is that makes men to be of it and concerning Church-Communion and what it is that qualifies men for it have been the true reason and cause of our Church-Divisions and Separations in great part where such notions have been entertained My present design therefore which I intend to pursue in these Papers is to inquire into the true measure which the holy Scripture gives us of these things that thereby we may the more steadily and with the more certainty make a true Judgment of those separations in Church-Communion which have been made and applauded by some I shall begin with what concerns the being of the Universal Church as Visible and then inquire how and by what means men become Members of it After this I shall inquire further what it is that qualifies men for and which gives them a right to external Communion in this Church as exercised in particular Congregations and likewise into the nature of Catholick-communion and Schism and the usefulness of National-Constitutions for the furtherance of Christian Religion QUERY I. WHat is the true notion of the Vniversal Church as visible The Universal Church as Visible is that Body Company or Society of People throughout the whole World which consists of all such as are Visibly Joyned or Vnited to God in Christ as Head by a Religious Bond. And that which doth distinguish them from all other People in the World is that Relation they bear to God different from that in which all other People stand related to Him And this Relation is a Religious relation by which they are brought nearer to God than all other People are All other People are related as humane Creatures to God as their Creator and Governour but these are related to him by another kind of Bond Obligation such as is Spiritual and of a Religious Nature of which I am to say more afterward And then as this Relation is External and Visible so that by which this Relation is effected and wrought is something Visible also which is the reason why the relation it self is said to be Visible Now the Persons thus Visibly Related to God in Christ are not all Religiously Related to Him alike Some of them are Related and United to him Internally and Invisibly by an Invisible Bond of Union over and besides their Visible Relation to him by that which is visible When as all the rest are Related to him only Externally or if in any respect Internally also yet not so or by such a relation as will entitle them to the internal and best sort of priviledges of Gods People such as Justification Reconciliation Pardon and Eternal life But yet this difference does not make this body of People which are externally one by a Relation to God common to the whole to become two Universal Churches For all which Essentially belongs to the being of the Universal Church is not limited and restrained to that part of it which in respect of its internal and invisible state does differ from and excel the other for the External Relation to God without which the Universal Church does not exist is common to the worser part of it as well as the better by reason whereof they cannot be two Churches and are but one One part of the Visible Church differs from another indeed in respect of Internal and Invisible State before God this is plain from the Scripture But then it is as plain from thence that as touching their External and Visible state they are one and that the same external priviledges belong to the one as to the other of which more afterward We have not indeed the words Visible and Invisible used in Scripture in reference to the two different states of men in one and the same Church but yet we have those different states of them sufficiently revealed in Scripture which we mean by those words I need not instance in Scriptures of this nature because they are sufficiently and commonly known and I shall have further occasion to mention them afterward QUERY II. WHat is it which prepares or qualifies persons for that Relation to God in Christ which makes them Visible Members of his Church There is something previous to that by which the Relation in men to God is wrought which makes them Visible Members of his Church and which does capacitate them for it and that is their being Externally called by God to be of the true Religion Persons lare first to become Disciples before they be received into the Church by Baptism and their becoming Disciples and their being called is the same thing This is the foundation in which that Relation is laid and upon which that which does effect it is built And People are thus called either 1. When they are Converted from a false Religion to own and profess the true And thus the Pagans were called by the Preaching of the Apostles when they were brought to be Disciples Or 2. When Almighty God causes them to be Born and to be Educated in the true Religion as those are who are born of Parents externally in Covenant with God Thus the Jewish People from Abrahams time downward were called to be Gods People and to profess the true Religion And accordingly they were stiled Gods called ones by the Prophet Isa 48.12 Hearken to me O Jacob and Israel my called And how were they called Abraham indeed he was called extraordinarily by God who appeared to him when he was in Mesopotamia before he dwelt in Charran Act. 7.2 But his Posterity were called by being Born to and educated in the same Religion which he himself was of and so were his Childrens Children from Generation to Generation And thus has it been in calling Persons to be of the Christian Religion At the first erection of the Church as Christian men were extraordinarily called by the Preaching and Miracles of the Apostles and others they were called and converted from the Pagan and Jewish Religion to own the Christian Religion But since the times of first planting the Gospel up and down in the World Gods ordinary and common method of calling men to the profession of the Christian Religion has been by their Christian Parents educating them in it And indeed their being born of Parents in an especial Relation to God is in it self a Providential Call which qualifies them for the priviledge of being so related also For upon that account they are both in the Old Testament and the Now stiled a holy Seed that is a Seed separated from the Infidel World to God And by this the Females of the Jews became Church-Members and by this were their Males qualifi'd to enter into Covenant with God by Circumcision at eight days old But of these things further mention will be made in the process of our Inquiries QUERY III. WHat may that be by which People are made Visible Church-Members That by which People are constituted compleatly Visible Church-Members is a mutual Covenanting between God and them between Christ
in the Union of the Head and Members of the Mystical Body Christ and the Church and every particular Member of it for they are united by the quickening power and influence of the same Spirit which abides both in the head and all the members By what hath been said touching the Invisible Vnion between Christ and his Church as Invisible it will be easie to discern whence and for what reason it is that many who are really Members of the Church as Vible are yet no more but such and not at all of the Church as Invisible And it is for want of such an inward change of the mind and will and all the affections of the soul in reference to sin and duty good and evil as is made by a vigorous assent of the mind to the great truths of the Gospel and the mighty motives of it and by a serious and frequent consideration of them and how a man 's own self is concerned in them in point of happiness or misery according as he yields up himself to be governed by them or refuses to do so I do not deny but that such who are Members of the Church but only as it is Visible may yet in some sort really assent unto the truth of what the Gospel reveals touching Christ his being the Son of God and Saviour of Sinners yea touching the necessity of Repentance in order to the obtaining the pardon of Sin and Eternal Life by his sufferings I doubt not but that these may in some sort believe and undissemblingly profess to believe otherwise concerning the Christian doctrine than profess'd Infidels do tho not so seriously and effectually as the truly Regenerate We cannot say they properly dissemble whom they profess to believe the Christian doctrine or Articles of the Christian faith We cannot say their words are knowingly contrary to the sentiment of their minds and thoughts in such a profession We see by experience that some Sea-faring men otherwise vicious in their lives yet when taken Captive by Infidels will endure any hardship rather than be drawn to say they do not believe the Christian doctrine which is a good evidence that they do in some sence really believe it tho perhaps not so effectually as the truly Regenerate do There were many in our Saviours days of whom the Scripture says that they did believe in Christ whose faith yet was not powerful enough to Regenerate them And such was Simon Magus also and such were those who as St. James supposed had faith and yet not justified by it it Being alone and but a dead faith and such faith is the faith as may justly be feared of many at this day who are Christians by profession and of the Visible Church Nay farther I do not deny but that this faith of theirs in conjunction with some external motives may produce a form of Godliness so that they may do most of the external acts of Religion which Regenerate men do They may enter into Covenant with God in Baptism and worship him only and in the name of Christ They may openly own the Articles of the Christian faith and with zeal dispute for them They may frequent the Ordinances of publick worship such as Prayer hearing the Word and the Lords Supper and may observe the Lords day They may be free from gross and scandalous sins do many acts of justice in their dealing with men and give Alms also They may be thus outwardly Righteous and externally Religious and yet be unrenewed as touching the inward man They may for all this be full of Envy Malice Hatred and Revengeful thoughts of Emulation Wrath and Pride of Ambition Covetousness and Inordinate affection which are sins of that sort which the Apostle calls works of the flesh and such as exclude men out of the Kingdom of Heaven And while they remain thus unrenew'd in their minds and wills what ever faith or repentings they may otherwise have or whatever their outward performances may be yet they fall short of being of the Invisible Church for want of that inward renovation that invisibly unites men to Christ But yet tho this external Christianity fore-mentioned will not make men Members of the Church Invisible yet it will evidence and declare them to be of the Church as visible and continue them in it For it is in some sort tho but partial indeed an external performance of the Covenant of Baptism by which they had their first enterance into the Visible Church and by which their external relation to God in a religious sence was first constituted It is in respect of external Christianity that such are said to be in Christ who yet are but unfruitful branches John 15. devoid of that fruit which is called the fruit of the spirit which consists of those internal qualifications described in Gal. 5.22 23. And their being in Christ signifies an external Vnion between them which is made by external Christianity And in such an external respect the whole multitude of the Children of Israel who did not violate the bond of the Covenant between God and them by running into Idolatry were said to cleave unto the Lord which is another word which signifies their being Joyned or United to him which can be understood but of an external Union by external Religion in reference to many of them at least Thus in Deut. 4.3 4. it is said All the men that followed Baal-peor the Lord thy God hath destroy'd them from among you but ye that did cleave unto the Lord your God are alive every one of you this day Where we see their continuing to worship the God of Israel in the use of his Ordinances without following Baal-peor as some others did is called their cleaving unto God And by that they continued their relation unto God uninterrupted But of this I shall have occasion to say more in the next inquiry Thus we see that it is visible Christianity that makes men to be of the Visible Church and Invisible Christianity which makes them to be of the Church as Invisible Those that have visible Christianity are thereby differenced from the Infidel and Idolatrous World on the one hand and by their having no more they are differenced from the Invisible Church on the other and thereby set in a middle state between both and that is in the Visible Church QUERY VIII WHether men are no otherwise Members of the Church as Visible than as they are Reputed Members of the Church as Invisible Those of the Congregational way whether called Independents or Anabaptists have been wont strongly to adhere to the Negative of this question That men are not otherwise Members of the Church as Visible than as they are reputed of the Church as Invisible And it is upon the authority of this Hypothesis that they refuse to admit any to Church-Communion but such in whom in their judgment are found evidences or signs of Invisible Church-Membership or saving Grace That none but such have right to
Communion in the instituted Ordinances of worship That particular Churches are Constituted or to be Constituted only of such But others do think that these do make the Visible Church much narrower than the Scriptures do and do hold that all that are visibly in Covenant with God are thereby joyned in Relation to him and are made Members of his Visible Church as well those which have no saving grace as those that have Our business then for the present will be to consult the Scriptures in this case Before God had a Church in the World by Institution mans visible relation to God was known by their worshipping of him only whether they had any other signs of saving grace or no and tho they were in no visible Covenant with him They were known to whom they did belong by whom they worshipped Every man walked in the name of his God as the Prophet speaks Mica 4.5 and those that worshipped a strange God were the Children of a strange God Mal. 2.11 as those that worshipped the true God were counted his Children Natural Religion especially in point of worship was then the measure of judging mens visible relation to God But when Almighty God was pleased to set on foot and begin the gathering him a Visible Church out of the rest of the World in a way of divine Institution he laid the foundation of it in his transaction with Abraham by instituting and ordaining two things 1. That as God by Covenant engaged to Abraham to be his God and the God of his Seed so Abraham and his Seed must engage to God by Covenant to be his Servants and a People unto him 2. That this Covenant should be entred into by Abraham and his Seed by observing such a Sacred Rite as God instituted and appointed for that purpose and that was Circumcision And this was continued for this use until the Messias came and instituted Baptism another Sacred Rite for the same end Now in Gods thus founding his Visible Church there was no such thing as the appointing saving Grace in the judgment of charity to be the condition of mens admission into his Church by Circumcision But the Lord absolutely commanded that Abraham and his Male Seed after him and all Born in the House or bought with their money should be Circumcised without any limitation or condition in reference to the appearance of saving Grace By which it is evident that God did not design to have no others of his Visible Church than such as had saving Grace Now the Posterity of Abraham when they came out of Egypt were by virtue of their Covenanting with God all of them bad as well as good visibly related to God as his People and so his as no other people were And I hope we may safely say that God himself accounted them to be what Moses and others by divine inspiration said they were And if so then we may say that Almighty God did account them all bad as well as good tho not in the most emphatical sence to be his chosen elected and adopted People Deut. 4.37 Rom. 9.4 his Called Isa 48.12 a People near unto him Psal 148.14 his Saints his holy People Deut. 7.6 33.3 Psal 50.5 his Children Deut. 14.1 a special and peculiar People unto himself Deut. 7.6 14.2 his Inheritance Deut. 9.29 his Portion Deut. 32.9 his peculiar Treasure Psal 135.4 All these Titles and Appellations given them by God or by man inspired by God in giving them do with as much plainness as words can express shew that God himself owned them for his People his Children and related to him in such a sence as other People not in Covenant with him were not Now that they were not thus called or accounted for any such reason as because they had saving grace or because they were reputed to be of the Church as Invisible will appear with full evidence For the same inspired Man Moses at the same time and in the same Book in and by which God owned them for his People under many of the foresaid appellations did from God charge them with such and so much guilt as no man can with any colour of reason say was consistent with an Invisible Church-state Thus in Deut. 9. Thou art a stiff-necked People vers 6. From the day thou didst depart out of the Land of Egypt even until ye came unto this place ye have been rebellious against the Lord vers 7. They have corrupted themselves they have quickly turned aside vers 12. I have seen this People and behold it is a stiff-necked People vers 13. You have been Rebellious against the Lord from the day that I knew you vers 24. I know thy rebellion and thy stiff neck chap. 31.27 They have corrupted themselves their spot is not the spot of his Children they are a perverse and crooked generation chap. 32.5 When the Lord saw it he abhorred them because of the provoking of his Sons and of his Daughters vers 19. A froward Generation Children in whom is no faith vers 20. They are a Nation void of Counsel neither is there any understanding in them vers 28. These things are charged on them generally and in the gross And considering some other passages there is great cause to fuspect that much the major part of them at least were thus guilty For in Numb 14.2 its faid That all the Children of Israel murmured against Moses and against Aaron and the whole Congregation said Would God we had died in the Land of Egypt or would God we had died in the Wilderness And vers 10. All the Congregation bade stone them with stones And vers 33. Your Children shall wander in the Wilderness forty years and bear your Whoredoms until your Carcases be wasted in the Wilderness And vers 35. I will surely do it to all this evil Congregation that are gathered together against me And vers 29. Your Carcases shall fall in this Wilderness and all that are numbred of you according to your whole number from twenty years old and upward which have murmured against me All these things considered they will not suffer us with any plausible pretence to say or to think that God owned this People in the bulk of them as his Visible Church for any such reason as because they seemed to be Invisibly related to him by special grace And if not then it must be upon some or all of these accounts following unless any other more likely can be thought of which I am not able to foresee nor to suspect 1. They were in some sort holy and separated unto God as they were Born of Parents who were in Covenant with him Upon which account they were called a holy Seed Ezra 9.2 Now the holiness of persons always signifies some such special relation to God which is not common to all persons as such Almighty God has another kind of right to the Children of such as are his by Covenant than he has to the Children of
