did but fast and pray more and read the Scriptures more than others he was reproached as a Heretick and favourer of the Priscillianists Martin Bishop of Turen was at that time a man of no great Learning but so famous for Holiness Charity and numerous miracles as the like is scarce written with credibility of any man since the Apostles for which he is canonized a Saint This Martin was grieved partly to hear strictness brought into reproach and partly to see Magistrates called to the suppression of heresies by the Bishops and so every heretick taught how to persecute and suppress the truth who could burget the Emperor on his side Therfore he petitioned the Emperour for mercy to the Priscillianists and told him that it was a thing not used by Christians to propagate sound doctrine or suppress mens errours by the sword He also avoided the Synods of the Bishops and refused not only their Councils but their Communion Whereupon the Bishops not only despise him as an unlearned man and one that deceived the people with false miracles but also suggested to the Emperour that he was a favourer of the hereticks himself Insomuch that Martin hardly escaped suffering with them through the Bishops calumnies But the great piety and clemency of the Emperour preserved him And at last did promise him the saving of the lives of some that were further appointed to suffer on condition that he himself would communicate with the Bishops Martin saw that there was no other means to save the life of one that else was presently tâ—odie and thinking that Christ who would have mercy and not sacrifice would in such a case allow it he promised to have Communion with the Bishops and so did communicate with them the next day and saved the mans life When he had done it he was in great doubt and perplexity about it whether he had done well or not and in this trouble went secretly out of the City homewards And by the way in a Wood as he was in heaviness and doubt an Angel appeared to him and rebuked and chastened him for communicating with them and bid him take warning by this lest the next time he hazarded his salvation it self by it And Martin professed that long after this the gift of miracles was denied him but he communicated with the Synod and Bishops no more This History I only recite without determining how far the Reader is to believe it But I must say that the reading of it was a temptation to me to doubt concerning my Communion the Reader may easily know with whom For though I know how credulous and fabulous many ancient Writers were yet I considered that thâ—s Historian is one of the most ancient one of the most learned one of the most strictly Religious of all the old Historians of the Church and that he was himself an intimate acquaintance of Martins and had it from his own mouth and most solemnly protesteth or sweareth that he feigneth nothing and that the miracles of Martin were known to him partly by his own sight partly by Martin's own Relation and partly by many credible witnesses And they were so believed commonly in that age by good men that it was the occasion of his Canonizing And if such History is not to be believed I will not mention the consequences that will hence follow And yet on the other side I considered First That it was possible that a holy man might be mistaken by fear and scrupulosity and take that for an Angels appaâ—ition which was but a dream Secondly That his avoiding Communion with the Bishops might be only a prudential act fitted to that time and place upon accidental or circumstantial reasons which will not suit with another time and place Thirdly It is dangerous making the actions of any men upon pretense of any Revelations and Miracles to be instead of Scripture the rule of our faith or duty much more to prefer them before the Scripture when there is a contrariety between them Fourthly And his separation was but temporary not from the Order nor from any of the other Pastors or from the people but only from those individual persons whom he supposed to be scandalous And these considerations I judge sufficient to resist that temptation Whoever understandeth what a man is and what a Christian is and what the office and work of a Pastor is will make no doubt but that his Guidance must be paternal and that as Love is the effect to be produced in the people so Love in him must be the means of causing it that he must expect that the success of his preaching discipline should not exceed the measure of Love which is manifested therin further thanas God may extraordinarily work beyond the aptitude of the means And when he hath complained of the people as sharply as he will he shall find that whatsoever it is that Love cannot do in order to their conversion and edification and which Light or evidence cannot do in order to their conviction is not by him to be done at all And if he will be trying with edge tools he may cut his own fingers sooner than cure an erring mind And shall find that the people will much worse endure acts of force and corporal penalty from a Pastor than from a Magistrate and will hardly believe by any cloathing that he is a sheep if they once perceive that he hath bloody teeth Our work is to win the heart to Christ And he is unfit to be a Pastor that knoweth not how hearts are to be won DIRECT XIII When you have thought of all the evils that will be uncured when Love and evidence have done their part yet reject not this way till you have found out a better which will do the work that is to be done and that with fewer inconveniences I Am not now about to state the bounds of Liberty in matters of Religion It requireth a full Treatise by it self and many tediously dispute the case before they ever truly stated it Much less am I perswading Magistrates that they must permit every deceiver to do his worst to draâ— the people from God or from Christ Iesus the Mediator from faithâ— and godliness any more than from Loyalty Peace and Honesty But I am speaking only against that partial factioâ—s needless dividing and pernicious violence which is pretended to be the chief if not the only cure of all the errours or disagreements in the Churches by those that know no part of Chyrurgery but amputation Some speak much of the many disorders which will be uncured if Violence do not more than Teaching and Love But I humbly ask of them First are those disorders such as are curable in this life or such as are the unavoidable miseries of our corrupt and imperfect state Secondly will force cure them better than evidence of truth and Love will do Thirdly will they be so cured without a greater mischief God telleth the Sabbath-breakers
these Additions to Christianity this proud Church-tyranny I doubt not is the great cause of Schism in the world And when I have had opportunity to write against it I have born my testimony against it as is yet legible But it is not that sort of men that I am here most to speak to but to them that profess to be more teachable and willing to know the truth 3. And yet I add though this Book be written principally to save the darker sort of honest Christians from the sin and misery of Church divisions I write it not principally for them to read For I know their prejudice weakness and incapacity after-mentioned But I write it to remember the Teachers of the Churches what principles they have to Preach and strengthen and what principles to confute and to destroy if ever they mean to save the people from this state of sin and the Churches from the sad effects And if Ministers neglect the faithful discharge of so great and necessary a duty let them remember that they were warned if they find themselves overwhelmed in the ruines II. The Reasons moving me to this work are these First It is my calling to help to save people from their sins and Church division is a heap of sins 2. The more I love them that I hope are tender Conscienced and dare not sin when they are convinced of it the more I am bound to endeavour their conviction remembring who hath said Thou shalt not hate thy Brother in thy heart thou shalt in any wise rebuke thy Neighbour and not suffer sin upon him Lev. 19. 17. 3. LOVE is not an appurtenance of my Religion but my Religion it self God is Love and he that dwelleth in Love dwelleth in God and God in him who can speak a higher word of any thing in all the world Love is the end of faith and faith is but the Bellows to kindle Love Love is the fulfilling of all the Law the end of the Gospel the nature and mark of Christs Disciples the divine nature the sum of holiness to the Lord the proper note by which to know what is the man and what his state and how far any of his other acts are acceptable unto God without which if we had all knowledge and belief all gifts of utterance and highest profession we were but as sounding Brass and as a tinkling Cymbal And if all our goods were given to the poor and our bodies to the fire it would profit nothing Love is our foretast of Heaven and the perfection of it is Heaven it self even the state and work of Angels and of Saints in glory And he that is angry with me for calling men to Love is angry for calling them to Holiness to God and Heaven Holiness which is against Love is a contradiction It is a deceitful Name which Satan putteth upon unholiness All Church principles which are against Universal Love are against God and Holiness and the Churches life And he that saith he loveth God and hateth his Brother is a Lyar. To be holy without Love is to see without light to live without life He that said The wisdom from above is first pure then peaceable gentle c. did no more dream of separating them then of dividing the head of a man from his heart to save his life Iam. 3. 17. Nor no more than he that said Follow Peace with all men and Holiness Heb. 1â— 14. No necessity can justifie such a division Holiness and Love to God are but two names for one thing Love to God and to man are like Soul and Body that are separated no way but by death Love and Peaceableness differ but as Reason and Reasoning Love may be without Passive Peace from others to us but never without Active Peace from us to others 4. I have had so great opportunity in my time to see the working of the mysterie of iniquity against Christian Love and to see in what manner Christs House and Kingdome is edified by divisions that if I be ignorant after such sad experience I must be utterly unexcusable and of a seared Conscience and a heart that seemeth hardened to perdition God knoweth how hardly sin is known in its secret root till men have tasted the bitterness of the fruit Therefore he hath permitted the two Extreams to shew themselves openly to the world in the effects And one must be noted and hated and avoided as well as the other I thought once that all that talk against Schism and Sects did but vent their malice against the best Christians under those names But since then I have seen what Love-killing principles have done I have long stood by while Churches have been divided and sub-divided one Congregation of the division labouring to make the other contemptible and odious and this called the Preaching of truth and the purer worshiping of God I have seen this grow up to the height of Ranters in horrid Blasphemies and then of Quakers in disdainful pride and surliness and into the way of Seekers that were to seek for a Ministry a Church a Scripture and consequently a Christ. I have many a time heard it break out into more horrid revilings of the best Ministry and Godliest people than ever I heard from the most malignant Drunkard I have lived to see it put to the Question in that which they called the little Parliament whether all the Ministers of the Parishes of England should be put down at once When Love was first killed in their own breasts by these same principles which I here detect I have seen how confidently the killing of the King the Rebellious demolishing of the Government of the Land the killing of many Thousands of their Brethren the turnings and overturnings of all kinds of Rule even that which they themselves set up have been committed and justified and prophanely fathered upon God These with much more such fruits of Love-killing principles and divisions I have seen And I have seen what fierce censorious proud unchristian tempers they have caused or signified In a word I have long seen that envious wisdom whatever it pretend is not from above but is earthly sensual and devilish and that where envy and strife is upon pretence of Religious precedency of wisdom there is confusion and every evil work Jam. 3. 15 16. And if after so long so sad so notorious experience you would have me still to be tender of the brood of Hell I mean these Loveâ—destroying wayes and to shew any countenance to that which really hath done all this you would have me as blind as the Sodâ—mites and as obdurate as Pharaoh and his Egyptians and utterly resolved never to learn the will of God or to regard either good or evil in the world 5. The same sins are continued in without repentance The same pride and ignorance is still keeping open our divisions And if after such warnings as the world scarce ever had the like we shall be still impenitent
if we shall sin our selves into suffering and sin in our suffering as we did before even the very same sin of Divisions which brought us to it how heinous is our Crime and how dreadful the Prognostick of our greater ruine And how guilty are those Ministers of the blood of Souls that will not tell men of the sin and danger 6. I know that Dividing Principles and Dispositions do tend directly to the ruine and damnation of those in whom they do prevail That which killeth Love killeth all grace and holiness and killeth Souls That which quencheth Love quencheth the Spirit a thousand fold more then the restraining of our gifts of utterance doth That which banisheth Love banisheth God That which is against Love is against the design of Christ in our Redemption and therefore may well be called Antichristian And if the Roman Kingdom for so it is rather to be called than a Church had not such Moral marks of Antichristianity which Dr. More hath notably opened in his Mysterie of iniquity If they were not the Engineers for the Division of the Christian world by a false Center and by impossible terms of Unity and by the engine of tearing dividing impositions If among them were not found the blood of the Saints and the Martyrs of Jesus I should in charity fear to suspect them of Antichristianity notwithstanding all the Prophetical passages which seem otherwise to point them out because I should still suspect my understanding of those Prophecies when the Law of Loving my neighbâ—ur as my self is plain to all They are dangerously mistaken that think that Satan hath but one way to mens damnation There are as many wayes to Hell as there be to the extinguishing of Love And all tendeth unto this whicâ— tendeth to hide or deny the Loveliness that is the Goodness of them whom I must Love much more that which representeth them as odious And there are many pretenses and wayes to make my Neighbour seem unlovely to me One doth it as effectually by unjust or unproved accusations of ungodliness or saying Their worship is Antichristian formal ridiculous vain as another doth by unjust and unproved accusations of Schism Disobedience or Sedition And they that love Godliness may be tempted to cast off their love of their Neighbours yea of the truly Godly when they once believe that they are ungodly And the white Devil is a Love-killer as well as the black He is 〈◊〉 mortal an enemy to Love who back biteth another and saith he is Prophane or he is an empty formalist or he is a lukewarm temporizing complying manpleaser as he that saith He is a pievish factious Hypocrite I am sure he was no Malignant nor intended to gird at Godliness nor to grieve good men who told us that it is Satans way to transform himself into an Angel of Light that is one that pretendeth to make higher motions for Light and for Religious strictness than Christ himself doth and that his Ministers are sent forth by him as Ministers of Righteousness 2 Cor. 11. 