11. Whether this kind of talk be not sport to the Papists to hear us call one another Idolaters as well as them and do not make them deride us and harden them in their bread-worship and image-worship as being called Idolatry on no better grounds than we so call one another Q. 12. Whether it be not a great dishonour to any man to suffer silencing because he cannot add to Gods worship the Ceremonies and Liturgie and at the same time to add to Gods word new and false doctrines of our own by saying that It is a species of Idolatry forbidden in the second Command because it is used in the worship of God without any command to make it lawful And if we should suffer such false doctrine and additions and Love-killing dividing principlesas this to go uncontradicted whether we do not betray the truth and our flocks and shew that we were too worthy of our sufferings But that this assertion or definition of Idolatry is false I need to prove no otherwise than 1. That it is unproved by him that is to prove it and 2. That it denieth Christ to have a Church on earth or to have any but Churches of Idolaters 3. That it turneth all sin in Gods worship into one species even Idolatry And so every false doctrine used in Gods worship is Idolatry Every Antimonian Anabaptist Separatist or of any other error be it never so small must be presently an Idolater if in prayer or preaching he speak his error And what man is infallible When your Companion promised in the Pulpit that there should be no more Tythes no more Taxes nor no more King in Worcestershire after Worcester-Fight this must be Idolatry For certainly no error is commanded of God 4. That it maketh the description of a thing indifferent to be the description of Idolatry For as a thing forbidden is the description of sin so to be not commanded speaketh no more but Indifferency Though the prohibition to do any thing not commanded speaketh more if it could be proved 5. It is contrary to the Scripture which never useth the word IDOLATRY in that sense Peruse the several texts and try 6. It equalleth almost all Churches with the Infidel and Pagan World 7. It heinously injureth God who is a hater of Idolaters and will visit their sins as God-haters on the third and fourth Generations to feign him to be thus a hater of his Churches and of them that use any thing in his worship not commanded 8. It tendeth to drive all Christians to despair as being Idolaters and so abhorred of God because they have all some uncommanded yea forbidden thing in worship For by this mans doctrine a sinful wandring thought a sinful disorder or tautologie or bad expression is Idolatry as being not commanded 9. It tendeth to drive men to give ever worshipping God because while they are certain to sin they are certain to be Idolaters when they have done their best 10. It hardeneth the Mahometans in their enmity to Christianity who being the great exclaimers against Idolatry do already falsely brand us with that crime But what ever else it do I am sure it is so pernicious an engine of Satan to kill Love and divide the Church to feign every Conformist how holy soever and every one that useth in worship any thing not commanded to be an Idolater that I may well advise all Christians as they love Christ and his Church and their own souls to keep themselves from such mistakes Were it not that it is unmeet to do great works â—â—rily on such slight occasions in such a discourse as this is I would here stay to open the meaning of the second Commandement and shew 1. That there are abundance of lawful things in Gods worship as circumstances and outward modes that are not commanded in specie or individuo 2. That somethings forbidden in that Commandement indirectly are not Idolatry 3. Much less are they a sufficient cause of separation But this is fitter for another place And I again refer you to Mr. Lawson in his Theopolitica EXCEPT XX. Answered This Exception is but a bundle of mistakes and the fruit of your false interpretation of my design 1. That I prove not what I say is not true when the many instances fully prove it and you your self deny them not 2. When I explain my self frequently and fully who I do not mean by Dividers and what separation I allow you feign me to open my mind very unwillingly and to defend those whom I traduce that you may make men believe that I mean those whom I still profess that I mean not and that you know my mind better than I my self This is not true and righteous dealing EXCEPT XXI p. 12. Answered When I say Our presence at the prayers of the Church is no profession of Consent to all that is faulty in those prayers he saith The Apostle thought otherwise in a like â—ase of sitting at meat in an Idols Temple Answ. Brother of all the men that ever I had to do with scarce any hath dealt so superficially without saying any thing against the proofs which I lay down noâ— seeming to take any notice of them How can you choose but see your self that by denying my proposition 1. You make it unlawful to joyne with any Church or person in the World and so would dissolve all Church-Communion and Family-worship For do not all men sin in prayer And must any man consent to sin 2. How do you reflect on God that forbiddeth us to forsake the assembling of our selves together If consenting to sin be unavoidable 3. I told you we Consent not to the faults of our own prayers much less to anothers that are less in our power What work would this one opinion of yours make in the World If we are guilty of all that is faulty in all the prayers of the Church or Family we joyn with yea more do by our presence profess Consent to them and withal if all not commanded in worship be Idolatry what a World are we then in It 's time then to turn seekers and say that Church and Ministry are lost It is these principles brother that I purposely wrote my book against But you speak much besides the truth when you say The Apostle thought otherwise in a like Case For you never prove that he thought otherwise Dare you say I beseech you think on it that Paul and all the Apostles and all the Churches professed consent to all the faults in worship which they were present at How know you that they were never present at any such as Paul reproveth in the Corinthians Yea was Christ a professed Consenter to all that he was present at Or all that he commanded men to be present at when he went to the Synagogues and bade the cleansed go shew themselves to the Priests and offer c. And bade his Disciples hear the Scribes and Pharisees c. I do not charge the
