wherein you saw your brethren involved It may be the time was short and warning coming too late gave you not the leasure to take your measures But why so much ceremony to do your duty So many delays and precautions in stead of briske and couragious resolutions This was the first step of perfidiousness But with all you had weeks months and years to prepare your selves you had all occasions and conveniences desireable to have secured your safety Nothing was wanting to be faithfull but the courage of being so You will perhaps answer me that you were prepared for it and had taken good resolutions but that you were forced and that you were bereft of your judgment by the evils you suffered and your patience worn out by your Torments I wish to God it were true and that your Crime had not all the marks of a voluntary defection But what hurt received you Did they sett up Gibbets and breaking wheels in every corner of your streets Or saw you any tyed up that were resolved to persevere in their duty Or if this be too much were you dragged to prisons or to dark and noisome dungerous where many of your brethren in other parts of the Kingdom were shut up Were you beate wounded torn in peices or kept awake many nights and days together as so many others were You might have been pitied if you had fainted under those or such like torments St. Cyprian de lapsis says Those may only complain of torments who have lost their courage by suffering under them and those may use the excuse of pain who were vanquished by it But this Kind of Apologie doth no way belong to you who have suffered nothing Did they pillage or demolish your houses or quarter souldiers on you whose Barbarous insolencies you were not able to endure Have they reduced you to poverty by taxes and confiscations Display to us your miseries make
an open shew of your sufferings I cannot observe any foot step of violence done you either in your persons or families Your bodyes are sound and healthy You suffered no loss of your goods You are free men and your trade and commerce has suffered little alteration What then happened they threatned you with a few dragoons and presently you were struck dead with fear and all your good resolutions vanished into smoak But is simple fear a lawfull excuse for a crime which neither tortures themselves if we consider the merit of the cause nor the most cruell punishments can excuse According to the discipline of the first Christians one's defection from the faith thô torn in pieces with talions of Iron and bruised on the rack was esteemed an abominable erime The very spectators of so odious a weakness trembled and were affraid lest the dreadfull lightnings of the vengeance of God should surprise them They expected no less then Claps of thunder from heaven or that the earth should open its large abyss to punnish a miscreant Church where but one was found to deny Christ What would they have said or done if they had seen a whole Church yeeld to the first attackes of fear their bodies untouched and their strength entire Acknowledge ye therefore the truth and by a sincere Confession of the evil you have done give us some ground to hope of your repentance Confess you have fallen by a temptation that ought not to have shaken you It seems it was of you that a (a) Cypr. de Laps Holy Bishop of the third age spake there is so great a conformity between you and those whose defection he Laments You have betrayed your faith all on a sudden at the first threats of the ennemy you were not overthrown against your wills by the violence of the persecution but you overthrew your selves by a voluntary defection Does it not seem on your account that he addeth what follows They did not wait when they denied the truth till they were asked a reason of their faith or till they were apprehended and constrained to burn incense to Idols but were vanquished before the Combat overthrown before they were encounter'd they did not so much as reserve the excuse That violence was offered them They ran to the Palace or to the Idol Priests of their own accord and hasted to deliver themselves up to death as if it had been a thing they long desired and as if they had embraced an occason that they had long waited for Had the Gospell preached by Christ and his Apostles made so great a progress in the world if it had been received Only by those of your temper Had truth triumphed over error whose Empire was established by a long prescription of ages and mantained by all the powers on earth if it had not found more faithfull disciples then you Had Christ been received in the remotest parts of the world by a barbarous and savage people and adored by the Kings of the earth if the first guardians of his Truth had so ill perserved it as you have don He is not beholding to you that he has any faithfull servants yet remaining There would be none to Confesse his name if those who were threatned by the ennemy and exposed to his stratagems and power had not had more courage then you The Authors of the desolation of our Churches were ashamed of their own Persidy and cruelties and to colour the matter they boasted of the pretended conversions they procured which struck all Europe with amazement for they gave out that they forced no body that the people obeyed the first orders of their own accord and that they retnrned to the Religion of their ancestors at the first summons