A DISCOURSE Concerning the Pretended Religious Assembling In PRIVATE CONVENTICLES WHEREIN The Unlawfulness and Unreasonableness of it is fully Evinced by several Arguments By Iohn Norris M. A. and late Rector of Aldbourn in the County of Wilts LONDON Printed for Iames Norris at the Sign of 〈◊〉 King's Arms without Temple Bar. â—â—â—â— PUBLISHER To The READER THough there be no great need of a Preface to the following Papers yet partly to comply with custome and partly out of a Reverential respect to the dear memory of the Authour my deceased Father I thought it convenient to premise something by way of Apology to the Reader And that he may not be disappointed in his after Entertainment 't will be requisite for him in the entrance to understand that he is not here to expect a Discourse recommended 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by stroaks of Oratory neat turns of expression and harmonious Cadencies this being no way 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Aristotle says in his Rhetorick agreeable to the nature of the thing which being a determination of a Question calls for no other ornaments than plainness perspicuity and solidity And as such a Rhetorical mode of Writing suits not with the nature of the work so neither with the design of its Composition For this Treatise was principally intended by the Authour for the instruction of ordinary and unlearned persons and particularly those of his own Congregation and accordingly he made it his business to bring it to the level of their Capacities Of what advantage this work may be to the learned World it becomes not me to presage onely thus much I believe I may say that the Cause has not suffered under his hands and that as Peace and Vnity was his aim so Truth and Victory is his attainment and this is all the Apology I think needfull to make in behalf to the Authour Now as to what concerns my Publication of this Posthumous Treatise I am aware but of one objection that may be made against it which is that the World is well stockt with excellent discourses on this Subject already This I acknowledge to be true but no way available to the purpose for which it is alledged For first may not the same be said of almost all the Arguments that are And yet this is not thought sufficient to barr all after-undertakings And besides there are different ways of managing the same Subject and how stale soever the latter be yet the former may be always new According to that of Seneca Etsi omnia a veteribus inventa essent hoc tamen semper novum erit usus inventorum ab aliis scientia dispositio Besides there is as much if not more in the advantageous proposal of an Argument as in the Argument it self and it often happens that by the mere placing a thing in a new light conviction is wrought when the very same consideration in another posture proved unsuccesfull These Considerations together with the prospect of being beneficial to the publick prevailed with me to concern my self in this Publication and are I hope sufficient to justifie the undertaking to others For sure that person would betray a very narrow and selfish spirit who declines an opportunity of doing good with the fruits of another's labour as his charity to the Poor must needs be very cold that refuses to be the Steward of another's Bounty Farewell John Norris Allsouls College June the 1st 1684 A Seasonable Question fully discussed Viz. Whether in a constituted Church where there is a constant preaching Ministry established by Law if a Silenced Non-conformist Minister shall come in to reside or inhabit or otherwise intrude himself into any Town or Parish and there without leave and against the will of the Magistrate set up a course of Preaching or other Ministerial acts in Private Meetings commonly called Conventicles it may be accounted the Ordinance of God or means to beget and encrease Faith or any other Saving Grace in the hearts of such as shall go to hear him IN the Entrance of my discourse upon this subject I shall not spend time in explaining the terms of the question they are so easie and obvious to every understanding that they need it not Without therefore any farther Proeme the negative with submission to better judgments I shall defend And that it is not the Ordinance of God as a means of grace conducing ought to the Salvation of mens souls I hope and will endeavour to make appear to any sober and considerate Christian upon these Eight following grounds ARGUMENT I. THat cannot be the Ordinance of God or means of grace that is ipso facto a sinfull act For God whose words and ways are all of them holy just and good hath appointed ordained or allowed nothing that hath any thing of sin in it And it were no less than blasphemy to say the contrary God doth not warrant any man to doe evil that good may come by it no not the least evil for the procurement of the greatest good either to our own or the souls of others The Apostle rejects the very thought of such a thing with horror