14 15 16. who will seem more Righteous than the Preachers of truth Satan will pretend to any sort of strictness by which he can but mortifie Love If you can devise any such strictness of opinions or exactness in Church orders or strictness in worship as will but help to kill mens love and set the Churches in divisions Satan will be your helper and will be the strictest and exactest of you all He will reprove Christ as a Sabbath breaker and as a gluttonous person and a Wine-bibber and a friend or Companion of Publicans and Sinners and as an enemy to Caesar too We are not altogether ignorant of his wiles as young unexperienced Christians are You think when a wâ—athful envious heat is kindled in you against men for their faulâ—â— that it is certainly a zeal of Gods exciting But mark whether it have not more wrathâ— than Love in it and whether it tend not more to disgrace your brother than to 〈◊〉 him or to make parties and divisions than to heal them If it be so if St. Iames be not deceived you are deceived as to the author of your zeal Iam. 3. 15. 16. and it hath a worse Original than you suspect It is one of the greatest reasons which maketh me hate Romish Church tyranny and Religious cruelties against dissenters because as they come from want of Love so I am sure that they â—end to destroy the Love of those on whom they are inflicted and to do more hurt to their Souls than to their Bodies The Devil is not so silly an Angler as to fish with the bare Hook nor such a Fool as when he would damn men to intreat them openly to be damned nor when he would kill mens Love to intreat them plainly not to Love but hate their neighbours But he doth it by making you believe that there is just and necessary cause for it and that it is your duty and that you should be lukewarm in the cause of God of truth of Godliness if you did not do it that so you may go on without scruple and do so again and not repent Even they that killed Christs Apostles did it as a duty and a part of the service of God Ioh. 16. 2. And Paul himself did once think verily that he ought to do many things which he did against the Name and Cause and Servants of Jesus Act. 26. 9. And as he did so he was done by and as he measured to others it was measured to him again For they that bound themselves in an Oath to kill him did deeply interesse God and Conscience in the cruelty But believe it it is Apostacy to fall from Love your souls dye when Love dyeth The opinions the Church Principles the sideings the Practises which destroy your love destroy your graces and your souls You dye while you have a name to live and think that you grow apace in Religion Therefore better understand the Tempter and when backbiters are deriding or vilifying your neighbours take it to signifie in plain English I pray you love not these men but hate them And I have told you in this Treatise that when one saith unjustly Kill them banish them and another saith Have no Communion with them it is too often the same inward affection which both express but in various wayes They are agreed in the assumption that their neighbour is unlovely And when Love is dead and yet Religion seemeth to survive and to be increased by it it is lamentable to think what a degenerate scandalous hypocritical Religion that will be and how odious and dishonourable to God To preach without Love and to hear without Love and to pray without Love and to communicate without Love to any that differ from your Sect O what a loathsome Sacrifice is it to the God of Love If we must leave our guift at the Altar till we are reconciled to one offended brother what a gift is
are but the effects of your prejudice passion or weakness of understanding 28. Do not too much reverence the revelations impulses or most confident opinions of any others upon the account of their sincerity or holiness but try all judiciously and soberly by the word of God 29. Take heed least the trouble of your own disquieted doubting minds do become a snare to draw you to some unâ—outh way of Cure and so make the fancy of some new opinion sect or practice to seem your remedy and give you ease and soperswade you that it is the certain truth 30 Keep in the rank of a humble disciple or Learner in Christs Church till you are fit and called to be Teachers your selves 31. Grow up in the great substantial practical truths and duties and grow downwards in the roots of a clearer belief of the Word of God and the life to come And neither begin too soon with doubtful opinions nor ever lay too much upon them 32. Lay not a greater stress upon your different words and manner of prayer than God hath laid And take heed of scorning reproaching or slighting the words and manner of other mens worship when it is such as God accepteth from the sincere Where the Case about forms of prayer is handled 33. When you are sure that other mens way of worship is sinful yet make it not any other or greater sin than indeed it is and speak not evil of so much in it as is good And slander not God as a hater or rejecter of all mens Services which are mixt with infirmities or as a partial hater of the infirmities of others and not yours 34. Think not that all is unlawfully obeyed which is unlawfully commanded 35. Think not that you are guilty of all the faults of other mens worship with whom you joyn no not of the Ministers or Congregations Nor that you are bound to seperate from all the worship which is faultily performed For then there must be no Church-Communion upon Earth Where is more about extemporary prayer and imposed forms 36. Yet know what Pastors and Church-Communion you may joyn with and what not And think not that I am perswading you to make no difference 37. In your judging of Discipline reformation and any means of the Churches good be sure your eye be upon the true End and upon the particular Rule and not on either of them alone Take not that for a means which is either contrary to the Word of God or is in â—ts nature destructive of the end 38. Neglect not any truth of God much less renounce it or deny it But yet do not take it for your duty to publish all which you judge to be truth nor a sin to silence many lesser truths when the Churches peace and welfare doth require it 39. Know which are the Great duties of a Christian life and wherein the nature of true Religion doth consist And then pretend not any lesser duty against these greater though the least when it is indeed a duty is not to be denyed or neglected 40. Labour for a sound judgement to know good from evil least you trouble your selves and others by mistakes Forsake not the guidance of a judicious Teacher nor the Company of the agreeing generality of the Godly 41. Let not the bare fervour of a Preacher or the loudness of his voice or affectionate utterance draw you too far to admire or follow him without a proportion of solid understanding and judiciousness 43. Your belief of the necessary Articles of faith must be made your own and not taken meerly on the Authority of any And in all points of belief or practice which are necessary to Salvation you must ever keep company with the Universal Church For it were not the Church if it erred in those And in matters of Peace and Concord the major vote must be your guide In matters of humane obedience your Governours must be your guides And in matters of high and difficult speculation the judgment of one man of extraordinary understanding is to be preferred before the Rulers and the major Vote 43. Reject not a good cause because it is owned by some bad men And own not a bad cause for the goodness of the Patrons of it Iudge not of the Cause by the persons when you should judg of the persons by the Cause 44. Yea take the bad examples of religious men to be one of your most perillous temptations And therefore labour to discover what are the special sins of professours in the age you live in that you may be specially fortified against them 45. Desire the highest degree of holiness and to be free from the Corruptions of the times But affect not to be odd and singular from ordinary Christians in lawful things 46. When you have to do only with stigmatized scandalous ones to vindicate the honour of Christianity from their Scandal go as far from them as lawfully you can But with the Common sort of Sinners whose Conversion you are bound to seek go not as far from them as you can but purposely study to come as near them as lawfully you may that you may have the better advantage to win them to the truth 47. Whenever you are avoiding any error forget not that there is a contrary extream to be avoided of which you are not our of danger 48. Think more and talk more of your faults and failings against others especially against Princes Magistrates and Pastors than of their faults and failings against you 49. Take notice of all the good in others which appeareth and talk rather of that behind their backs than of their faults 50. Study the duty of instructing and exhorting more than of reproof and finding fault 51. The more you suffer by Rulers or any mâ—n the more be watchful lest you be tempted to dishonour them or to withdraw or abate the Love which is their due 52. Make Conscience of heart-revenge and tongue-revenge as well as of hand-revenge 53. When you are exasperated by the hurt which you feel from Magistrates remember also the Good which the Church receiveth by them 54. Learn to suffer by good people and by Ministers and not only by ungodly people or by Magistrates 55. When you complain of violence and persecution in others take heed lest the same inward vice work in you by Church cruelties and dimning censures against them or others Persecution and separation often have the same Cause 56. Keep still in your eye the State of all Christs Churches upon earth that you may know what a people they are through the world whom Christ hath Communion with and may not ignorantly separate from almost all the Church of Christ while you think that you separate but from those about you Queres about separation 57. Yet ler not any here cheat you by the bare namees and titles of Unity to the papal usurping head of the Church nor must you dream of any Head and Center of Unity to the universal
Church be able to prove it hath worse crimes to nullisie it than any of these had For none of these were for these faults pronounced no Churches of Iesus Christ. Secondly observe that no one Member is in all these Scriptures or any other commanded 〈◊〉 come out and separate from any one of all these Churches as if their communion in worship were unlawful And therefore before you separate from any as judging communion with them unlawful be sure that you bring greater reasons for it than any of these recited were DIRECT VI. Understand well the different conditions and terms of Communion with the Church as invisible and as visible and the different priviledges of the Members that so you may not presume to impose any conditions which God hath not imposed nor yet to grudge at the reception of those that are not sanctified and sincere ALL Christians are agreed that it belongeth to God only to make the conditions of Church-communion and therefore it belongeth not to us to invent them nor to our wit to censure what God hath done but to search the Scripture till we find it out and then obey it This is the great controversie which hath troubled the Church When men know not who should be Members of the Church and who not and when they have no certain rule or character to know whom they must receive it is no wonder if confusion and contention be the complexion and practice of such Churches And here the Pastors have torn the Church by running into contrary extreams Some have thought that the Visible Church must be constituted only of such persons as satisfie the Pastors and the people of the truth of their sanctification by some special account of their conversion or the work of grace upon their hearts in a distincter manner than the ancient Church required of the baptized Wherein being agreed of no certain terms to know anothers sanctification by their Churches are diversified according to the measure of the strictness or largeness censoriousness or charity of the Pastors the people while one thinks that person to have true grace whom another thinks to have done And so they that will be most uncharitable do pretend to the reputation of being the most pure because they are most strict And multitudes are shut out whom Christ would have to be received his children are numbred with the dogs On the other side there is one or two of late among us who think that the Church is but Christs School where he teacheth the way to true Regeneration and not a Society of professed Regenerate ones or Saints And that all who own Christ as the Teacher of the Church and submit to the Government of the Pastors and are willing to learn how to be regenerate should be baptized though they profess not any special saving faith or repentance And their reasons are because first else all that doubt of their sincerity must lie or be kept out Secondly because that in the Church of the Jews the multitude were such as were openly ungodly And some of the Papists talk also at this rate though indeed they are themselves yet â—tterly unresolved in this point What Church soever is constituted according to either of these two opinions will not be constituted according to the mind of Christ But yet with this difference The first Opinion introduceth Church tyranny and injustice and is founded in the want of Christian charity and knowledge and tendeth to endless separations and confusions But the second opinion inferreth all these greater mischiefs First it confoundeth the Catechumens with the Christians and maketh all Christians who are but willing to learn to be Christians Secondly it maketh the Christian Church to consist of such as are no Christians As that person certainly is not who consenteth not that Christ be his Teacher Priest and King For to such a one he is no Christ seeing these are the essential parts of his Mediatory office And the new device of distinguishing Christs Apostolike and Mediatory offices so the Church congregate and the Church regenerate accordingly will not seem to difend this conceit For as Christ is not divided so his office for which he is called Christ is but One which entirely is called the office of a Saviour or Redeemer or Mediator which are all one And the essential parts of it are first his Priestly second Teaching and Ruling offices or works And this which is called his Apostleship is but the same which is called his Teaching or Prophetical Office and is a part of his Mediatory or saving Office And he is no Christian nor is that any Congregated Christian Church which professeth not to take Christ for his Mediator his Priest and King as well as for an Apostle a Prophet or Teacher Thirdly they therefore who hold the aforesaid doctrine do introduce a new sort of Christianity Fourthly and a new sort of Baptism which the Church of Christ never knew to this day And therefore they do ingenuously profess their dissent from our form or words in Baptism because we put the baptized to renounce the flesh the world and the devil and to use such covenanting words as must signifie special grace But through the great mercy of God Baptism is still the same thing in all the Christian Churches in the world the Reformed the Roman the Greek the Armenian yea and the Ethiopian too for all their seeming reiteration of it And Baptism among them all is the same now as it hath been in all Generations from Christs institution of it So that we fully maintain as well as the Romans that Christianity hath by this sacred Tradition been safely delivered down to us to this day What a Christian is and what Christianity is may be most certainly known by this which is commonly called our Christening In which the profession and covenant which maketh men Christians is so express and unchanged from age to age Therefore these men who would have our Baptism changed do speak plainly but impudently as if they were raised in the end of the world to reform the Baptism and Christianity of all ages and were not only wiser than the universal Church from Christ till now but also at last must make the Church another thing I intreat the Reader who would know the judgement of all antiquity about Baptism as supposing saving grace to read those numerous citations of Mr. Gataker in the Margin of his book against Davenant of Baptism Fifthly and by this new doctrine they destroy all that special Love which Church-members or visible Christians as such should bear to one another For if no faith or consent must necessarily be professed at Baptism but that which is common to the ungodly and children of the devil then all Church-members as only such must be taken to be but ungodly and no man must love a Church-member as such with a special love as a visible Saint but only as one of the hopefuller sort of the