This is that they publish by their hired writters whose pens are sold to impudence and lying to disguise publick and notorious deeds Had they not reason thus to write if all your brethren had been as Cowardlie as you were Your example confirmes their excuses and makes an Apology for them In vaine have so many thousands saved themselves poor and naked thorow so many difficultes and snares in vaine have they filled all the Estates of Europ with their complaints and the account of their miseries your conduct has belyed so many thousand witnesses And if it praised be God it cannot suffice not to destroy their testimony yet it renders their complaints in some manner suspected of being too much aggravated who can beleive all they say tho many of them carry yet about them the Scars of their sufferings when they see a considerable Church thus overcome and yeeld without fighting But you may still reply That you were so much constrained that it appeared in your Countenance then when you signed the Abjuration You were pale and trembling as if you had been led to the slaughter and tho you spoke not against the compliance they required of you your looks groans and trouble of mind were a silent protestation against the force they used But these excuses convict you and give the greatest ground to condemne you When one has recourse to the deceit of a frivolous excuse it is almost as much as if he had committed the erime over again Can any thing more clearly convict you that you have sinned against your own Light then to confess that you feit in your Consciences so strong opposition or can you take that for an excuse that is the clearest indication of your weakness should I draw your Portraiture that which Dems of Alexandria made of some weak spirited Christians of his time is as proper as if it had been drawn for you Some said he were seen approaching the Altars pale and trembling as if they were not come to sacrifice to idols but to offer themselves for victimes and on this account the multitude of spectators disdained them as those who made it openly appear that they came neither to dy nor to sacrifice Do you not know yourselves by the draught of this Picture You had neither the courage to retaine the profession of your faith nor the resolution to renounce it neither hot nor cold in an occasion that required the one or other neither holy enough to prefer the glory of God above all nor cold enough to shew your indifferency then when you repudiated and put away the holy one Judge ye of the effects of this Lukewarmness and of what your pretended converters may think when they see you give so many publick marks of the basest weakness What should we have then done you will ask mee What side should we have taken in the extremity we were in You had two measures to take either to have resisted or to have fled if you had no courage to stand it out It is not given to all to be proof against tortures and to arrive at the highest degree of victory But a victory may be obtained by a retreat as well as by resisting Even thefirst ages tho severe in this
that Idol mistaken miscalled Satan serving God dishonouring self destroying SELF keeping still such Court in the heart tho in part renewed and having such power and credit with us while in this state may readily be Intertained and insinuat it self where it is least suspected in our professions religious perfirmances humiliations sufferings for and labours in the Gospel yea and with our Zeale unless we be very humble watchfull circumspect and that dead flie in the apotchecaries oyntment will make it stink what we do for self will not be reckoned as service done to Christ Matt. 16. v. 24. Gal. 6. v. 7 8. hence 9. Be much at home and at the work of self examination be not strangers where ye ought to converse most and with what ye should be best acquainted O Be diligent students in the book of your own hearts and Consciences search after and diligently examine What have been and are your works and way and whatever Business you may slight or neglect forget not seriously to try and examine whether ye be in the faith or not to Commune much with your own hearts bringing your hopes and expectations your profession and persuasion your works walk and way to the touchston of the sancturay the word of God. Psa 4. v. 4. Psal 77. v. 6. 2 Cor. 13. v. 5. 10. Be Nathaniels Christians Indeed abhorring Hypocrisie as the bane of the Cristian profession seek not a name but to get the new name Rev. 2. v. 17. and to have the name of God engraven on thy holy Conversation Rev. 3. v. 12. do not perform religious duties with sound of trumpet Mat. 6. v. 5 17 c. Say not pulchrum est digito monstrari ac dicier hic est Put not on more sail then ye have ballast and set not up a sign at the door for what is not within let not the wind of applause fill the sails if your Course be heaven ward the less dinne and noise ye make your profession will be judged the more fincere and since so many are ready to mock at Religion because of the Hypocrisy of some empty professors with what care should we abstain from all appearance therof that none have occasion to laugh at us for a piping voice affected tone a sullen and austere countenance Artificiall sighs and groans Oh that in such a day so many should desire rather to appear then be and rather to shine then have light O let your sincerity appeare as in your zeal for Gods worship and truth so in your upright and righteous dealing with men and in your civil courteous Kind carriage to wards them I would * Farevvell Serm. p. 157. saith Mr. Watson try a morall man by the duties of the first table and I would try a Professor by the duties of the second table O study to answer your relation and conscientiously to discharge your Relative duties these being the touchston of our sincerity who will account him an honest Christian who is not a good husband parent Child servant neighbour who is not upright in his dealing faithfull in his promises and sincere in his Professions O let none have occasion to say he met with a cheat while he had to do with one who had a name in the Church Joh. 1. v. 47. Rom. 2. v. 21 28 29. 