such as should receive it was accordingly foretold by our Saviour and resembled by various Parables as it is here by the Wise and Foolish Virgins Thus we have it again in another Parable concerning the Marriage of a Kings Son to which both good bad were invited and did come and the Wedding was furnished with such guests Mat. 22. The Parable of the Wheat and the Tares that sprang up amongst it The Parable of the Draw-net that being cast into the Sea gathered of every kind bad as well as good are of the same import And so is the Parable of the Sower and his Seed Wherein four sorts of Hearers or Professors of the Gospel are resembled by four sorts of ground into which the Seed fell of which there is but one thorowly good Mat. 13. Add unto this that our Saviour did not only fore-tell his Apostles by these Parables what different success the Preaching of the Gospel would meet with even among those that would receive it and how his Church would be filled with many bad as well as good but also told them plainly without a Parable That many would be called and yet but sew chosen Mat. 20.16 Wherefore and for what reason may we conceive did our Saviour thus instruct his Disciples touching what the state and condition of his Church would be which should be gathered by the Preaching of the Gospel but that they might not be disappointed in their expectations nor be offended when afterwards they should find it to consist of such a mixture or ever expect tho they should observe his rules for the purging his Church to find it otherwise until the end of the world the time appointed for a total gathering out of his Kingdom all things that offend and them which do iniquity And that the Apostles did not understand otherwise by our Saviours Parables and Doctrine but that the worser as well as the better Christians were of this Kingdom of Heaven the Visible Church their Epistles to such Churches in which there was such a mixture shew for they counted them and treated them as Christian Brethren in so much as St. Paul would not have such as deserved Church-censure and in some sort were under it to be counted as Enemies but admonished as Brethren 2 Thes 3.14 15. The Apostles then being thus thorowly instructed by our Saviour afore-hand touching the constitution of his Church of bad as well as good it is no ways likely that they would receive none into the Church but under the notion of such as were truly Regenerate 4. There are some circumstances relating to the Apostles receiving Persons into the Visible Church by Baptism which render it incredible that they did not so receive any but upon the reputation and esteem they had of being of the Church as Invisible First one thing was the doctrine by which they most prevailed with men to become Disciples Which doctrine was the Preaching that pardon of sin and the happiness of Eternal Life are to be had by Christs suffering for Sinners if they believe in him and the Preaching to the People that this Jesus rose from the Dead after his Enemies had put him to death and confirming the truth of what they said by astonishing miracles It 's true they did together with this Preach the necessity of Repentance also But the glad tidings of Pardon and Salvation by a Saviour so extraordinarily confirmed as it was being new and never heard of before especially among the Gentiles and being so hugely comfortable as it was did so strongly affect the People as made them instontly turn Disciples and to promise no doubt a reformation of life with an intent to perform while they were thus filled with joy But many of them after this transport of affection and newness of joy was over tho they held fast the comfortable part of their profession of faith in Christ and in his Death yet proved partial and defective in reforming their lives which rendred the work of Regeneration in them very doubtful at least or rather worse than so And the Apostles were fore-warned and pre-instructed by our Saviour that upon their Preaching the joyful news which the Gospel brings many would be so taken with it as readily and joyfully to become Disciples and turn Christian in profession who yet would afterwards when times of tryal came either Apostotize and fall off or foully faulter in retaining that profession by carnal shifts to secure themselves from Persecution For our Saviour had told them this by opening to them who or what manner of hearers he meant by those resembled in the Parable to the stony ground on which the Seed fell and said they were such as when they heard the word would immediately receive it with gladness but afterwards in time of temptation would be offended as not having root in themselves Mar. 4.16 All which considered it was no ways probable that the Apostles received all they Baptized under the notion of Persons already truly Regenerate but as Disciples only according to the tenour of their Commission Secondly another circumstance is the great hast the Apostles made to Baptize Persons when once they had prevailed with them to consent to it The same day of Pentecost they Preached to those mentioned Act. 2. they Baptized about three thousand of them And so Philip Baptized the Eunuch presently upon the Road after once Preaching to him And the Jaylor and all his were Baptized straight-way and in the same hour of the night in which Paul and Silas first Preached to them Act. 16.33 I think there can no instance be given of their delaying so much as four and twenty hours to Baptize any after they were willing to be Baptized This is another thing which renders it very incredible that the Apostles Baptized none but upon account of their being esteemed Regenerate or that they did Baptize Persons ordinarily by any other rule than that contained in the letter of their Commission which was to Baptize those that were Disciples as such If they had thought it necessary to Baptize none but whom they could prudently esteem to be of the Invisible Church they would in all likelihood have suspended the Baptizing of many at least until they had had some tryal of the constancy of their resolution and experience of their reformation And so much the rather because it is hard to make any good judgment of mens sincerity by what they do on a sudden under some transport of affection and before they have had some time in cooler thoughts to deliberate upon what they engage to do Thirdly their refusing none that were willing to be Baptized argues that they did not think none were to be Baptized before they were Regenerate or did seem to be so They refused none so far as appears that were willing to be Baptized and to come into the Church how notoriously bad soever they had been before Simon Magus is a famous instance of this nature And some were
Visible Church only to those who are of the Invisible also can be For it cannot be denied but that such gifts and such common grace as will not be sufficient unto a mans own Salvation may yet be very useful for the maintaining and defending the Christian Doctrine against Adversaries and for the instructing others in it and for the persuading them to believe it and to live according to it Which was the reason I suppose why St. Paul said that he rejoyced and would rejoyce that Christ was preached tho it were but insincerely by some as well as for being preached in truth by others Phil. 1.18 For the more men of Parts and Learning and of Interest among men the Christian Religion and sound Doctrine has to assert and defend it and the more there are of others to abet and encourage them in it though many of them shall be supposed to be mainly influenced therein by motives of secular honour and interest the more credit in general and the more reputation it will have in the World and the further it will spread As we see on the contrary the more Popery has had men of parts and learning and of interest otherwise to promote and propagate it the more and the farther it hath spread and prevailed in the World And the same is true of other Errors and Heresies as that of Arianism when time was There is no question but the more good men are backt in their promulging sound and saving Doctrine by men of great interest in the World that agree with them in Doctrine and substance of Worship tho they should not in all respects be so hearty and sincere as the other are the more Christian Religion gains among men And if all such as these should be made enemies to the Church by being denied to be of it the Churches power of propagating the Christian Religion would quickly be thereby exceedingly weakened and the propagation thereof greatly obstructed We have not now Miracles the extraordinary means by which Christianity was at first propagated without which it is not probable the unbelieving and blind world would have been reconciled to it upon account of its own intrinsick excellency and goodness And therefore there is now the more need of the help of all Christians to propagate the Christian Religion Not only of such as are of the Invisible Church and Visible likewise but also of those who are but only of the Visible The success in propagating the Christian Religion does not wholly depend upon the moral goodness of the Instrruments by whom it is done but so much upon its own goodness that if that be but sufficiently discovered tho but by men defective in their Morals it is yet able to commend it self very much unto the choice of men If they had stood in my counsel and had caused my people to hear my words then they should have turned them from their evil ways saith God concerning the false Prophets Jer. 23.22 It is no small matter upon this account to be born within the Pale of the Visible Church of Christian Parents and to be educated in the Christian Religion though by Parents too much strangers to the power of it And of Zion it shall be said this and that man was born in her The Lord shall count when he writeth up the people that this man was born there Psal 87.5 6. How many worthy Children has the Church had and of great use in it who yet have been born of Parents of but small account for Religion So that such mens being of the Church is of great use for the propagating of truly religious men and by them the Christian Religion But if such men as these had been deprived of Chureh education by their Parents being deprived of Membership in the Visible Church the Church in all probability would have been deprived of such useful Members as these prove to be for the propagating of the true Christian Religion 3. Another reason may be because to take others into the Visible Church than such as are or are credibly reputed to be of the Invisible tends much more to the security of the Invisible Church in the world than the excluding all such would do For were it not for those of the Church as Visible over and besides such as are of it as Invisible those which are of the Church as Invisible would be in much more danger than now they are of being devoured by those numerous enemies which they have in the world Christs Flock is but a little flock comparatively and there are but few that find the narrow way that leads to life as he hath told us And so he hath told us also in the Parable of the Sower that of four sorts of hearers of the Gospel there is but one that brings forth fruit And in another place that among the many that are called there are but few chosen Now then if when with the help of those of the Visible Church which are not of the Invisible which yet according to the Scriptures seem to be far the greater number those of the Invisible Church have enough to do to subsist in the world without being rooted out of it by the Enemies of Christianity as we see they have what can we think would become of them but ruine without a standing Miracle to secure them if those who are but only of the Visible Church were made Enemies also to those of the Invisible as doubtless they would if they should all be rejected by them as none of Christs Church on earth How unable would they be to defend themselves against the Popish Party in the world if they were not assisted by those who are but of the Church as Visible Or how unable would they be to defend themselves against all those that are Enemies to Christianity both name and thing if the bulk and body of men which are Christians only in outward Form and Profession did not stand as a screen between them and those enemies Our Saviour hath declared that the Wheat would be in great danger of being rooted up if the Tares should for the present be gathered out of it and for that reason would have both to grow together till the harvest Mat. 13. Our Saviour did not intend hereby no more do I by what I have said to put a bar against purging the Church of Capital Offenders by Discipline and therefore by Tares its probable he meant carnal Gospellers that yet are not obnoxious to Excommunication such as the thorny-ground hearers in whom the Cares of this world and the deceitfulness of Riches and Pleafures of this Life choak the Word which they have received and which they profess so that it brings forth in them no fruit to perfection But before I proceed any farther I must remove an Objection which otherwise lies against the use which I here make of this Parable of our Saviour And the Objection is this That this Parable makes nothing against gathering
the bad from among the good in the Church but from among the good in the World Not that they should both grow together in the Church till Harvest but in the World And to strengthen this they alledge our Saviours interpretation of this Parable where he says that the Field where the Tares and the Wheat grow together is the World Mat. 13.38 And this indeed at first sight seems to be a very considerable Objection But if we consider the matter well I think it may appear otherwise The Field indeed in which the Seed was sown and the Gospel first preached was the World according to our Saviours Commission to his Apostles Go ye into all the world and preach the Gospel Mar. 16.15 But then those that received this Seed of the Gospel so as to make profession of adhering to it were presently baptized and received into the Church Now it was among these that the Tares sprang up many of them proving bad Christians So that the Seed was first sown in the World as in a common field But yet the Tares sprang up in that part of the world which was now become the Visible Church and an enclosed Garden And therefore when the time of the Harvest shall come when these Tares must be separated from the Wheat our Saviour says They shall be gathered out of the Kingdom of the Son of Man Ver. 41. where they were permitted to grow till this Harvest And what is this Kingdom of the Son of Man but his Visible Church The History of the Event of the Apostles Preaching does plainly lay open the meaning of this Parable and that of the Draw-net and other like Parables in that the Visible Church which they gathered out of the world consisted of bad as well as good And this Parable in particular shews further that these Tares were not to be gathered out of the Church for this very reason Lest while ye gather up the Tares saith he ye root up also the Wheat with them So that it seems that the Tares growing with the Wheat is in some respect matter of security to the Wheat and that the Wheat would be in more danger by the Tares being gathered from among it than by their growing together with it in more danger of bein rooted up or rooted out And this seems fully to justifie and make good that reason I am now upon why all unregenerate Christians should not be denied a place and being in the Visible Church If it shall be hear said that the Church in the Primitive times when but few in number did yet subsist yea and abundantly increase too tho they had no humane or worldly Power to defend them and when almost the whole world both of Jews and Gentiles were against them And why may it not as well do so now tho none that are not of the Invisible Church should be any defence unto it I answer that there is no doubt but that they might subsist in the world continue and increase as well as they did provided they had but the same extraordinary means to back and abet them and to increase their numbers as those Primitive Christians had I mean those miraculous Powers which then procured the Christians great reputation among the People and which did still attract and draw in more to their Party than were diminished by the Persecution which was raised against them by the higher Powers which were then Infidel For by reason of those miraculous wonders which were done by the Apostles and others in those times the multitude of People were so astonished and affected that they favoured them so far as that the Rulers were put under some awe For we read that for the reason aforesaid great grace or favour was upon them all to wit all the Christians Acts 4.33 And Chap. 5.13 it s said that the people magnified them So that the Rulers when they had otherwise a mind to it found not how to punish them because of the people for all men glorified God for that which was done Chap. 4.21 And in Chap. 5.26 it s said of the Captain and Officers that were sent to bring the Apostles before the Council that they brought them without violence because they feared the people lest they should have been stoned And by reason of the credit they obtained among the people both to themselves and their way by the numerous Miracles they wrought believers were the more added to the Lord multitudes both of men and women notwithstanding all the opposition which was made against them by the Rulers Chap. 5.14 And that wonderful increase of Believers which was made from among the Heathen also was attributed by St. Paul unto those Signs and Wonders that were wrought for the proof and confirmation of the Christian Way I will not dare saith he to speak of any of those things which Christ hath not wrought by me to make the Gentiles obedient by word and deed through mighty Signs and Wonders by the Spirit of God Rom. 15.18 19. But if the small number of sincere Christians that are in the world had no other means to preserve themselves and to increase their number but the goodness of their Cause and their own Innocency and were not countenanced and protected by Christian States and Governours and by a multitude more of the same Profession with themselves than are of like sincerity in that Profession they would be in great danger of being in a manner extirpated out of the world by the Insidel and Antichristian Parties in it When the Papal defection befel the Church within the Roman Empire the greatest part perhaps of the then Visible Church in that part of the world fell off from the Orthodox and sincere and became their Enemies in time The consequence of which was the exterminating and rooting out of that part of the world in a great measure the Orthodox and sincere Christians Which is a great instance to shew how it would fare with those of the Invisible Church if they were deserted by those Christians which are not of it or if those were rejected as no fellow-members of the Visible Church and thereby made their Enemies 4. Another reason is taken from the danger in another respect of reckoning none of the Church as Visible but upon the reputation of their being of the Church as Invisible For to admit men upon no other terms into the Visible Church nor to its Communion but upon the reputation and under the Notion of their being already of the Church as Invisible tends greatly to betray many Souls into a dangerous snare of self-deceiving For if this rule of admission should be observed many mistakes would be committed either through fallibility or partiality of judgment in them that admit them and so many would be received into the Visible Church or to the Communion of it as Members of the Invisible which yet are not of it And if so then all those which are thus received under the approbation of