unity undisturbed peace and unfeigned Love but the very infidels and ungodly round about them did reverence both them and their religion for it And where did you ever see Christians divided unpeaceable and bitter against each other but it made them and their profession a scorn to the unbelieving and ungodly world and whilst they despise and vilifie one another they teach the wicked to despise and vilifie them all Seventhly I may therefore add that the Unity of Believers is one of Gods appointed means for the conversion and salvation of unbelievers And their Divisions and discord are an ordinary means of hardening men in infidelity and wickedness and hindering their love and obedience to the truth As a well ordered Army or a City of uniform comely building is a pleasing and inviting sight to the beholders when a confused rout or a râ—inous heap doth breed abhorrence even so the very sight of the concordant societies of Christians is amiable and alluring to those without when their disagreements and separations make them seem odious and vile As a musical instrument in tune or a set of musick delight the hearer by the pleasing harmony when one or more instruments out of tune or used by a rude unskilful hand will weary out the patience of the hearer so is it in this case and the difference is much greater between concordant and disconcordant Christians Who loveth to thrust himself into a fray And what wise man had not rather partake of the friendly converse than joyn with drunken men that are fighting in the streets Peace and Concord are amiable even to nature And you can scarce take a more effectual means to win the world to the Love of Holiness than by shewing them that Holiness doth make you unfeigned and fervent in the Love of one another 1 Pet. 1. 22. Nor can you devise how to drive men more effectually from Christ and to damn their souls than to represent Christians to them like a company of mad men that are tearing out the throats of one another How can you think that the unbelievers and ungodly should think well of them that all speak so ill of one another When the Lutheran flyeth from the Calvinist and the Episcopal from the Puritan and the Protestant from the Anabaptist and the Presbyterian from the Independent and all the other side implacably fly from them Can you wonder if the Infidel and the Idolater fly further from you all Mark well the words of Christ in his prayer Ioh. 17. 20 21 22 23. For them which shall believe on me by their word that they all may be one as thou Father art in me and I in thee that they also may be one in us that the world may believe that thou hast sent me And the glory which thou gavest me I have given them that they may be one even as we are one I in them and thou in me that they may be made perfect in one and that the world may know that thou hast sent me and hast loved them as thou hast loved me All these observations are obvious in these words 1. That the unity of Christians must be universal even of all that believe the Gospel of Christ. 2. That this Union should have some low resemblance to the Union of the Father and the Son 3. That it is Christs great desire and intercession for his Followers that they may be one 4. That their glory is for their Unity 5. That their Unity is their perfection 6. That the Father and Son are the Head or Center of the Unity 7. That this Unity is the great means of converting the world to the Christian faith and convincing Infidels of the truth of Christ as sent by God Open but your eyes and you may see all these great doctrines in this Prayer of Christs for his people Unity O that all the Christian Churches would try this means for the worlds Conversion Not on the impossible terms of Popery but on the necessary terms proposed by Christ. 8. External Unity and peaceable Church-communion doth greatly cherish our Internal unity of Love And Church-divisions do cherish wrath and malice and all the works of the flesh described by Paul Gal. 5. 21 22 23. I pray you consider how he describeth the fleshly and the spiritual man v. 14 15. For all the Law is fulfilled in one word even in this Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thy self But if ye bite and devour one another take heed that ye be not consumed one of another I say then walk in the spirit and ye shall not fulfill the lusts of the flesh For the flesh lusteth against the spirit c. Now the works of the flesh are manifest adultery enmities or hatred variance emulations wrath strife seditions or as it may be read Divisions or factions heresies envyings murders c. But the fruit of the spirit is Love joy peace lâ—ng-suffering gentlenss goodness faith meekness temperance Against such there is no law And they that are Christs have crucified the flesh with the affections and lusts If we live in the spirit let us also walk in the spirit Let us not be desirous of vain-glory provoking one another envying one another Obj. O but those that I separate from are guilty of this and that and the other fault Answ. Chap 6. 1. Brethren if a man be overtaken in a fault ye which are spiritual restore such a one in the spirit of meekness considering thy self lest thou also be tempted Instead of censorious disdain and separation bear ye one anothers burthen and so fulfil the Law of Christ which you think you fulfil by your unwarrantable separations while you are but fulfilling your fleshly passions When once parties are engaged by their opinions in Anti-churches and fierce disputings the flesh and satan will be working in them against all that is holy sweet and safe When united Christians are provoking one another to Love and to good works and minding each other of their heavenly cohabitation and harmonious praise and are delighting God and man by the melody of their concord The contentious zealots in their separate Anti-churches are preaching down Love and preaching up hatred and making those that differ from them seem an odious people not to be communicated with by aggravating their different opinions or modes of worship till they seem to be no less than Heresie or Idolatry If many thousands yet living in England or Ireland had not heard this with their ears yet Iames may be believed Chap. 3. 1 c. My Brethren be not many Teaching-Masters for that is the word knowing that we shall receive the greater condemnation For in many things we offend all which he addeth because the arrogancy of Sectaries was caused by the aggravating of other mens offences If any man offend not in word the same is a perfect man that is If you will shew that you are perfecter better your selves than those whom you account so bad see that
Papist But if you ask why we separated from the Papal Church I answer Because first it was no Church of Christ as such And secondly It was a Church of traiterous combination against the prerogative of Christ and therefore by the Protestants called the Anti-christian Church We separated not from Rome either as the Universal Church for that it was not nor as part of the Universal Church for so we hold communion with those that are Christians in it still Nor as a true worshipping Congregation for they consist of many thousand congregations which we had never local communion with And as true worshipping congregations in specie we still hold communion with them in mind so far as they are such indeed But in two senses we separate from them First as a Papal Catholick Church because in that sense they are no Church of Christ but a pack of rebels Secondly as particular Congregations in specie which have mixed Gods worship with false doctrine and Idolatrous bread-worship and other unlawful things which by oaths and practise they would force those to be guilty of who will communicate with them And thus we disown them only as neighbour Churches that never were their lawful subjects but bear our testimony against their sin And our forefathers who were members of their Churches departed to save themselves from their iniquity and because they were refused by themselves unless they would lie forswear be idolaters and communicate with them in their sin Nor would they then nor will they to this day admit any into communion of their particular Churches as such who will not first come in to their pretended Universal Church which is no Church and worse than none If this answer seem not plain and full to you it is because you understand not Christian sense and reason DIRECT X. Expect not that any one lawfully received by Baptism into the Christian Church should be cast out of it or denied the priviledge of members but according to the rules of Christian discipline by the power of the Keyes that is for obstinate impenitency in a gross or scandalous sin which the person is proved to be guilty of and this after private and publick admonition and tender patient exhortation to Repentance HEre are two things which I desire you to observe First what is Christs appointed way for removing members from the Communion of the Church Secondly how great a sin it is to remove them by a contrary and arbitrary way of our own presumptuous invention First It is here supposed that the person is not a professed Apostate For there needeth no casting out of such He that turneth Turk or Heathen or openly renounceth Christianity or ceaseth the Profession of it doth go out of the Church himself and needeth not to be cast out Unless it be any Tyrant who will come to the Communion in scorn while he professeth but to shew his lawless will He that seeketh the Communion of the Church in sobriety thereby professeth himself a Christian. and for such as being Baptized continue this profession Christs way of rejecting them is plainly described in the Gospel Mat. 18. 15 16. If thy brother shall trespass against thee go and tell him his fault between thee and him alone If he shall hear thee thou hast gained thy brother But if he will not hear thee then take with thee one or two more that in the mouth of two or three witnesses every word may be established And if he shall neglect to hear them tell it to the Church But if he neglect to hear the Church let him be to thee as a Heathen man or a Publican Tit. 3. 10. A man that is an Heretick after the first and second admonition reject 1 Cor. 5. Ye are puffed up and have not rather mourned that he that hath done this deed might be taken away from among you For I verily as absent in body but present in spirit have jâ—dged already as though I were present concerning him that hath so done this deed in the name of our Lord Iesus Christ when ye are gathered together and my spirit with the power of our Lord Iesus Christ to deliver such a one to Satan V. 7. Purge out therefore the old leaven v. 11 12 13. With such a one no not to eat Do not ye judge them that are within Therefore pâ—â— away from among your selves that wicked person By all this it is plain that the Church must exercise a regular course of justice with every person that it shall reject He must first be told prâ—vately of his fault and then before two or three unless at least the open notoriety make the private admonition needless And then it must be told the Church And the Church must with compassion tenderness and patience and yet with the authority of the Lord Jesus and the powerful evidence of truth convince him and perswade him to repent And he must not be rejected till after all this he obstinately refuse to hear the Church that is to Repent as they exhort him Note here that no sin will warrant you to cast out the sinner unless it be seconded with Impenitency It is not simply as a drunkard or a fornicator or swearer that any one is to be rejected but as an impenitent drunkard or fornicator or swearer c. Also that it is not all impenitency that will warrant their rejection But only impenitency after the Churches admonition Note also that no private person may expect that any offender be cast out either because his sin is known to him or because he is commonly famed to be guilty till the thing be proved by sufficient witness Yea that the admonition given him must be proved as well as the fault which he committed Yea if all the town do know him to be guilty and witness prove that he hath been privately admonished he may not be rejected till he be heard speak for himself and till he refuse also the publike admonition This is Christs order whose wisdom and mercy and authority are such as may well cause us to take his way as best And yet the ignorance or rashness of many professors is such that they would have all this order of Christ overturned And some of them must have such a drunkard and such a swearer kept away and rejected before ever they admonished them or exhorted them to Repentance or prove that any one else hath done it much more before they have told the Church or proved that he hath neglected the Churches admonition And some go so much further that they must have all the Churches taken for no Churches till they have gathered them a new and must have all the Parish at once rejected till they have gathered out some few again without any such order of proceeding with them as Christ appointeth It may be a thousand shall be cast out at once when never a one of them was thus admonished Obj. They were never members of a true
