of them Did the Apostle in vain derive a power to the Church of Corinth 1 Epist ch 5. v. 5. In the name of our Lord Jesus Christ to deliver such a one as the Incestuous person unto Satan for the destruction of the flesh that the spirit may be saved in the day of our Lord Jesus Or can we think the Records of the several Churches in those first Ages which relate the divers painful and languishing Distempers of Body as well as the anguish and trouble of Mind which seized on such as by the Censures of the Church were cast out of Christian communion into the power of Satan to be false or forged The Divine Judgments which pursue such as in our times have been deservedly ejected or do wilfully depart from the Church-communion who are for the most part given up to a reprobate sense and being possessed with a spirit of Giddiness and perversness do as Cain run up and down from the Presence of God in his Publick Worship like Vagabonds from one Faction to another till they fall into unnatural and diabolical practices and straying from Christ's Fold are made a Prey unto the Devil do evidently demonstrate that the Church-censures are not bruta fulmina but have powerful effects for the conversion or confusion of contumacious offenders But non tali Auxilio That Sacred Function which your Lordship sustains in our Church needs not so weak an Apology as I can make for it I have only endeavoured as I was able to silence the reproaches and contradictions of unreasonable Men by whose strivings the burden of Government which of it self is weighty enough is made to sit more uneasie on the shoulders of our spiritual Guides Against whom it is no difficult work to maintain that assertion of Dr. Hammond in his answer to the Catholick Gentleman p. 134. That as long as any particular Bishop remains in due subordination to his Canonical Superiors so long the departure of any Clergy-man that is under his Jurisdiction from that obedience which canonically he owes to him is in him that is thus guilty of it an act of Schism But this comes not now under consideration My present endeavours I do lay at your Lordships feet as an acknowledgment of that great happiness which we of your Lordships Diocess do injoy under your Government in which Authority and Meekness Candor and Courage Piety and Prudence are so duly tempered that though each of them be visible yet it is hardly discernable which is most prevalent That free and favourable access which your Lordship hath vouchsafed me in more private concerns hath incouraged me to this publick Address for the service of the Church hoping that the Work may find the like gracious acceptance as the Author hath both which as they really need so they humbly beg your Lordships pardon and protection which will be a sufficient Sanctuary against all Adversaries of the truths which he defends and therein of EXON New-Years Day 1677. Your Lordships most Humble and Obedient Servant THO. LONG when all other arguments have failed to cut the Gordian knot of our present peace and unity in pieces It is my endeavour by the following Exercitations to take this Sword out of the Enemies hands or at least to blunt the edge of it and make it unserviceable to evil designs When I first apprehended it I only let it fall on the Anvil by its own weight and every one may perceive how it yielded to that gentle Examination wherefore I was encouraged by a severer censure to lay it on the Anvil again and I hope with a few strokes I have so broken it that there is scarce an Artist among the Factions can so solder it as to make it hurtful or formidable again I could wish they would at last turn this and other such Swords into Plow-shares as Men of Evangelical Spirits ought to do and study to be quiet and do their own business But I think it not enough to deprive our Adversaries of this Weapon I shall attempt to vindicate the fame and reputation of the Venerable Mr. Hales of whose authority the Churches adversaries do often make use to the maintenance of Faction against her as sometime they did of the King 's for raising a Rebellion against Him It is an aggravation of sorrow that the Church like the Eagle should receive its most dangerous wounds by the darts which are feathered from her own wing And that that learning and piety which is wanting in the adverse party to inforce their own arguments and support their cause should be supplied by the Revolt as in the Apostates to Popery or the Captivity as in the case of Mr. Hales of some unsetled and unwary Sons of the Church of whose parts and reputation the Enemies on both sides have made more advantage than of their own This hath been the beginning and growth of Errors and Schismes when Men of subtile parts and popular esteem raise doubts and arguments against the truth and instill them into weaker judgments and unstable minds who are apt for want of understanding to take their Sophistry for solid reasoning and through affection to their Persons to adhere to them as to the most faithful guides and jurare in verba magistri But it is a very preposterous method to judge of the cause according to the reputation of such as espouse it S. Augustine gives us a safer rule nec causa causae nec persona personae praejudicet Let both causes and persons stand or fall according to their own merit That little which I can gather concerning Mr. Hales all which and a great deal more I charitably believe he did well deserve is to this effect compiled by Mr. Lloid in his Memoires p. 606. In writing of which it seems he consulted the present Bishop of Chester and Mr. Faringdon his familiar friends Mr. Hales was born in Kent and bred Fellow of Merton Colledge where he was chosen Greek Professor of Oxford Sir Dudley Carleton made him his Chaplain when he was at the Hague about the business of the Synod of Dort whereof being sent thither to that purpose he wrote a daily and exact account completed as appears in his Remains by Dr. Balcanquel At which Synod he hearing Episcopius well pressing as he thought that of Saint John 3. 16. he said There I bad John Calvin good night After this he was Fellow of Eaton and then Prebendary of Windsor in the first of which places he was Treasurer but which is strange such was his integrity and charity to his loss in point of Estate And Fellow such his prudence in avoiding the Oaths of the times without any snare to his Conscience A person of so large a capacity so sharp quick piercing and subtile a wit of so serene and profound a judgment beyond the ordinary reach built upon unordinary notions raised out of strange observations and comprehensive thoughts within himself and of so astonishing an industry that he became the
distinction that he still retains Unity As he is One so we call him GOD the Deity the Divine Nature and other Names of the same signification as he is distinguished so we call him Trinity Persons Father Son and Holy Ghost In this Trinity there is One Essence Two Emanations Three Persons or Relations Four Properties Five Notions A Notion is that by which any Person is known or signified The One Essence is GOD which with this relation that it doth generate or beget makes the Person of the Father The same Essence with this Relation that it is begotten makes the Person of the Son The same Essence with this relation that it proceedeth maketh the Person of the Holy Ghost The Two Emanations are to be begotten and to proceed or to be breathed out The Four Properties are First Innascibility and Inemanability the second is to generate these belong to the Father the third is to be begotten this belongs to the Son the fourth is to proceed or to be breathed out this belongs to the Holy Spirit The five Notions are first Innascibility the second is to beget the third is to be begotten the fourth Spiratio passiva to be breathed out the fifth Spiratio activa or to breath and this Notion belongs to the Father and the Son alike for Pater filius spirant Spiritum sanctum Hence it evidently follows that he who acknowledgeth thus much can never possibly scruple the Eternal Deity of the Son of God And then he ingenuously concludes If any Man think this Confession to be defective for I can conceive no more in this point necessary to be known let him supply what he conceives deficient and I shall thank him for his labour But to proceed The confutation of this Treatise of Schism will appear to be necessary not only to wipe off the aspersions of the Papists but to silence the Objections of Factious Persons who often take Arguments from it to defend themselves in their separation as will appear by that which followeth Mr. Hales had said p. 207. That the Church might be in any number more or less in any place Country or Nation it may be in all and for ought I know it may be in none without prejudice to the Definition of the Church or the truth of the Gospel This strange notion is contrary to what Mr. Hales delivers in his Golden Remains p. 260. When we appeal saith he to the Churches Testimony we content not our selves with any part of the Church actually existent but add unto it the perpetually successive testimony of the Church in all Ages since the Apostles time And p. 186. This succession of the Church is sufficient to prove where our Church was before Luther This strange notion I say That the Church visible may totally decay prevailed too far with Mr. Chillingworth who saith p. 239. It is not certain that the truth of the Article of the Holy Catholick Church depends upon the Actual existence of a Catholick Church but rather upon the right that the Church of Christ or rather to speak properly that the Gospel of Christ hath to be universally believed and therefore the Article may be true though there were no Church in the World Now though this were only a probleme which Mr. Chillingworth defends not but in the 14. p. of his Preface overthroweth saying I believe that our Saviour ever since his Ascension hath had in some place or other a visible true Church on Earth and that there will be such a Church to the Worlds end yet his Adversary p. 779. of Infidelity Unmasked falls heavily on him and tells him that this notion is not only against the Scripture Eph. 4. 