but Quakers There are others who frame to themselves other reasons of separation from Parochial Communion in Worship besides its being performed by the Liturgy as namely because those Congregations are not as they pretend constituted of visible Saints nor by a Church Covenant Who these are is well known for whose sakes several of my former Inquiries are made in which there are such things produced from the holy Scriptures as may I suppose be sufficient to satisfie their reason if not their prejudice touching their mistake in these opinions As for their exceptions against the Government of the Church by Bishops as Diocesan how they would make Communion with the particular Congregations under their Jurisdiction unlawful upon that account I understand not unless they think the Ministers of those Congregations by whom the Ordinances are administred to be no true Ministers because Episcopally ordained and not by Presbyters And if this should be their scruple they may easily receive satisfaction by considering that Diocesan Bishops were Presbyters before they were Bishops and therefore must needs remain so after For they were not devested of any Ministerial power or authority by being made Bishops but only invested with a superaddition of authority and power they had not before So that they who are ordained by them are ordained by a Presbyterial authority and more And with this the old Nonconformists satisfied themselves touching the validity of their Ministerial authority received by Ordination from the Bishops that then were Some again dislike Parochial Communion because the Civil Power is so much concerned as it is in Ecclesiastical affairs relating to it one way or other and for that all such things are not left wholly to the ordering of Ecclesiastical Rulers as they were in the Apostles times and long after But there is not the same reason why they should be so left now as there was why they were so then The reason why they were wholly left then to the ordering of an Ecclesiastical Power was because there was no Civil Powers as Christian then in being so that they could not promote Christianity better any other way But it is not so now for it is shewed in our last former Inquiry but one that the affairs of the Gospel and the Salvation of men in a Christian Kingdom or State may better be provided for and promoted by a national Constitution than they can be without it And that therefore things of this nature are not to be ordered as if we were still in a Pagan Kingdom when we are not For where the reason of things is altered it is but reasonable and fit that there should be a sutable alteration in the things themselves Thus the gesture of standing with Loyns girt and a Staff in the hand appointed to be used in eating the Passover at the first Institution of it for that it was then to be eaten in haste was afterwards altered to another gesture by the Church when that Circumstance of eating in haste ceased and our Saviour himself did eat it in that posture to which the Church had changed it which is a consideration of very great weight in reference to this and some other cases And the Obligation of the Ceremonial Law ceased upon the same ground when the substance was come which had been prefigured by Ceremonial Rites And the like might be observed touching the discontinuance and disuse of anointing the sick washing Disciples feet and the kiss of Charity and some other things which were obliging until the reason of the Obligation ceased But altho the Civil Power doth concern it self by a National Constitution to order and direct in things appertaining to the Church for the promoting of Religion and the Salvation of men yet it does not this without the advice and assistance of those that are Officers and bear rule in the Church And when the Civil Powers have gone as far as they think fit in ordering and directing by Ecclesiastical advice and assistance yet they do not act any thing themselves peculiar to the Ministry of the Church but leave all such things wholly to them who are invested with Ministerial authority reserving only to themselves a power os restraining such men from an undue exercise of their Office tending to publick disturbance And thus I have endeavoured to satisfie the Dissenters that there is no sufficient reason or cause for them to separate from the Publick Worship of our Parochial Assembles and that their pretences for their doing so when narrowly looked into are found to have nothing of substance in them sufficient to bear them out in it And if I am not mistaken in my Allegations and reasonings I cannot discern how their separation can possibly be defended from being an unlawful Schism And if it be I am sure they have upon many accounts great reason to desist from engaging farther in it QUERY XV. SVpposing things touching visible Church-Membership and Communion to be as they have been represented in our former Inquiries yet how do they tend to lessen our Church Divisions The answer to which is That if the matters of our Inquiry be as they have been represented then they tend to lessen our Church-divisions by removing and taking away the very foundation on which they and our Church-separations are in great part at least built For I do not know any one of the different Parties among the Protestant Dissenters except those called Presbyterian who do not found their separation from our Parish Churches at least principally upon this supposition that they are not constituted according to the order of the Gospel And why not according to the Order of the Gospel but because as they say they are not constituted ol Gospel matter that is not of visible Saints but of such as for a great part of them at least were never duly reputed to be regenerate or to be of the Invisible Church and their meaning is as I collect both from their Writings and Converse That they were not at first nor since constituted of such particular members only as at the time of such their Constitution had a probable appearance of Regeneration but of all baptized persons however they proved good or bad and without any other probation or discrimination Now if those things be true which have been endeavoured to be proved to be so in the management of the former Enquiries Then this ground on which they build their separation is altogether unsound and such as has no firmness or substance in it but is only imaginary For our Parish Congregations are constituted of persons visibly in Covenant with God the Father Son and Holy Ghost by being baptized in their name and thereby engaged to be theirs to worship and serve the Father by the Son through the assistance of the Spirit And of such and no other were the Churches planted by the Apostles constituted And this Covenanting was then and so is now the visible formal difference between those of the Visible
Church and those of the world All under this Character and Badge and none but they were of the Visible Church and therefore it must needs be the Constitutive form of that Relation Visible Church-membership All that have been baptized into Christ have put on Christ and are visibly Christians and of Christs Church How ancient and how long before Christs appearance in the world in our nature this way of constituting Visible Church-members has been by such a Rite as God appointed I have shewed before And if this visible Covenanting with God by Baptism be that by which persons become Members of the Visible Church then a probable appearance of Regeneration or a reputation of being of the Church as invisible cannot be it that makes them visible Church Members tho it does qualifie them for it unless this probable appearance of Regeneration and Covenanting with God by Baptism be one and the same thing And if they be then those of which our Parish Churches are constituted have a probable appearance of Regeneration or of being of the Invisible Church and then they are constituted of matter according to those Dissenters own mind And if so then we may well hope they will no longer separate from them as if they were not Constitututed of qualified matter So that things are brought at last to this issue That these Dissenters must either overthrow this Plea against the reason and ground of their Separation and prove that visible Covenanting with God by Baptism is not that by which Visible Church-membership is made or else it will certainly overthrow this Plea of theirs for their Separation And if they will so much as attempt to overthrow this Plea against them they must row all the way against the stream and strong tide of the Scriptures and against the stream of Antiquity and the sense of the ancient Church from the Apostles times downwards who always esteemed Baptism the door of entrance into the Visible Church and consequently that all such as had pass'd through Baptism were within the Church And as it is more agreable to Scripture so it is much more reasonable to say that men cannot seem to be of the Church as Invisible without being first of the Church as Visible than it is to say their being of the Church as Visible proceeds from their seeming to be of the Church as Invisible For as touching mens enterance into the Church by Baptism our Saviour hath said Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit he cannot enter into the Kingdom of God Joh. 3.5 And Baptism is injoyned in order to the obtaining Remission of sin and Salvation which are Priviledges of the Church as Invisible Acts 2.38 and 22.16 Mar. 16.16 So that according to these Scriptures mens being and seeming to be of the Church as Invisible and their sharing in the Priviledges of it seems ordinarily to depend upon their being of the Visible Church by Baptism Now one would think a Notion so preposterous as this opposed appears to be should be very unfit to make a foundation to build Churches upon or to justifie a separation from those which have a substantial foundation the Scriptures I mean But if mens seeming in the apprehension of others to be of the Church as Invisible did not depend upon their being of the Church Visible yet such seeming could be no proper or fit Rule by which to judg determine and conclude who are and who are not of the Visible Church And the reason is because it is Arbitrarious and uncertain for mens being or not being acknowledged to be of the Visible Church would depend upon the uncertainty of mens opinions and affections and those would seem in some mens apprehensions to be of the Church Invisible which to others would seem otherwise And then those would be owned by some to be of the Visible Church which would be denied to be so by others Of the truth of all which this present Age hath furnished us with plentiful experience And if this should be the Rule observed through the whole Christian world it would be the ready way to make Parties and Sidings unchristian oppositions and uncharitable censurings among Christians in all parts of the world as it has done here in this Nation Whereas to be visibly in Covenant with God by Baptism is a certain fixed a common open and publick Rule by which to judg who are of the Visible Church so long as they continue to own themselves under the obligation of that Covenant and have neither so far violated it as to give Divine Worship to other Objects than their God nor incurr'd to themselves Excommunication by Heresie or other scandalous living And this Rule gives no occasion of division in the Church as the other does but tends to bind and hold the several Members together in the unity of the Spirit and bond of peace To which purpose St. Paul urgeth it upon the Christians motive-wise Eph. 4. All these things considered one would wonder how men of Learning and Piety should ever be betrayed into such Notions and Principles and to lay so mighty a stress on them as they have done when yet they have no more colour from Scripture or reason than ever yet they have been able to produce for their defence But to make the best of it I can we will suppose it was the appearance of a more thorow Reformation and more pure Communion which in their apprehension was to be obtained by these new Methods that first drew them into this way Reformation and pure Communion are things which sound mighty well in good mens ears and which they can easily believe to be well pleasing unto God And as there is an appearance of greater strictness in that way than in that of more general Communion so it was easie for them hereupon to think there was more purity in it also which has been the prevailing reason which has carried multitudes into Quakerism And when such an opinion has once seated it self in mens minds they quickly grow confident that nothing in Scripture can be against it and then they can easily fancy that every slight appearance and sound of words in Scripture is for them upon which they can but put such a gloss as shall favour them though it be nothing to their purpose when impartially scann'd And had their opinions and practice which I have opposed and wherein they differ from all other good men been matter of purity indeed I should not have made One to find fault with them But if this their Way be disagreeable to Gods pure Word which is the Rule by which we must judg of what is pure and what is impure and if it run counter to our Lords Method laid down in the Scripture of ordering the affairs of his Church in very material points then it will be found an impure practice a sinful mixture and a corruption to be purged out of the Church And yet such it is if I have not
Christ to be the Son of God and Saviour of the World and whether he would reform his sinful life and in hope of Salvation by Jesus Christ henceforth live unto God according to his teaching in the Gospel The answer to this was assertory and promissory Covenant-wise made viz. that he did so believe and that through Gods assistance he would so reform and so live to the performance whereof he bound himself by being Baptized in his name Now when such a promissory answer as this proceeded from such a frame of mind as did produce or would produce effects sutable to such an answer or undertaking it might very well be called the answer of a good Conscience towards God And St. Peter might well say as here we suppose he does That the entrance into the Church by Baptism when accompanied with this answer of a good Conscience would as certainly be Salvation to them through the Resurrection of Jesus Christ as ever Noah his Families enterance into the Ark was the means of their escaping perishing by water that being the figure to which St. Peter here likens Baptism And this way and method of bringing Persons into the Visible Church as Institutive by Covenanting with God in Baptism does but answer to what was done in Abrahams days and after for the gathering God a Visible Church out of the World for that was done by Circumcision then which is done by Baptism now For it was the Sacred Rite of entering Persons into Covenant with God to take God for their God and to be his People and for that reason it is called the Covenant of Circumcision by St. Stephen Act. 7. And it was the badge by which they were marked and differenced from others as belonging to God by Covenant and is therefore said to be the token of the Covenant between God and them Gen. 17.11 And just so is Baptism now which is come in the room of Circumcision We see then how excellently the Old and New Testament agree in this point That ever since God has had a Visible Church on Earth by Institution he has made the way and means of becoming Members of it to be a Covenanting with him by an initiating Ordinance QUERY V. HOW can Infants become Visible Church-Members by Covenanting with God since they seem naturally uncapable of doing such a thing while Infants This Inquiry seems necessary in this place upon occasion of the resolution of the former Query That the Infants of the Circumcised were to be engaged to God Covenant-wise by being Circumcised is past dispute But then there will another question arise and that is whether they were so by their own act and deed or by the act and deed of their Parents We cannot say that they were in their own Persons active in Covenanting with God and that therefore it must needs be by the act and deed of their Parents that they were by Circumcision engaged to God Covenant-wise But then yet a further question will arise and that is whether those Infants were obliged by their Parents entering them into Covenant by Circumcising them before they were in a capacity of consenting to it And the Answer is that there can be no doubt but that they were supposing they were obliged at all which none deny but they were The Children were obliged by what their Parents did in their Minority on their behalf with a purpose to oblige them supposing the thing lawful This was a thing commonly understood among the Jews and taken for granted and as it appears was so accounted by God also I will give some instances of both 1. The Jews did so esteem it and that appears by what they did to oblige their Seed after them to observe the days of Purim Esther 9.27 The Jews ordained and took upon them and upon their Seed and upon all such as joyned themselves unto them so as it should not fail that they would keep these two days according to their writing and according to their appointed time every year and that these days should be remembred and kept throughout every Generation every Family every Province and every City and that these days of Purim should not fail from among the Jews nor the remembrance of them perish from their Seed So again 1 Sam. 20.42 And Jonathan said to David Go in peace for as much as we have sworn both of us in the Name of the Lord saying The Lord be between me and thee and between my Seed and thy Seed for ever 2. Almighty God did account and hold the Children obliged by what their Parents did or had done on their behalf with an intent to oblige them For proof of this I will instance in several cases First the Lord did hold the Children and Posterity of the Jews to be obliged by that Covenant which their Fore-fathers had made with the Gibeonites in the days of Joshua For there was three years of Famine sent by God in the days of David for that Saul and his House had slain the Gibeonites contrary to the Covenant which their Fore-fathers had made with them tho it was several hundreds of years before 2 Sam. 21.1 Secondly The whole Congregation of Israel Men Women and their little ones entred into Covenant with God by his appointment in the Land of Moab Deut. 29.10 11 12 13. Ye stand this day all of you before the Lord your God your little Ones and your Wives that thou shouldest enter into Covenant with the Lord thy God And it must be by the act of their Parents since or some in their stead that their little Ones did so by obliging them as much as in them lay to observe and keep that Covenant when they should come to years of discretion to understand it For it is not easie to understand how the little Ones that were but Infants could otherwise enter into Covenant with God And if not then we see from this instance likewise that God did account the little Children obliged by what their Parents did on their behalf with an intent to oblige them Which is yet farther confirmed from what is said in the 14. and 15. verses in these words Neither with you only do I make this Covenant and this Oath but with him that standeth here with us this day before the Lord our God and also with him that is not here with us this day meaning their Posterity yet to come as is generally understood For it seems that God did intend to oblige the Posterity to come to take him for their God by bringing their Fore-fathers into Covenant with him Hence it is that the Jews defection to Idolatry is aggravated thus They rejected his Statutes and his Covenant which he made with their Fathers 2 King 17.15 And in this 29. of Deut. 25. Then shall men say because they have forsaken the Covenant of the Lord God of their Fathers which he made with them when he brought them forth out of the Land of Aegypt c. How could