if they that hold more things to be lawful must agree in practice with them that hold the fewest lawful than such must 1. Forsake their own understandings and live in many sins and 2. They must be alwayes at an uncertainty in their practice because some may yet arise that may count more things unlawful And so the whole party may change their practice every year as new scruples or errors arise in any 3. And so the most scrupulous though the most erroneous must be the Standard and Rule of all the rest 4. And so we should tempt others still to new scruples and to make more and more things sinful that so they might obtain the Rule of all I ever thought therefore that without any combinations our way is every man to know the truth as well as he can and practice accordingly and live in Love and Peace with those that differ from him in tollerable things And thus I hope most Non-conformable Ministers do In the year 1663 divers learned and reverend Non-conformists of London met to Consider how far it was their duty or lawful to Communicate with the Parish Churches where they lived in the Liturgie and Sacrament and we agreed the next day to bring in our several judgements in writing with our reasons Accordingly I brought in mine in which I proved four propositions 1. That it is Lawful to use a form of prayer 2. That it is Lawful to joyn with some Parish Churches in the use of the Liturgie 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 They being long I read over to them the last only which being proved by 20. Reasons included all the rest Upon Consideration whereof no one of the brethren seemed to dissent but to take the reasons to be valid save only that one Objection stopt them all to which I also yielded and we concluded at the present to forbear Sacramental Communion with the Parishes And that was because it was a time when great severities were threatned against those that could not so far Conform and most of the Independents and some others were against it And our brethren verily believed that if we should then Communicate those that could not yield so far would be the sharplier used because they yielded not as far as we I yielded to them readily that God will have Mercy and not Sacrifice and even Gods worship otherwise due as prayer or preaching or sabbath-keeping may be omitted for an act of Mercy even to pull an Oxe or Ass out of a pitt And therefore pro tempore I would forbear that sacrament which was like to cause the imprisonment or undoing of my neighbour In mentioning this these three things are my end 1. To tell the world the judgement of these Ministers who are misjudged by their actual forbearance of publick Communion that they take it for a thing unlawful whereas they are thus accidentally hindered from it Besides many other accidents not here to be mentioned this before named is one 2. To shew the Prelates who and what it is that hath hindered mens nearer Communion with them And that while rigor and severity is trusted to as the only means to further it it proveth the principal means of hindering it 3. To shew the Independents that we have been so far from dealing hardly or uncharitably with them that we have forborn that Communion which else our own judgements would have charged on us as our duty either only or chiefly for fear of being the least occasion accidentally of their sufferings And if yet they are impatient with us for obeying our Consciences who can help it What the rest did after this consultation in their practices I enquired not But for my own part on the same argument I forbore Communion with the Parish Churches in the sacrament a long time till at last I saw that the Reason seemed to me to cease and I durst not for I knew not what go against my judgement But lest it might possibly have any such hurtful consequents I chose a very private Country Parish to Communicate with where I sometime sojourned and where there was neither that nor any other reason to hinder me But yet after many years further observation lest men that know not of my practice should be scandalized or insnared to think that I forbore Parish Communion as unlawful and so to do the like themselves I once chose an Easter day to Communicate in a very populous Church in London purposely that it might be the further known But having some reasons to forbear at the Parish where I lived most constantly it so far provoked the Parson that I may suppose no Independent suffered so much through my Communicating as I have done by forbearing for their sakes At last in the year 1667. observing how mens minds grew every day more and more exasperated by their sufferings and whither all this tended and what was like to be the issue I wrote this book called The Cure of Church-Divisions the Reasons whereof I am next to give you But being not used to publish any thing unlicensed nor thinking it fit to break the Law of Printing without necessity nor knowing how to get it Printed unlicensed if I would I knew that if I put any thing into