Church and therefore need no casting out Ans. Were they never baptized or is not baptisme Christâ— appointed means of admission into his Church Obj. They were baptized in their Infancy and afterward bred up in ignorance and profaneness know not what their baptisme is nor ever soberlyâ—wned it Answ. Either they still profess themselves Christians and attend Gods ordinances with the Church or not If not then they are Apostates If they do then they do own their Baptismal Covenant by a continued profession If you accuse them of not understanding this profession or of living contrary to it you must proceed against them one by one as Christ appointeth and first admonish them and then tell the Church and not say they are ignorant and profane and expect upon your saying so they should all be unchurched Yeâ— if you prove them ignorant if they be willing to learn it is fitter presently to instruct them than to excommunicate them nor do you reade of any excommunicated for meer ignorance But we confess that in gross ignorance they may shew themselves uncapable of sacramental Communion and may be denied it while they are learning to know what they do But the mercy of God hath made points absolutely necessary so few that this may be done in a short time if the Persons be willing and the Teachers diligent and sufficiently numerous for that work And though it is to be lamented that in many great City-Parishes the Ministers are not enough to catechize the twentieth part of the people yet for the generality of Parishes through the Land if Catechizing were used as it might be there would not any great numbers be long kept away for meer ignorance And he that is the cause of his Parishes ignorance by neglecting Catechizing and personal conference then unchurcheth them for the ignorance which he is guilty of doth take but a preposterous course for his own account and comfort or for the peopleâ— good Obj But they refuse to learn or be instructed Ans. If that and their gross ignorance be proved together as you may delay them for the later so you may reject them for the former because it sheweth their impenitence But this must be proved of them and not affirmed without proof Obj. But their Baptisme made them members only of the Universal Church and not of any particular Church And therefore will not prove them such Answ. True But he that is a member of the Universal Church is fit to be received into a particular Church And there wanteth no more but mutual consent And if he have statedly joyned with a particular Church in ordinary communion Consent hath bin manifested and he is a member of that particular Church and must not be rejected by it but in Christs way And this is the common case in England The persons who were baptized in Infancy were at once received into the Universal Church and into some particular Church have held communion at age with both and have right to that communion till they are publikely proved to have lost their right And if we had no Churches but particular Churches were to be gathered anew yet he that is a baptized member of the Universal Church and consenteth to communion with that particular Church in all the ordinances of Christs appointment doth lay a sufficient claim to his admission and cannot lawfully be refused unless he stand justly censured by a Church which formerly he was in Yet this we confess that he can be no member of that particular Church who subjecteth not himself to the particular Pastors of it and to the necessary acts or parts of their Office and Ministration Because he denieth his own consent 11. The sinfulness of unchurching Persons or Parishes without Christs way of regular process consisteth in all these following parts 1. It is a casting off the Laws of the great Law-giver of the Church and so a contempt of his authority wisdome and goodness and a making of our selves greater or wiser or holâ—er than he 2. It is gross injustice to deprive men of so great Priviledges without any sufficient proof of their forfeiture It is worse than to turn whole Parishes out of their Houses and Possessions without any lawful process or proof upon rumours or private affirmations that they are Delinquents It is not doing as we would be done by what if any should say of you that you are Heretical and deny Fundamental Truths Or what if they should say of a separated Church that they are generally Hereticks or of wicked lives as the Heathens did of the ancient Christians and therefore that they are no Church nor to be communicated with would you not think that they should every one personally be accused and proof brought against them and that they should speak for themselves before they were thus condemned 3. And it is an aggravated Crime in them that so much cry down Church-tyranny in others to be thus notoriously guilty of it themselves what greater injustice and tyranny can there be than that all mens Christiâ—nity and Church-rights shall be judged Nâ—ll upon the censures and rumours of suspitious men without any just proof or lawful tryal That it shall be in the power of every one who hath but uncharitableness enough to think evil of his neighbours or to believe reports against their innocency to cast them out of the Family of God and to unchristen and unchurch men arbitrarily at their pleasure That any man that is but unconscionable enough to say They are all ignorant and prophane shall expect to have his neighbours excommunicated 4. It maketh all Churches to be lubricous and uncertain shadows when a censorious person may unchurch them at his pleasure What you say of others another may say of you and as justly expect to be believed 5. It unavoidably bringeth in uncurable divisions For there is no certain rule of justice with such persons and therefore they know not who are to be received to their Communion and who not And the same man that one thinketh is to be rejected and kept out another will think is to be received And who knoweth which of them is to be obeyed If one say that a Parish is a Church and another say that they are to be unchurched who knoweth which of them to believe 6. It is a reproach to the Church and Christian religion when we tell the world that that we have not so much justice and equity among us as Heathens have in their worldly societies 7. It depriveth the Church of the solace of her Communion when the best man is not sure but a censorious person may at his pleasure turn him out as unworthy 8. It greatly wrongeth Jesus Christ who so dearly loveth the weakest of his flock and hath purchased their priviledges at so dear a rate and whose body is maymed when any of his members are cut off and who taketh the wrong that is done them as done unto himself These are the great virtues
understand it with his reason and transcribe it with his hand and travel with his feet The Pastors only excommunicate by Judgement or Sentence and the people by obedient execution of it Obj. Who then shall cast out an Heretick or pernicious Pastor if he himself must be rejected Answ. 1. The Neighbour Pastors shall renounce Communion with him and reject him from their neighbour Communion And they shall warn that people to avoid him by virtue of the common relation which they have to the universal Church of Christ. 2. The people as Cyprian determineth are bound to forsake him not by an act of Government over him or themselves but by an act of obedience to God and of self-preservation As Souldiers must forsake a trayterous General or Seamen a perfidious or desperately unskilful Pilot that would cast them all away As the people did always choose their Pastors to Govern them so may they in such a case refuse them without usurping any Government themselves Well! Now let us see what influence this truth should have upon your Church-Communion Do you say that your neighbours are not to be accounted members of the Church nor to be communicated with Who took them into the Church by Baptism Was it not a Minister of Christ If you say no you must prove your accusation If you grant it was it not his Office so to do Hath not God made his Ministers Judges whom they are to baptize And afterward also whom to catechise and instruct and admit to the communion of the Church There is no doubt of it If then they are admitted by an entrusted Officer will you venture to usurp the place yea and to do them the wrong to say that they are no members Is it any of your trust or work I pray you mark what a mercy it is to you that the Officers and not the private members are entrusted with this work First if it were your work you must study and be able to perform it Secondly you must watch for it and constantly attend it If a Heretick pervert the Text of Scripture you must convince him by your skil in the Originals or in the sense How many hundred or thousand persons are there in a Parish to be tried The worst of them must have a hearing and just trial at least before you can refuse him lawfully And how accurately must this difficult work be done that the weakest be not denied his right nor the unfit admitted How long must a sinner be admonished and exhorted to repentance And are you able and willing to leave all your callings to do all this If the Minister that doth it must lay by the business of the world how think you that you can do the same without laying by your worldly business If he must have so many years learning and preparation can you do it without Mistake not it is not for Sermons only that Ministers need all their learning and labour but also for the discipline and guidance of the flocks Thirdly and if it be your work you must be accountable for it before God And do you not fear such a reckoning And if these busie people had their wish would they not be in a worse case than the most dumb and lazy Minister Consider it well and you will find that you are not at all bound to know what the spiritual state of any man is as he is to joyn in Church-communion with you but upon your Pastors trust and word Whether their understanding be sufficient at their admittance you are not any where called to try but the Pastor is And if he have admitted them you are to rest in his judgment unless you would undertake the office your selves whether their profession of faith and repentance be serious and credible you are not called to try and judge But if your Pastor have admitted them he hath numbred them with the visible Christians And it is the credibility of the Pastor that you have to consider and by him you must judge of the credibility of the professour and not immediately by your own trial Who are the persons that you shall meet at a Sacrament or in publike Communion you are not at all required to try And if you never saw them before or heard them speak you may perform your duty nevertheless Indeed if as a neighbour you are called to instruct or counsel or comfort them you must do it But there may be five thousand in one Church with you whose names or faces you are not bound to know but to rest in the knowledge of them to whom the keyes are committed who according to their office take them in Obj. But what if they are notoriously wicked Must I be blind Answ. No you must do your best by neighboâ—rly watchfulness and help though not by Pastoral Government to reform all about you whom you are able to do good to And if you know them to be so bad you must privately admonish them as is proved and then if they hear not tell the Church But if you see a man in the Church at the Sacrament or a thousand men who are unreformed and you know it not you have no reason to avoid the communion of such And if there be a thousand in the Church whose case you are strangers to thâ—s may be no sin of yours and should be no impediment of your communion Obj. But what if câ—rnâ—l negligâ—nt Ministers will let in 〈◊〉 into the Church by Baptism and give them the Lords Supper Shall it be thus in their power to corrupt the Church And must we joyn with them and take no care of it Answ. There is no person in any office or trust but may too easily abuse it And the more noble the work and trust is the greater is the siâ— and calamity of such abuse And no doubt but a bad unfaithful Minister is one of the greatest sinâ—ers on earth and one of the most pernicious plagâ—es to the Church Which could not be unless it were in his power to do very much hurt But it will not follow that therefore you must take his place and become the Church Governours or try all the peoples fitness your selves If a Judge be bad you may say what an intollerable thing is it that one man shall have power to give away mens estates and take away the livâ—s of the innocent and to acquit the guilty But for all that you must not mend it by stepping up into the judgement seat your self and saying that you or the rest of the people will do it better Some body must be trusted with it If you are fittest offer your self to the office The thing that you must do is to do your best to deliver the Church from so bad a Pastor Use all your wisdome and diligence to amend him And if you cannot do that use all your interest to get him out and get a better And if you cannot do that deliver your own soul from him by removing
the causes of happiness or misery And the reason of this is because Natural-free-will was part of the Natural-image of God on Adam and it is as natural to a man to be a free-agent as to be Reasonable And God will govern Man as Man agreeably to his nature Therefore do not wonder if Church priviledges are principally left to mens own wills or choice when their salvation is left to it Indeed God would not have any man admitted into the Church and to its communion in his own way and on his own terms The way and terms are of Christs appointment That they must Profess Faith and Repentance is his appointed condition that the Minister must be the publike judge of this profession and accordingly receive them â—olemnly by Baptism and that they must enter under the hand of the Key-bearers of the Church All this is of Christs institution But whether they will make this profession or not and whether they will make it in truth or in falshood and whether they will live according to it or play the hypocrites and live contrary to it These are at their own choice And good reason for the gain or less must be their own If any be in the Communion of the Church who either never made profession of Christianity or who is proved before them to have apostatized from that profession or to live impenitently in any gross sin after the Churches admonition it is the Pastors fault and yours if it be by the neglect of your duty But if any other be there it is their own fault and the loss and hurt must be their own If any one that professeth Christianity ignorantly unbelievingly and hypocritically be there or if they come to the Sacrament whilest they live in secret or open sin before they have been openly admonished by the Church it is their own sin and not you but they shall bear the blame God leaveth such matters to their own choice and as they choose they speed And for us to grudge at this order of God is but to quarrel at wisdome and goodness and to correct Gods order by our disorder The man that came in without a wedding garment is blamed and bound hand and foot and punished But the Minister that called him in and admitted him is not blamed because he did as he was bidden He went to the high-ways and hedges and compelled them by importunity to come in that the House might be filled Nor are any that came in with him blamed for having communion with such For they were in their places and did as they were exhorted to do And sâ—â—will it be in the case that is before us DIRECT XVI Though the profession of Christianity which entituleth men to Church-communion must be credible yet remember that there are divers Degrees of credibility and that every Profession which is not proved false is credible in such a degree as must be accepted by the Church PRofession of Christianity is every mans Church-title No man is to prove the sincerity of his own profession nor may the Church require such proof at his hands For how can a man prove to another the sincerity of his own heart But the fuller testimony he giveth of it the better it is And therefore none should refuse to make his own profession as fully credible to the Church as he is able noâ— is the Church to be blamed for enquiring after the fullest credibility so be it they do it but ad melius esse and not ad esse not laying his title upon it nor refusing him for want of it But every profession as such is credible in some degree which is not disproved Because men are under God the only competent judges of their own hearts And the belief of one another is the ground of humane converse And it is an injury to any man to account him a lyar without sufficient proof He that will disprove a mans profession must prove first that he doth not tolerably understand what he saith secondly or that he speaketh not seriously but in jest or not voluntarily but in hypocrisie by constraint or for some by end Thirdly or that he contradicteth his own words by some more credible words or deeds And if you never yet thus disproved mens profession of Christianity before the Pastors of the Church and yet cry out against the Pastors for admitting them you are not true Reformers but disorderly Mutineers and peevish censurers in the Church of Christ. Christs orders and mens right and all Church-justice must not be trodden down and sacrificed to your humour and arbitrary way DIRECT XVII Know how far either Grace or Gifts are necessary to a Minister that you may give both Grace and Gifts their due THere have been two great questions which long have troubled the Church whether we may take him for a true Minister of Christ that is ungodly And what measure of Gifts is necessary to the being of the Ministry I have carefully answered them both in my Disputation of Ordination long ago and shall now only say in brief First that no ungodly man is so called to the Ministry as to excuse himself before God for his usurpation and hypocritical administrations Secondly But many an ungodly man is so far called to the Ministry as that his adminâ—st at ons are all valid to the Church and the innocent people shall not have the loss Thirdly no people should choose and prefer such an ungodly Minister before a better Fourthly but they should rather submit to such than have none when a better cannot by them be had Iudas had a place in the Ministry with the Apostles Act. 1. 