11. but against all Protestants and all Christians and sends him to Calvin 's Institutions l. 4. c. 1. and to Volkelius whom he calls his Socinian Brother de verâ Rel. l. 6. c. 5. who prove a Succession of Pastors and Doctors to have been always in the Church Remansit Doctorum Pastorúmque officium nec non alia quaedam And indeed Dr. Potter whom Mr. Chillingworth defended had said truly That it was an error in the nature and matter of it properly Heretical to say the Church remained only in the party of Donatus and that it was much worse to say she remained no where for this were to overthrow the Article of the Catholick Church and is little less than blasphemy saith Arch-bishop Laud. Again Mr. Hales p. 218. said It is alike unlawful to make profession of known or suspected falshoods as to put in practice unlawful or suspected actions This argument Mr. Chillingworth improveth p. penult of his Preface to Charity maintained If a Church says he supposed to want nothing necessary require me to profess against my Conscience that I believe some error though never so small and innocent which I do not believe and will not allow me her communion but upon this condition in this case the Church for requiring this condition is Schismatical and not I for separating from the Church Mr. Baxter speaks much more like a Conformist in this case than either Mr. Hales or Mr. Chillingworth If a Church saith he p. 464. of Reasons for Christ Relig. S. 15. which in all other respects is purest and best will impose any sin upon all that will have any local communion with it though we must not separate from that Church as no Church yet must we not commit that sin but patiently suffer them to exclude us from their communion And I think it is more rational peaceably to dissent until we are actually excluded than presently to pronounce that Church Schismatical which requires such conditions of our communion For if that which I believe to be an error being if an error but small and innocent be required of me by a Church which maintaineth all necessary things I ought rather to submit to or at least peaceably with-hold my communion from that Church than to violate its communion by my separation because that Church which GOD hath preserved in all necessary truths may probably know that which I believe to be an error and but a small one if an error to be an important truth or if she be mistaken in such small things it is not schismatical in her to require my profession who may well be resolved of my doubt when so many wiser and better than my self after mature deliberation think fit to require it For as Mr. Hooker saith p. 100. In all right and equity that which the Church hath so long received and held for good that which publick approbation hath ratified must carry the benefit of presumption with it to be accounted meet and convenient And p. 55. This Opinion That the Authority of Man affirmatively in matters Divine is nothing worth being once inserted into the minds of the vulgar sort GOD knows what it may grow unto Thus much we see It hath already made Thousands so head-strong even in gross and palpable Errors that a Man
hunger justified the Disciples of Christ for plucking and rubbing the ears of Corn on the Sabbath dayes And hunger justified David and those that were with him for entring into the house of God and eating the shew-bread which was not lawful for him to eat nor for them which were with him but only for the Priests And the Priests in the Temple were blameless for prophaning the Sabbath day Now if things before accidentally evil may by this much Necessity become lawful and a duty then may the commands of Magistrates or Pastors and the Unity of the Church and the avoiding of contention and offence and other evils be also sufficient to warrant us in obeying even in inconvenient Circumstantials of the worship of God that otherwise could not be justified § 18. Reas 12. Lastly consider how much God hath expressed himself in his word to be pleased in the Obedience of believers Not only in their Obedience to Christ immediately but also to him in his officers 1 Sam. 15. 22. Behold to obey is better than Sacrifice c. Col. 3. 20 22. Children obey your Parents in all things that is all lawful things for this is well-pleasing to the Lord Servants Obey in all things your Masters according to the flesh c. And Obedience to Pastors is as much commanded 1. Thes 5. 12 13. We beseech you brethren to know them which labour among you and are over you in the Lord and admonish you and esteem them very highly c. Heb. 13. 17. Obey them that have the rule over you and submit your selves for they watch for your souls as they that must give account c. So Verse 7. 24. 1 Tim. 5. 17 c. § 19. As the General Commission to a Parent or Master or Magistrate to Govern their inferior relations doth authorize them to many particular acts belonging to their office that were never named in their commission so your general command to obey them obligeth you to obey them in the said particulars And so it is also betwixt the Pastors and the flock in matters belonging to the office of a Pastor § 20. If a Child shall ask a Parent Where doth Gods word allow you to command me to learn this Catechism or read this Divines writings or repeat this Sermon or write it c. doth not the question deserve to be answered with the rod The General Commission for Parents to Govern their children is sufficient So if a Schoolmaster command his Scholars to come to such a place to School and to take their places in such an Order and to learn such books and do such exercises c. the General Commission that he hath to teach and Govern them will allow him to do all this Though it will not allow him to set his Scholars to any Artifice or Manual Operation alien to his profession So if a Minister determine of the variable Circumstances of worship as what place the people shall come to and at what time to be Catechized examined instructed c. what Translation or Version of Psalms to use what Utensils to make use of about Gods service or such like he is warranted for this by his General Commission And if he miss it in the manner by choosing inconvenient circumstances or by unnecessary determination of points that should rather be left undetermined to liberty though this be his own sin it will not excuse the people from obedience unless the error of his directions be so great as would frustrate the Ordinance it self or do more harm than our disobedience would do which in Circumstantials is rarely found By long experience I am assured that practical religion will afford both to Church State and Conscience more certain and more solid peace than contending disputers with all their pretences of Orthodoxness and zeal against errors for the truth will ever bring or did ever attain to Wherefore let us consider in the next place The Mischief of Separation The mischief of Separation lies not in the bare error of judgment but in the unchristian and Church-dissolving division and alienation which thence followeth contrary to that humility and love which is the visible character of Christians and to that Oneness which is still in Scripture ascribed to the visible Church Alas that pride and ignorance should have such power among believers that men cannot be of several judgments in lesser points but they must needs be of several Churches God will make us value peace and union a little more before we shall taste of the perfect everlasting peace and union yea before we shall see the blessing of union in the Church Wounding is a dividing healing is a re-uniting a Building is of many stones or pieces orderly conjoyned a Church is an aggregation of individuals an association of Believers what then is it to demolish but to separate and disjoyn and what is it to dissolve Churches but to break their association to reduce them to individuals to cut them into shreds As for the differences in way of Government between the moderate Presbyterians Independants Episcopal and Erastian I make no doubt but if mens spirits stood not at a greater distance than their principles they would quickly be united But of all the four sorts there are some that run so high in their principles that they run out of the hearing of peace or truth For Anabaptism and Antinomianism God spake effectually against them by those wondrous Monsters in New-England but wonders are over-lookt where the heart is hardned and God intends to get his justice a name The fearful dolusions that God hath formerly given them over to and the horrid confusion which they have introduced where they have sprung hath spoken fully against both these later Sects The weeping eyes the bleeding sides the lacerated members of these Churches the reproach of the Gospel the disappointed Reformation the hideous doctrines and unheard of wickedness that hath followed them the contemned ordinances the reproached slandered and ejected Ministers the weak that are scandalized the Professors apostatized the wicked hardned and the open enemies of the Gospel that now insult all these do describe them more plainly to England than words can do and cry loud in the ears of God and man What will be the Answer time will shew but from Rev. 2. 14 15 16 c. we may probably conjecture He that is not a Son of peace is not a Son of God All other sins destroy the Church consequentially but division and Separation demolish it directly Building the Church is but an orderly joyning of the materials and what then is disjoyning but pulling down Many doctrial differences must be tolerated in a Church and why but for unity and peace therefore disunion and separation is utterly intolerable Believe not those to be the Churches friends that would cure and reform her by cutting her throat Those that say no truth must be concealed for peace have usually as little of the one as