1 Cor. 8. v. 5. hence 11. Beware of a haughty heart and supercilious carriage and doe not exercise thy self in great matters and in things too high for thee above thy reach and without thy Sphere Psa 131. v. 1 2. stretch not your self beyond your line and leap not over the hedge lest a serpent bite you zeale is precious it is a heavenly spark but fire not kept within the chimney may consume the house when we medle with things without our reach and play the Bishops as the word 1 Pet. 4. v. 15. importeth in another mans Diocess as we act without Gods warrant so without his blessing and may fear his hand Ah from whence doth all mischief and confusion Come but from mens pride driving them beyond their line and to act without their Sphere and O what a quiet world should we have †Christ arm part 2. Chap. 2. saith Mr. Gurnal if every thing and person knew and kept its own place and O if they and how many such are there who are guilty herein would ponder what he further writeth concerning such turbulent medlers what thou doest without a call cannot sayeth he be don in faith 2. when thou thus actest thou putest thy self out under Gods protection 3. thou canst have no comfort in suffering for what thou doest without thy Masters call and warrant 4. such as dare go without their Sphere know not by what spirit they are led it must be an erratique spirit that carrieth us out of our place 5. men would consider from what principle their irregular and eccentricall motions must flow viz. 1 Pride 2 discontent with their condition 3. unbelief supposing that God did stand in need of their sinfull and unruly motions to carry on his work 4. blind and misinformed zeale Ah if the eccentricall motions of the time were rightly analized I fear it might be found that much of that which is fathered upon faith and trusting in God and zeal for his glory would be resolved in unbelief impatience carnall policy and self ends 12. Prize and esteem persons and things according to their relation to Christ 1 Cor 2. v. 2. Coloss 3. v. 11. 1. as to persons love for Christ and with BVCER all in whom ye see any thing of Christ tho they be not of your persuasion as to matters controverted among the faithfull 1 Cor. 13 v. 2. and make conscience of these duties towards the Bretheren to which this love doth engage thee v. 4.5 art thou persecuted take heed thou doe not persecute and wound by thy tongue these who are persecuted for Christ Wo to them who add affliction to them who are afflicted for his name by their Censorious and uncharitable speeches and by a tongue set on fire of hell tho under a pretence of zeal for heaven 2. as to things prize his word and prize and own his truth while so many now are ashamed of him and it Buy his truth but sell it not ye know not its worth Prov. 23. v. 23. if ye sell ye will loose on the bargain and repent of your folly chuse suffering rather then sin and to endure hard things rather then to part with this precious pearle but tho ye should prize every truth and make Conscience of every duty on which ye see Christs signet yet Lay out your zeal mainly for what is of most concernment tho ye must not disown or deny any truth yet ye should mainly contend for the faith once delivered to the saints Jud. v. 3. and tho we must not abandon any duty yet we must not with Hypocriticall Pharisees prefer duties of less concernment Matt. 23. v. 23. Be not
Schismaticks have been very signall and remarkable as appeareth if we begin at the first noted Schismaticks Korah and his company and follow the History from the first Christian Churches to this day especially since the reformation happily begun by Zwinglius and Luther we may not stay on a Historicall account from Sleidens commentaries or Osiander his Ecclesiastical History but for a brief view of Gods judgments on such we now only referre to D. Hoornbeck his sum contravers P. 739. seqq M. Baily his disuasive from the errours of the time P. 13. seqque and his vindication of that disuasive P. 5. seqque And how zealous the truly zealous have been against Schism and division as being so pernicious to the Church and dishonourable to Christ might at large be made appear from their writtings But we may not stay on citations else whom could we passe over who have written on that head Yea thee brethren of the congregationall way tho they went too great a length towards separation yet pretend to joyn with us in our testimony against separation Firmin Burronghs Norton have written large treatises against it the five dissentig Bretheren in their Apologeticall narration speak to the same purpose nay so odious is that imputation that they