God now as ever Circumcision did the Circumcised heretofore And it is now as much the benefit of Persons to be obliged in Covenant with God in their Infancy by Baptism as ever it was for others formerly by Circumcision Now as touching that Warrant or Authority which Christians have to oblige their Infant Children by Baptizing them to become parties in Gods Covenant and to perform the terms and condition of it on their part as they grow up into a capacity of being active therein I shall compare what of this kind Christians have with what Abraham and his Seed and others had for their obliging their Children to be a People unto God by Circumcising them Abraham and his Seed had an express command for it but the Gentiles which were not of Abrahams natural Seed had only a favourable allowance and grant that in case any of them had a mind to joyn themselves to the Jewish Church and to have communion with them in the way of worship prescribed them Exod. 12 48. that then in order to this attainment the Father or Man himself was to be Circumcised and all his Males But otherwise as Circumcision was not enjoyned the Gentiles so we do not find that any Prophet or other were sent abroad among them to draw them into the Jewish Church only we read indeed that the Pharisees compassed Sea and Land to make one Proselyte but its probable it was but from among other Jews to make him of their Sect to strengthen their party But when the Visible Church was to become Christian our Saviour commissionated his Apostles to go into all the World and to disciple all Nations and Baptize them Now if this commissioning extended to the Baptizing the little Children of Christian Parents as well as the Christian Parents themselves then here is Warrant and Authority enough for such Parents to engage their Children by Baptizing them in Covenant with God and to oblige them to perform the terms of it when they shall be capable of endeavouring to do so And that this Commission of our Saviour did extend to the Authorizing the Apostles to Baptize such little Children I have endeavoured to make out in another discourse which I shall not here repeat but refer the Reader to it Address from p. 29. to p. 80. The substance of what is there said is reducible to these two heads 1. To shew what reason the Apostles had to understand the words of their Commission to Baptize in this Latitude 2. What reason we have to believe that they did understand the words of their Commission in this extensive sense and that they did practice accordingly Unto what I have said there I shall here add one very considerable reason to induce us to believe that the Apostles did Baptize the little Children of Christians taken from the unanimous agreement of all Christians in all parts of the World in the practice of Baptizing Infants in the purer times of the Church and before the defection into Popery Now there are some things which render it morally impossible that there should be such an unanimous agreement in such a practice unless they had it from the Apostles or others sent by them in their first planting of Christianity in those places The Apostles went into all the World to Preach the Gospel and were our Saviours Witnesses unto the uttermost parts of the earth according to his Commission Their sound went into all the Earth Rom. 10. Col. 1.6.23 and their words unto the ends of the World The Gospel was Preached to every Creature under Heaven as St. Paul saith There are some things which make it morally impossible that there should be such an universal agreement as aforesaid in all places upon any other account or for any other reason than their first receiving this practice of Baptizing Infants from the Apostles in their first planting of Christianity there As 1. The vast distance of one place from another where the Christians lived made it morally impossible they should come into this usage by combination or imitation of one another 2. The diversity of their Languages made it impossible that this sameness of practice should grow out of any mutual correspondence or intelligence held by them 3. If these things had not made it impossible and if it could be supposed that the Christians in all parts notwithstanding their distance of place and diversity of Language might have held such correspondence as by agreement to have introduced such a practice as they had not from the Apostles but had been imposed upon them at first by some Innovators yet it is morally impossible it should steal into all Churches and every where without some known opposition from some good men or other if it had not been Apostolical We cannot with any reason think that all Christians both in office and out of office in the Church would have suffered such an Innovation as this if it had been an Innovation without such considerable opposition as would have been taken notice of by some Author or other who lived in or near such time in which it had been first brought into the Church Since then no man is able to assign the beginning of this practice short of the Apostles times And since the whole world of Christians were agreed in it in the purest times of the Church for ought appears to the contrary And since all Christians how much soever they have differed in other things have yet all along agreed in this as much as they have in the observation of the Lords day a very few only excepted and those chiefly or rather only as have appeared since Luthers days or the beginning of the Reformation And since the Apostles practice recorded in Scripture of their Baptizing whole Housholds gives us ground to believe they practised the same in all places where they have been and that their doing so was the reason and ground of the universal practice of Baptizing Infants in all Churches first planted by them and in those succeeding them I say all these things considered there remains little reason for any impartial man to doubt but that the Apostles did practise Infant Baptism in pursuance of their Commission QUERY VI. WHether in the Baptizing of Children that method of proceeding be not most proper by which the Children are most directly made to enter into Covenant with God by their Parents The reason of this Query arises out of the matters discussed in the two former For if that Union and Relation between God and men by which they become Members of his Visible Church is made by entering into Covenant with him to be his People as he with them to be their God And if little Children are obliged in Covenant with God by what their Parents do in causing them to be Baptized with intent thereby so to oblige them then I propose it to be considered whether it will not thence follow that it is most proper to demand of the Parents
as they owned him only for their God according to their Covenant with him tho otherwise they had great guilt upon them This still confirms what was said before that tho the immoralities of this People for the generality of them were such in other respects as that all that they had done in Covenanting and in a partial performance of Covenant could not give them the reputation of being Members of the Invisible Church yet their Covenant with God and partial performances of it in worshipping him only with a worship of his own appointment did denominate them in an external and visible respect to be his People and so his as the rest of the world were not By the way then if those of this Church under the Old Testament were stiled Saints a holy People and the like upon other accounts and in other respects than their being really and inherently holy as I have shewed they were by inspired men then it cannot be concluded but that the People of the Churches in the New Testament were so likewise when the Apostles in their Epistles to them stiled them Saints the Sanctified in Christ Jesus and the like For the same Epithetes and Appellations signifie but the same thing in the Old Testament as in the New In both they signifie a People separated from the Pagan unbelieving world unto God among whom some were more so and some less some by external Covenant and profession and some by that and much more to wit by the Renovation of the whole inner man I the rather note this as I pass along because those of the Congregational way lay so great a stress as they do upon St. Pauls stiling the Churches to whom he wrote Saints for the proving as they would have it that none but such as are savingly sanctified are Church-matter or to be admitted as Church-Members except when it is done through mistake of them that admit them Having taken a brief survey how things stand related touching Visible Church-Membership under the Old Testament I shall now proceed to enquire how matters stand declared touching the same under the New And our inquiry must be whether persons adult are by no other means Visible Church-Members unless they are reputatively Members of the Church as Invisible Or whether they do not become truly Members of the Visible Church in Scripture account by their voluntary Covenanting by Baptism with God the Father Son and Holy Ghost tho it should be supposed that there is not enough in them to denominate them Members of the Church as Invisible The question is not whether it does not become those who admit men into the Church by Baptism and the Baptismal Covenant to think the best of them who are so admitted and to hope they do it with a sincere mind when they therein give up themselves to God But whether their due admission thereto does depend upon such a judgment in those that admit them Or whether such Persons may be refused and not suffered to Covenant with God in Baptism and thereby to enter into the Church tho they offer themselves thereto and desire it in case those whose office and place it is to admit men thereto should be unsatisfied touching the truth of their saving Conversion or Regeneration Or thus the question is not whether it be not the duty of every man that enters into Covenant with God in Baptism to do it with a sincere mind and with all his heart But whether this be required by way of condition without which it is neither lawful for the person himself to Covenant with God nor for others to suffer him to do it if they suspect he will do it with such a frame of mind as is short of Regeneration Nor is the question whether a man might not be refused admission into the Church in case there were cause to suspect him to have an evil design in desiring it to betray the Christians to their Enemies upon account of which suspicion its probable the Disciples refused Saul's joyning with them after his Conversion tho he desired it until they had received better satisfaction concerning him But the question is whether such as have only some general and in distinct belief that Christ is the Son of God and Saviour of the world by his death and that the way of Christianity is the way of Salvation and do desire admission into the Christian Church to be further instructed in that way and in order thereto are willing to enter into Covenant with God and to be Baptized I say the question is whether such may be suffered to Covenant with God and enter into the Church by Baptism supposing them as yet to have no thorow saving work of Conversion wrought in them but only so much as may be hoped is preparatory and dispository thereto but yet have something tho not all which is necessary to it and whose profession is serious and sincere so far as it goes as that is opposed to dissembling knowingly And to prove that they may and that the lawfulness of such Covenanting by Baptism does not depend upon their being savingly Regenerate and that our Saviour himself owns Unregenerate men received into the Visible Church by such Covenanting in Baptism to be as well Members of it as the Regenerate I shall offer several things 1. And I shall lay down this first as a foundation to build upon in this proof viz. That it is not a thing unlawful in it self for some such as are not of the Church as Invisible by regenerating Grace to enter into Covenant with God to be his People nor is such a qualification enjoyned as a necessary condition of doing so When all the Males at Age in Abrahams House were commanded to enter into Covenant with God by Circumcision And when his Seed after him were required to cause all the Male-strangers bought with their money to do the like And when the Proselytes from among the Gentiles were required to Circumcise themselves and all their Males and thereby to enter into Covenant with God I say in all this there was no such thing as their being Circumcised in heart enjoyned as a condition of their so entring into Covenant by Circumcision The Lord also commanded Joshua to Circumcise all the Hebrew Males that in the space of forty years had been born in the Wilderness which was an entering them into Covenant with God and this without any condition of such qualification as would have made them of the Church as Invisible Nay Almighty God at another time commanded all Israel Men Women and Children and the Strangers in their Camp to enter into Covenant with him and into his Oath Deut. 29.10 11 12. This command was absolute and peremptory also and without condition The Lord did not in this nor in any of the other instances require men to enter into Covenant with him only upon this condition that they did already truly fear him and sincerely love him or otherwise to forbear No
undissembled belief was that I doubt not which Philip required of the Eunuch when he said If thou believest with all thine heart thou maist be Baptized And the Eunuchs answer upon which he was Baptized by Philip does intimate so much when he only said I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God And more than this I conceive cannot be duly inferred from those words of Philip to the Eunuch for the reasons I have already given These are the principal Texts made use of to countenance the opinion which I have in this Inquiry opposed There are objections or pleas drawn from some other which are well answered by Mr. Thomas Lamb as some of these I have insisted on also are in his fresh suit against Independency And thus upon our Inquiry we have found as I conceive that others are of the Visible Church in Scripture account and so in Gods account by whose inspiration the Scriptures were written than those which are of the Church as Invisible or them that seem to be so For Almighty God as has been shown accounteth and owneth such to be his People in distinction from the rest of the world that have entered into Covenant with him tho otherwise they or many of them are far from seeming to be of the Church as Invisible And if God esteem of them as such then so must his Servants likewise and if the Scripture account them such it will become us to do so too who profess to make the holy Scriptures the rule of our judgment After that upon our Inquiry we have found things thus Let not any man now say that by this doctrine we confound the Kingdom of the Devil with the Kingdom of God For this would but reflect after an unseemly manner upon the wisdom of God for thus numbering bad men as well as good to be of his Visible Church as externally related to him and as worshippers of him Secret Hypocrites belong to the Kingdom of the Devil as well as those that are more visibly such and yet none deny but that many such are in the Visible Church nor do they count this a confounding Gods Kingdom with the Devils There is no doubt but that the Devil has his Visible and Invisible Kingdom as well as God has his But those Hypocrites whether secret or more open which are of the Visible Church tho they are in a sence of the Kingdom of the Devil yet must be reckoned to be not of his Visible but of his Invisible Kingdom So that the Hypothesis I seek to establish does not at all tend to confound Gods visible Kingdom and the Devils visible Kingdom one with another much less their Invisible Kingdoms For those are not in Scripture reckoned to be of the Visible Kingdom of the Devil who professedly worship the true God and him only and Jesus Christ as his Son and only Mediator tho otherwise bad But such as worship Idols other gods and other mediators in doing of which they do in effect worship the Devil who is the founder of such worship Those Kingdoms or Nations are in Scripture counted of the Devils Kingdom or Dominion in which his Worship and Ordinances Idol-worship and the Rites of that worship are established by publick Authority as the Religion of those Nations As on the contrary those Nations or Kingdoms are counted Gods Kingdoms in which the Word and Worship of God are by publick Authority owned and established as the Religion of those Nations Thus when Idol worship was put down and cast out of the several Territories of the Roman Empire by the first Christian Emperors and the Christian Religion established by publick Authority as the Religion of those Nations then the Devil was said to be cast down and the Kingdom of God and the power of his Christ to be come Rev. 12.9 10. And again The Kingdoms of this world are said to become the Kingdoms of the Lord and of his Christ When idol-worship which is Devillish worship is rejected by the Authority of those Kingdoms Revel 11.15 Not that there shall be no Hypocrites or Carnal Professors of Christianity in these Kingdoms when they are thus become the Kingdoms of the Lord and of his Christ But tho there be 〈◊〉 as the true Christian doctrine and worship is owned and established by the Government or ruling power of those Kingdoms and so long as the generality of the Inhabitants are for the same doctrine and worship in opposition to Idolatrous and Antichristian doctrine and worship they are accounted to belong to Gods Visible Kingdom in the world and not the Devils however many of those Inhabitants may belong to the Invisible Kingdom of the Devil And thus those are called the Children of Gods Kingdom by our Saviour who yet at last shall be cast out into outer darkness Mat. 8.12 But of this more afterwards QUERY IX WHether God hath granted any right to Church-priviledges to those who are only of the Church as Visible but not as Invisible That such have right to them before men unless they are justly deprived of them by Church-censures those will grant who yet deny that they have any right to them by Gods allowance But our present enquiry is whether they have any right by Gods allowance And if that be true which we now suppose we found to be so in our former enquiry viz. that God himself doth own very many such to be of the Church as Visible which yet are not at all of it as Invisible then it will be but reasonable to conclude from thence that he does allow them a share in the external and temporary priviledges of that relation except in those cases wherein he himself hath made an exception For otherwise God by conferring on them the priviledge of Relation to himself and his Church has conferred upon them a right to the priviledges of that relation so far as the relation it self extends For the relation and the priviledges of the relation go together except in case of forfeiture by miscarriage The union of parts does of it self infer right to communion with them in things common to the whole The right of those in the Visible Church to Visible Church-priviledges does arise I conceive from that Covenanting between God and them in Baptism by which they engaged themselves to be his People as God on the other hand had engaged himself to be their God on that condition Now for ought that appears from the Scriptures to the contrary so far as they perform Covenant with God in being a People unto him so far he owns them to be his People and so far as he does so he allows them the priviledge of his People which is a share in his houshold fare and in the provisions for his Family which are his Word and Ordinances If they worship no other God and hold the Head Christ Jesus in point of doctrine and worship and own his doctrine and precepts as the rule of faith and life and worship God in
his Ordinances and have the form of godliness tho otherwise destitute of the power of it yet as they are thus far a People unto God so God so far owns them as a People unto him separated unto him from the Idolatrous and Infidel world and accordingly allows them an interest and share in the external priviledges of his People of which communion in his Word and Ordinances is the chief Only where God himself hath put a bar to this enjoyment there the Visible Church ought to do so too as in those cases wherein deprivation by Church-censures is enjoyned Right to the priviledges of the Church comes in by mens relation to it as parts or members of it and so long as the relation continues so long a right to the external priviledges continues except in the case before excepted Those that are related to the Church both as Visible and Invisible have a right from God to Church priviledges both external internal and eternal but those who are related to the Church only externally as it is Visible have right only to the external priviledges of it Thus far we have argued from the nature and reason of the subject under consideration Come we now to enquire what the usage of the Church has been as to point of 〈◊〉 in this matter as we have it recorded in Scripture And as for the Old Testament Church the whole Nation of the Jews that entred into Covenant with God to be his People were allowed their part and share in the Ordinances of publick worship and not only so but were commanâ—◠〈…〉 them save in some exâ—◠〈…〉 as while they were unâ—◠〈…〉 legal uncleanness and in thâ—â—e particular cases of guilt for which they were to be deprived of their lives as well as communion and to be cut off from among the People Three times in the year were all their Males to appear before the Lord to keep three solemn Feasts appointed and yet I think no body will imagine them to be all without exception of the Church as Invisible And when any Strangers from among the Gentiles had a mind to turn Proselytes to the Jews Religion all that was required of them to make them capable of communion in the Passover was but to Circumcise all their Males by which they entred into Covenant with God Exod. 12.48 And since it was thus in the old Testament Church it is not to be imagined that the terms of external communion should be more rigorous and severe in the new since our Saviours yoke is casie and his burden light in comparison of that among the Jews which was a yoke as St. Peter speaks which neither they nor their Fathers were able to bear All the same adult Persons which were received into the Church by Baptism were admitted to communion of the Church in the Ordinances of worship Thus it was in the first Christian Church which was a pattern to all that followed Act. 2.41 42. When the three thousand were added to the Church by Baptism They continued in the Apostles Doctrine and in breaking of bread and prayer Acts 2.42 And St. Paul saith By one spirit we are all baptized into one body whether Jews or Gentiles bond or free and have been all made to drink into one spirit The same all we see were made to drink into one spirit which were baptized into one body 1 Cor. 12.13 By drinking into one spirit is meant Communion in the Lords Supper according to the sense of all Interpreters that I have met with Again he had said thus Chap. 10.17 We being many are one bread and one body for we are all partakers of one bread Here again the same all that made one body were partakers of one bread So that the extent of the Communion of the parts equallized the union of the whole Nor indeed is there any one instance in Scripture that I can find of any one person that has been refused Communion with a Christian Church when he has desired it who has been before received into the Church by Baptism except such as have been under Censure of the Church for some Capital Offence And such indeed are to be excluded until brought to repentance by the Ecclesiastical Government under which they live And St. Paul has given direction in what manner of Cases and for what manner of Offences men are to be proceeded against by Church Censure greater or lesser after due admonition otherwise used But now saith he I have written unto you not to keep company if any man that is called a brother be a Fornicator or Covetous or an Idolater or a Railer or a Drunkard or an Extortioner with such an one no not to eat 1 Cor. 5.11 For these and such like Crimes a Church may and ought in her governing capacity to deny her Communion with persons guilty of them after due admonition And accordingly our Church has ordered publick admonition frequently to be made in these words with many other If any of you be a blasphemer of God a hinderer or slanderer of his Word an Adulterer or be in malice or envy or in any other grievous crime Repent you of your sins or else come not to that holy Table lest after the taking of that holy Sacrament the Devil enter into you as he did into Judas and fill you full of all iniquities and bring you to destruction both of body and soul And further If any that desire to communicate be an open and notorious evil Liver or have done any wrong to his Neighbour by word or deed so that the Congregation be thereby offended the Curate having knowledge thereof shall call him and advertise him that in any wise he presume not to come to the Lords Table until he hath openly declared himself to have truly repented and amended his former naughty life that the Congregation may thereby be satisfied which before were offended The same order shall the Curate use with those betwixt whom he perceiveth malice and hatred to reign not suffering them to be partakers of the Lords Table until he know them to be reconciled I know there are several things wont to be alledged against admitting such to the Lords Supper who have not saving Grace as 1. That such will but increase their sin and further their Damnation by partaking of it so long as they are unregenerate To which it may be Answered 1. That such would no less sin by neglecting to Obey Christs Command Do this in remembrance of me and in neglecting to prepare themselves for it than they do when they come to this Supper of our Lord unprepared but rather indeed more For by not coming they make themselves guilty of a double Disobedience the one in not doing what Christ has Commanded to be done in remembrance of him the other in not preparing to do it after a right manner whereas by coming unprepared they make themselves guilty but of one of them 2. For the same reason Men should not