it very provokingly it would not be licensed and would frustrate all the rest And yet my Conscience told me that it looked so like partiality to tell one party of their faults and call them to their duty and not the other that I resolved to say as much to the Bishops and Imposing Clergy as should signifie my judgement plainly to any intelligent man and tell them what sense I had of narrowing Impositions and Severities and what is the way of Unity and Peace though not to cloath it in exasperating language And if they would not not license it all together I purposed to cast it all aside And to confess the truth the deep sense of the sin and infatuation of this age hath long made me desirous to have written one Book with the Title in dying Bradfords words REPENT O ENGLAND and that in several parts professing first my own Repentance in several Particulars then calling severally the Bishops and Conformable Clergy the Presbyterians the Independents and the Sectaries Corporations and Country to Repent But I knew the Bishops would not endure it and I could not get it Licensed or Printed and I had greater things to write and many wise men whose judgements much rule me disswaded me and laughed at my weakness that I should think that such men would regard what I said or that it would have any better effect than exasperation And I long purposed not to speak to one sort till I might speak to all to avoid partiality and evil consequents But at last considering that by this rule I might
an exhortation and advice seem injurious or intolerable to you the Lord have mercy on your souls Is the matter of this prayer unlawful Or can he prove that I spake it jestingly when I took it to be the serious prayer of my grieved heart Or may we use no words as Lord have mercy on us c. which others use unreverently Or is it true doctrine that this is the foolish talk and jesting forbidden Eph. 5 What proof is there here of any one word of all this EXCEPT IV. p. 2. He doth very often and needlesly insist on many things that may tend to advance his own reputation The instances are added Answ. 1. I Confess Brother I am a great sinner and have more faults than you have yet found out But I pray you note that all this still is nothing to our Controversie whether we should advise men against Church divisions as contrary to Love 2. If a humble Physitian may put a probatum to his Receipt and say I have much experience of this or that I pray you why may not a humble Minister tell England that I and you have had experience of the hurt of divisions and of the healing uniting power of Love Did all the Independent Church-members whose Experiences are printed in a book take Experience to be a word of pride 3. And is it pride to thank the World for their Civilities to me in mixing commâ—ndations which I disown with their censures What! to confess the remnants of their moderation notorious in matter of fact the truth of which you durst not deny in the midst of their many false censures and calumnies 4. Or to tell you how unable I have â—ound back-biters to prove their accusations in doctrinals to my face 5. Or to tell you that some even Independents perswaded me when I was silenced to write sermons for some of the weaker Conformists such as are too many youths from the University to preach Where lieth the pride of these expressions Is it in supposing that there are any Conformists weaker than my self Whether think you this brother or I think meanlier of them Or set our selves at the greater distance from them 6. When I plead against charging forms with Idolatry I say that for my self it is twenty times harder to me to remember a form of words than to express what is in my mind without them If this be not true why did you not question the truth of it If it be why is it pride to utter it as a proof that I plead for Love and not for my own interest Is it pride to confess so openly the weakness of my memory I never learnt a Sermon without book in my life I think I could not learn an hours speech sufficiently to utter the very words by memory in a fortnights time And is it pride for a man to say that he can easier speak what is in his mind Truly brother I was so far from intending it as a boast that I meant it as a diminâ—tion of the over-valued honour of present extemporary expression and to tell you that I take it to be so far from proving that your prayers only are accepted of God before a form as signifying more grace that I take it to be an easier thing for an accustomed man that hath not a diseased hesitancy to speak extempore what is in his mind than to learn a form without book And that they thaâ— do this do serve God with as much labour and cost as you do Do I boast or do I not speak the common case of most Ministers when I truly say That when I take most pains for a Sermon I write every word when I take a little pains I write the heads but when business hindereth me from taking any pains I do neither but speak what is in my mind which I suppose others as well as I could do all the day and week together if weariness did not interrupt them I seek by these words but to abate their pride that think themselves spiritual because they can pray or preach without book Like some now neer me that account it formality and a sign that a Preacher speaketh not by the Spirit if he use notes or preach upon a text of Scripture but admire one neer them that cries dâ—wn such and useth neither 7. Is it pride to say that thâ—se darker persons whom I have been â—ain to rebuke for their over-valuing me and my understanding would yet as stiffly defend their most groundless opinions against me when I crost them as if they thought I had no understanding If you do think that you cannot be over-valued or are not so do not I. And I thought