17. And his ministration might be valid to others though his hypocrisie might turn it into sin to himself And his ministry might have been accepted of the people though they had known his hypocrisie as Christ did But a sincere Apostle was to be preferred before him And for Gifts First the greatest degree is best and secondly God maketh so great use of them that many an hypocrite wiâ—h excellent gifts doth edifie the Church more than many good men that are ungifted Thirdly but that measure of Gifts only is necessary to the Being of a Minister without which the essential parts of his office cannot be performed Learn therefore to prefer them that have most grace and guifts but not to take them for no Ministers that want Grace totally or want only a greater degree of Gifts And marvel not that Gifts are more necessary to the validity of ministration than Grace is He may perform the office of a Minister to the benefit of the Church that hath no saving grace at all so did Iudas so did those in Math. 7. 21. that prophesied and cast out devils in Christs name to whom he will yet say Depart from me ye workers of iniquity I know you not For Grace is to save him that possesseth it But Gifts are to teach and profit others Yet Grace is an exceeding
furtherance of the right and successful use of gifts For ordinarily he that speaketh from the heart speaketh to the heart when an unexperienced hypocrite speaketh without life But sometimes a dulness and want of utterance in the sincere and a natural and affected servency in the hypocrite with a voluble tongue do obscure this difference and make the hypocrite the more profitable to the Church DIRECT XVIII Understand well the necessity of your Communion with all the Universal Church and wherein it consisteth and how far to be preferred before your Communion with any particular Church WIth the Vniversal Church mystical you must have communion by the same spirit the same regeneration the same Faith and Love and the same Laws of God and obedience thereto With the Universal Church visible you must have communion in the same Profession of faith and repentance and the same baptism and the same sort of ministry and publike worship so far as they are universally determined of by Christ. And though you are absent in body you must be as present in spirit by consent with all the Churches of Christ on earth You must have spiritual communion with the whole spiritual Church and visible communion in kind in the same Rule of faith and kind of workship with all the visible Church and Lâ—cal-presential communion with that particular Church where you are present and with any other where your presence afterwards may be needful unless they hinder you by unlawful terms So that it is not the same kind nor measure of Communion which you are obliged to hold with all But you must have Communion with all men as a man and with neighbours as a neighbour and with relations according to the relations civil or domestical and with all true Christians as a true Christian and with all professed Christians as a professed Christian and with the particular Church of which you are a part as a part of that Church And with your bosome Friends and intimate Companions as a Friend and Companion And yet in all this you must communicate with no Church or person in their sin it self and yet not refuse their Communion in good though mixt with sin You must own all the prayers of all the Churches in the world so far as they are good and joyn in spirit by consent as if you concurred with them in presence and made all their prayers to be your own As you do by the prayers of the Church where you are present If there be disorders or imperfections or sinful blemishes in their prayers you must disown all those faults but not therefore disown any part of all their prayers which are good but desire to have a part in them and desire the pardon of their failings And here you may perceive what a mischief pievish separation is on both sides It hindereth you from prâ—ying aright for others as the members should do for all the body And it hindereth you from partaking in the benefit of the prayers of most of the Church of God on earth Indeed God may hear those prayers for you which you your selves disown But whether this may be expected according to the ordinary course of his dealing is much to be doubted seeing he hath made every mans will or choice the ordinary condition of his participation of such benefits it is hard to conceive that he that abhorreth the prayers of other men or taketh them for such as God abhorreth or will not accept and in his mind disowneth all participation and communion in them should yet have a part against his will But of this more anon As your Baptism maketh you Members of the Universal Church in order of nature before you are members of a particular Church so your relation to the Universal Church is more noble more necessary and more durable than your relation to any particular Church It is more noble because the Society is more noble The whole is more excellent than a little part It is more necssary because you cannot be saved and be Christians without being members of the Universal Church But you may be Christians and be saved without being a member of any stated particular Church It is more durable because you can never separate from the Univeâ—sal Church or cease to be a member of it without being separated from Christ But divers occasions may warrant your removeall from a particular Church Live not therefore in those narrow and dangerous principles as if your Congregation or your party were all the Church of Christ or as if you had no Christian relation to any other Ministers or People nor owed any duty to them as Members of the same Body But remember that all Christians Persons and Congregations are but the Members of the Kingdom of Christ. DIRECT XIX Take heed of engaging your selves too far in any divided Sect or of espousing the interest of any party of Christians to the neglect or injury of the common interest of the Universal Church or cause of Christianity I Doubt not but among several ranks of Christians the soundest and most upright are to be best esteemed and caeteris paribus their Communion to be preferred before theirs that are more unsound and scandalous But it s one thing to prefer the eye or hand before the foot a noble member before a more ignoble and another thing to own a Sect as such or a party as they either divide from others or take up a dividing opposite interest You are sure that the Universal Church of Christ can never erre against the essentials of Christianity nor against any truth or duty necessary to their salvation For then the Church were no Church and then Christ were not its Head And then the body of Christ might perish And then Christ were not the Saviour of his body But you cannot say of any one part that you are sure that part shall never fall away and perish There may fall out a necessity which may warrant the Body to cut off a hand or leg to save the rest But no corporal necessity can warrant you to destroy the whole nor any one member to forsake the Body before it is forcibly cut off He that seeth not how the espousing of parties and divided interests doth corrupt most Christians in the world and lacerate and deface the Church of Christ doth not understand or not observe the condition of mankind It is somewhat rare to meet with any serious Christians who are not so deeply engaged into some Sect or Side or party as to darken their judgements and pervert their affections as to all the rest and to corrupt their converse in the world How blindly do such look on all that is good in those that differ from them How partially do they judge of the judgements and practises of others How small a thing will serve the turn to excuse the faults of any of their party And how small and common a good seemeth excellent in them And how perversly do they
to purchase them DIRECT XXXVII In your judging of Discipline Reformation and any means of the Churches good be sure your Eye be both upon the true End and upon the particular Rule and not on either of them alone Take not that for a means which is either contrary to the word of God or is in its nature destructive of the End THere are great miscarriages come for want of the true observation of this rule First If a thing seem to you very needful to a good end and yet the word be against it avoid it For God knoweth better than we what means is fittest and what he will bless As for instance some think that many self-devised ways of worship contrary to Col. 2. 21 23. would be very profitable to the Church And some think that striking with the sword as Peter did is the way to rescue Christ or the Gospel But both are bad because the Scripture is against them Secondly and if you think that the Scripture commandeth you this or that positive means if Nature and true Reason assure you that it is against the End and is like to do much more harm than good be assured that you mistake that Scripture For first God telleth us in general that the means as such are for the End and therefore are no means when they are against it The Ministery is for edification and not for destruction The Sabbath is for man and not man for the Sabbath Secondly God hath told us that no positive duty is a duty at all times To pray when I should be saving my neighbours life is a sin and not a duty though we are commanded to pray continually So is it to be preaching or hearing on the Lords day when I should be quenching a fire in the town or doing necessary works of mercy Wherefore the Disciples Sabbath-breaking was justified by Christ and he giveth us all a charge to learn what this meaneth I will have mercy and not sacrifice which must needs import I prefer mercy before sacrifice and would have no sacrifice which hindereth mercy Therefore if a Sermon were to be preached so unseasonably or in such unsuitable circumstances as that according to Gods ordinary way of working it were like to do more hurt than good it were no duty at that time Discipline is an Ordinance of Christ But if sound reason tell me that if I publickly call this man to Repentance or excommunicate him it is like to do much hurt to the Church and no good to him it would be at that time no duty but a sin As Physick must be forborn where the Disease will but be exasperated by it Therefore Christ boundeth our very preaching and reproof with a Shake off the dust off your feet as a testimony against them And give not that which is holy to dogs c. When treading under foot and turning again and rending us is lâ—kest to be the success the wisdome of Christ and not that of the flesh only requireth us to take it for no duty This is to be observed by them that think that Admonitions and excommunications and exclusion from the Sacrament must be used in all places and at all times alike without respect to the End come of it what will Or that will tempt God by presuming that he will certainly either bless or at least justifie their unseasonable and imprudent actions as if they were a duty at all times To be either against the Scripture or against the End is a certain proof that an action is no duty because no means DIRECT XXXVIII Neglect not any truth of God much less renounce it or deny it For lying and contempt of Sacred truth is always sinful But yet do not take it for your duty to publish all which you judge to be truth nor a sin to silence many lesser truths when the Churches peace and welfare doth require it TO speak or subscribe against any truth is not to be done on any pretense whatsoever For lying is a sin at all times But it is the opinion of injudicious furious spirits that no truth is to be silenced for peace Truth is not to be sold for carnal prosperity but it is to be forborn for spiritual advantage and true necessity First if the publishing of all truths were at all times a duty then all men live every moment in ten thousand sins of omission because there are more than so many truths which I am not publishing Nay which I never shall publish whilest I live Secondly Positives bind not always and to all times Thirdly while you are preaching that opinion which your zeal is so much for you are omitting far greater and more necessary Truths And is it not as great a sin to omit them as the lesser Fourthly Mercy is to be preferred before sacrifice What if the present uttering some truth would cost many thousand mens lives Were not that an untimely and unmerciful word And is it not as bad if but accidentally it tend to the ruine of the Church and the hurt of souls It were easie to instance in unseasonable and imprudent words of truth spoken to Princes which have raised persecutions of long continuance and ruined Churches silenced Ministers and caused the death of multitudes of men Fifthly And where is there any word of God which commandeth us to speak all that we know and which forbiddeth us to forbear the utterance of any one truth Sixthly And for the most part those men who are most pregnant and impatient of holding in their opinions on the pretense of the pretiousness of truth do but proudly esteem their own understandings precious and do vend some raw undigested notions vain janglings or errors under the name of that truth which must by no means be concealed though the vending of it tend to envy and strife and to confusion and every evil work When those that have the Truth indeed have more wisdome and goodness to know how to use it It is not Truth but Goodness which is the ultimate object of the soul. And God who is infinite Goodness it self hath revealed his Truths to the world to do men Good and not to hurt them And the Devil who is the Destroyer so he may but do men hurt will be content to make use even of Truth to do it Though usually he only pretendeth Truth to cover his lies And this angel of Light hath his ministers of Light and Righteousness who are known by their fruits whilest the pretenses of Light and Righteousness are used to Satans ends and not to Christs to hurt and destroy and to hinder Christs Kingdome and not to save and to do good As the Wolf is known by his bloody jaws even in his sheeps cloathing DIRECT XXXIX Know which are the great duties of a Christian life and wherein the nature of true Religion doth consist And then pretend not any lesser duty against those greater though the least when it is indeed a duty is not to