and detestation as knowing damnation to be the just reward of it It is a good saying of Cajetan upon that place Secundum sanam veramque doctrinam peccata non sunt eligenda ut media ad quemcunque bonumfinem According to sound and true doctrine sins are not to be chosen as means to procure any good end whatsoever And mark his reason Quia suapte naturâ repugnat peccato quod sit eligibile It is contrary to and disagreeable with the nature of sin to be at all matter of our choice Propterea nec propter se nec propter aliud bonum est eligibile And therefore it is not to be chosen either for it self or for any good that comes by it They are neither good intents nor good events that make good actions All 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Will-worship is abominable to God His express Precept is Ye shall diligently keep the Commandments of the Lord your God his testimonies and statutes and doe that which is right and good in the sight of the Lord. And his Prohibition Ye shall not doe every man what is right in his own eyes The Commandments of God would soon be made of none effect if every one in the Church should doe what best likes him Shall the Master's will depend on the pleasure of the Servant or the Servant 's upon the master's He cannot be approved by him that employs him who busies himself in a work most sutable to his own humour with neglect of what is given him in Command Had a good intention been enough to have justified an action Saul had done very well in sparing Agag and the best of the spoils of the Amalekites and the kingdom of Israel might have continued to him and his house And Saint Peter had never been call'd Satan by our Saviour as
a prophane contempt or neglect of any part of publick worship for every imperfection and blemish nor to separate from a Church though never so corrupt so long as the Word Sacraments and Doctrine of Salvation may there be enjoyed Corruptions of a Church are commonly by Divines distinguished into two sorts They are either such as concern the matter of Religion which the Apostle calls demnable Heresies in fundamental points of Faith and Holiness which tend to the destroying of the very being of a Church Or else such as concern the manner of Religion in circumstantials and ceremonials which are matters of lower concern and inferiour alloy Such as to use the words of Learned Bp. Davenant Non continuo ad fidem fundamentalem spectant sed ad peritiam theologicam fortasse ne ad hanc quidem sed aliquando ad curiositatem theologorum belong not to the fundamentals of Faith but skilfulness in Divinity and not to that neither but rather to the curiosity of Divines Now errours even in fundamentals may be in a Church upon a double account either through infirmity and humane frailty the best of us knowing but in part in this Life God allows no separation in such a case The Church of Galatia through infirmity was quickly turned to another Gospel and erred even in matters fundamental holding justification by works and was fallen to the observation of Iewish Ceremonies which St. Paul calls beggarly Elements Their Apostle was become their Enemy and that for telling them the truth He was afraid of them lest all the labour he had bestowed amongst them was in vain and was fain to travel in birth with them again yet he owns them and writes to them as a Church notwithstanding Or else vitioso affectu immorigeroe voluntatis out of malice when men know they doe amiss and yet persist obstinately in so doing In such a case separation may be with a good Conscience When St. Paul had preach'd in the Synagogue of the Iews and they would not believe but began to blaspheme and speak evil of the ways of God then he withdrew and separated from them So that it must be no small matter that must be a sufficient ground to any one that means to keep a good Conscience to warrant his withdrawing from the publick Congregation in any part of God's worship If a man have not discretion he may easily run himself into a great evil of sin whilst he seeks to shun a light inconvenience and in avoiding that which he thinks to be superstition he may soon become really Schismatical and prophane which is as if a man did flee from a Lion and a Bear met him or went into the house and leaned his hand on the wall and a Serpent bit him Suppose there were some evil mixtures in our administration of Church-worship yet in the judgment of the Presbyterian Divines themselves this is not a sufficient ground of a negative much less of a positive separation For say they the learned Authour before mentioned that is Camero tells us that corruption in manners crept into a Church is not a sufficient cause of separation from it This he proves from Matt. 23. 