necessity of it Christ should profit them nothing Gal. 5. 2. Now from this History as our Author had contrived it he drew several wilde inferences As first p. 203. In this fantastical Hurry I cannot see saith he but all the World were Schismaticks To which I reply That all the World were not concerned in it there being some Nations that differed from both these in the observation of Easter as Socrates l. 5. c. 21. hath observed for even among the Jewish Converts some that agreed on the 14th day differed in the Moon and Venerable Bede observes that our Nation which the Pope pretends to have been his Converts did in those primitive times observe their Easter on the 14th day which by the way is an argument that we at first received the Christian Faith not from the Church of Rome who exploded this custome but more Anciently from Joseph of Arimathea or from St. Philip who as many good Authors affirm planted the Christian Religion in our neighbour Nation of France and as the Asian Churches affirm was one of them that taught them this custom nor do we read that they were condemned for Hereticks for so doing Neither did those Eastern Churches who differed in the Moneth anathematize each other and Socrates ubi supra gives this reason for it They that agree in the same Faith may differ from each other in respect of Rites as the Reformed Churches do at this day And though the Roman Church did excommunicate the Asian yet were they never the more Schismaticks for that being they were sui Juris not under the Roman power And according to our Authors definition of schism they being never members of that Church from which they were excommunicate could not be guilty of schism notwithstanding Victors rigor We say therefore they were still members of the Catholick Church And as for the Roman Church what should make them Schismaticks For though Victor did arrogate too much as to the manner of his proceedings yet as to the matter his prosecution against a Jewish ceremony when it grew into an Opinion of being necessary to be observed was his duty and approved by the practice of St. Paul himself And while there was a controversie between their Governors the People and Clergy too of both Parties continued in due subjection to their Superiors and in mutual charity to one another So that the Separatists of our Age can have no excuse for their Schism from this instance But our Author infers Secondly that this fell out through the ignorance or which he mentioneth also the malice of their Governors and that through the just judgment of God on the People because through sloth and blind obedience they examined not the things which they were taught but like beasts of burthen patiently couched down and indifferently underwent whatsoever their Superiors laid upon them To which I Answer It doth not appear there was any charge of ignorance to be imputed to Victor or his People for the reasons above mentioned much less of malice Our present Sectaries do call their opposition to Ceremonies more innocent than that by the name of zeal and love to the cause of God Nor was there any thing imposed on the Churches of either side that concerned their Faith nor any custome or rite de novo but only the Asian Churches were desired to translate the custome of observing Easter from a day which gave offence not only to the Church of Rome but several other Churches Petavius says the difference was not de Catholico dogmate sed de Ritu seu Ritûs potiùs tempore And if the Superiors in the Asian Churches had thought the Alteration fit as shortly after they did it had doubtless been the Peoples duty to submit for every Church hath power in those things which are indifferent and much more in such things as give offence to other Churches to appoint and alter rites and ceremonies for the publick Worship of God and the People shew themselves not beasts of burthen but Christ's Free-men in submitting to their Governors as far as Christian liberty doth permit If Victor had imposed new Articles of Faith as Pius Quintus did in the Council of Trent doubtless those Primitive Christians would have resisted even to bloud of which they gave too many instances when they constantly endured all manner of torments rather than they would renounce the Faith once delivered to them Our Author therefore needed to ask pardon for wounding the reputation of these Ancient Worthies in cool bloud as well as for massacring at once the authority of all the Fathers in the heat of a temptation p. 204. where he says thus You may plainly see the danger of our appeal to Antiquity for resolution in controversies of Faith and how small relief we are to expect from thence for if the discretion of the chiefest Guides of the Church did in a point so trivial so inconsiderable so mainly fail them as not to see the truth in a subject wherein it is the greatest marvel how they could avoid the sight of it Can we without the imputation of extreme grossness and folly think so poor spirited persons competent Judges of the questions now on foot in the Churches Pardon me I know not what temptation drew that note from me To this I reply 1. Whoever he be that so contemptuously rejects the Authority and trampleth on the reputation of the Fathers hath sufficiently excused those that shall slight his own This is the Author 's own sense Golden Remains p. 260. 2. I refer it to the judgment of the Reader whether Victor Bishop of Rome condemning some of the Asian Churches for adhering too tenaciously to a Jewish ceremony which was of ill consequence to those and other neighbouring Churches were not more excusable than a private person living many hundred years after the fact and never rightly knowing or else wrongfully representing it insolently and causlesly condemning the Ancient Fathers not of one or two Ages or parts of the Church but all in general as if the failing of one man in a point so trivial and inconsiderable as our Author calls it were sufficient reason to condemn them all for indiscreet and poor spirited persons And to impute extreme grossness and folly to all that should think them competent Judges of our differences This is a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 beyond that of Abailardus who was wont to say that the Fathers for the most part did think this or that to be right but I think otherwise as if his single authority could out-weigh all theirs 3. He must pretend to have some new light for his guide and be either an Enthusiast or Socinian that can see any danger in appealing to Antiquity for resolution in controverted points of Faith For seeing there is scarce any point of Faith but some unhappy Wits have controverted it and in defence of their Opinions have put the Scriptures on the rack to make them speak their own sense how can
lines to be complete Schismaticks first for choosing a Bishop in opposition to the former secondly for erecting new places for the dividing party to meet in publickly I wonder with what confidence he could deny that S. Augustine had done so much in so many writings and disputations But when I consider how palpably this Author contradicts himself I cease to wonder that he should oppose and contemn that Great man For p. 208. he seems with some passion to interrogate Why might it not be lawful to go to Church with the Donatists and p. 215. why may I not go if occasion require to an Arrian Church when p. 229. he says expresly that it is not lawful no not for prayer hearing conference c. to assemble otherwise than by publick order is allowed And if our Author knew not that as well the Schism of the Donatists as the heresie of the Arrians was often condemned and forbidden by the Emperors and Councils of that age he was very ignorant indeed But the reason which our Author gives why S. Augustine said nothing to the question is as strange as any thing else S. Augustine saith our Author brought nothing to prove that the Orthodox were the true Church or the Donatists were Schismaticks For the Church may be in any number in any place country or nation it may be in all and for ought I know it may be in none without prejudice to the definition of a Church or the Truth of the Gospel He might as well have told us of a Church in Utopia which is the same with a Church in no place country or nation What Idea of the Church our Author conceived I cannot imagine but that which he expresseth concerning it is as contrary to the truth of all the Prophecies of the Old Testament as well as the description of it in the New from whence the definition is taken as light is to darkness For Acts 2. 