my rebuking men for it had been no sign of pride And brother I am confident if you your self did not believe that my understanding and consequently my Writings are over-valued you would never have written this book especially in such a stile against me yea in the end you profess this to be your design to undeceive those that had a good opinion of me If those on the other side had not thought the same my late Auditors at Kederminster had never had so many Sermons and that by persons so high nor would so many books have been written to the same end even to cure the people of this dangerous vice of over-valuing me The matter of fact being so publick invalidateth your exception 8. The last expression of my pride is that I give this testimony even to Christians inclined to divisions that if they think a man speaketh not to the depressing of true and serious religion they can bear that from him which they cannot bear from one that they think hath a malignant end and that on this account in my sharpest reproofs my own auditors have still been patient with me Enquire whether this be true or not Whether I have not preached twenty times more against Divisions to a people that never once quarrelled with it than I have written against it in the book with which you so much quarrel And is this probatum given against malignity a word of pride too You proceed in your Charge that I have great thoughts of my self and have learned little of Christian or moral ingenuity and am unfit to be a Teacher of it to others Answ. 1. Do you not yet perceive that you also have a silencing spirit when you and those that you separate from are agreed that we are unfit to be Teachers because we gainsay you why do you pretend so great a distance even in the point of imperious severity 2. O how hard is it still to know our selves and what manner of spirit we are of Is it pride in me to think that I am righter than you or to express it Why brother do not you think as confidently that you are righter than I and do you not as Confidently utter it I differ no further from you than you do from me And why is it not
indeed when a soul oppressed with sorrow before shall suddenly find ease by having some Scripture brought to their mind which before they thought not of if this be not the spirits work as a Comforter we shall be alwaies doubtful how aad when he performeth that office which way of Doubting Mr. Baxter's Divinity leads into which sufficiently shews it is not of God For God calls us to hope perfectly and to rejoyce in the hope Answ. The Divinity which I think true and sound doth teach Enthusiasts whether Fryers or Nuns or any such Phanatick not to believe every spirit but to try the spirits whether they be of God And to believe that Satan can transform himself into an Angel of Light And to doubt whether their suggestions revelations or prophecies be of God till it be true and sure For instance I would have had your fellow prisoner have doubted of his three after mentioned prophecies uttered in the Pulpit as from the spirit of God That we should have no more King Tythes or Taxes Be not angry with me for giving you such instances It is only to save others from wronging the Holy Ghost and exposing Religion to profane mens scorn And I would not have one turn Anabaptist if in their sorrow or musing that Text should be set upon their mind Act. 22. 16. Why tarriest thou arise and be baptized and wash away thy sins Nor would I have another turn Papist if that Text be set upon his heart Act. 9. 6. Arise and go into the City avd it shall be told thee what thou must do And if it be a Popish Priest that he â—irst meâ—teth with and thinkâ—â—◠〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 thâ— mâ—n that must inform â—im I woâ—â—d not 〈…〉 ember of any Church upon an insufficient reason separate from it if that Text be seâ— upon his heart Come out of her my people c. Or â— Cor. 6. 17. Come out from among them and be yâ— separate c. Nor would I 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Hypocriâ—â—â—r ungodly person conâ—lude himself to be sincere if that Text do suddenly come into his mind how affectingly soever Ioh 1. 47. Behold an Israelite indeed in whom is no guile Nor would I have an upright doubtâ—â—g Christian conclude himself an Hypocrite 〈◊〉 that text come into his mind Act. 8. Thy heart is not right in the sight of God c. I think that there is somewhat else besides the sudden coming into our minds and the deepesâ— affecting of us that is necessary to prove the true meaning of a Text and the soundness of our Conclusions from it And yet I never doubted but that the spirit doth both cause our comfort and our resolutions and other gracious effects by bringing forgotten Texts to our remembrance But the way that I think the spirit cureth our doubting by is all these things following set together 1. Supposing that he hath infallibly guided the writers of the Scripture 2. And hath set to it the infallible seal of God which is the Impress of his Power Wisdome and Goodness 3. And that he helpeth Ministers to preach this Gospel to us 4. He next doth help us to Remember and to Understand it And no false exposition is from the spirit of God And he hath left us sufficient means to discern as far as is necessary to our Salvation and our Comfort whether it be rightly interpreted or not 5. And he helpeth us firmly to believe the Truth of it And of the unseen Glory which it promiseth 6. And hereby he kindleth in us Repentance Hope and Love and reneweth both soul and life to the Image of God and the example of Jesus Christ. 