most after in many places for the meer affectionate manner of expression and lowdness of the Preachers voice How oft have I known the ablest Preachers undervalued and an ignorant man by crouds applauded when I that have been acquainted with the Preacher ab incunabulis have known him to be unable well to answer most questions in the common Catechism And I durst not tell them of his great insufficiency and ignorance for fear of hindering the success of his labours and being thought envious at other mens acceptance I have known poor tradesmens boys have a great mind of the Ministry and we that were the Ministers of the Countrey contributed to maintain them while they got some learning and knowledge But they had not patience to keep out of the Pulpit till they competently understood their business there And yet many of the religious people valued these as the only men And some of them shortly after turned to some whâ—msical Sect or other and contemned the Ministers that instructed and maintained them And all this while understood not half so much as many of our sober Auditors understood This prepareth the poor people to be hurried into any disorder or division when they no better know how to choose their Guides DIRECT XLII Your belief of the necessary Articles of Faith must be made your own and not taken meerly upon the Authority of any And in all points of Belief or Practice which are of necessity to Salvation you must ever keep company with the Universal Church for it were not the Church if it erred in these And in matters of peace and concord the greater part must be your guide In matters of humane obedience your Governours must be your Guides And in matters of high and difficult speculation the judgment of one man of extraordinary understanding and clearness is to be preferred before both the Rulers and the major Vote IN several sorts of Controversies and Cases you must prefer several sorts of Guides or Judges It is a grand pernicious Errour to think that the same mens judgments must be most followed in every Case And it is of grand importance to know how to value and vary our Guides as the Cases vary And for the most part every man is more to be regarded in his own way of study and profession than wiser men in other matters of other studies and professions As a Lawyer is to be valued in the Law more than the ablest and most illuminated Divine And a Philosopher in Philosophy and a Linguist in the Tongues and a Physician in Physick c. For instance First Suppose it were a Controversie whether Christ be God or whether there be a life to come or a resurrection c. Here no man must be Judge because if you are Christians indeed it is past controversie with you And you believe this upon the evidences of truth which have convinced you And herein the universal Church are your associates Secondly Suppose it be made a Controversie whether you shall use this Translation or version in publick or another or whether you shall meet at this hour or that at this place or that what words of prayer shall be used in publick what persons you shall communicate with in publick and what not c. In all such your lawful Pastors and Rulers are the Judges and their judgments must be preferred before more learned men that are not related to you Thirdly Suppose the question be among many associated Churches whether this Church or Pastor be to be disowned as Heretical or owned by the rest as orthodox Christians Here the judgement of the Pastors of those associated Churches in Councels is to be preferred as of the proper Judges Fourthly Suppose the question were among a free people that want a Pastor whether this man or that or the other being all sufficient shall be the Pastor of that Church Here the major Vote of the people of that Church should be preferred Fifthly Suppose the question be whether 1 Iohn 5. 7. e. g. be Canonical Scripture or the Doxology after the the Lords Prayer c. here a few learned Antiquaries are to be believed before a major Vote or Councel unskilled in those things who contradict them Sixthly Suppose the question were of the Object of predestination of the naturâ—â— of the wills liberty of the concourse of God and determining way of grace of the definition of justification faith c. Here a few well studied judicious Divines must be preferred before Authority and majority of Votes As one clear-sighted man seeth further and better than a thousand that have darker sight So that you must in such vary your guides according to their several capacities and the Case Obedience hearkneth most to Authority Unity and Concord must depend most on some majority of Votes Hard questions must be decided by the best studied Persons and the quickest clearest sights and not by bare Commands or Votes DIRECT XLIII Take heed lest you be tempted to reject a good Cause because it is owned by some bad persons or to like a bad cause when it is owned by men that are otherwise good And that you judge not of the faith and cause by the persons when you should judge of the persons â—ather by the faith and cause I Confess when we have no other reason to encline us to one opinion or to another but only the reputation of them that hold it caeteris paribus in matters of meer godliness the judgment of godly men is much to be preferred before theirs that are ungodly and they are much liker to be in the right But when God hath given us other means to know the truth we must impartially make use of them It too oft falleth out that honest people are like straying sheep If one leap over the hedge the rest will croud and strive to follow him And therefore errours are like Languages and Fashions that follow the Country where they are bred The religious people in Sweden and Denmark have one sort of errour In Holland and Helvetia perhaps they have another In France and Spain and Italy they have others In Greece and Armenia and Ethiopia they have others And it is an easie matter before we are aware to fall into the common epidemical disease and to think This is best because the best and strictest people are of this mind And indeed sin doth seldome get so great an advantage in the world as when it hath won the major vote among the most religious sort of people If but a Peter separate Barnabas and many more will follow And on the other side sometimes the worser sort of men may hold fast the truth and many ignorant persons are apt to reject it because it is owned by men so bad But if Truth be the Religion of their King and Countrey or of their Ancestors in which they were brought up or if their reputation or peace of conscience lie upon it or if the defence of it shew
oppression be made mad nor driven from your innocency DIRECT LV. When you complain of violence and persecution in others take heed lest you shew the same inward sin by Church-persecution and cruelty against them or any others BUt because I know that guilt causeth impatience and passion disposeth men to mistakes and false reports before I proceed I must here foretell you 1. That I mean not by Separatists all that are so called by interessed injudicious persons But those 1. that account true Churches of Christ to be no Churches 2. or that account it unlawful to hold Communion with those Churches whose communion is not unlawful because they are faulty or because they differ from them in some opinions or circumstances of worship 3. especially if they practise and perswade others to practise according to these two opinions of which the first is the higher sort of separation and the second the lover And secondly That by Church-dividers I mean both these and all such whose principles and practises are against that love of a Christian as a Christian and that forbearance of dissenters which should be exercised to all the members of Christ and who fly from the ancient simplicity and primitive terms of Church-communion and adde as the Papists do their own little novelties as necessary things And those that do causlesly separate from their own lawfully called Pastors For ubi Episcopus ibi Ecclesia where the true Pastor is there the Church is what ever place it be that they assemble in as Cyprien once said And lastly those that are of uncharitable humerous peevish contentious and fiery spirits and will stir up mâ—tinies and â—idings and causeless diviâ—ions in any Church where they come And truly they that think of the present state of Hartford and some other Churcheses in New England which I will not here make a Narrative of me thinks should fear Separations Schismes or Divisions from oâ— in the Churches called Independent as much as those of a different Discipline do as to theirs if not somewhat more on several accounts Thirdly And remember that I am not here speaking of any mens former faults by way of uncharitable bitterness insulting or reproach but verily brethren if we are not impartially willing to know the truth of eveâ—y side and of our own selves as well as otheâ—s we choose deceit and resist the light and provoke God to forsake our understandings Do we not yet know where Iudgment hath begun after such plagues and flames and Church convulsions And do we not yet know where Repentance must begin Enquire for good news whence you will I vvill enquire whether we are awakened to a true Repentance and by that I will fetch my prognosticks of our fâ—ture state Not whether you cry out against other mens sins but against your own and that particularly with all their aggravations and whether Professoâ—rs of Religiousness do as heartily lament their own notorious publick scandals as they expect that drunkards and fornicators and the friends of loosness should lament theirs Till we see this what promise have we of the pardon of our dreadful temporal penalties to say nothing of the greater Woe to the Land and People that can multiply sin and cannot Repent And wo to them that pretend Repentance and love to be flattered in their sin and cannot endure to be admonished but take all the discoveries of their sin to be injurious reproach among the prophane we take this to be a deadly sign of impenitency And is it so bad in them and good in us It is part of my office to cry with holy Bradford REPENT O ENGLAND and to say after Christ Except ye Repent ye shall all Perish And can I call men to Repent when I must not dare to tell them of what Nor to mention the sin which is most to be repented of I use all this preface because I know that Guilt and Impenitency are touchy and tender and galled and querulous and such will bestow the time in backbiting their Monitor which they should bestow in lamenting their sin But shall I therefore forbear and betray their souls and betray the Land through cowardly silence Must I shew that I haâ—e Professours by not admonishing them Lev. 19. 17. when I must shew that I love the looser sort by my sharp reproofs Must I not fear them that can kill the body and must I fear to displease a professed Christian by calling him to Repentance in a time of Judgments Lord hide not my own miscarriages from my â—ight and suffer me not to take any sin that I have committed to have been my innocency or duty lest I should dare to father sin on God and lest I should live and die without Repentance and lest I should be one that continueth judgments and danger to the Land stir up some faithful friend to tell me with convincing evidence where it is that I have miscarried that Contrition may prepare me for the peace of remission O save me from the plague of an impenitent heart that cannot endure to be told of sin from that ungodly folly which taketh the shame that Repentance casteth upon sin to be cast upon God and Religion which bind us to Repentance and Confession Nay in this place I am not mentioning things past so much to humble you as necessarily to inform you of the groundlesness of your present arguings that you may see the truth Fourthly Note also that I lay not any miscarriages on any whole parties Anabaptists or others For I have found that all parties of Christians indeed have some good experienced sober charitable persons and some self-conceited and contentious novices 1 Tim. 3. 6. But I speak only of the persons that were guilty and no more Fifthly Lastly remember that while I seem to compare the faults of one sort of persons with anothers it is none of my intent to equal them much less to equal the state of the several sorts of Offenders as to the rest of their lives But only to mention so much of the similitude as is nenessary to represent things truly and impartially to your view Read on now with these Memento's in your eye And if after so plain a premonition you will venture to charge me with that which I disclaim do it at your own peril I stand or fall to the judgment of God and look for a better reward than the hypocrites which is to have the good opinion of men be they professours of piety or profane And with me by Gods grace it shall hereafter be accounted a small thing to the hindering of my fidelity to Christ and mens souls to be judged of men 1 Cor. 4. 3. And if there should be any Pastors of the Churches who instead of concurring to heal the flocks of these dividing principles shall rather joyn with backbiters and encourage them in their misreports and slanders because it tendeth to the supposed interest of their party or themselves Let them prepare to