41. ad finem the Church is described to be a number of men not all nor none called out of the world by the preaching of the Apostles and joyning themselves to their Spiritual guides by Baptism and breaking of Bread by publick Prayers and hearing the Word These in verse 47. are expresly called the Church and to this Church the Lord added daily such as should be saved Now such Churches were by Christ's commissions to be planted in all Nations which we believe was really effected and the truth thereof is still apparent that God hath given his Son the heathen for his inheritance and the utmost parts of the earth for hs possession and therefore to say that a Church may be in none either number or place for I suppose the Author intends both because if it may exist in no place it must not consist of any number nor so much as admit of one as contrary to sense and Reason as to the Truth of the Gospel And is such a fancy as that of Mrs. Trask who having shifted from one Conventicle to another in New-England and at last on pretence of impurity in their ordinances and members separated from them all affirmed that she alone was the Church and Spouse of Christ But I think Mr. Hales himself sufficiently refutes this fancy of our Author Page 185 186. of his Golden Remains he tells us that to prove the existence of our Church before Luther all that is necessary to be proved in the case is nothing else but this that there hath been from the Apostles times a perpetual succession of the Ministry to preach and to baptize of which by the providence of God there remains very good evidence to the world and shall remain Having told us that the Church may be in no place that is in effect that there may be no Church he doth with the more confidence affirm p. 213. That Church Authority is none and tradition for the most part but figment Answ As to traditions in general I defend them not nor can any man else but for such as bear the Characters which Vincentius Lirinensis describes quod ubique quod semper quod ab omnibus we have all reason imaginable to inforce the imbracing of such traditions as have been received and delivered to us by all the Churches of Christ in all ages and in all places unless we were of the Authors opinion that Church authority is none and this can never be made good but by proof of our Authors fiction of a Church in Utopia For if our Saviour did out of mankind redeem a Church by his own bloud if he planted it by his Apostles and promised his presence with it to the end of the world if he made it the ground and Pillar of Truth and promised to hear her prayers and to bind in heaven what they bound on earth and that the gates of Hell i.e. neither persecutions nor heresies nor schisms should prevail against it doubtless there is a Church and that Church hath some authority granted to her by her dear Redeemer to defend that peace and unity as well as those truths which he bequeathed to her Did our Saviour take care for the Church of the Jews only or did he not also mind the Christian Church when Matt. 18. 17. he enjoyns us even in private differences among our selves much more in those which concern the publick peace of the Church as in the case of scandals mentioned in the context v. 7. to go tell the Church and if any should neglect to hear the Church that he should be unto us as an heathen man and a Publican i.e. Excommunicate from that holy Society which punishment being spiritual doth clearly evince that the causes submitted to the judgment of the Church were spiritual also But I demand farther did the Apostles usurp more authority than was given them when they assembled together Acts 15. 6. about the case of Circumcision and after the difference had been fully debated by Peter Paul Barnabas and S. James in the presence of the Elders and the multitude they all agreed and that by the approbation of the Holy Ghost v. 28. to impose upon the Churches certain constitutions as necessary to be observed at that time for the peace of the Church If they did not then the Church had some authority And so when S. Paul pleaded the custom of the Churches of God against contentious persons in the Church of Corinth 1 Epist c. 11. v. 16. And doth not the same Apostle tell us that when our Saviour ascended up on high Eph. 4. 11. he placed rulers and governors in his Church whose care it should be to provide that the people should not be thenceforth as children tossed to and fro and carried about with every wind of Doctrine by the slight of men and cunning craftiness whereby they lie in wait to deceive v. 14. If Church authority be none to what end did S. Paul injoyn Timothy to see that women should keep silence in the Church 1 Tim. 2. 12. not only
civilized or religious Nations As therefore it is said of the rise of Nile which in plentiful streams spreads it self over Egypt and yet the Origin of it cannot be found that it comes from Heaven so these solemnities of Assemblies and sacred Rites for the Worship of God being found to abound every where and no humane institution can be alledged as the rise of them we may conclude them to flow from Heaven into the Souls and Consciences of Men. But St. Chrysostome on Hebrews 10. asks how God came to command it and he answers by condescending only and submitting himself to humane infirmities which condescension Oecumenius thus expresseth Because men had a conceit that it was convenient to offer up some part of their substance unto God and they were so strongly possessed with this conceit that if they offered it not to him they would have offered it up to Idols God saith he rather than they should offer unto Idols required them to offer unto himself The third Proposition is That it is a result of the Law of Nature that such Societies should have a power to preserve themselves For seeing God nor Nature do any thing in vain and without this power all Societies will soon be dissolved and perish it follows that both by the Law of God and Nature those Societies that are assembled for the Worship of God should have a power to maintain and preserve themselves This Mr. Hales affirms There is a necessity of disproportion or inequality between Men for were all persons equal the World could not subsist Now this inequality and power implie a superiority in some and a subordination in others for par in parem non habet potestatem if every one were left at his own liberty as none could rule so none would obey That therefore there should be both sub and supra is of the same Law of Nature without which there could be no government or order at all either in Civil or Ecclesiastical Societies And seeing as Aristotle observed that the Paternal power was the Original of all Government Pol. l. 1. c. 2. every Father governing his Family both as a Prince and as a Priest in the most ancient times it is evident that both by Nature and Religion there ought to be a sub and supra and if so our Saviour never did nor intended to alter such Laws but to reinforce and to confirm them which that he did hath been already proved However whether this power shall be exercised by one or more Persons and be derived by Succession or applied by election this is to be regulated according to some positive determination either Divine or Humane And if the Law of God or where that is silent which I think it is not in the case of sub and supra in Ecclesiastical officers the Law of Man shall set up one or more Governors for the government of the Church the Persons advanced by such authority ought to have more than a Superiority of Reverence namely of obedience and a willing submission in all lawful and honest commands I conclude therefore with my Author p. 193. Communion is the strength and ground of all Society whether Sacred or Civil whoever therefore they be that offend against this common Society and Friendliness of men and cause separation and breach among them if it be in Civil occasions are guilty of Sedition or Rebellion if it be by Occasion of Ecclesiastical differences they are guilty of Schism And it shall alway be a part of my Litany From all sedition privy conspiracy and rebellion from all false Doctrine Heresie and Schism from hardness of heart and contempt of thy Word and Commandments good Lord deliver us I shall consider only one instance more of the Author 's too great indulgence to Schism and Heresie and then leave it to the Reader to judge Whether the opinion of the Ancients as it is generally received by our Modern Divines or the fond conceptions of the Author be more agreeable to the nature of the things or conducing to the peace and prosperity of the Church The instance is that of the second Council of Nice of which he says p. 211. That until that Rout did set up Image-worship there was not any remarkable Schism upon just occasion of fact To this our Author gives an Answer himself page 201. where he describes Schism on matter of fact to be such a separation as is occasioned by requiring something to be done by us which either we know or strongly suspect to be unlawful and concludes p. 202. that the first notable Schism of which we read in the Church viz. that concerning the observation of Easter did contain in it matter of fact Now how can these two assertions be reconciled That until the Schism occasioned by setting up Image-worship there was not