hunger when at the same time they made themselves guilty of intemperance and excess one is hungry another is drunk despise ye the Church of God and shame them which have not These also were such unworthy Acts as Christians by common grace may easily keep themselves from being guilty of the like Now all these outward Acts of unworthiness proceeded from their not rightly discerning the Lords Body as we may well conceive either as not understanding the nature of the Ordinance or as not being duly affected with what was represented and commemorated by it And therefore for remedy for time to come he puts them upon examining themselves concerning the apprehensions the sense and affection which Christians ought to have touching those things when they go to the Table of the Lord. I shall not proceed to shew how each of these external Acts of unworthy communicating proceeded from their not discerning the Lords Body which yet might easily be done Upon the whole matter I think we may conclude that if men by examination find themselves in a capacity and disposition to answer our Lords end in this his institution by eating and drinking at his Table in a grateful remembrance of him that then they are not altogether unfit and unworthy to be Communicants of it For men receive the Sacrament worthily or unworthily according as they do or do not thereby answer the end and design of it in remembring our blessed Saviour QUERY X. WHy and for what reason may it be conceived does Almighty God own and allow others to be of the Church as Visible than only such as are of the Church as Invisible There are several things offer themselves to our consideration which seem to render it fit and reasonable and well-becoming the wisdom and goodness of God that it should be so and such as render it highly useful and beneficial unto men As 1. Because it tends more abundantly to increase the number of Invisible Church Members than it would if none should be admitted into the Visible Church until they were of the Invisible or worthily reputed to be so That it has this tendency needs no better proof than the Experience the Church of God has had of the happy effect of this way and method of converting men above what has been produced in the other way Experience has made it manifest that abundant more thorow and sound conversions in men have been made in the Visible Church than out of it and after they have been baptized than before More in the Church of God have been made good and that by means of their being in it than have been made so before they were admitted into it How rarely have any thorow and sound conversions been wrought in men while out of the Church since Miracles ceased How seldom do we see or hear of any Jews or profest Infidels become really holy and good men tho they live among Christians and where they have the opportunity of hearing the Gospel if they had any mind to it When as thanks be to God we have known or heard of multitudes of Conversions of this nature that have been wrought in men after they have been in the Church If the Apostles in their time did by vertue of their Ministry convert many so as of bad to make them really holy and good before they were received into the Church Yet as their Calling was extraordinary so was their Ministry by which those Conversions were wrought their Mission and Doctrine being attested to come from heaven by multitudes of miraculous operations and marvelous gifts And therefore those Conversions which were wrought by such extraordinary means must be looked upon as extraordinary Conversions And to argue from things extraordinarily done to a necessity of having the like done in ordinary cases and under ordinary means is so absurd and such a piece of unreasonableness as those we call Seekers are guilty of who can find as they think no true Churches extant or visible because not called by men qualified with like extraordinary gifts as those or many of those in the Apostles days were by whom Churches were then gathered And indeed had not the means by which the Apostles converted those whom they did convert been extraordinary it would have been in a manner impossible for them to have succeeded in their undertaking as they did considering that they were to convert them from other Religions in which they had been educated and brought up and which they had received from their Fathers and Fore-fathers unto a new Religion the Christian Religion which was so greatly different from theirs as it was especially from that of Paganism from which most of their Conversions probably were made But when the Apostles had in this extraordinary way gathered our Saviour a Church all over the known World and settled particular Churches it was not necessary as the Event shews that this extraordinary way of converting men should be continued For when by this extraordinary means of converting men way was made for converting them in an ordinary way then that which was extratraordinary ceased Like as the giving the Israelites Manna from heaven ceased when they came into Canaan and had opportunity of being supplied with food in an ordinary way And from that time forward there have been but few Conversions made in those without the Church but most of those that have been made in bringing men to the power of godliness have been made upon those within the Visible Church For tho God is pleased I doubt not to plant true saving grace in some in their early days by the benefit of godly Education yet there are very many others who having been received into the Church by Baptism in their Infancy have little or nothing more than a form of godliness if so much found in them when grown up But among these there are many who in time are brought on or converted to the Power of Godliness by means of their being in the Church and under those Ordinances of God there administred by which he is wont to work saving grace in men This is Gods ordinary way of Conversion since that which was extraordinary ceased And ever since that time almost all the Conversions that have been made in men to a saving Christian faith and to a faithful practice and the Power of Christianity have been made upon persons baptized and within the Church And altho the Conversion of men to Christianity by the Ministry of the Apostles was extraordinary because wrought in an extraordinary way and by extraordinary means as I have shewed yet we have great reason to think that those Conversions or many of them that proved effectual at last were but only beginnings and preparatory to a second and thorow Conversion of them while they were yet without the visible Church and were carried quite through and made effectual after they were brought into the Church by Baptism And the manner of the Apostles writing to the Christians after
they had been in the Church for some time seems to intimate that the Apostles themselves had no other apprehensions of those Conversions or many of them For we find them earnestly perswading those Christians to put away such practices the retaining of which could not well consist with a thorow and sound conversion Which argues that at least many of them had not yet put them off tho they had been for some time in the Church Thus Col 3.8 9. But now ye also put off all these anger wrath malice blasphemy filthy communication out of your mouth Lie not one to another seeing ye have put off the old man with his deeds That is they had engaged to do so in Baptism See the like again Ephes 5.3 And 1 Pet. 2.1 Wherefore laying aside all malice and all guile and hypocrisies and envies and all evil speakings as new-born babes desire the sincere milk of the Word that ye may grow thereby 1 Cor. 6.15 Know ye not that your bodies are the members of Christ Shall I then take the members of Christ and make them the members of an Harlot God forbid What know ye not that he that is joyned to an harlot is one body Chap. 10.21 22. Ye cannot drink the Cup of the Lord and the Cup of devils Ye cannot be partakers of the Lords Table and of the Table of Devils Do we provoke the Lord to jealousie Are we stronger than he Chap. 15.33 34. Be not deceived evil communications corrupt good manners Awake to righteousness and sin not for some have not the knowledge of God I speak this to your shame 2 Cor. 6.16 17. What agreement hath the Temple of God with Idols For ye are the Temple of the living God Wherefore come out from among them and be ye separate saith the Lord and touch not the unclean thing and I will receive you Chap. 12.20 21. For I fear lest when I come I shall not find you such as I would and that I shall be found unto you such as ye would not lest there be debates envyings wraths strifes backbitings whisperings swellings tumults and lest when I come again my God will humble me among you and that I shall bewail many which have sinned already and have not repented of the uncleaness and fornication and lasciviousness which they have committed Phil. 2.22 All seek their own and not the things of Jesus Christ So by the general Epistle which St. James wrote not to any particular Church but to the twelve Tribes scattered abroad it appears that he was very jealous and suspicious that the faith which very many of the Christians had was but a dead and unavailable faith and such as would neither justifie nor save them because it was but a barren and unfruitful faith such as did neither purifie the heart nor reform the life being hearers of the Word and not doers For for all their knowledge and their faith it seems by the tenour of his writing that their lusts remained still lusty and strong that warred in their members The love of pleasure their unworthy compliances to keep friendship with the World pride envy and grudging one against another strife and contention and uncharitable judging and condemning one another and provoking one another with their unruly Tongues and cursing and swearing and such like distempers it seems did abound among them And St. James by this Epistle to them endeavours their thorow Conversion and encourageth the sincere among them to endeavour it likewise saying If any see his brother err and one convert him Let him know that he which converteth a sinner from the error of his way shall save a soul from death and cover a multitude of sins And when we likewise find that there were but a few names in Sardis but what had defiled their Garments having indeed a name to live but were dead and nothing which our Saviour could commend in all the Church of Laodicea I say when we find this and consider all these things and more of like nature in the Apostles Writings we have great reason to think that many of those whom the Apostles baptized were not thorowly converted till after they were brought into the Church and yet many such were so after And indeed I do not know what other reason can be given why the Apostles made such haste as they did to baptize persons after they had once gained their consent to turn Christians without staying for any farther trial but that they thought their thorow Conversion was more likely to be effected within the Church than without It is one thing to be converted from a false Religion to a bare or notitional belief of the true and another thing to be converted from that to a right practical belief of it There were some who did believe in the former sense through the power of conviction and could do no otherwise who yet had no mind to become obedient to the Rules and Precepts of the Gospel in all things Such were those Joh. 2.23 and those Joh. 12.42 43. and such was Simon Magus and such were those of whom St. James speaks that had but a dead faith And thus it is with many that are of the Visible Church in these days who have no other faith for some time and yet afterward are converted to a lively practical belief of the Christian Religion And it is probable that the faith of most of the Apostles Converts went little or nothing farther than to a general belief of the truth of the Apostles Doctrine until after they were baptized they having so little time of learning before as generally they had but were carried on further to a more particular distinct and practical belief by after-teaching when they were in the Church And this is not disagreeable to what I have formerly noted from the words of our Saviours Commission to his Apostles touching a double teaching the one to make men become Disciples which went before Baptism the other to direct them how to live as Christians which followed after it Mat. 28.19 20. But however whatever thorow and effectual Conversions the Apostles might in an extraordinary way effect in men while they were without the Church for the first founding of the Christian Church yet we are sure that since that extraordinary way of Conversion has been discontinued abundantly more have been converted by their being in the Church and by advantage of the means of conversion which they have there enjoyed than have been among those without the Church And this is the first reason assigned why others should be admitted into the Visible Church than such as are of the Invisible or than are reputed to be so before such admission 2. Another reason why we may conceive Almighty God allows many others to be of the Visible Church than are of the Invisible is because so to do is more useful for the propagating and spreading of the Christian Religion in the World than the limiting and restraining the
house is done by their Confederation and Covenant as the Cement by which the Christians were united and combined in one particular Church fitly framed together as the phrase is Ephes 2. But St. Peter is not here speaking to any one particular Church as such when he says ye are built up a spiritual house but to the strangers scattered abroad throughout Pontus Galatia Cappadocia Asia and Bethynia as appears Chap. 1.1 And no one surely can think that these Christians thus scattered and at this distance could become one particular Church by such a mutual Confederation as these hold necessary for the forming a particular Church And if not it must be by vertue of somewhat else than such a particular Church Covenant as these dissenting Brethren thought to find here by which Christians in so many distant parts of the world as aforesaid were built up one spiritual house And that doubtless must be the same thing by which all Christians in the world become one spiritual house of God for so they are For when Christ is said to be High Priest over the house of God Heb. 10.21 And to be faithful as a Sen over his own house Heb. 3.6 House in these places cannot signifie less than the Universal Christian Church who are called the houshold of faith And how do all these Christians become the house of God but by being joyned and devoted to him by the Baptismal Covenant and thereby to one another among whom he dwells and is Worshipped as in his holy Temple For by this they all become one body which is but another Metaphor under which to express the same thing Ephes 2.21 22. 1 Cor. 12.13 It is the same thing which makes persons Members of the Church Universal that qualifies them for particular Church Membership and that is the Baptismal Covenant And to make any other Covenant besides this so necessary to qualifie men for particular Church Membership and Communion as to make this of Gods own appointment insufficient for that end is a great impeachment of it and contains in it such consequences as the Abetters of it would be ashamed to countenance if they were aware of it For so long as it is asserted to be of divine appointment the formal cause of a particular Church and essential to its being and is made the Condition of Communion when God has no where appointed or required it so long it may be charged with these evils 1. With a teaching for Doctrine the Commandments of men a piece of vain Worship condemned by our Saviour Mat. 15.9 which is the same thing with adding to Gods Word or a saying he saith when he hath not said it 2. It is in some sort and in part a making void the Command or Institution of God that men might establish their own Tradition For whereas the Baptismal Covenant qualifies men for particular Church Membership by bringing them into the Universal Church this Opinion denies the Baptismal Covenant to be sufficient to this end and sets up this other confederating in its room 3. It contains in it the Unchurching of all those Gospel Churches that are or ever have been in the world that have not been thus united by Church Covenanting For to say this is the Form of a particular Church or the formal cause of it is in effect to say that none are really Churches without it for Matter and Form are essential to the being of Churches as well as they are of other things Now to Unchurch all Churches that have not been thus confederate is a great thing indeed if we consider how few years it is since such Covenanting was heard of in any Christian Church in the world and by how inconsiderable a number of Congregations it has been used since it has been heard of These things considered it is matter of a very venturous and daring nature As for the other part of our Enquiry touching that which makes the difference between one particular Church and another we may conceive of it thus 1. It consists partly in that which does distinguish one Town from another or one great Neighbourhood from another and that is the bounds of Habitation And this distinction is as well convenient yea necessary for Ecclesiastical Order and peaceable Government as it is for Civil and does as well accommodate the ends of the one as of the other and without this a peaceable and orderly Government in the whole Church would be impracticable even as it would be in an Universal Empire And thus the Churches planted by the Apostles are differenced and distinguished one from another that at Rome from that at Corinth and that at Ephesus from that at Philippi yea that at Cenchrea from that at Corinth which yet bordered upon Corinth and so of the rest And indeed that difference which is made between Church and Church by Vicinity of Neighbourhood and Cohabitation does best answer the ends of particular Church Association such as is assembling together for Publick Worship and mutual assistances in all Christian offices of Brotherly love and friendship But this alone does not constitute Christians dwelling together in the same place a particular Christian Church tho by their being of the Church Universal they are as fit matter qualified for it But 2. That which does constitute such to be a particular Church as that signifies a company of Christians in Local Communion in Divine Worship consisting in the participation of Gospel Ordinances is the placing over them one or more Church-Officers to minister to them therein By which Officers as well as by the place where they dwell and where they assemble for Worship they are distinguished from other like Churches under the Conduct of other Church-Officers of the same kind For by such their joynt Local Communion in the Worship administred by their spiritual Guide or Pastor they are united with him and among themselves as one Worshipping Congregation by which Union also they are distinguished from other particular Churches as other particular Churches in like manner are from them Those of the Independent Church-way do indeed hold particular Churches as such to be Antecedent to any Church-Officers over them Which is the reason which Dr. Owen in his Inquiry concerning Churches does alledge to prove the Power of the Keys to be given to the Church And to prove particular Churches to be Antecedent to Church Officers he quotes Acts 14.23 where it is said of Paul and Barnabas And when they had ordained them Elders in every Church c. As for this proof of his Assertion I shall consider it by and by but shall first examine and try what is in the Assertion it self which I am inclined to think will be found full of mistake and that the contrary will be found true viz. that the Evangelical Ministry is and always has been Antecedent to the existence of Christian Churches and indeed an instrumental cause of their being And this is true not only of particular Churches but also