that he taketh them for no Churches and disowneth the administration of all the Ministers in the world whom you disown or yet that it is safe to separate where Christ doth not separate and to be gone from his Hoâ—se while he there abideth and to condemn those whom he condemneth not nor yet commandeth you to forsake or to condemn Obj. The Church of Christ is a little flock and not to be estimated by number And if he confine his grace to never so few I will confine my Communion to as few Answ. First Grace is not visible to you but the Profession of it only Therefore your Communion must be extended according to mens profession and not according to sincerity which you know not when the question is who hath grace and who hath not God hath not made you a heart searching Judge but hath made profession the sign which you must judge by And he that professeth Christianity professeth all that is of necessity to salvation Secondly If Christs flock was little when he spake those words it is much greater now And if it be little still as it is in comparison of the world of Heathens Infidels and Hypocrites will he give them thanks that will make it less yea a thousand times less than it is indeed Hath he so few and will you take from him almost all those few If you had but a hundred sheep when your neighbour had a thousand would you thank him that would rob you of all save one Thirdly So far as God hath revealed the fewness of the saved we reverence his Counsels and believe his word But if you will make it so much less a number while you falsifie Gods word you will tempt your selves at last not to bâ—lieve it because you have made it false and incredible by making it your own Brethren I beseech you be not angry with us while we pity you and would save your souls from your own snares and delâ—sions You know not how fast you are hastening to infidelity and to the renouncing of Christ himself you little suspect that your extraordinary strictness for the purity of the Church doth tend to your turning heathens and denying the whole Church But remember that the nature of God is so infiaitly Good as well as Iust and the Gospel is such glad tydings to all the world and Christ called the Saviour of the world and God is said so to love the world in giving him Joh. 3. 16. that if you should say God would save but one man in the world or ten or a thousand and damn all the rest if you did in your bravadâ— believe your selves this year by the next you might be like enough to believe that the Gospel is but a fable I have much adoe to forbear naming some high Professours known lately at Wâ—rcester Exeter and other parts who died Apostate-infidels deriding Christianity and the immortality of the soul who once were Separatists And I must profess to you that for my own part if I did believe that Christs Church were no more numerous than all the Separatists on earth it would make the work of faith more difficult For as he is no King that hath no Kingdom so he is next to no King whose Kingdom is next to none He that would prove that our King is only King of â—slington or Hackney and no more would by deriding him to day prepare for the deposing him to morrow They are glorious things that are spoken of the Kingdom of Christ even that the Kingdoms of the world are become his Kingdoms And if you will take from him all save two or three Cottages I mean the separated Churches only it is but a little addition to your treason to take the rest and to Crucifie Christ afresh and write over him in derâ—sion the title of a King You do not discern the design of Satan He that cannot entice an Apple from a Child if he can get him to let him eat all the rest till it come to a little of the Core will then easily get him to throw away that worthless relict If to day you will needs believe that Christ will reject all the world and all the Churches save only a few persons who have pride enough to condemn all the rest by to morrow or eâ—e loâ—g you are like enough to add one other degree to your derision and to deny him to be Christ. Obj. But we are more than were in the Ark of Noah Answ. First You never yet proved that all that were out of the Ark were damned and no more saved from Hell than were savedâ— from the Deluge Secondly If you had yet thâ—â— Scripture speaketh such great things of the Universal Gospel Church as that which maketh up 〈◊〉 former diminutions and losses and helpeth 〈…〉 against such difficulties DIRECT LVII Yet let not any here cheat you by overdoing nor meer names and titles of Unity deceive you instead of the thing it self Nor must you ever dream of any Head and Center of the Unity of the Catholick Church but Christ himself THere is no part of Religion which Satan doth not endeavour to destroy under pretense of promoting it And his way is to overgo Christ and his Apostles and to seem more zealouâ— than ever they were and to mend their work by doing it better or doing more Christ was not strict enough for the Pharisees in keeping the 〈◊〉 nor in his company nor in his diet Sataâ—â— hath always two ways to destroy both truth and duty The first is by direct opposing it But 〈◊〉 that will not do the next is by overdoing and pretending to defend it If he cannot destroy zeal by scorning it and quenching it he will try to do it by overheating and distempering it If he cannot destroy knowledge by the way of gross ignorance he will try to spin it out into the finer threds of vain and innumerable questions and speculations and to crumble it into such invisible atomes that it shall be reduced to scepticisme or nothing If he cannot destroy faith by open infidelity he will try to make men believe too much by making the objects of their own belief and calling that a particular faith altering God word and casting away the Reasons and evidences of faith to shew the strength and nobleness of their faith which needeth no such helps as these till by over-doing they have raised their edifice in the ayr and rejected their foundations and put out their eys in honour of the sun and of their Physician lest either of them should be accused as insufficient Even so when Satan findeth that he cannot directly destroy the Unity of the Church and bring division into credit he will be more zealous for unity than Christ himself He will then endure no disagreement among Christians no not in an opinion nor a form or ceremony not in meats or drinks or keeping of days or in judging of things lawful or unlawful which are not of necessity
good whilest they think that they only despise the praise or dispraise of men We are commanded not to please our selves but to please all men for their good to edification Rom. 15. 1 2 3. Our power over them is upon their minds and wills and not like Magistrates upon their bodies or estates Therefore when we have lost their hearts we have lost our power to do them good They will not easily hear him that is despised or abhorred by them Therefore a prudent care must be taken that we be not prodigal of our interest in them lest it prove to be cruelty to their souls Secondly And yet if we give up our selves to their conceits and humours and forsake the way of truth or peace to keep their favour it will prove the more dangerous extream I have before noted the peril of Ministers and the Church by this temptation The rawest and the rashest professours are commonly the most violent and censorious And so ready to scorn and vilifie the gravest wisest Pastors who cross their opinions that many honest Ministers have been overcome by the temptation to forsake their own judgement and to comply with the violent to escape their censures and contempt But this is not the way to the Churches peace It may prove a palliate cure for a time to put by at the present some sudden inconvenience But it prepareth for after troubles and confusions First it will make the rashest and indiscreetest people which is usually the women and young men to be the Governours of the Church Whilest all their Teachers must humour them lest they displease them Secondly When you have followed them a little way and think there to stop you must follow them still further and never can foresee the end For that weakness and passion of theirs which crieth up one errour to day is pregnant with innumerable more and may cry up more to morrow and so on And one errour commonly draweth on more and one miscarriage engageth them to another And the last are usually the worst And the same ends and reasons which made you go out of the way to please them will make you still follow them how far soever they go unless you repent Thirdly And if you repent and leave them it must cost you dearer than prevention would have done And you might have at much cheaper rates forsaken them just there where they forsook the way of truth and peace Fourthly And you will by following the conduct of giddiness and passion disâ—dvantage your Ministry as to all the less zealous and all the more sober and peaceable of the godly And you will bring your selves into contempt with these for your levity injudiciousness and instability And so you will lose much more than you will get Fifthly And in the mean time you will be made but the vulgars instrument to do hurt you will be used by them but to confirm themselves in their errours and to further dividing and unpeaceable designes-Sixthly And when all is done and your consciences are wounded and you are made the heads or leaders of factions at last those of themselves that God sheweth mercy to will see their errour and when they repent they will give you little thanks for your compliance A sinful humouring of rash professours is as great a temptation to godly Ministers as a sinful compliance with the Great ones of the world I mean it is a sin which our station and disposition afford us as great temptations to For though to a worldling wealth and honour be stronger temptations yet to a godly man the applause or censure of those whom we account most wise and godly may tempt much stronglier And alas how ordinarily doth the fire of Church and state which flameth about our own ears convince us of our errour in following those whom we should lead O how many doleful instances of it doth Church history afford us There are not many of the tumults that have cost the lives of thousands about Religion but were kindled by the young injudicious professours who drew in their Teachers to humour them in countenancing too much of their disorders Historians tell us that when King Francis of France had forbid the reproaching of the Papists way of worship and silenced the Ministers for not obeying him many of the hot brain'd people took up the way of provoking them by scornful pictures libels hanging up and down in the streets suchridiâ—ulous and reproachful rhimes and images But this which was none of the way of God began that persecution by provoking the King which cost many thousands if not hundred thousand lives before it ended And the Synod at Rochel which refused the grave counsel of Du Plessis Du Moulin and many such others was stirred up by the peoples zeal and ended in the blood of many score thousands and the ruine of the power of the Protestants in France Abundance of such sad instances might be given if England need to go any whether else for matter of warning than to it self He that after the experiences of this age will think it fit to follow the conduct of injudicious zealots is left as unexcusable as almost any man that never had a sight of hell The dreadful ruine of Ierusalem according to Christs prediction such as the world hath scarce seen besides was just in the like manner brought about by those furious ones whom Iosephus calleth the zealots But if you will do all things good and lawful to win men and offend them by no unnecessary thing and yet stand your ground and stir not an inch from truth or seberness piety or peace to please any people in the world This way shall do your work at last Men will at last perceive the worth of sober principles and wayes At least when Mountebanks have killed most of their patients the rest will repent and wish that tâ—ey had hearkened to the counsellers of peace They that run round when they find themselves giddy and ready to fall will lay hold upon somewhat which is firm and stable Compliance with one of the contentious parties may make you cried up by that party for a time But the contrary faction will as much cry you down and your estimation is but like an Almanack for a year And they themselves that needed your sinful help for some present job will be like enough ere long to cast you off as is aforesaid And if they do not you are objects of pity to sober standers by And in the next age the name of a Melancthon a Bucer a Bergiuâ— a Crocius an Vsher and other such Peace-makers will be pretious to posterity when the memory of fiery dividers will be dishonourable Keep your standing and stick closer to truth and justice and peace than to any party and resolvedly give up your selves to please God and you will be no loosers by it And its two to one but at last some of the contenders will desire you to be the arbitrators of
their controversies when they are weary of contending and will give you the honour of healing the wounds which their rash injudicious zeal hath made DIRECT XXI The Pastors who will preserve the peace of the people must not contend among themselves Especially they must take heed that they engage not in any needless enmity against any of those Divines who for their learning or piety are most highly reverenced in the Church FIrst When Pastors fall into parties they alwayes draw the people with them some will take one part and some another If the Officers divide the souldiers will certainly be divided And though one of the dividing parties may get the advantage of the sword and suppress the other they are nevertheless in the way to increase the schism while the people will think never the worse of the party which is afflicted and trodden down Schismes are most commonly begun or at least formed among the Pastors And among them the cure must be begun and principally performed And when the wound is made it must not be despised but the threatned issues must be foreseen and the necessity of a cure apprehended and scarce any pains or cost must be thought too great to quench the fire The proud and carnal person who thinks all is well if he can but secure his interest and by spurning at dissenters make them seem contemptible doth cast oil upon the flames and may himself feel the greatest heat at last And he that can stand by as unconcerned and deny his service to Love and Peace and to the wounded Church lest it cost him too dear may soon find that he hath lost even that which he hath thought to save O that the Peace-makers would cry aloud and sound the retreat to contending Pastors and O that God would rebuke that pride and carnality self-conceitedness and love of worldly things which will not suffer them yet to hear Secondly And especially when those that are most reverenced and valued by the zealousest Christians are envied or afflicted by the rest it ever tendeth to divisions in the Church For the sufferings of such will never abate their esteem with those who honour them And if fear should stop their mouths for a time the fire will still burn within and be too ready to break out into more open schisms when opportunity serveth them Yea the Churches of old have found great cause to be very tender how they used such reverenced valued Pastors though they should fall into any errour and sometimes to connive or bear with much lest they should occasion a far worse disease by the imprudent curing of a lesser And I dare be bold to proclaim to the contentious Pastors of all the Churches wheresoever that True Piety Love Humility and Prudence can happily heal a great many of dissentions which to the carnal uncharitable proud and imprudent seem uncurable and by their malignant-medicines are still exasperated aâ—d made worse But alas this quarrelsome distemper in Ministers hath had such pernicious effects upon the Church and is still going on to more confusion that it deserveth and calleth for our common lamentation And if we must lament it with despair as an uncurable disease I fear we must with equal despair lament the Churches ruines and the consumption of Religion For how can we expect that the people should hear if the Pastors be obdurate and remediless And who shall cure them if their Physicians themselves be they that do infect them I speak not against the necessary defence of Truth so be it that it be truth indeed which we defend and that the defence be indeed necessary and that the manner be suited to the end and to the nature and rule of Christianity But the itch which caused the Churches scab is of a different description For fiâ—st it proceedeth from a salt acrimoniâ—us humour in the blood Not that there is no blood in our veins which hath better principles and qualities But alas it is tainted with this câ—rroding salt which hath bred our leprosie As if Christ had made us the salt of the earth not to preserve the world from putresaction but to bite and fret all that we have any thing to do with yea and those that we have nothing to do with and by the salt Caâ—aâ—â—hs of our back-bitings and peevish censures and reproaches to bring the Church of Christ into a consumption There is in many of us a love and zeal for Truth in the general and no wonder if we are but men But when we meet it we know it not but â—evile it and scratch it by the face As the Jews did long for the coming of the Messiah but when he came they knew him not but crucified him as a deceiver and blasphemer their prejudice fixing them in the dungeon of unbelief Mal. 3. 