any remarkable Schism upon just occasion of fact And that the first notable Schism that we read of in the Church viz. that about Easter did contain matter of fact and it was 600. Years before a Schism so notable as that our Author thinks p. 203. all the World were Schismaticks And if our Author be right the occasion of fact was just for he determines it to be so when something is required to be done by us which either we know or strongly suspect to be unlawful And the Asian Churches thought it unlawful for them to submit to the authority of the Bishop of Rome who would impose on them a rite contrary to an ancient custome of theirs to be received as a matter of faith of which before Again he instanceth in the Schism of the Donatists which was a complete Schism by our Author 's own rules for they did not only erigere Altare contra Altare set up Bishop against Bishop to which our Author observes that St. Cyprian imputed the Original of all Church-disorders page 222. but they erected also new Churches and Oratories for the dividing Party to meet in publickly which serves to make a Schism complete p. 196. so that there were notable Schismes long before that occasioned by setting up Image-worship To that which follows in our Author p. 211. concerning Image-worship set up by the second Council of Nice I fully accord That in this the Schismatical party was the Synod it self and such as conspired with it For concerning the use of Images in Sacris first it is acknowledged by All That it is not a thing necessary 2. That it is by most suspected 3. It is by many held utterly unlawful and that the injoining of such a thing can be nothing but abuse And the refusal of communion here cannot be thought any other thing than duty All this is true but our Author speaks not the whole truth he calls that only schism which was heresie in a fundamental point concerning the Worship of God according to his express will in the second Commandment And when that Council had the confidence to condemn them as Hereticks that were
And he had before p. 196. determined them to be schismaticks 1. That do chuse a Bishop in opposition to the former and 2. That do erect a new Church and Oratory for the dividing party to meet in publickly Now our Author p. 200. moves the question Who shall judge what is a necessary occasion of separation which question he says hath been often made but never truly Answered not because it is a point of great depth or difficulty truly to assoil it but because the true solution carryeth fire in the tail of it for it bringeth with it a piece of Doctrine which is seldom pleasing to Superiors To you for the present this shall suffice if so be you be Animo defaecato if you have cleared your self from froth and grounds if neither sloth nor fears nor ambition nor any tempting spirits of that nature abuse you for these and such as these are the true impediments why both that and other questions of the like danger are not truly Answered if all this be and yet you see not how to frame your resolution and settle your self for that doubt I will say no more of you than was said of Papias S. Johns own Scholar you are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 your abilities are not so good as I presumed This question is so easie to be resolved that as our Author thinks every person may settle himself and resolve what to do in it if he be Animo defaecato and have cleared himself from froth and grounds if neither sloth nor fears nor Ambition nor any tempting spirits of that nature abuse him One or more of these impediments it is probable prevailed with our Author not to determine the question so plainly as he ought and most likely that of fear because he saith it would be displeasing to Superiors and would carry fire in the tail of it And doubtless his fears were just it could not do otherwise than provoke his Superiors in a high degree if he had peremptorily delivered what he intimates in diverse parts of the Treatise to be his Opinion and when I shall collect them you will see they carry wild fire and powder-plots in their tails enough to blow up all Government The Question is who should judge what is a necessary Occasion of Separation Which question he intends not to leave to the judgment of Governors whom he supposeth to give the Occasion and to whom the resolution would not be pleasing but to those that take the occasion and indeed he leaves it to private persons to judge of the Laws of their Superiors who if they cannot find will easily seign some occasion to excuse their separation And our Author hath fitted it to their hands for he informs them p. 194. That when either false or uncertain conclusions are obtruded for truth and acts either unlawful or ministring just scruple are required of us to be performed in these cases consent were conspiracy and open contestation is not faction or schism but due Christian Animosity And p. 201. He makes it a just occasion of separation when something is required to be done by us which either we know or strongly suspect which in our Authors phrase is the same with just scruple to be unlawful And again p. 218. Wheresoever false or suspected Opinions are made a piece of the Church Liturgy he that separates is not the schismatick So that now there needs no Oedipus to unriddle the mystery For 1. if our Governors shall at any time obtrude uncertain conclusions for truth how certain soever they be to our Governors if they appear not so to us Or 2. if they require something to be done by us which we may justly scruple or strongly suspect Or 3. if they shall make suspected Opinions a piece of Church Liturgy this is indeed sufficient not only to justifie a separation but to entitle the Separatists to due Christian Animosity And our Author needed not the spirit of Prophecy to foretel that this would be displeasing to Governors and carry fire in its tail for it strikes directly at the foundation of all Government both in Church and State For in both Governments when such things are by solemn Edicts commanded or forbidden as are apparently good or evil we are to obey for Gods sake but where things neither good nor evil by any natural or positive law of God are injoyned by our superiours it is undoubtedly our duty to submit to them A scrupling Conscience or the dissent of private judgments to the deliberate determinations of Superiors in these cases can be no supersedeas to the obedience that is due from subjects as hath been already proved from the Nonconformists own confessions and will yet more clearly appear To which end I shall premise out of Dr. Owens concessions p. 408. of his survey of Ecclesiastical Polity Those pretended errors in our case saith he are not in matters of faith nor for the most part in or about the Worship of God or that which is acknowledged so to be but in or about those things which some think it convenient to add unto it or conjoyn with it And what peace what quietness is like to be in the world when the sword of vengeance must be drawn about these things To which I only reply Let them that draw the sword in such quarrels perish with the sword God hath put a sword into the Magistrates hand to be a terror to evil works and if unpeaceable men will not be subject neither for fear of wrath nor for Conscience sake but will raise tumults and seditious Factions against their lawful Rulers upon scruples and punctilio's they are the Aggressors and unless the Magistrate will suffer the sword which God hath put into his hands to be wrested from him he ought to be an Avenger to execute wrath upon evil doers their scruples concerning the lawfulness of such external acts of Worship notwithstanding 2. I premise that such men as are sound as to the foundation of faith and careful thereupon to build a holy life and keep a Conscience void of offence towards God and man though in such things as Dr. Owen hath mentioned they should not be able through their weakness of judgment after serious endeavours to get resolution of their scruples if they do yield obedience to them that God hath set over them though they should be mistaken yet their errors would not prejudice their Salvation And on this ground many of the Reformed Divines hope well of multitudes under the Roman tyranny and I doubt not but the Nonconformists have so much Charity as to have as good hopes of such honest Christians as die in the Communion of our Church 3. If it should happen that some good and honest men who are both sound in the faith and unblamable in life do after serious inquiry remain scrupulous still it is their duty to take the safest way and that is the way of obedience to their Lawful Governors which being a moral duty and