2 3. And he also gives this reason for it Because in what Church soever there is purity of Doctrine there God hath his Church though overwhelmed with scandals And therefore whosoever separateth from such an Assembly separateth from that place where God hath his Church which is rash and unwarrantable And in the next Page they say He that will never communicate with any Church till every thing that offendeth â—e removed out of it must tarry till the great day of Judgment when and not till then Christ will send forth his Angels and gather out of his Kingdom every thing that offendeth and them that doe iniquity And though to excuse themselves from the guilt of Schism they that do separate may pretend that they make not aâ— open breach of Christian Love wherein the nature of that great sin doth consist Let their own words answer themselves We grant that to make up the formality of a Schismatick there must be added uncharitableness as to make up the formality of an Heretick there must be added obstinacy But yet as he that denieth a fundamental Article of Faith is guilty of Heresie though he add not obstinacy thereunto to make him an Heretick so he that doth unwarrantably separate from a true Church is truly guilty of Schism though he add not uncharitableness thereunto to denominate him a complete Schismatick How unjustifiable then is the separation which some make themselves and cause others to make in these days from our Churches which in their Constitution for Doctrine Discipline and Worship are the envy of Rome and the admiration of the rest of the Christian World where there is nothing Idolatrous in Worship nothing Heretical in Doctrine nor Antiscriptural in Discipline where there is nothing taught believed or done but what is agreeable with the word of God or not contrary thereunto And to speak in the words of the learned and godly Dr. Henry More a Church so throughly purged from whatsoever can properly be styled Antichristian and is I am confident so Apostolical that the Apostles themselves if they were alive again would not have the least scruple of joyning in publick worship with us in our common Assemblies Separation from it can be no less than the fruit of Pride or bitter Zeal which tends to strife And where envy and strife is there is confasion and every evil work I have heard some Church-forsakers when they have been told of their Apostasie and falling off from the Church whereof they were Members excuse and please themselves in this that they are not Apostates from the Faith they hold the same Doctrine and believe the same Creed we do Though in that they doe no more than Papists doe But in the mean time they consider not That 1. This is an improvement and aggravation of their sin so far is it from excusing the fault to depart from a Church wherein they were born and baptized and which by their own confession continues sound in the Faith Separation is allowed by no Divines no not by the Presbyterians themselves but either in case of cruel Persecution damnable Heresie or down right Idolatry They then that separate from a Church where there is neither of these have the greater sin 2. That the hainousness of the sin of Schism doth not consist in renouncing the Faith but in the breach of Christian Charity without which all Faith is nothing A man may be very Orthodox in his Judgment and yet be a damnable Schismatick if he break that Union which ought to be religiously kept amongst Christians in God's worship especially And because this breach is manifestly perfected in refusing due Ecclesiastical Communion together therefore that separation is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 called Schism 3. That the breach
no wise take well at their hands viz. that they should put themselves under the Ministry of another they will grow to such a degree of strangeness to him as to shun common neighbourhood and acquaintance with him yea they will easily account him their greatest Enemy as Ahab did Elijah or the Galatians did St. Paul because he doth not flatter them in tha◠which how wicked and unlawfull soever it be is therefore the sweeter to them because forbidden and enjoyed as it were by stealth For stollen waters are sweet and bread eaten in secret is pleasant though the end of such ill gotten delight be in the depth of hell What esteem can they have of their Minister's Person or Office which are look'd upon by them as either needless or indifferent if not tedious and burthensome What regard to his Doctrine which as experience shews us is and will be so lightly set by that some will wholly forsake attendance on it others come to hear as there is too much cause to doubt more out of curiosity than necessity and as some have not been ashamed to confess rather to 〈◊〉 as those that listned to our Saviour's Sermons to catch him in his discourse than to learn or to practise And so the Pulpit which is God's Tribunal is made their bar and they become not doers of the Law but Iudges What dependance can a People have on their own pastour in his discharge of ministerial Duties amongst them where some are reduced into a perfect revolt from him other brought to a loose indeterminacy in Divine worship and Church-communion and all to a Lukewarm indifference what Ministry they enjoy