1 2 3. The Lord whom ye seek shall suddenly come to his Temple â—ven the Messenger of the Covenant whom ye delight in But who may abide the day of his coming and who shall stand when he appeareth For he is like a refiners fire and like fullers sope and he shall sit as a refiner and purifier of silver and he shall purifie the sons of Levi What abundance of the zealous â—â—nourers of Tristh are daily employed in revising and contradicting it As they do by Peace even prosecute it to the death by the most perverse oppositions and unpeaceable principles and practises while they cry up nothing more than Peace And do they deal any better by Holiness it self He that is for a Holiness which consisteth not in Love to God and man to God for himself and to Man for his sake is like the Heathens who are zealous for a God but he must be made of something unlikest to him that is God indeed Or like the Mahometans who are zealous Musselmans or believers but it is in the most gross deceiver And he that will promote Love by snaâ—ling and barking at all that are strangers to him and not of his own house shall at last partake of the fruits of such Love as he promoted And he may as wisely hope at last to bring the Church to Peace also by werrying it by splenetick censures and divisions in despight of the experience of our present age and of all the world What ever is done against LOVE is done against Holiness and against God and against the Life of the Church And therefore if any Love-killer do call himself a servant of Christ and a friend to Holiness or to the Church he must first prove that murdering it is an act of friendship and a service acceptable to Christ One would think by their practise that some men took Abrahams trial for their Law and accounted it the work of justifying faith to kill the Church and offer it up in sacrifice to Christ But before they bring us to believe that such a sacrifice is acceptable to him who offered himself a sacrifice for the Church and who calleth for a
living acceptable sacrifice Rom. 12. 1. They have need to make a better proof of their authority than Kelley did of his Revelation when he brought Doctor Dee to consent to adultery by the same pretended warrant God who is Love accepteth not such a sacrifice at the hands of Love-killers and Church-destroyers But especially when besides this acrimony of mind there shall other more pernicious diseases be contracted and foment these censures reproaches of their brethren the malignity of the disease is a sad prognostick Two such causes of it Paul layeth open one Act. 20. 30. the other Rom. 16. 17 18. One is the devilish sin of pride and a desire to have many disciples to be our applauders They shal speak perverse things to draw awaydisciples after them The other selfishness carnality and coveteousness They serve not the Lord Iesus but their own bellies And so 2 Pet. 2. 3. Through Coveteousness they shall with feigned words make Merchandise of you They buy and sell mens souls for gain These are Gainsayers in a double sense Their craft bringeth them in no small gain and lest it should be set at nought for gain they do gain-say the truth and raise up tumults against the best of the servants of Christ as Act. 19. 24 27. It is for gain and worldly glory that they say what they say against those that are wiser and sincerer than themselves The sum of all this and most that followeth is in 1 Tim. 6. 3 4 5. If any man teach otherwise and consent not to the wholesome words the words of our Lord Iesus Christ mark it is not to the words of any new faith-makers devâ—sing and to the doctrine which is according to Godliness he is proud though he may cry down pride knowing nothing though he may cry down ignorance but doting about questions though he may seem to be wise and of high attainments and strifes of words while he seemeth to plead for the life of Religion whereof cometh envy strife railings evil surmisings while they pretend to no less necessary a work than the saving of Truth and the peoples souls Perverse disputings of men of corrupt minds the impatient scratchings of those whose corrupt blood must needs have vent and therefore causeth this itch of quarrelling and destitute of the truth whilest they think they are saving the life of truth supposing that gain is godliness being so blinded by the love of gain that they make themselves believe that is the cause of truth and Godliness which maketh for their gain and that the raising of them is the raising of the Church and that all tendeth to the interest of religion which tendeth to make them great and rich From such turn away that is own them not in hypocritical wranglings but turn your backs upon them as men unworthy to be disputed with in their way Answer not the fool according to his folly i. e. word it not with him in his foolish way lest you make him think himself worthy to be disputed with Talk not with him at his rates And yet answer him according to his folly by such conviction and rebukes as is meet for fooles and as may make him understand his folly lest he be wise in his own eyes and think that none can stand before him Secondly And it is commonly the most ignorant sort of Ministers who are the liberallest of their supercilious contempt of those whose understandings and worth are above their censures If a controversie be started which they either never studied or have only turned over the pages of a few books to number the sheets and never spent one year in the deep and serious search of the truth which is in question Or if they have clumsie wits that cannot feel so fine a thred nor are capable of mastering the difficulties None then are usually so ready to shoot their bolt and pass a Magisterial sentence and gravely and ignorantly tell the ignorant what eâ—rours such or such a one maintaineth as these that talk of that which they never understood For as I have known many unlearned sots that had no artifice to keep up the reputation of their learning than in all companies to cry down such and such who were wiser than themselves for no schollars but unlearned men so many that are or should be conscious of the dulness and ignorance of their fumbling and unfurnished brains have no way to keep up the reputation of their wisedome with their simple followers but to tell them O such a one hath dangerous errours and such a book is a dangerous book and they hold this and they hold that and so to make odious the opinions or practises of others which they understand not And this doth their business with these silly soals who hear not what can be said against them as well as if they were the words of truth and soberness As for the younger and emptier sort of Ministers it is no wonder if they understand not that which they had never opportunity to study or have taken but a superficial taste of But it were to be wished that they were so humble as to confess that they are yet but beardless and that time and long study is needful to make them as wise as those who with equal wit and grace have had many more years of serious study and greater opportunities to know the truth and that they have not their wisdome by special inspiration or revelation nor so far excel the rest of mankind in a miraculous wit as to know that by a few years lazy study which others know not by the laborious humble fearâ—hâ—s of a far longer time One would think that a little humility 〈…〉 the turn for thus much But it ignorance get possâ—ssion of the ancient and 〈◊〉 headed it triumpheth then and desiâ—◠〈…〉 and saith Give me a man that 〈…〉 with him Or rather Away with 〈…〉 is not worthy to be disputed 〈…〉 groweth not with years 〈…〉 wit may be poaring forty or fifty 〈…〉 that which another may sooner understand Much time and study is necessary to great wisedome But much time and study may consist with very mean attainments and doth not alwayes reach the wisedome which is sought And in such a case the ancient and grey-headed think that veneration is their due and that if they gravely sentence such or such to be erroneous they are injured if they are not believed They have not wisdome enough to make their age honourable and therefore they expect that their age should make their wisdome honourable Thirdly and because they are not able to endure the light nor to stand before the power of open truth they find it necessary to do almost all their work by back-biting When they are out of the hearing of those whom they back-bite among such as are as little sensible of this hateful sin as they then they have this man and that man this party and that party to reproach Fourthly And as Mr. Robert
Bolton well noteth to hide the malignity of their sin and to cheat the hearers and their own consciences they will first seem to praise him and to confess that he is in other respects a very worthy a learned or a pious man and then bring in their back-biting with a but. And that which must sanctifie all this sin and turns it into a work of zeal is the seeming interest of God and of religion They do all out of a zeal of God I cannot say A zeal for God though it be not according to knowledge If it was an untruth which they spake it was for religion If they did back-bite it was to preserve the hearers from errour and danger If they reviled that which they never understood it was to keep the Church from the infection If they tear the Church and use their reputation to murder Love and to make others odious who are wiser than they all this is but for the defence of truth And if it be non-sense or envy which they vent they never repent of it that 's the mischief because they think that the Lord and the Church and the hearers have need of it And so all those Texts are to them Apocripha which condemn their sin Psal. 15. 3. 2 Cor. 12. 20. Rom. 1. 30. Prov. 25. 23. And sin is so be friended in mans corrupted nature that they meet but with few angry countenances to drive away such reverend back-biting tongues Nay that they may abuse Gods word and name against God to the devils service they arm themselves as the Tempter did Math. 4. with Gods authority and scripture and will charge those with sin who would reprove their sin and bring them to repentance And as Master Herbert noteth how the Pope under the reverend garb of Christs Vicar doth do the like things to the suppressing of the Church and Truth as Turks and Heathens do under the name of open enemies so these men find that the names of Ministers and Christians with the words of God abused are among the well-meaning a more effectual means to do that work which God abhorreth I have long used to resist this sin of back-biting and not to justifie the faults of any but to convince the back-biter of his sin And I seldome do it but they report of me that I am a defender of such and such corruptions One backbiteth men as Prelatists and formalists another the Presbyterians another the Independents and another the Anabaptists and say such a one is of such a sect and ever with epithetes of reproach And when I tell them that the way to do them good is to convince them of their errour to their faces and not to talk of them behind their backs they report me presently to be a patron of the sect because I was a reprover of their unchristian vice And many of them having not so far digested their Religion as to see the evidences of it in themselves are fain to take it upon trust from others And they choose that party to cast this great trust upon which they think to be most venerable The Papist chooseth for number and worldly pomp and order The carnal self-seeker chooseth the party which may most further his preferment and honour in the world The honester sectaries do choose the party which seemeth to them to be the most illuminated or most strict And some have the wit to look most at those that set as many of these together as may be hoped for But among whomsoever they cast their lot their way to preserve the reputation of Orthodoxness and the peace of that conscience which made the choice is to be liberal in reproaching those that differ in any thing from the sect which they have chosen For how much of the Christian world is now in sects is a thing which requireth more lamentation than proof As the Dominicans when they have written far much more than Calvin about predetermination they have no way to keep their honour with their sect the Papists but to rail at the Calvinists and belye them and charge them with that which they abhor that so they may seem sufficiently to differ from them But the greatest reason of this contentious back-biting quarrelling humour is Ignorance it self which will not give them leave so much as to see the difficulty of the points which they oppose much less the truth of that which they have not been used to The way which is spoken against they think they may also boldly speak against And hypocrisie though mixed with sincerity hath too great a hand in this with many The less men are taken up in that true religion which consisteth in Heaâ—en-work and Heart-work in the Love of God and man and the mortification of their selfishness and pride the more they are addicted to make it up with a contentious zeal for their several wayes opinions and modes of worship that they may not seen to be cold or neutral in religion They never understood the third Chapter of Iâ—mes nor many other such texts of scripture O that the Ministers of Christ were once sensible not here only but through all the Christian world what a plague the conjunction of their ignorance and contensiousness and their dividing selfish zeal hath been to the Churches of Christ And what they have done against the souls of men by violence and by heading parties and by laying Heaven and Hell upon the opinions which they never understood and by departing from the primitive simplicity and charity And how odious a practise it is of ignorant Ministers to keep up the reverence of their wisedome or Orthodoxness or piety by the secret back-bitings and reproaches of others whose persons perhaps they never saw or whom they never once soberly discoursed with face to face or whose writings perhaps they never read or thought it not worth their time and labour to understand them and yet take it to be their piety to revile by hear-say and blind surmises and judge in a cause which they never impartially heard and understood There is none of those Ministers of Christ whom you reproach but is to be serviceable to hâ—s master for the saving of mens souls And you are satans instruments to block up their way and to turn away the hearts of people from their doctrine If every Minister especially your selves who hath as great an errour should be made odious for it to their hearers you might all put up your pipes and find that your artifice hath first silenced your selves by the righteous law Nec enim lex justior ulla est Quam necis artifices arte perire sua Or in the words of Christ With what measure you mete it shall be measured to you again Did you see the ugliness of Ignorant peevish contentious zeal as contrary to holy Light and Love you would think you saw a devil spitting out fire and brimstone and would never more take it for your honour nor for a mark of a