the other Study Gal. 2. 22. Rom. 14. 1. Acts 21. 24 26. 1 Tim. 1. 4. 6. 4. Titus 3. 8 9. I hope sad experience speaks this lesson to your very hearts if I should say nothing Do not your hearts bleed to look upon the State of England and to think how few Towns or Cities there be where is any forwardness in Religion that are not cut into shreds and crumbled as to dust by separations and divisions to think what a wound we have hereby given to the very Christian name how we have hardned the ignorant confirmed the Papists and are our selves become the scorn of our enemies and the grief of our friends and how many of our dearest best esteemed friends have fallen to notorious pride or impiety yea some to be worse than open Infidels These are pillars of Salt see that you remember them Though of your own selves men should arise speaking perverse things to draw disciples after them Acts 20. 30. yea though an Angel from Heaven should draw you to divisions see that you follow him not If there be erroneous practices in the Church keep your selves innocent with moderation and peace It must be no small error that must force a Separation Justin Martyr professed that if a Jew should keep the ceremonial law so he did not perswade the Gentiles to it as necessary yet if he acknowledged Christ he judgeth that he might be saved and he would imbrace him and have communion with him Paul would have him received that is weak in the faith and not un-church whole parishes of those that we know not nor were ever brought to a just trial I ever loved a godly peaceable Conformist better than a turbulent Nonconformist I differ from many in several things of considerable moment yet if I should zealously press my judgment on others so as to disturb the peace of the Church and separate from my brethren that are contrary minded I should fear lest I should prove a fire-brand in hell for being a fire-brand in the Church And for all the interest I have in your judgments and affections I here charge you that if God should give me up to any factious Church-rending course against which I daily pray that you forsake me and follow me not a step And for peace with one another follow it with all your might if it be possible as much as in you lyeth live peaceably with all men Rom. 12. 18. mark this When you feel any sparks of discontent in your breasts take them as kindled by the Devil from hell and take heed you cherish them not If the flames begin to break forth in censoriousness reproaches and hard speeches of others be as speedy and busie in quenching it as if it were fire in the thatch of your houses For why should your houses be dearer to you than the Church which is the house of God or your Souls which are the Temples of the Holy Ghost Hath God spoke more against any sin than unpeaceableness If ye forgive not men their trespasses neither will your heavenly Father forgive you which Lodovicus Crocius says is the measure and essential property of the least degree of true faith if you love not one another you are not disciples of Christ Publick wars and private quarrels usually pretend the Reformation of the Church the vindicating of the Truth and the welfare of Souls but they as usually prove in the issue the greatest means to the overthrow of all It is as natural for both wars and private contentions to produce errors schisms contempt of Magistracy Ministry and Ordinances as it is for a dead Carrion to breed worms and vermine Believe it from one that hath too many years experience of it it is as hard a thing to maintain even in your people a sound understanding a tender Conscience a lively gracious heavenly frame of spirit and an upright life in a way of war and contention as to keep your Candle lighted in the greatest storms or under the waters The like I may say of perverse and fierce disputings about the circumstantials of discipline or other questions that are far from the foundation they oftner lose the truth than find it Wo to those Ministers that make unnecessary divisions and parties among the people that so they may get themselves a name and be cryed up by many followers The way to prosper your labours is to quench all flames of contention to your power Study the peace and unity of your Congregations keep out all occasions of divisions especially the doctrine of Separation and popular Church-Government the apparent Seminary of faction and perpetual contentions If once the people be taught that it belongs to them to govern themselves and those the Scripture calleth their Guides and Rulers we shall have mad work They that would pluck up the hedge of Government as if the vineyard could not be fruitful except it lay waste to the pleasure of all the beasts of the forest are like the pond that grudged at the banks and damm and thought it injurious to be restrained of its liberty and therefore combined with the winds to raise a tempest and so assault and beat down the banks in their rage and now where is that peaceable association of waters We feel now how those are mistaken that thought the way for the Churches unity was to dig up the banks and let all loose that every man in Religion might do what he list They are usually men least acquainted with a heavenly life who are the violent disputers about the circumstantials of Religion As the body doth languish in consuming Fevers when the native heat abates within and unnatural heat inflaming the external parts succeeds so when the zeal of a Christian doth leave the internals of Religion and fly to ceremonials externals or inferior things the Soul must needs consume and languish Of Conformity For Conformity though to Ministers it be another thing by reason of the new impositions than it was to our Predecessors yet to the People Conformity is the same if not easier especially to them that I now speak to for it is the Liturgy Ceremonies and Ministry that most alienate them And the Liturgy is a little amended as to them by the change of the translation and some little words and by some longer Prayers and the Ceremonies are the same and thirty years ago there were many bare reading not preaching Ministers for one that is now Therefore our case of Separation being the same as of old I take it to be fully confuted by the Ancient Non-conformists and I have so great a veneration for the worthy Names much more an estimation of the reasonings of Mr. Cartwright Egerton Hildersham Dod Amesius Parker Baines Brightman Ball Bradshaw Paget Langley Nicols Herring c. that I shall not think they knew not why they chose this subject and wrote more against Separation than the Conformists did I am very glad that the pious Lectures of
lawful things oft become unlawful when Superiors forbid them yet no reason can be given why a lawful thing should become unlawful because a lawful Superior doth command it else Superiors might take away all our Christian liberty and make all things unlawful to us by commanding them You would take it for a wild conceit in your children or servants if they say when you bid them learn a Catechism or use a form of prayer It was lawful for us to do it till you commanded us but because you bid us do it it is unlawful If it be a duty to obey Governors in all lawful things then it is not a sin to obey them 3. It is not your knowing before hand that makes it unlawful for 1. I know in general before-hand that all imperfect men will do imperfectly and though I know not the particular that maketh it never the lawfuller if foreknowledge it self did make it unlawful 2. If you know that e.g. an Antinomian or some mistaken Preacher would constantly drop some words for his error in praying or preaching that will not make it unlawful in your own judgment for you to joyn if it be not a flat heresie 3. It is another mans error or fault that you foreknow and not your own 4. God himself doth as an universal cause of nature concur with men in those acts which he foreknoweth they will sinfully do yet is not the Author or approver of the sin We the Commissioners 1663. all thought a Liturgy lawful and divers learned and reverend Nonconformists of London met to consider how far it was their duty or lawful to communicate with the Parish Churches where they lived in the Liturgy and Sacrament and I proved four propositions 1. That it is lawful to use a form 2. That it is lawful to joyn with some Parish Churches in the use of the Liturgy 3. That it is lawful to joyn with some Parish Churches in the Lords Supper 4. That it is to some a duty to joyn with some Parish Churches three times a year in the Lords Supper and none of the Brethren seemed to dissent but took the reasons to be valid Were I in Armenia Abassia or among the Greeks I would joyn in a much more defective form than our Liturgy rather than none And this is the judgment of many New-England Ministers conform to the old Non-conformists who did some of them read the Common-Prayer and the most of them judged it lawful to joyn in it or else Mr. Hildersham Mr. Rich. Rogers c. would not write so earnestly for coming to the beginning and preferring it before all private duties And truly I am not able to bear the thoughts of separating from almost all Christs Churches upon earth but he that separates from one or many upon a reason common to almost all doth virtually separate from almost all and he that separates from all among us upon the account of the unlawfulness of our Liturgy and the badness of our Ministry doth separate from them upon a reason common to almost all or the far greatest part as I conceive Those forms of Liturgy which now are most distasted were brought in by the most zealous religious people at the first the many short invocations versicles and responses which the people use were brought in when the Souls of the faithful did abound with zeal and in holy fervors break out in such expressions and could not well endure to be bare Auditors not vocally to bear their part in the praises of God and prayers of the Church I have shewed at large How far God hath given men power to prescribe and impose forms for others and commanded others to obey them when Christ said When ye pray say Our Father c. he bound the Disciples in duty to do as he bid them How forms may be imposed publickly on the congregations of Believers and on the Ministers yea though the forms imposed be worse than the exercise of their own gifts though among us no man be forbidden to use his own gifts in the Pulpit The Pharisees long Liturgy it is like was in many things worse than ours yet Christ and his Apostles often joyned with them and never condemned them I shall now only add that the Lord's prayer is a form directed to God as in the third person and not to man only as a directory for prayer in the Second Person it is not Pray to God your Father in heaven that his name may be Hallowed his Kingdom come c. But Our Father which art in heaven hallowed be thy name c. And it seems by the disciples words that thus John taught his disciples to pray Luke 11. 