of the Universal Church as Christian which yet in order of nature is Antecedent to particular Churches The gathering of Christ a Christian Church in the world at first was the effect of the Apostolical Ministry and the Ministry of their assistants The Church is built upon the foundation of the Apostles and Prophets Christ being the chief corner stone Eph. 2.20 and the Foundation is Antecedent to the Superstructure All the additions that have been since made to the Visible Church have been by the Ministerial Office by letting all the particular Members of that addition into it by Baptism And when men are ordained Ministers of the Gospel they are not ordained Ministers of this or that particular Church but Ministers of Christ to the Church in general Let no man glory in men for all things are yours whether Paul or Apollos or Cephas all are yours and ye are Christs 1 Cor. 3.21 22. Paul Apollos and Cephas were theirs in common with others not theirs appropriately And their being sent or called to be Ministers to this ot that particular Church is but the application of their general capacity to particular use and exercise to wit that of Ministration to such a people in particular And this Ministerial Power they bring with them to the Church or People among whom they are placed but do not receive it from them And it is by virtue of their Ministry and Ministration that a particular Body of people can act or perform any Publick Acts of Communion peculiar to a Church as such And therefore as they cannot act as a Church without such a Ministry so neither can they properly be a Church without it The first thing St. Paul mentions Ephes 4.11.12 for which our Saviour Christ gave Apostles Prophets Evangelists Pastors and Teachers was for the perfecting of the Saints or for the joyning them together or for the making them up or for the compacting or knitting them together For thus variously is that word rendred by Expositors but all to the same sense For it is for the knitting them and holding them together as one body in their several Publick Assemblies for Worship and Edification And indeed a Church is so called from several Christians assembling together for Publick Worship their Union wherein is made by their joynt concurrence with their Spiritual Pastor in his Ministration for which end and purpose such Officers are given and appointed by Christ as the words of St. Paul now alledged shew And now as for the Text alledged by the Doctor in which Paul and Barnabas are said to have ordained Elders in every Church Acts 14.23 this does not prove the Churches there spoken of to be such Antecedently to any Ministerial Act or Power by which they became such For they had been made Churches in some sort by the planting of Paul and Barnabas who also as Church Officers ministred to them while they were among them For this ordaining Elders in every Church by Paul and Barnabas was done in their return to the places where they had preached the Gospel and made Disciples before and they returned to them to confirm them and to ordain Elders among them as appears by the two precedent verses compared with the Text it self Besides St. Luke did not write this History till after the Apostles had thus ordained Elders in the Churches mentioned by him so that they were indeed Churches then when he wrote those words and it was proper for him to stile them so tho it should be supposed they had been none before they had Elders ordained in them So that this Text can be no proof of that for which the Doctor doth alledge it QUERY XII WHether from the reason of the extent and Latitude of Visible Church-Membership and Communion which has been discoursed of the great usefulness of a National settlement or Constitution for the publick exercise of the Worship of God in all parts of a Nation professing Christianity may not fairly be inferred and concluded Now the reason why Visible Church-Membership Communion are better in respect of their due extensiveness than they would be if the terms and conditions of enjoying those Priviledges were limited and restrained to the same terms which the enjoyment of Invisible Church Membership and Communion are is this viz. because these Priviledges under such an extent and latitude tend more to the propagation of the Christian Religion and the increase of the number of those who shall be saved than they would or could do if they were limitted and restrained to the same terms and conditions of enjoyment as Invisible Church Membership and Communion are This hath been shew'd in our tenth Inquiry And it is for the same reason that it is better that the exercise of Gods Publick Worship should be set up in all parts of a Nation professing Christianity by a National Authority and that all such Professors should be thereby obliged to frequent it than it is to leave all such to their own liberty to promote and frequent it or to forbear and neglect to do so as the way called Independency does For the National way tends more to propagate and promote the knowledge and practice of Christian Religion and the Salvation of Souls than the Congregational way does and therefore must needs be abundantly better That it does so is too apparent to be denied by any that have but common reason when these things following are but duly considered 1. Better provision is made by a publick establishment for the instruction of such a Nation in the way of Salvation than can reasonably be expected without it Unless provision were made by publick Authority for the maintenance of a Gospel Ministry in all parts of a Nation there would certainly be a greater want of a publick Ministry in many places of it than by reason of such a publick provision there is Would people think we of themselves in all places of a Nation provide a better maintainance for the Ministry of the Gospel among them if left wholly to themselves than there is made by publick Authority If they would how comes it to pass that those places are generally worst supplied with Ministers where the Publick has made least provision for their maintainance And generally where there is the greatest failure in this there is the least face of Religion and greatest hazard of mens Souls Where there is no Vision the people perish saith Solomon Prov. 29.18 And the people are destroyed for lack of knowledge saith the Prophet Hos 4.6 2. If the people should be all left to themselves to chuse what Ministers they please without any publick approbation and allowance of some appointed by publick Authority to judg of their fitness many would be in danger of chusing men of erronious Principles and such as would corrupt the minds of men The consequence of which would be great opposition and contention between the Orthodox and the Erronious and making of Parties and endless strife to the destruction
me to fall somewhat hard upon such as separate from the publick Worship of God established in such Nations by National Authority in a way of National Reformation and on those more especially who separate from that Worship for that very reason because enjoyned by National Authority It likewise falls hard upon them also who disesteem or less esteem a National Ministry because it is National or made such according to a National establishment These seem to be of one mind and Almighty God of another when he esteems Nations to be joyned to him and to be his People by that for which they separate Their pretence that in the Apostles times and for three hundred years after the Affairs of the Church were carried on only in a free Congregational way in greater or lesser voluntary Associations and therefore they ought to be so now seems very inconsiderable Because what was done in that kind then was done by way of necessity because they had not opportunity of a better Not but that they long'd for and pray'd for such Kings as would use their Authority and Power for the propagation and furtherance of the Christian Religion as well as for the defence of it and the Professors of it And they esteemed it no small favour from God when at last they obtained it in Constantine a Christian Cesar who used that Power of his for the establishing the Christian Religion and Worship of the only true God and for the ordering and regulating many things relating to the more commodious and orderly carrying on the ministration of the Gospel and the Worship of God And therefore the people of God then existent in the Empire are brought in by the Spirit of Prophesie expressing themselves thus upon that occasion Now is come salvation and strength and the Kingdom of our God and the power of his Christ as I shew'd before Rev. 12.10 2. It may be justly questioned whether it be worth the while for men to dispute against the being of a National Church in New Testament times considering that in the New Testament Nations reformed from Paganism and Popery are stiled Gods Kingdoms And considering likewise that the Scripture stiles the same people and in the same respect sometimes the Kingdom of God and sometimes his Church And therefore it should seem no more improper to call a Christian Nation a Church of God than it is to call it a Kingdom of God which yet the Scripture stiles so 3. It may be observed yet farther That the Kingdoms or Nations which have been reformed from Popery were before such reformation was made but Kingdoms of this world notwithstanding much of what pertains to the Christian Religion was then owned and professed in them The Spirit of God by whom the book of Revelations was indited we see stiles them so in their unreformed state The Kingdoms of this world are become c. Yet they then in their unreformed state Worshipped the true God and his Son Christ Jesus They owned the holy Scriptures for the Word of God and used the same Creeds which the Reformed Churches themselves use and yet we see they are in that state stiled by the Spirit of God but Kingdoms of this world when as under their reformed state they are said to be the Kingdoms of God and of his Christ Like as Almighty God for the like reason esteemed the Nation of the Jews who had been his own Church and People but as Ethiopians unto him Amos 9.7 and told them by another Prophet Ye are not my people and I will not be your God Hos 1.10 For tho they had his Ordinances among them and boasted of their Temple-Worship crying The Temple of the Lord the Temple of the Lord the Temple of the Lord are these yet at the same time they burnt Incense unto Baal and walked after other Gods Jer. 7. they divided their Worship between the true God and Baal and did swear by the Lord and by Malcham Zeph. 1.5 And upon this account it was that God said of them by his Prophet they are unto me as a speckled bird of a Religion of several colours Jer. 12.9 For this spiritual Whoredom especially it was that Almighty God who had once espoused that people to himself gave them a Bill of Divorce at last brake up house turned them out of doors and sent them out of his Land untill they should repent and reform And if we compare these things with the spiritual whoredom wherewith Mystical Babilon is charged and for which with other heinous crimes she is threatned in this Book of Revelations it will not be at all hard to conceive why Nations while Popish are stiled and esteemed but Kingdoms of this world And this if there were no other is argument enough to prevail with all such as would not be disowned by God to be none or to become none of their Communion who are thus disowned by him And thus we have seen how both from the light and law of Nature the reason of the thing and from divine Revelation also the great expediency at least of the publick exercise of Gods Worship in the way of National establishment is warranted and approved of This then may be a caution to men who live in any such reformed Nation as we have discoursed of and as ours is to take heed of acting in matters Ecclesiastical or pertaining to Church Communion as if they lived in a Popish or Pagan Nation by disowning and by separating from the National way of Worship lest thereby they discountenance and disparage what God approves of and disown that for which God owns such a Nation for his Kingdom It is true the Primitive Christians who lived in Pagan Countries and those since which have lived in Popish have been necessitated in duty to be separate in their Christian Communion from their National Worship as much as they were obliged not to be Idolaters But there is a great difference between false Worship and defects in that which is true The best Church Constitution and the best Church Administration which have men not divinely inspired for the ordering of them are liable to humane defects And if humane defects even in Gods Worship were not to be endured for the sake of Communion in the Worship it self there could no such thing as Church Communion be enjoyed among Christians because we cannot say there is any in this imperfect state in which we are without defects But then the question will be what defects are to be indured in Gods Worship rather than Communion in it should be forsaken and what are intolerable and for the sake of which Communion in the Worship is to be declined And here it seems to me impossible warrantably to determine any defects intolerable which do not alter the nature of the Worship and make it become false Worship that do not destroy or defeat the ends for which true Worship serves Who is he that will undertake to determine for what defects which
good opinion of them and of the innocency and goodness of their intention in what they desire and seek Whereas the other tends to exasperate and provoke and to beget an ill opinion of them and a jealousie of their designs in the minds of those from whom they expect ease and relief in what is mattet of grievance to them And that which does that is no good way of obtaining from them Solomon's wise advice is If the Spirit of the Ruler rise up against thee leave not thy place for yielding pacifieth great offences Eccles 10.4 QUERY XIII WHerein may Catholick Church Communion consist And how and by what means is it best preserved To clear our way in this Inquiry it will be convenient to take notice of the difference that is between the Vnion of the Catholick Church and the Communion of it The Union of the Catholick Church consists in the same Relation which all the Members of that one Body bear to Christ the Head of it and to one another as fellow-members But the Communion of this spiritual Corporation consists in a mutual performance of those Christian Duties and Offices to which they are engaged by virtue of that relation By that Relation in which their Union consists they come to have a greater interest in one another than they had before their incorporation into that body and by it they come under new duties to one another to which they were not obliged before But their Communion consists much in a mutual discharge of those duties towards one another and in an improvement of that interest for the benefit of one another and the good of the whole by their mutual intercourse in spiritual affairs The Union of the whole which is made by one Baptism or the Baptismal Covenant respects the being of the Church But Catholick Communion respects its well-being by its increase in wisdom goodness and comfort There is indeed a Catholick Church Vnity by Communion as well as there is another which comes by Relation but this Unity of Communion slows from that which is made by a Relation common to the whole Having thus briefly considered how Catholick Communion differs from Catholick Union I shall now proceed to shew a little more particularly wherein or in what Catholick Commumunion doth consist And we may best know what it is and wherein it doth consist by the account we have of it as practised in the Catholick Church when it first became Christian And this account we have in these words Acts 2.42 And they continued stedfastly in the Apostles doctrine and fellowship and in breaking of bread and in prayers By which description we see it consisted in their consent and agreement in three things Faith Worship Fellowship 1. In their agreeing in the same Faith they continued stedfastly in the Apostles Doctrine that is in the belief of it in attendance to it and practice of it From the same faith being common to all Christians it is called the common faith Tit. 1.4 the one faith Eph. 4.5 and their agreement in it is stiled Vnity in the faith Eph. 4.13 2. In their agreement in the same Worship breaking of bread and prayers This Catholick Church in its beginning is said to have continued with one accord in Prayer and Supplication Acts 1.14 And on the day of Penticost they were all with one accord in one place when the Holy Ghost was poured out upon them And when their number so increased that they could not all perform this Publick Worship together in one place but in several distinct Assemblies called particular Churches yet their agreement in the same Worship made their Communion in it but one Communion tho performed in several Assemblies For altho these Assemblies be never so far distant from one another yet so long as they all agree in the same Worship the distance of place can no more hinder their Communion from being one than their being baptized in several distant places can hinder the Relation to one another contracted thereby from being one when it is common to all the Members We account all those to be of the Communion of the Church of Rome at the same time and in the same acts in which they hold their Local Commumunion in several distant Nations so long as they all agree in the same corrupt Worship And there is the same reason for the Unity of the Communion in Worship of all Orthodox Assemblies in all Nations So that I take this for an unquestionable truth That it is mens agreement in the same Principles of Communion be they good or bad that makes their Communion but one tho the particular acts of it are performed by them in many thousand distant places And now it is by the Union of Relation by the Baptismal Covenant and the Unity of Communion by agreement in the Principles of the Worship wherein they have Communion that all Orthodox Christians make one great House or Temple of God in the world in which he is openly worshipped and publickly acknowledged to be what he is the one only true God Father Son and Holy Ghost in opposition to all false Gods Ephes 2.21 In whom all the building fitly framed together groweth unto an holy Temple in the Lord. This is that house which is called Christs own house Heb. 3.6 and that House of God over which Christ is said to be High Priest Heb. 10.21 And particular Churches in reference to this one house are but as several Apartments in it which all together make up one great house of God And in this house of his God dwells and therein manifesteth himself to his People after a more special manner than he does to the world 2 Cor. 6.16 Ye are the Temple of the living God as God hath said I will dwell in them and walk in them and will be their God and they shall be my people Here Almighty God meets with them and communes with them and receives their addresses and here he entertains them with the fatness of his house the Ordinances of the Gospel and the benign influences and comfortable presence of his Spirit in the use of them In this way the whole Church in their several Assemblies have Communion with their Head Christ Jesus and one with another by partaking in common of the spiritual benefits communicated by the Lord and in assisting in common in the Worship Adoration and Thanksgiving which the Church renders him for the glory and transcendent perfections of his nature and being and returns him for all the blessings and benefits they receive from him And the more all Christians are agreed in their worshipping of God and in their Communion with him the more they honour him and the more they please him and make themselves the more capable of receiving all good things from him in the greater abundance If the agreement but of two of them touching any thing they shall ask hath his promise of granting it Mat. 18.19 what might not be expected from him