7. And then he helpeth us to Act or Exercise all this Grace 8. And he helpeth us to discern the sincerity of it And And so by the spirit we know that we have the spirit and have the witness of Christ and the seal of God and the pledge earnest and first fruits of eternal life within us whilest the spirit doth make known himself to be in us And all true signs of Sanctification or the Divine nature in us are signs of this in-dwelling sealing spirit But so are not the sudden passions and fancies and change of parties sides or by opinions or strong conceits unproved from whence some use to fetch their comforts 9. And next he helpeth us hereupon to make a true application of the promise of Justification and Salvation to our selves Having before applied or received it by Faith and Consent and being Iustified he helpeth us to apply it to our Assurance and setled Hope and Comfort and to argue There is no Condemnation to them that are in Christ Iesus that walk not after the flesh but after the spirit But I am in Christ Iesus and I walk not after the flesh but after the spirit Therefore there is no condemnation to me 10. Next the same spirit exciteth actual Hope and Ioy in the soul by the said application of the promise that we shall not only conclude from it that we have pardon and right to Heaven in Jesus Christ but also shall have the Will and Affections duly moved with that Conclusion 11. And the same spirit helpeth us to answer all the false Cavils of Satan the World or our misgiving hearts which rise up against this hope and Comfort 12. And lastly he helpeth us in the use of all those holy means by which this Hope and Comfort is to be maintained and helpeth us against the sins that would destroy it and so keepeth it in life and exercise and perseverance till we finally overcome By all these twelve Acts together the spirit causeth the Hope and Comfort of Believers and saveth them from their doubts and sorrows And now Brother when you can calmly think of it I should be glad that you would consider whether to say this Divinity leadeth to doubting and that it is not of God be not 1. An untruth 2. An injury to him whom you calumniate 3. An injury to the souls of men that must be thus comforted 4. And an injury to God by telling the World that his own doctrine is not his own and by feigning Gods truth to be mans error And whether your way here opened by receiving sudden Comfort by a remembred Text be sounder doctrine And be not such a way as Papists Quakers and most deluded people commonly boast of And if you bring poor souls no better directions for their full assurance peace and joy whether in the end you will not prove a miserable Comforter EXCEPT XVII p. 10. Answered When I say that I wonder at men that think God maketh such a matter as they do of their several words and forms as that he loveth only extemporate prayers and hateth forms or loveth only prescribed forms and hateth extemporate prayers by habit he saith this is As if I could never speak meanly enough about prayer But brother if you kindle this burning zeal your self by teaching men to hate either forms or
men perfectly whom you count natural and so perfectly evil 2. Do you not tell the World that your purpose is to speak as bad of all us and others whom you account natural as your tongue can possibly speak and to take this for no slander but your duty seeing you think you cannot speak bad enough of corrupted nature as the nature of every man now is Do you not here tell us that how bad soever you shall say of us you never do or can say bad enough But why are you so angry with me for being and doing so bad when I have no freedom to be or to do better any more than the fire not to burn Yea when you inferr all mens natures to be incurably evil and therefore desperate seeing it was a capacity of holyness which I asserted when with such abhorrence you contend against my words EXCEPT XXXIII p. 19. Answered 1. To be a surly proud professor is a milder accusation far than your last 2. But why should a Preacher think that a man must speak against no sin which he is guilty of himself EXCEPT XXXIV Answered 1. I understand not what you mean by saying If they persecute any they contract a guilt upon all If you mean on all the people then you think you are guilty of persecution If you mean on all the Magistrates then the Innocent even Obadiah that â—id the Prophets are guilty of persecuting them What guilt a publick persons sin bringeth on a body politick as such is a case that I mean not to dispute with you 2. You adde We think they do a very ill office to Magistrates that insinuate it is possible for them to persecute some and yet be innocent Answ. If you intimate as you seem plainly to do that I have so done this is your 26th Untruth and worse than a meer untruth EXCEPT XXXV Answered 1. Doth it follow that because lawful separation is not from the same uncharitable spirit that persecution is therefore unlawful separation is not 2. You force me to confute you by Instances which yet you abhor to hear You say Persecution in no case can consist with love Do you think your self that all the Common-wealths-men the Anabaptists the Separatists the Independents or whoever that had a hand in the order for sequestring all Ministers that kept not their daies of humiliation and thanksgiving for the blood of Scotland had no love at all remaining Or that none of this was persecution Nor yet the ejecting of them that refused the engagement Nor yet the imprisonment and banishment of the London Ministers and the death of Mr. Love and Gibbons To pass by the Scotch war it self and all the rest Do not the Sectaries think that the Presbyterians did or would have persecuted them And did not the Presbyterians think that the Sectaries persecuted them Do you think that in the Contentions with the Donatists the Novatians and many other professors of strictness the parties that persecuted had no Love and so no true grace remaining