who are most guilty are ashamed to be branded therewith and will be ready to cry out against it so that Schismaticks bear that black mark of obstinat Hereticks Tit. 3. v. 11. they are self-condemned But what judicious sober Christian will not joyn with that cloud of witnesses the Reverend * Ius Div. Minist Epist to the reader Ministers of the provinciall Assembly at London in their commendation of zealous Bucer While he protesteth that he would gladly purchase with the lose of his life the removing of the great scandall by the division of Christians and with Luther while in a good moode professing thrt he was as desirous to embrace peace and eoncord as he wat desirous to have the Lord Jesus propitious to him and with them while they joyn with the Bretheren of the conregationall way in new England protesting they can truly say that it is far from them so to attest the disciplin of Christ as to detest the disciples of Christ so to contend for the seamless coat of Christ as to crucifie the Living Members of Christ so to divide our selves about Church communion as through breaches to open a wide gape for a deludge of Anihichristian and Profan malignity to swallow up both Church and civil state Ah what tongue is able to express the mischiefe that hath come to the Church by firy contention and Division And who can produce so much as one Instance of any good that any where or any time came thereby So that we may well conclud that in a true †In vera reformata Ecclesia nullum malum est tantum ecclesiae tam perniciosum ac malum Schismatis vid. Aquin. loc citand reformed Church there is no evil so great and so Pernicious as the evil of Schism which alienats the hearts of Bretheren begetteth rancour and malice and often new errours and strange opinions more dangerous then what at first was complained of for schismaticks being sensible how odious their schism is must pretend some great matter and finding nothing that can be a just plea for their course they must start now questions not formerly moved pick new quarrells and if nothing can be found manifest truths must be called intolerable Errors Apostacy and defection must be objected tho the matter in controversy neither Concern faith nor holiness And thus obstructeth remedies and hopes both of union and reformation thence M. Norton thus pithily laments that evil Alas Alas saith he is there no medium bettween a BONIFACE and MORELLIVS betiveen papacy and Anarchy if there be a mystery of iniquitie in the one is there not an university of iniquity in the other Ah how sad is it to hear the magistrat as a faithfull nursing father upbraid the Ministers of Christ for betraying their trust in destroying the Church with their indiscreet debates and schismatick practises That while he laboured to increase and preserve it they sought to break it in pieces and ruin it thus the †The two Philips Father and Son having no time to do much service to the Church being so quickly cut off by Decius his conspiracy yet both are said not only to have embraced the faith but to have been martyrs for it uterque autem Decii opera interfectus est ob susceptum baptismum professionem Christiani nominis Carion Chron. lib. 3. first famous Christian Emperour Great Constantine challenged severall Bishops in his time while he writeth to these conveened in a Council at Tyre how is it (a) Nescio quid tot couventibus emolimini nisi ut veritas subruatur non advertitis quid domino placeat sed quomodo proximos opprimatis Barbari per me Christum colunt vos illius cultu neglecto contentionibus odiis deseruitis quae ad humanigeneris tendere videntur interitum Massaeus Chron. lib. 10. pag. 138. saith he that ye doe not inquire what is pleasing to God but study to oppress one another And what is the fruit of your debates The Barbarians by me have been brought to worship Christ and ye mak his worship to be neglected by your Contentions which tend to the destruction of mankind in another Epistle (b) Vestra discordia emergente Sacra Misteria contemnuntur c. ibidem pag. 135. he tells them how great his griefe was because of these and obtesteth them to pity him and to allow him some tranquillity of mind by seing them live as Brethren in unity upbraiding them with the Carriage of Philosophers as we may now our Bretheren with Papists among whom tho there be great diversity of opinions yet they conspired together for the profession and their own safety in the unity of one body But saith he by your discord the holy Mysteries are contemned the Church despised and the people rent asunder in factions and parties and with what indignation at the 1. generall Nicen council did he cast their defamatory libells into the fire As for primitive Christians they so abhorred schism that without scripture warrant as Jerome supposeth they set up a Bishop tho not a Lord prelat above his Bretheren to prevent and remedy it which afterwards was judged to be an improper remedy as often feeding rather then Curing that malady however thus their zeal against Schism was hereby manifested But let us add some few other testimones he who departeth said (c) Eunod apud Eprbes instruct Hist lib. 14. c. 1. Eunodius from the unity of the Church offereth a fat sacrifice to the Devil And saith (d) Apud Gratian. caus 24. quest 1. c. alienus Cyprian he Cannot have God to be his father who will not cleave to the Church as to his Mother and saith (e)