if the whole Church were of one heart and one soul as they were at the first in matters of their Communion 3. Catholick Communion consisteth also in the mutual assistances which Christians give to and receive one from another couched in that one word Fellowship in the description of Catholick Communion Acts 2.42 And they continued stedfastly in the Apostles Doctrine and Fellowship c. The same word which in our Version is here translated Fellowship is by the Dutch in their Version translated Communion And according to Dr. Hammond it signifies both to communicate and to participate to distribute and to receive So that according to the nature of Christian Communion every Member of the whole Church is or ought to be useful and serviceable to the whole Community of Christians in general and to every Christian in particular so far as they can in the place and rank in which the Providence of God hath set them The which if duly observed by all as it ought to be the same persons that thus communicate and contribute assistance to others would be receiving back again from the whole and from every Member in particular the like succour service and assistance as opportunity serves as they themselves had contributed to them As a Christian is to serve every fellow-Christian so according to the same Law every one is to serve him This is that the Apostle means when he says By love serve one another Gal. 5.13 And this giving and receiving assistance the same Apostle calls communicating with him Phil. 4.15 If this Catholick Communion were but duly maintained among all Christians how like a heaven upon earth would the Catholick Church be And how happy would they be even now for the present that are of it And how would the Inhabitants of the world that are not of it then flow into it And yet for Christians thus to exchange Offices of love with one another is nothing more than what we are all obliged to by the Royal Law of Love Thou shalt love thy Neighbour as thy self For if I am hereby bound to love every Neighbour as my self so is every Neighbout obliged by it to love me as they love themselves And how delightful a commerce would this be if the Christian Church were but so happy as to hit on it The particular duties and offices of love in which this part of Christian Communion does consist are such as these the instructing and exhorting one another the watching over and admonishing one another the strengthening the feeble minded the visiting and comforting the afflicted the relieving one anothers wants the bearing on anothers burdens the having the same care one for another and the like Together with these we may reckon the yielding and allowing to every one the liberty of sharing in the common priviledge of enjoying Communion in Gospel-Ordinances and Worship so long as they have not made themselves uncapable of it by drawing on themselves deservedly the Censures of the Church nor are otherwise naturally uncapable of the end and use for which those Ordinances or any of them were ordained as little Children seem to be in reference to the Lords Supper THus much briefly touching the nature of Catholick Commumunion Come we now to enquire how and by what means it may best be preserved There are two Bonds which the Scripture mentions by which Christians are bound and knit together in one Communion the bond of Charity and the bond of Peace 1 The bond of Charity Above all these things put on Charity which is the bond of perfectness Col. 3.14 Charity is a bond which knits and unites mens hearts together and makes them one in affection knit together in love as as it is exprest Col. 2.2 and while they be so it can hardly be but that they will be one in Communion This was that which made the Catholick Church in its beginning to be all of one heart and one soul as it is said the multitude of them that believed were Acts 4.32 And that was the reason doubtless why they continued stedfastly in their Communion in the Apostles Doctrine and Fellowship and in breaking of bread and prayer Charity we see is called the bond of perfectness for the Church is in a kind of perfect state in her Communion so long as the Parts and Members of it are knit together in one Communion by love made perfect in one as our Saviour expresseth it Joh. 17.23 And the Union in Communion which is made by love is Union in its perfection nothing unites Christians so entirely and firmly as love does If Christians love one another in the truth and for the truth sake which dwelleth in them as St. John speaks this Love and Union by Love will last there will be no failure in the oneness of Communion until there be first a failure in love Charity must needs unite and knit Christians together in one Communion because it is the Principle from which the particular acts of Christian Fellowship fore-mentioned do spring a great part of the acts of Christian Communion are nothing else but offices of brotherly love and by these Christians take fast hold one of another Charity in its own nature is communicative of the good it has and the good it can do and by that it does attract and draw others to a nearer conjunction with those in whom it dwells Charity is the Arms of the Christians inner man by which they imbrace one another though absent Love is of a winning nature it gains upon others that stand at a distance If a Principle of love be in the heart it will season a mans speech and enable him to speak the truth in love according to St. Pauls direction And the truth spoken in love will sooner reconcile than the strongest Arguments when mixt with bitterness of Spirit A tongue of love is Solomons tongue of health it will heal wounds when another tongue does but make them And therefore with great reason did St. Paul call upon the Church of Corinth to do all their things with Charity and spent a whole Chapter upon them to persuade them to it as an effectual means to cure the divisions into which they were unhappily fallen Again Charity covereth a multitude of sins 1 Pet. 4.8 and by that means among other it keeps Christians from flying asunder and dividing in their Communion which many times takes its first rise from very small matters when they meet with an evil mind that will aggravate and make the worst of things and seek out matter to make the breach wider But Charity is not apt to spie faults or to pick quarrels nor to aggravate and make the worst of things nor to harbour jealousies or evil surmises out of which breaches are wont to grow but it will over-look mens weakness mistakes and inadvertencies as believing they do not proceed from an evil mind And if any thing be amiss love will take notice of all the extenuating circumstances in the
out of scruple of Conscience and others from a worse Principle will be apt to take occasion to disturb the peace of the Church with disputes and by deserting the Communion of it And then moderation and prudence are necessary to the same end in the exercise of Discipline in the Church by making a difference in correcting open and notorious scandals and lesser disorders For else if both be punished alike when they are not alike criminal or if lesser disorders shall be strictly looked after and severely punished and greater connived at it will tend to lessen the Government in mens reverence and esteem and so weaken the fense of the Churches peace and render Communion with her less desirable by such as will take themselves to be unequally dealt with by her But as good Government in the Church is necessary to its Peace and to Unity in its Communion so is obedience to such Government without which Government loseth its end But when the Government and exercise of it is equal and as easie as will consist with the due ends of it then if yet for all that men will be troublesom and disobedient under it they will be left without excuse in the eyes of sober men if fitting course be taken to restrain them from disturbing the peace of the Church for otherwise if this be not granted Government in the Church would signifie little THus much concerning our Inquiry touching the nature of Catholick Communion and the means of preserving it But before I proceed to an Inquiry into the nature of Schism I think it not amiss to enquire for what reason the Unity of Catholick Communion is necessary and why we should endeavour that as much as may be it should be kept entire and all of a piece and without Fracture And the only reason which I shall insist on is this because its being such and so kept and maintained tends greatly to the growth and increase of the Church both in respect of the number of its Members and bigness of its Body and also in respect of its healthful state and its growing up to a greater stature in all virtue and goodness 1. It tends to the increase of the body of Christians in the number of its Members For next to the miraculous operations of the Holy Ghost in the Apostles and Primitive Believers the peaceable and charitable demeanour among Christians and good agreement among themselves if it were generally found in them would attract and draw men to the liking and love of the Religion which they profess for the sake of the lovely effects it produceth in them Men can hardly think otherwise than well of that Religion by which they find men are made more peaceable and loving and more ready to all good offices to one another and to all men than others are or than they themselves were before they engaged heartily and seriously in it And that the concord and good agreement of all Christians in one Catholick Communion has so happy a tendency as I have said to draw others to the belief love of that same Religion appears by the reason why and for which our blessed Saviour so earnestly desired and prayed for the Union and Agreement of all Christians in the things their Religien taught them to wit because the world would thereby be brought to believe that he the Author of it had been sent of God Joh. 17.20 21. Neither pray I for these alone but for them also which shall believe on me through their word that they all may be one as thou Father art in me and I in thee that they also may be one in us that the world may believe that thou hast sent me And it s most apparent that the contrary to this has had its contrary effect For where have any such numerous additions to the Catholick Church been found from among the Pagan world since the great divisions which have risen and been kept on foot in the Christian world as those which were made for some hundreds of years together in the Primitive times while Catholick Communion was preserved in the Church without any considerable interruption Nay have not the unreasonable divisions and fierce contentions which have broken out in the Reformed Churches since the Reformation and in our own nation especially been a temptation to many to turn Atheists or Scepticks The holy Scriptures in many places seem to foretel a more general flowing of the Nations of the world into the Church than ever yet has been accomplished But we cannot reasonably expect this should be brought to pass by means of the Christian Churches in being until by humility peaceableness and charity and good agreement among themselves and other virtues they make a better representation of the excellency of the Religion which they profess than they do at this day When God Almighty turns to the people a pure Language then it may be expected they will call upon him and serve him with one consent as the Prophet speaks Zeph. 3.9 Not while they treat one another with impure and corrupt Language which smels of wrath and disdain of envy spight and contempt Not while by words they do all they can to disgrace one another but by speaking the truth in love and with meekness of wisdom 2. The good agreement of Christians in one Catholick Communion tends greatly to the increase of the Church in respect of its spiritual healthful state and its growing up to a greater stature in all virtue and goodness For where peace and good agreement is in the several offices of Christian Brotherhood there love is which is the bond of perfectness which holds them fast together And love is a radical grace out of which other graces grow in so much that love is made the Summary of all Christian duties towards one another Love is said to be the fulfilling of the Law Rom. 13.8.10 Charity edifieth saith St. Paul 1 Cor. 8.1 It tends to edifie and build up the subject in which it dwels and to make him more like God who is love and it tends to edifie the object on which it is set and on which it exerciseth it self it tends to build up both the one and the other in grace and goodness And there is this further reason why a peaceable agreement in one Catholick Communion tends to increase the Church in her spiritual riches viz. because the holy Spirit of God delights to dwell where peace and love dwell and there to dispence and communicate his treasures by which the souls of men are enriched but without his supplies influences and operations there is no thriving in grace and real goodness He that dwels in love God dwels in him 1 Joh. 4.16 And where God takes up his special residence he will adorn those living Temples with plenty of spiritual ornaments and those shall be sure to be made partakers of his best sort of gifts such as the world cannot receive Be of one mind live in peace and
direct Schism and prepare the way to reconciliation For when it does indeed appear by complying as far as they can and by other truly Christian behaviour of persons that through error of judgment differ from their Brethren in other things that that difference proceeds purely from Conscience tho erronious and not from a worse Principle their case is truly pitiable and calls for tenderness towards them from them that differ from them and to treat them accordingly is certainly the way to gain upon them and to make them the more capable of receiving information and satisfaction in their scruples Whereas when they are otherwise treated with severity it tends to spoil their good temper and to exasperate them and to make them out of disgust to them who have so dealt with them to unite into Parties and make head against them to the imbroiling the Church in grievous Schism 2. There is another and worse Division or Schism than meer difference in judgment and practice in some lesser things and that division lies more in Christians unchristian managing their differences than in the difference that is in their opinion and practice when it is but about some things wherein the good or hurt of men would be little concerned if they could be separated from their effects And this division lies in the immoderate manner of contending for that wherein Christians differ As thus when they do not content themselves with offering their arguments fairly and peaceably for that wherein they differ but fall out with their Brethren for not submitting to but opposing them both in their arguments and practice as when they set them at naught and censure them as insincere as not truly lovers of truth but that they are byassed by some undue interest of honour reputation or gain or humour or self-will and that these prevail with them more than truth Now such things as these are of a provoking nature and lay a temptation upon their Brethrens Passions and tend directly to alienate affections and minister to unpeaceable contendings and are a direct breach of peace Tho men have truth on their side yet they may be Schismatical in labouring to propagate or to defend that truth when they go farther in doing so than speaking the truth in love I mean in way of Controversie Tho those that differ from them may possibly be moved with undue motives to oppose them and the reasons for what they hold yet because whether they be so or no is a matter of which they are not competent Judges it lying out of their reach and belonging only to the Judgment of God who only is the searcher of hearts therefore whatever they may fear or suspect yet they should forbear either to pronounce or insinuate any such hard things against their Brethren by which they become Judges of evil thoughts Which if they do not they stir up strife and violate peace by causing unquietness and disorder in the Church and destroy Charity weaken yea wound the very Spirit of the Churches Communion which without doubt is Schism tho it should never proceed to actual separation This mingling of mens Passions and unchristian Censures and insinuations with their Arguments hinders the due operation of their Arguments upon their Antagonists minds tho they should have truth on their side For the wrath of man worketh not the righteousness of God but hinders it Jam. 1.20 Whereas tho men do differ yet so long as they propose and reply one to another no otherwise than as supposing both sides to be only in the search of truth they may live lovingly and peaceably together and enjoy Edifying and comfortable Communion one with onother their difference in Judgment notwithstanding 3. There is a division and consequently a Schism in the Church of a higher nature than the former and that is when the persons that divide or cause division in the Church unnecessarily gather into a Party and do after a sort unite and combine themselves together the more publickly and avowedly to maintain and carry on the Cause they have espoused in opposition to their Brethren and industriously labour to increase their number as hoping thereby in time to be able to bring their opposites to submit to them and to give up their Cause Now if the thing or things they after this manner contend for should be unprofitable for the Church in case they should obtain or of so little use or benefit as that it could never reasonably be expected that it should countervail the hurt that is or will be done to the Church to the Communion of the Church to the Cause of Religion in the world and to the Souls of men in general by being obtained in such a way it would be a most grievous Schism thus to divide and imbroil the Church upon so mean an account A Division or Schism of this nature is termed Faction which is a siding or making of Parties in the Church And of this nature in some sort was the Schism in the Church of Corinth For their Divisions were factious Divisions for they proceeded to making of Parties Their Crime in this charged upon them by St. Paul is termed Divisions in our Bibles but the word is Faction in the Margin 1 Cor. 3.3 And part of the works of the flesh rendred Seditions in our Translation is Divisions or Factions in the Margin Gal. 5.20 This sort of Division which is accompanied with Faction or making of Parties is more than is found in some Divisions which yet are sinful Now when a Schism grows up to this height to a combined strength it is much worse than while it was acted only by a few apart and in a more private way and less taken notice of because then there is more of contempt in it and more are corrupted by it and the peace of the Community more disturbed and because usually by endeavours of increasing the Party much more evil is perpetrated by slanders naughty insinuations and suggestions against those they divide from and combine against than was found in the nature of the division at first or in the nature of the error on which the division first began This factious division is likewise aggravated further when it partakes of the nature of Sedition And we see in the fore-cited place Gal. 5. the same word signifies Division Faction and Sedition Now Sedition I conceive is a division accompanied with a combination of men against the Government either of Church or State under which the Providence of God hath set them It is their acting things contrary to that Government farther than the necessity of not sinning against God does oblige them to the disturbing of the publick peace thereby or it may be so perhaps by seeking to alter any thing amiss or inconvenient in the Government in an undue way that is by acting out of their sphere or the place or rank in which the providence of God hath set them their going beyond their bounds in it