Truly brother I like persecution as little as most men living do and have written more against it than you have done forgive this pride But I cannot be so uncharitable as to condemn all the sects and parties and persons as utterly graceless that have been drawn to persecute one another When I consider how few sects in the World have escaped the guilt and how far pievishness and seeming interest hath carried them You know I suppose that the Munster Anabaptists themselves did not forbear it The Lutherans have oft persecuted the Calvinists And the Arminians in Holland thought that the Calvinists persecuted them and denied them liberty of Conscience Even the New England godly Magistrates and Ministers are accused of it by the Quakers and the followers of Mrs. Hutchinson and Gortin And I would you knew what spirit you are of whether you have none of the same spirit your self Would you not have hindered the Printing of this Book of mine if you could have done it And then would you not have hindered me from Preaching the same thing if you could have done it And is not this to silence that Teaching which is against your judgement Is not that spirit which hath all the vehement slanders and revilings which your book aboundeth with and which earnestly prayeth God to rebuke me of the same kind think you as to uncharitableness with the persecuting spirit And is this in you inconsistent with all Love 3. It is your 27th Untruth that after many virulent expressions I am forced to confess c. My constant expression of my judgement and true stating of my sense is no forced Confession of any thing Much less did I ever confess that no persecution can consist with Love but have even there said much to evince the contrary EXCEPT XXXVI Answered I put ten Questions to convince men of the sin of that separation which I speak against And all his answer to them is but this He asks many questions about Church-Communion But he knows the Proverb and let that answer him Answ. But is this impartial enquiring into the truth Or is this kind of writing fit to satisfie sober men EXCEPT XXXVII Answered Your 28th Untruth is next He taketh it ill that we should think the Church of Christ to consist but of a few When I have no such word or sense but my self profess there to believe it and only contradict them that would rob Christ of almost all those few and make them incomparably fewer than they be You adde But when he saies the belief of this is the next way to infidelity Answ. That 's your 29th Untruth I said no such thing I only admonish you to observe that your abusive lessening the number is your way to Infidelity And I proved it which you pass by He that can believe to day that Christ came to dye for no more in all the World than the Separatists are is like very shortly to believe that he is not the Christ the Saviour of the World and the Lamb of God that takes away the sins of the World When you adde that I cast reproach on the word of God that affirmeth this expresly it is but another of your untruths and an abuse of the word of God EXCEPT XXXVIII Answered When I tell you of some that have run through all sects and turned Infidels you adde another Untruth that I thus reproach a whole party with the miscarriages of some few unless you mean by a whole party all that are of that opinion which I confure For all the Separatists are not for it And so what ever opinion in the World I shall gain-say you may say that I contradict a whole Party that is the Party that holdeth that opinion But brother doth every one reproach you that telleth you of your danger and would save you from infidelity and hell If the common people should tell you that you reproach their whole
being fit for the sacrament c. to be admitted and go in the Congregational way pag. 42. they cite Cotton Holin of Chur. Mem. p. 92. saying Neither among us doth irregeneration alone keep any from Church-fellowship with us unless it be accompanied with such fruits as are openly scandalous and de convincingly manifest irregeneration They prudently tell us p. 45. that The Lord hath not set up Churches only that a few old Christians may keep one another warm while they live and then carry away the Church into the cold Grave with them when they die but that they might with all care and advantages nurse up still successively another generation of subjects to Christ c. And that We may be very injurious to Christ as well as to the souls of men by too much straitening and narrowing the bounds of his Kingdom or visible Church on earth Citing Paraeus in Mat. 13. saying In Church-Reformation it is an observable truth that those that are for too much strictness do more hurt than profit the Church Abundance more to the same purpose I might collect And seeing they take children growing up to be members under Church-discipline according to their Capacities Let it be considered soberly whether this doth not intimate to us that Discipline it self must not be exercised with the hurtful rigor that some expect For I would intreat the ridgeder sort if they are Parents but to tell me at what age and for what faults and for want of Grace they would have their own children excommunicated And when they have done whether they will also proceed to a Family Excommunication of them for the same causes They adde a sixth Prop. for the Baptizing of the Children of those that by death or extraordinary providence have been inevitably hindered from publickly acting as aforesaid and yet have given the Church cause in judgement of Charity to look at them as so qualified and such as had they been called thereto would have so acted And they adde a seventh Propos. that The Members of Orthodox Churches being sound in the faith and not scandalous in life and presenting due testimony thereof these occasionally coming from one Church to another may have their children baptized in the Church whither they come by virtue of Communion of Churches But if they remove their habitation they ought orderly to covenant and subject themselves to the Government of Christ in his Church where they settle their abode and so their children to be baptized It being the Churches duty to receive such to Communion so far as they are regularly capable of the same So that they provide for the reception of all meet persons But the chief thing observable is that in Propos. 