and Church-Assemblies are made matter of Complement rather than necessity Usurpation and intrusion as it shall never want store of friends and favourers among the ignorant and unstable vulgar be it never so unjust so the more abbettours and maintainers it hath in any place the greater must the defection needs be from him to whom they own their adherence And thus will that golden chain of relation that is and ought to be betwixt a Pastour and his People by this means be wholly dissolved and those put asunder whom God bath joined together For as it is in a marriage it is not the having of an Husband that makes the Wife honest chast and undefiled but her loving her Husband and keeping her self wholly to him otherwise the Wedlock bond is broken so in this union betwixt Pastour and People it is not the having a Minister that maintains and upholds the relation and conjunction that God would have to continue between them but the acknowledging of him keeping to him and depending on him in the Lord for all ministerial Acts to be performed by him among them otherwise the knot of unity that ought to be betwixt them is untyed Now here I could tell the Reader so lamentable a story of the truth of this sad effect which upon mine own experience I have found of this usurpation and intrusion I am now disputing against that if he be such a one as hath any fear of God before this eyes any zeal for his house worship and service or any care of the Unity and Peace of the Church it would make both his ears at the hearing of it tingle My Parish was a Virgin pure and undefiled free from all invadours and underminers of her Chastity till about four years since when the Act of Parliament for the removal of such of the Nonconformist ministers as refused to take the oath therein prescribed out of all Corporations sent or occasioned one of them not to preach but to inhabit amongst us Before whose coming there was not a Congregation in the Country that I know for so many People being near 1000 souls more entire more unanimous more constant at all parts of publick worship more free from all inclination to schism separation or any of the raigning Epidemical faults of this Age. We had then what happiness we could desire and it seems greater than we deserved When the ground all about us was wet with the showres of schism and prophaneness we like Gideon's fleece were dry But because we gave not God thanks sufficient he suffered Satan to erect Altare contra Altare for so went the style of the ancient Church for schism which in our modern Dialect is a Conventicle against the Church Now that Congregation which was before entire is now miserably divided and those that lived under the oversight and teaching of one lawfull Pastour as a chast Wife under the guidance of her own Husband according to God's Holy Ordinance are gone aside to others and admit of the unlawfull embraces of strangers I could tell the Reader of some of those people who were formerly constant attendants on all parts of divine Worship that are now by this means totally gone off non fugati sed fugitivi as say the Brethren of the Presbyterian way of the Independents and for the space of several years have not set their foot over the threshold of God's house yea so far are they withdrawn and to so high and impious an abhorrency of God's publick Worship are they brought as to detain their very Children from publick Baptism They are modelled as they call it into a new Church-way for the enjoyment of Ordinances And no wonder for the Scripture tells us that besides God's Church Satan will have his too There is Ecclesia Credentium and Ecclesia Malignantium according to that of David odi Ecclesiam malignantium I have hated the Congregation of Evil doers And Tertullian tells us faciunt favos vespae faciunt Ecclesias Marcionitae Wasps make Combs but empty ones Schismaticks and Sectaries make Churches but false ones Singuli quique coetus haereticorum se potissimum Christianos suam esse Ecclesiam Catholicam putant saith Lactantius Of others I could relate that upon this sad occasion are in part revolted from the publick Assemblies of the Saints and though they live near enough to the Church yet come thither but now and then and that to hear a Sermon onely and to no other part of divine Service To satisfie curiosity I suppose rather than Conscience wherein they seem to discover much of Hypocrisie but nothing of Piety For I would demand of them doe they well or ill when they come If well why then come they not at all times when they may If ill why then come they at any time What moves them at any time to approach the place where God's honour dwells Is it because he hath commanded it or to doe him any service thereby I ask him again whether hath not he commanded the publick Service of the whole day as well as a part A Lamb at the Evening as well as a Lamb in the Morning Of every Lord's day as well as of one now and then Why else did the Lord call the Sabbath of old an holy Convocation As if