defeat the end for which an external way and manner of performing Publick Worship should serve and is appointed If they would prove such Worship corrupt in the Essence or substance of it they must prove that it is so either in the object of Worship or in the subject matter of it for in those two the Essence or substance of Worship doth consist To prove it corrupt in reference to the object of Worship they must prove that the Worship is directed to some Creature as well as to the only true God or by some Mediator other than Christ Jesus But this they will not pretend to do If they would prove it corrupt in respect of the subject matter of it they must prove that the Prayers which are made or the matters for which Praise is given to Almighty God are not Prayer matter or Thanksgiving matter or that some other part of Worship is used as of Divine Institution which is not such But now none of these things can be proved against the Liturgy For no other things are therein prayed for or thanks given to God for but such as the Dissenters themselves do may or ought to pray for or praise God for nor any thing else observed as an Ordinance of God but what they themselves do own to be of Divine Institution such as Baptism and the Lords Supper So that the whole of the Worship is pure and uncorrupt in respect of the Essence of it 2. If then they will prove any thing to purpose they must prove that the faults and defects in the external manner of performing the said Worship are such as cause it to fall short of and do defeat the end and use for which an external administration of Publick Worship serves and is appointed Now the end and use of the best external Mode of Worship is edification that is it serves to convey the object and subject matter of Worship to the mind of the Worshippers to the end they may be sutably affected And this end of Worship is defeated when the Worship is performed in a Language which the People do not understand or in such words and phrases as are insignificant of or unsutable to the parts of Worship to which they are applied But neither of these things can be charged upon the Worship performed according to the Liturgy For the Worship is performed in a Language understood by all the People and in words and phrases competently significant and expressive of and sutable to the nature of the subject matter of the Worship in its several parts and so is agreeable to the general Rule for administration of Publick Worship which the Apostle terms to be uttering by the tongue words easie to be understood 1 Cor. 14. By it the minds of men may be guided and conducted from one part of Worship to another and be affected according to the different nature of the several parts of which the whole Worship doth consist which is the proper end and use of an external Form of administration of Publick Worship Object But perhaps it will be said that the Worship performed according to the Liturgy does not so adequately and fully agree with the rule and end of the external administration of Worship in some respects as it might have been made to do or as some other does To which I answer That the question is not whether the external manner of Worship according to the Liturgy be the best or no in all respects But suppose it should not and suppose that some external Circumstances ordered by it should be or make it to be less useful than it might have been or than some others are yet so long as they do but make it less useful to the end for which it serves but do not defeat it nor are destructive of it nor of the Worship it self but that it remains competently useful to its proper end tho comparatively but in an inferiour degree Suppose I say that all this should be granted for Argument sake and we should proceed with them upon their own terms yet this would be no sufficient cause of refusing Communion with the Church in the Ordinances of God thus administred 1. For first if it were it could scarcely be lawful to hold Communion with any particular Church in the whole world because it is not likely but that more or less of such Circumstances of Worship as are less useful are used in all Churches in the World For considering the fallibility of all men and their knowing but in part at best I think it would be no breach of Charity to suppose that there is no Church Constitution for Worship in all the world nor perhaps any one way of external administration of holy things humanely performed but what is accompanied with Circumstantial defects more or less such I mean as are less useful than others that might be made use of were it not for mens imperfection that have the making or managing of them So that the Notion or Opinion that Circumstantial defects in the external manner of Worship is a just ground of separation from it is destructive of Catholick Communion it self 2. None account themselves guilty of or defiled by the defects that are in the manner of a Ministers praying in the Pulpit so long as the matter is good and there is the same reason in reference to Circumstantial defects in Prayers made by the Liturgy We can hardly say that any publick Prayer is so free from all defects but either in respect of the Method or manner of expressing the matter it might possibly be better done than usually it is done even by good men And therefore it is a very unreasonable thing to make Circumstantial defects in the manner of praying a ground of separation from Communion in Prayer 3. If it were lawful to separate from Communion in Worship only because less usefully administred then tho there should be no Liturgy in the case yet where one Minister does but excel another in his Ministration it would be lawful to separate from that Congregation where the Worship or other Ministration is less usefully performed and in a manner inferiour to what is done by another in another place But no man will be so absurd as to say this may be practised for if it might there would be no end of separation but a door would be opened to all confusion and People must be separating as often as they conceive they have found one Minister of a Congregation to excel another in the manner of his Ministration And if Separation may not be practised upon this account then it cannot be duly practised for that reason that the manner of Worship performed according to the Liturgy is less useful and less edifying than that which is or may be done after another manner 4 It is not the external manner of Worship but the essential matter that is the Rule of Christians agreement in one Catholick Communion in Worship throughout the world In the
misrepresented that Method of our Lord in the general tenour of my Inquiries And indeed if I have not taken wrong measures and unless very much mistaken their Communion in their state of Separation if taken altogether and the terms on which it is held must needs be far more impure than the Parochial Communion they have withdrawn from There are extreams on both hands as well on the right hand as on the left and there is a proneness in men to run into the one by flying from the other And good men especially in matters of publick Reformation are through mistaken zeal more in danger of running into an extreme on the right hand than into one on the left and in flying from Babylon to run beyond Jerusalem And there is a danger of doing much hurt in the Church by over-doing as well as there is by under-doing and both extremes are carefully to be avoided The New England Ministers in their Answer to Mr. Davenport formerly mentioned do say We may be very injurious to Christ as well as the Souls of men by too much straitening and narrowing the bounds of his Kingdom or Visible Church here on earth Certainly enlargement so it be a regular enlargement is a very desirable thing In Church Reformation it is an observable truth saith Pareus on the Parable of the Tares that they which are for too much straitness do more hurt than profit the Church So much they p. 45. Thus the mistaken zeal of the Donatists and Novatians of old for a purer Church and purer Communion as was thought or pretended put them upon separating from other Orthodox Christians which proved an inlet to the most unchristian practices imaginable for the carrying on their undertaken Reformation and destructive of the peace of the Church in the highest and lamentably scandalous to the Christian Religion in the Doctrinal part whereof notwithstanding they were for the most part all agreed as we are now and differ mostly about Disciplinary Points as they did then Such a strictness in Church Reformation as does so narrow and lessen the Visible Church as to endeavour to reduce it to the size of the Invisible is many ways hurtful as I have shewed in my Reasons for the contrary It tends to hinder and lessen the great work of thorow and sound Conversion in the Church It tends to hinder the spreading and propagating of the Christian Religion It tends to harden men in an unsafe condition It tends to deprive good men of Communion with the Church under the Notion of bad It tends to ruine the Church as to its existence in the world And lastly it tends to beget and foment divisions contentions feuds envyings strifes and undue censurings among Christians and so to cast the Church into a sickly state and such as threatens her spiritual life Besides the encouragement and advantage which is thereby given to our common Enemies to plot and attempt against us And thus over-doing is indeed undoing And lest any should be offended at a discourse against over-much strictness It ought to be considered that there is a great difference between a mans being strict towards himself and in reference to his own practice and his being strict and severe towards others in depriving them of the outward Priviledges of Christian Professors A man cannot well be too strict in keeping a narrow watch over his own heart words and ways in governing his Appetites Thoughts and Passions Tongue and Actions Nor does this kind of strictness depend upon such a purity of Communicants or Communion in which no Carnal Christians have any share But it depends upon or rather it consists in a due attention of mens minds to their own duty and to the opportunities of receiving good by the Ordinances of God The rest of the Guests in the Parable were not the worse nor did fare the worse for that there was one among them that had not on the Wedding Garment The ordinances of God do not the less avail good men that with a due frame of mind wait upon God in them tho unregenerate men participate with them therein And when by the Censures of the Church Capital Offenders and notorious scandalous Persons are deprived of Communion with the Church it is not for that reason as if the Ordinances of God were the less useful to the good by such mens sharing in them But it is to bring such Persons to shame and by that means to repentance and to free the Church from that dishonour which otherwise would stick upon it for tolerating such scandalous persons among them And partly also for admonition to others and to prevent the tainting of such as are less wary by their ill example and familiar converse But otherwise bad mens sharing in external Communion with the Church is no ways likely to hinder the growth of good men in grace or their profiting by the Ordinances of God there administred To the pure all things are pure Bad men cannot in the least pollute the Ordinances of God to the good by their participating with them in them And therefore if God would have such as are not obnoxious to Excommunication for Capital Crimes tho not Regenerate to be continued in the Church being once received into it by Baptism to the end they might be under the influence of his Ordinances for their Conversion I say if God would have it thus in order to their Conversion no good man should envy or grudge them this benefit of enjoying the means of such Conversion And they especially should not who have themselves been Converted and Regenerated in the same way of general Communion and by the means therein afforded which yet has been the case I doubt not of such as have been leading men in modelling this new Church way as it has been of many others For their Congregations at the first and long after consisted scarcely of any other than what had been drawn out of the Parochial Congregations where they had been Converted if they were indeed Converted as they supposed them to be before their incorporating and associating in their new way And if they had continued in the same way wherein they were by Gods blessing upon the means of Grace they therein enjoyed made such as they then were they might without doubt have attained to as much growth in all Christian Virtues as ever they did afterwards and I think much more provided they had but diligently and carefully improved the same means and opportunities by which they had acquired what they had then attained to For the Word and Ordinances of the Gospel which are the means of increase of Grace as well as of the beginning of it are the same and will produce the same effects in those who with a good frame of mind attend upon God in them as well when unregenerate men share in them as when they do not And therefore neither the holy Prophets or other holy men of greatest Piety under the Old Testament nor
our Saviour or his Apostles or any other holy men in the Primitive times of Christianity did ever decline the Publick Worship or the use of Gods Ordinances in such Assemblies where bad men as well as good had Communion in them Such a mixture of bad with good cannot hinder good men from any growth in Grace by those Ordinances if they have but a due care to make the best improvement of them they can And therefore there can be no need of separating and new associating in reference to mens own growth in Grace tho we should suppose it possible they could be sure it were simply lawful Which makes such separation on the one had and associating on the other the more inexcusable when it causes so much hurt to the Church in general and such obstruction to the success of the Gospel in the world as hath been shewn it does and would do more if it should more generally prevail The few names in the Church of Sardis did not defile their Garments by communicating with the greater number of those that had Nor did they thereby deprive themselves of the benefit which Christ designed them by his Ordinances either by having their minds discomposed by such a mixture of Communicants or otherwise For if they had we cannot think that our Saviour who walked in the midst of his golden Candlesticks searching the reins and the hearts to give to every one according to their works would have applauded them as he did with promise of great reward saying They shall walk with me in white for they are worthy Rev 3.4 And now for a Conclusion That no man may take offence at the Discourse in these Papers nor at me for the sake of it I must inform those that are most likely to do so of two things First That if I had discerned that what is herein pleaded had had no better foundation than some few obscure Texts of Scripture of dubious and uncertain Interpretation I should not thus far have engaged in it as I have done But if it shall appear to others as it does to me that I have the general stream of the Scriptures on my side herein both of the Old Testament and of the New both as to matter of Doctrine and matter of Fact I hope I shall be excused for making this Essay for the satisfaction of those that most need it Secondly That I take the scope and design of the whole of the Discourse in these Papers to be perfectly agreeable to Christian Charity as tending to no mans hurt but to the general good of all sorts else I should not have been satisfied in it For I know not how to think any thing Orthodox in Divinity which is against Charity Now if the extent of Visible Church-Membership and Communion pleaded for tends more to the Conversion of such of them as are unregenerate and not otherwise obnoxious to Excommunication than the excluding such from both would do then what I plead for is great Charity to them And this extent of Visible Church-Membership and Communion tends to propagate and spread the Christian Religion among those that are yet without the Church more than the narrower way can do as has been shewn and therefore its matter of Charity to them also And in that this more general way of Visible Church-Membership and Communion is not pleaded to the denying the usefulness of Excommunication in reference to Capital Offenders but the contrary that 's matter of Charity to them also Because by that they may be brought to shame and so unto Repentance when they see all sober Christians ashamed to own them or to be numbred with them as being a disgrace to the Religion they profess And I am so far from being less for the exercise of Church-Discipline upon the proper Objects of it than our Dissenting Friends are That I think it a piece of great uncharitableness towards gross Sinners when it is neglected by them to whom the exercise of it does belong Only I would have the Scripture Rules observed in the exercise of it and not use such severity as to exclude all such from Church-Communion as may be suspected to be unregenerate when yet not guilty of any Heresie scandalous Crimes or gross ignorance For men may give occasion of suspicion of their unregeneracy by such sinful neglects of doing good as yet may be no just ground of Excommunication Neither is this more extensive way of Visible Church-Membership and Communion hurtful to those that are good but gives them opportunity of doing the more good and therefore is no matter of uncharitableness unto them neither For this will not hinder them from being as good as they have a mind to be if nothing else do They may be as strict as they will in reference to themselves And they will not be at the less but the more liberty to converse with the best men for their own improvement in wisdom and goodness And then it will be beneficial to them by putting them into a capacity and giving them an opportunity of doing more good than otherwise they could For while good men do not separate themselves from formal Professors of the same Religion nor exclude them from Communion with them in the means of Grace they the better preserve their own esteem among them and the esteem of that wherein they excel them and they will be the more ready to hearken to them in their advice and counsel and in their admonition or reproof and the sooner be brought to imitate their Virtues Whereas a contrary carriage produces contrary effects For separation from Neighbours as no Members of a truly Christian Church when yet they are so breeds more or less estrangedness between them and that begets prejudices against them and jealousies and suspicions concerning them as men wanting in true Christian Charity and Humility which will make them the less valued and their good Counsels and Exhortations the less regarded and their good example in what is worthy imitation the less taking with and the less gaining upon such men A Discourse likewise which evinceth a more extensive Visible Church-Membership and Communion to be approved of by God than these Dissenting Brethren will allow must needs be matter of Charity to themselves more especially For it tends to rescue and deliver them from such error as makes them injurious to the Church of God and the affairs of the Gospel in the World And what good man is there that would not be glad to be delivered from such apprehensions as made him troublesom even to good men themselves without any cause And from such opinions as have kindled a fire of contention and discord in the Church destructive of that Christian Charity without which all we do in Religion will signifie nothing It is certainly a great grief to all good men that there should be any bar in the way to keep them at any undue distance from one another and consequently it must be very grateful to them when ever it is removed This more general way of Visible Church-Membership and Communion being then more useful and beneficial to all sorts of men than the other is and truly hurtful to none I say it being a way and Method so ful of Charity in the nature of it and so agreeable to Moral Principles of wisdom and goodness as it appears to be would commend it self to right reason and to that natural light that is in men if it should not have had that evidence from supernatural Revelation to back and authorize it which it has The consideration of which as it was a great motive to me to engage in the defence of it so I hope it will plead my excuse in every good mans Conscience for this undertaking For indeed I that do certainly know my own mind do know that I have more love and true respect for the Persons whose Opinions I have herein opposed than to wish or do any thing that tends to their hurt And now methinks I might reasonably promise this to my self that such as love Truth for truth sake and are of the number of those that will buy the truth but not sell it at any rate whatsoever should not be unwilling to lay aside all prejudice and self interest and to consider impartially a thing of this nature by what hand soever it be prepared and yet that is all that I desire from them for whose sakes this Discourse was composed THE END