5. Where the Qualifications or Description of a just entitleing Profession is laid down as consisting in no more than these four things 1. Understanding the doctrine of Faith 2. The publick Profession of Assent thereto 3. Not to be scandalous in life 4. And solemnly owning the Covenant before the Church wherein they give up themselves and their children before the Lord. They require no other proofs of Regeneration noâ— any particular account how they were converted nor what further signs of it they can shew And for my own part I never dissented from those called Congregational in England in the two great points from which their Churches are denominated viz. 1. That regularly they should consist but of so many as are capable of Personal Communion which they call a Congregation 2. And that this Congregation is not jure Divino under the spiritual Government of any superior Church as Metropolitane Patriarchal c. But my chief dissent from them hath been in their going beyond Independency and too many of them coming too neer to Separation 1. By making other tearms of mens title to Church-member-ship than these here recited by the New-England Synod and then the understanding sober profession of Assent and Consent to the Baptismal Covenant is 2. And for their gathering new Churches in the several Parishes as if there had been no Churches there before and the members not gathered by them were not the subjects of any Church-Discipline neither the Children nor Adult And the reasons why I have ever dissented from them in these points have been these 1. Because I find that the contrary was the way of Scripture-times and all antiquity And that the Apostles still received members upon a sudden and bare profession of belief and consent to the Baptismal Covenant with the penitent renunciation of the Flesh the World and the Devil And all Ages since have held this course and made Baptisme the Church-door But I shall heartily joyn with any Brethren that will endeavour herein to save the Church from that state of Imagery and dead Formality which Papists and all Carnal Hypocrites have mortified Gods ordinances and unspeakably injured the Churches by and are still working every ordinance of God that way All good men should labour to recover Religion and Christian profession to an understanding seriousness I will here insert the words of a most Learned and High Prelatist to shew you that whoever is against this Course in Practice no sober men can deny it in principles Eldersfield of Bapt. pag. 48. marg Upon score of like reason whereto and for such after-tryal may have been taken up in the Christian Church that examination which did sift the Constancy or rather Consistency of those that had been taken in young to their presumed grounds that if they wavered they might be known and discharged Or if they remained constant they might by Imposition of hands receive what the common name of that Ceremony did import of their Faith at least a sign of Confirmation Vasques hath from Erasmus in the Preface to his Paraphrase on the Gospels a word of most wholsome grave and prudent advice that those who were baptized young when they begin to write Man should be examined An ratum habeant id quod in Catechismo ipsorum nomine promissum fuit Quod si ratum non habeant ab Ecclesiae jurisdictione liberos manere in 3 part Thom. Disp. 154. To. 2. C. 1. 2. If they did then stand to what their Sureties had presumed for them If not they should be discarded Most necessary and of unimaginable benefit But not if it be turned into cursory Imagery Such a scrutiny would shake off thousands of rotten hypocrites and purge the Church of many such Infidel-believers or professors upon whose dirty faces a little holy water was sprinkled when they knew not what it was but they no more mind the true Sanctification appertaining than Turks or Saracens who shall rise up in judgement against their washed filthyness Or than those of whom St. Peter It is happened unto them according to the true Proverb The dog to his vomit and the washed swine to wallow in the mire Such Discipline of awakened Reason is that which the World groans for And groan it may for any
remedy that the formal Hypocrites will either apply or endure That men would become Christians O that the truth of faith and the power of true Christian belief might be seen in the hearts and lives of those that knowingly put the neck in Christs yoak So far Eldersfield See also Dr. Patrick of Baptisme Dr. Hammonds words I have recited after my Treat of Confirmation They are very worthy of consideration But to leave this digression 2. My second reason why I dissent from them that will have other Tearms of Church-entrance than Baptisme and a stricter exaction of a Title to membership than a professed Affent and Consent to the tearms of that Covenant is because if in our very Church-title and Constitution we forsake the Scriptural and primitive tearms we are liable to the exceptions of all dissenters and cannot justifie our selves against their accusations nor well answer them that say It is long of us and not of them that they communicate not with us 3. Because we shall unavoidably injure many of Christs members and keep those