1. and we have in the Scripture the mention of many Set forms of Service to God which therefore we may well use And I desire the Reader again to Note that though Prayer was corrupted by the Pharisees yet Christ usually joyned in their Synagogues Luke 14. 17. and never medled with our controversie about the lawfulness of Set forms This Mr. Baxter infers from Calvins note on Matth. 6. before the Preface to the Defence Of Obedience to our Pastors We are indangered by divisions principally because the self-conceited part of Religious people will not be ruled by their Pastors but must have their way and will needs be rulers of the Church and them But pleasing the ignorant Professors humors is a sin that shews us to be too humane and carnal and hath always sad effects at last It is a high degree of pride for persons of ordinary understandings to conclude that almost all Christs Chruches in the world for thirteen hundred years at least have offered such worship to God as that you are obliged to avoid it and all their communion in it and that almost all the Catholick Church on earth at this day is below your communion for using forms Mark Is it not more of the women and apprentices that are of this mind than of old experienced Christians I think till we have better taught even our godly people what credit and obedience is due to their teachers and spiritual guides the Church of England shall never have peace or any good or established order We are broken for want of the knowledge of this truth till this be known we shall never be well bound up and healed The people of the new separation so much rule their Ministers that many of them have been forced to forsake their own judgments to comply with the violent Labour to maintain the Ordinances and Ministry in esteem The Church is bound to take many a man as a true Minister to them and receive the Ordinances from him in faith and expectation of blessing upon promise who yet before God is a sinful invader and usurper of the Ministry and shall be condemned for it How much more then to respect their lawful Bishops and Pastors For Lay-Elders As
extensive as they please The most are of Opinion that while the Church lyes so unprovided for the donations are not alienable sine Sacrilegio If there were a Surplusage above the competent maintenance it were another matter It is clear enough the Donors wills are frustrated and that their general intention and the general use viz. the maintenance of God's Worship and Ministers should stand though the particular use might be superstitious I cited in my last Sermon before the Parliament a place out of Mr. Hildersham on Psal 51. touching Sacriledge It did not please If his description of it be true then you will still be of your own mind I dare encourage no Purchasers c. Mr. Baxter's advice to separating Brethren As to separation Be the backwardest to divide and separate and do it not without a certain warrant and extreme necessity resolve with Augustine I will not be the Chaff and yet I will not go out of the Floor though the Chaff be there Never give over your just desire and endeavour for Reformation and yet as long as you can possibly avoid it Forsake not the Church that you desire to reform as Paul said to them that were to forsake a shipwrackt Vessel If these abide not in the Ship ye cannot be saved Many a one by unlawful flying and shifting for his own greater peace and safety doth much more hazard his own and others Of Raising Churches against Churches The interest of the Christian Protestant Religion in England must be much kept up by keeping up as much of truth piety and reputation as is possible in the Parish-Churches Therefore In Parishes where all may hear the Parish-Minister I would not have you without necessity to preach at the same hour of the day but at some middle time that you may not seem to vie with him for Auditors nor to draw the People from him but let them go with you to hear him and after come and hear you Do not meet together in opposition to the publick meeting nor at the time of publick worship nor yet to make a groundless schism or to separate from the Church whereof you are Members nor to destroy the old that you may gather a new Church out of its ruines as long as it hath the Essentials and there is hope of reforming it nor yet would I have you forward to vent your own supposed gifts and parts in teaching where there is no necessity of it nor as a separated Church but as a part of the Church more diligent than the rest in redeeming time Let all your private meetings be in subordination to the publick and by the approbation and consent of your spiritual guides remembring them which have the rule over you Heb. 13. 7 8 9. And I beseech you Brethren mark them which cause divisions and offences contrary to the Doctrine which you have learned and avoid them c. Rom. 16. 17 18. I would you would ponder every one of these words for they are the precious advice of the Spirit of God and necessary now as well as then The great advantages that Satan hath got upon the Church through the sin of the Pastors in these later dayes is by division By this he hath promoted all the rest of his designs Our division gratifieth the Papist and greatly hazardeth the Protestant Religion more than most of you seem to believe or regard It advantageth profaneness and greatly hindereth the success of the Ministers it pleaseth Satan and builds up his kingdom The hand of God is apparently gone out against the Separatists you see you do but prepare persons for a further progress Seekers Ranters Quakers and too many professed Infidels do spring up from among you as if this were the journeys end and perfection of your revolt By such fearful desertions did God formerly witness his detestation of those that withdrew from the unity of the Church And separation will ruine the separated Churches themselves it will admit of no consistency Parties will arise in the separated Churches and separate again from them till they are dissolved I beseech my Brethren to open their eyes so far as to regard experience How few separated Churches do now exist that were in being an hundred years ago can you name any and would you have all the Churches of Christ to be dissolved In the year 1634. Roger Williams of New-England an Assistant to Mr. Ralph Smith Pastor at Plymouth where having vented divers singular opinions he was dismissed went to Salem which place in a years time he filled with principles of rigid Separation tending to Anabaptistry as That it is not lawful for an unregenerate man to pray or take an Oath in special not the Oath of fidelity to the Magistrate He forbad any of his Church-members to hear the godly Ministers of England when occasionally they went thither He taught that the Magistrate had nothing to do in matters of the first Table that there should be an unlimited toleration of all Religions that to punish any man for his Conscience was Persecution He separated not only from the Churches of Old but of New-England also as Antichristian After that he would not pray or give thanks with his own wife or family because they went to the Church-assemblies He kept private meetings by way of separation from and opposition to the Church-assembly and being banished as a disturber of the peace he sate down at a place called Providence and there fell to Anabaptistry renouncing Infant baptism And after a while he told his people that he was out of the way himself and had misled them for he could not find that any on earth had power to administer baptism and therefore their last baptism was a nullity as well as the first and that they must wait for the coming of new Apostles and so they dissolved and turned Seekers The case of the Summer Islands as related by Mr. Vaughan a worthy Minister come from thence upon discouragement would make a Christian heart to bleed To hear how strict and regular and hopeful that Plantation once was and how one godly Minister by Separation selecting a few to be his Church rejecting all the rest from the Sacrament the rejected party were dolefully estranged from Religion and the selected party turned Quakers But our own case is yet a more lamentable proof what Separation hath done against Religion so that it is my wonder that any good man can over-look it Above all things I intreat the dividing Brethren if they can so long lay aside partiality to judge of the reasons of their separation The defects of the Liturgy and the faults of those by whom we suffer are easily heightned even beyond desert But when many of us vent untruths and slanders against our Brethren and multiply publick untruths we never make scruple of communion with such Suppose one should say that a people guilty of such sins as are condemned Exod. 23.