out whom he will own and would have us own to the great injury of him and them 4. Because we shall lessen and weaken the Church of Christ which is already so small and so be injurious to it 5. Because we shall be alwaies at uncertainty on what tearms to go For if once we leave Gods prescribed tearms we shall never know where to fix But every Pastor will examine as he please and form such Covenant-tearms as are agreeable to the measure of his own private judgement and Charity And even among Congregational men we see already that the tearms of mens Titles do vary as the Pastors or Congregations differ in point of strictness 6. And this layeth a certain foundation for perpetual dissentions and divisions when there are no certain tearms of Concord And there is no Union when we depart from Christs authority And it is not in vain that Christ himself prescribed a form of Baptizing And if all his Churches since the Apostles daies have brought us down that Creed or those Articles of Faith and form of Baptizing used universally among them New waies and various waies even as various as mens degrees of prudence and charity will never be the tearms of the Churches Unity 7. And I am very much the more confirm'd against this extream by my long experience Having made it much of my work to know the minds and lives of all the people of the great Parish where I lived and since that having conversed with many of the inferior rank both for estate and profession of piety I have found that there is much more good in a great number of those that are not noted openly for special Professors of Religiousness than I did before believe For no man is usually noted now for Religious in this stricter sense 1. Whose knowledge hath not some readiness of expression in conference and in prayer 2. And who doth not come to private meetings and associate himself with the stricter and forwarder sort of Professors But there are abundance of things which may hinder some serious weak Christians from both these Dulness of natural parts and want of good education and use and teaching and company may keep mens parts and utterance very low And some young Christians for want of former use at their first true Conversion cannot speak sense in the very fundamentals which yet they have a saving sense and knowledge of but are like Infants and their prayers have little better expressions than Abba Father and the unutterable groans of the spirit And some never had the opportunity of profitable company And some are hindered from such converse by bashfulness And some by poverty and business or distance And some by the restraint of Parents Husbands Masters c. And some by ill company and scandall may have a prejudice against those Religious people who are neerest to them who yet may be real lovers of Christ. Having found in many called common people more knowledge though not beter utterance than I expected and more trust in Christ and more desire to be better and love to those that are better and more willingness to be taught crowding in publick or private when they have a full opportunity and affectionately hearing the closest preaching I am grown the more fearful of wronging Christ his Church and them by numbering such with those that are without when they are Baptized persons that never were proved to have apostatized nor to have lived impenitently in any sin so gross as the back-bitings proud-censoriousness and divisions of too many Religiouser people are 8. To which may be added the sad experience of this age of the dreadful miscarriages of the more noted sort of Professors turning Infidels Ranters Quakers Socinians Antinomians and too many scandalous in life and such as have destroyed Order Government Unity Reformation when there was scarce an enemie able to hurt it much besides themselves Which is no dishonour to the Profession of Holyness much less to Christ and Holyness it self But it seemeth to me a notable rebuke of our common over-valuing the meer Parts and utterance and extemporate performances of the people and of Ministers flattering such Professors and over-looking all of Christ which is in many that have had no such helps for gifts and utterance as they 2. The second Point in which the New-England Synod agreed was the stated Consociation of Churches and use of Synods And herein saith the Defence p. 99. there appeared no Dissent or dissatisfaction in the Synod Where they adde also as to the point of Separation We never said nor thought that there should be a withdrawing from other Churches upon differences errors or offences of an inferiour and dubious nature yea though continued in We are far enough from hastyness or harshness in that matter being professed adversaries to a spirit of sinful and rigid separation And that Apostolical man Mr. Iohn Eliot hath printed a draught for stated Synods for Counsel and Concord which is their proper use which will go far enough to satisfie moderate men in that point and saith more for such Synods than ever I said 2. Having said thus much of the Iudgement of Congregational men in New-England against Separation I shall adde somewhat of the second Assertion That it concerneth the Congregational Party as much in point of Interest to be against it as any sort of men whatsoever 1. Because their Churches have no other bond of Concord here but voluntary Consent And if that break they are dissolved 2. Because their members being usually neither so low as to be ignorant of matters of Controversie nor so high as to be able solidly to Resolve them are most like to be quarrelsome and fall into divisions And honest people that have a zeal of God and for Truth and Unity and not knowledge enough to guide it steadily are likey to contend and trouble one another than either they that are