1 2. Ps 15. 3. Rom. 1. 30 c. i. e. raising false reports reproaching our neighbours strife and debates should not be communicated with especially when not one of these offenders is called to repentance for it what answer will you give to this which will not confute your own objections against communion with many parish Churches in this land As to Popery The interest of the Protestant Religion must be much kept up by the means of the Parish Ministers and by the doctrine and worship there performed and they that think and endeavour contrary to this of which side soever shall have the hearty thanks and concurrence of the Papists Nor am I causelesly afraid that if we suffer the principles and practices which I write against to proceed without our contradiction Popery will get by it so great advantage as may hazard us all and we may lose that which the several parties do contend about Three ways especially Popery will grow out of our divisions 1. By the odium and scorn of our disagreements inconsistency and multiplied Sects they will perswade people that we must either come for unity to them or else all run mad and crumble into dust and individuals Thousands have been drawn to Popery or confirmed in it by this argument already And I am perswaded that all the Arguments else in Bellarmine and all other books that ever were written have not done so much to make Papists in England as the multitude of Sects among our selves Some Professors of Religious strictness and great esteem for Godliness having run from Sect to Sect and finding no consistency turned Papists themselves 2. Who knows not how fair a game the Papists have to play by our divisions Methinks I hear them hissing on both parties saying to one side Lay more upon them and abate them nothing And to the other Stand it out and yield to nothing hoping that our divisions will carry us to such practices as shall make us accounted seditious rebellious and dangerous to publick peace and so they may pass for better subjects than we or else that they may get a toleration together with us And shall they use our hands to do their work We have already served them unspeakably both in this and in abating the odium of the Gunpowder plot and other Treasons 3. It is not the least of our danger lest by our follies extremities and rigors we so exasperate the common people as to make them readier to joyn with the Papists than with us in case of competitions invasions or insurrections against the King and kingdoms peace The Papists account that if the Puritans get the day they shall make great advantage of it for they will be unsetled and all in pieces and not know how to settle the government Factions and distractions say they give us footing for continual attempts To make all sure we will secretly have our party among Puritans also that we may be sure to maintain our interest Let the Magistrate cherish the disputations of the Teachers and let him procure them often to debate together and reprove one another for so when all men see that there is nothing certain among them they will easily yield saith Contzen the Jesuit Of Spiritual Pride Proud men will not grow in the same field or Church where tares do grow but will transplant themselves because God will not pluck up the tares especially if any ministerial neglect of discipline be conjoyned and instead of blaming their own pride lay the blame on the corruptions of the Church The Pharisees Liturgy is frequent in separate Assemblies God I thank thee I am not as other men But this is very remarkable that it is a pretence of our impurity and a greater purity with you that is pleaded by such as first turn over to you and that this height of all impieties should be the usual issue of a way pretended so exact and clean doubtless it is not Gods mind by this to discourage any from purity and true reformation but to shew his detestation of that spiritual pride which maketh men to have too high thoughts of themselves and too much to contemn others and to desire to be further separated from them than God in the day of grace doth allow of Consider this it is the judgment of some that thousands are gone to hell and ten thousands on their march thither that in all probability had never come there if they had not been tempted from the Parish Churches for injoyment of communion in a purer Church He that causeth differences of judgment and practice contendings in the Church doth cause divisions though none separate from the Church If you may not divide in the Church nor from it then you may not causelesly divide from it your selves And commonly appearance advantage interest and a taking tone and voice do more with the most than solid evidence of truth But they who desire to have a party follow them and are busie in perswading others to be of their mind and speak perverse things c. are guilty of Church divisions Do not you condemn a carnal state Remember they are carnal who are contentious dividers in the Churches 1 Cor. 3. 1. You will disallow a fleshly mind and life Remember then that the works of the flesh are these As adultery fornication c. so hatred or enmity variance emulations wrath strife seditions 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 dividings into parties When once parties are ingaged 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 Of Superstition Do you not hate Superstition Consider then what superstition is it is the making of any new parts of Religion to our selves and fathering them upon God Of this there are two sorts positive and negative When we falsely say This is a duty commanded by God or when we falsely say This is a sin forbidden by God take heed of both For instance The Scripture telleth us of no Church-Elders but what were ordained and of none but such as were of the same office with the preaching Pastors or Elders of none that had not authority to baptize and administer the Lords Supper nor doth Church-History tell us of any other as a divine office But now we have concluded that there is a distinct office of Ruling Elders who need not be ordained and who have no power to baptize or to administer the Lords Supper This I think is Superstition for we feign God to have made a Church-office which he never made That it is simply unlawful to use a form of prayer or to read a prayer on a book That if a School-master impose a form upon a Scholar or a Parent on a child it maketh it become unlawful That our presence maketh us guilty of all the errors or unmeet expressions of the Minister in publick worship at
least if we before know of them and therefore that we must joyn with none whose errors or mis-expression we know of before That we are guilty of the sins of all unworthy or scandalous Communicants if we communicate with them though their admission is not by our fault That he whose judgment is against a Diocesan-Church may not lawfully joyn with a Parish-Church if the Minister be but subject to the Diocesan That whatsoever is unlawfully commanded is not lawful to be obeyed That it is unlawful to do any thing in the Worship of God which is imposed by men and is not commanded in the Scripture These and more such as these are Superstitions which some Religious people have brought in And by all such inventions fathered upon God and made a part of Religion the minds of men are corrupted and disquieted and the Churches disturbed and divided Of Censoriousness Is not censoriousness and rash judging a sin Yet one congregation of the division labours to make others odious and contemptible and that is called the preaching of truth and purer worshipping 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 Seekers that were to seek for a Ministry a Church a Scripture and consequently a Christ I have lived to see it put to the Question in the little Parliament whether all the Ministers of the Parishes of England should be put down at once 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 kind of rule even that which themselves set up have been committed and justified and profanely fathered upon God these with much more such fruits of love-killing principles I have seen If you converse with censorious Separatists you shall hear so many invectives against them that are truly Catholick and sober as will make you think that love and peace and Catholick communion are some sinful and mischievous things The experience of 26. Years in this Kingdom may convince the World what crimes may stand with high professions such as the generation springing up will scarce believe What high Professors were the proudest overturners of all Government and resisters and despisers of Ministry and holy order in the Churches The most railing Quakers and most filthy blaspheming Ranters to warn the World to take heed of being proud of superficial gifts and high profession and that he that stands in his own conceit should take heed lest he fall I have much ado to forbear naming some high Professors known lately at Worcester Exeter and other places who dyed Apostate-Infidels deriding Christianity and the Immortality of the Soul who once were Separatists And I have heard of some Separatists who when others of a contrary judgment were going to the Churches at London looked in at the Doors saying The Devil choak thee art thou not out of thy pottage yet I commend to all that of the Apostle Phil. 2. 3. Let nothing be done through strife and vain glory but in bowliness of mind let each esteem others better than themselves Read this Verse over on your Knees and beg of God to write it on your Hearts And I would wish all Assemblies of dividers and unwarrantable Separtists to write it over the Doors of their Meeting-places and join with it Rom. 12. 10. but especially study James 3. In a word if God would cure the Church of religious pride the pride of wisdom and the pride of piety and goodness the Church would have fewer heresies and contentions and much more peace true wisdome and goodness The forwardness of many to keep open divisions and to affect communion with none but such as say as they do is a down-right mark of a Schismatick And I know that dividing principles and dispositions do tend directly to the ruine and damnation of those in whom they do prevail When Men fall into several Parties burning in zeal against each other abating charity censuring and condemning one another backbiting and reviling each other through envy and strife when they look strangely on each other as being of several sides as if they were not children of the same Father nor members of the same Body or as if Christ were divided one being of Paul and another of Apollo c. and every one of a Faction letting out their thoughts in jealousies and evil surmises of each other perverting the words and actions of each to an ugly sense and snatching occasions to present one another as fools or odious to the hearers as if you should plainly say I pray you hate or despise these People whom I hate and despise This is the core of the Plague sore it is schism in the bud S. 16. When People in the same Church do gather into private Meetings not under the guidance of their Pastors to edifie one another in holy exercises in love and peace but in opposition to their lawful Pastors or to one another to propagate their single opinions and increase their Parties and speak against those that are not on their side Schism is then ready to increase and multiply and the Swarm is ready to come forth and be gone S. 17. When these People actually depart and renounce or forsake the communion of the Church and cast off their faithful Pastors and draw into a separated Body by themselves and choose them Pastors and call themselves a Church and all without any just sufficient cause when thus Churches are gathered out of Churches before the old ones are dissolved or they have any warrant to depart when thus Pastor is set up against Pastor Church against Church and Altar against Altar this is Schism ripe and fruitful the Swarm is gone and hived in another place S. 19. If they shall also judge that Church to be no Church from which they separated and so cut off a part of the body of Christ by an unrighteous censure and condemn the innocent and usurp authority over their guides this is disobedience and uncharitableness with schism A true Christian that hateth Fornication Drunkenness Lying Perjury because forbidden in the Word of God will hate Divisions also which are so frequently and vehemently forbidden Jo. 17. 21 22. Ro. 14. throughout Ro. 15. 12. 1 Cor. 1. 10. Eph. 4. 1 2 c. 1 Cor. 12. Phil. 3. 15. Ro. 16. 17 18. 1 Tim. 1. 4. James 3. The mischief of Divisions may be seen at large p. 739. Q. May or must a Minister silenced or forbid to preach the Gospel go on still to preach it against the Law Answ He that is silenced by just power though unjustly in a Country that needeth not his preaching must forbear there and if he can must go into another Country where he may be more serviceable We must do any lawful thing to procure the Magistrates