hoped that we had differed but in lesser things from our Accusers we do find our selves so far mistaken as that some of them who have thought it worth their labour to write vehemently for our reproach and increased sufferings do differ from us in the Vitals of our Religion even of our Belief our Love and Practice We mean such as hold That all the Obligations of Scandal proceed purely from that extraordinary height of Charity and tenderness of good Nature that is so signally recommended in the Gospel But if it proceed from humour or pride or wilfulness or any other vitious Principle then is the Man to be treated as a peevish and stubborn Person and no Man is bound to part with his own freedom because his Neighbour is froward and humorous and if he be resolved to fall there is no reason I should forego the use of my liberty because he is resolved to make that his Stumbling-block Ecclesiast Polit. page 231. Because this is contrary to that very Religion in which only we hope for Salvation we take the boldness to put these few Questions to them who thus judge Q. 1. Is not Love the fulfilling of the Law and the End of the Gospel and Faith working by Love the Sum of Christian Religion Doth not the Law of Nature oblige us to love our Neighbour as our selves Q. 2. Doth not God beneficently love his Enemies even the sinful the humorous the proud and the peevish Did not Christ come to seek and save them Is there not joy in Heaven for their Repentance Doth not God welcome such Prodigals when they return Luke 16. and call invite and intreat them to return Q. 3. Are we not Commanded to be merciful as our Heavenly Father is merciful and to love even our Enemies and pray for Persecutors that we may be like him And is not this a Natural Common Duty Q. 4. Hath not God sent out his Ministers to preach home such sinners and commanded them to do it instantly in season and out of season reproving and exhorting and with meekness to instruct opposers if God peradventure will give them Repentance to the acknowledging of the Truth And must we not labour hard and suffer much for to win such Souls Q. 5. Should not every thing be valued according to its worth And are not the Souls of such as you call humorous peevish or wilful worth more than some of that which you call your Liberty Are they not worth more than a Pipe of Tobacco or a Cup of Sack or a Stage-play or a needless Ceremony which you account part of your Liberty Would you deny none of these to save many Souls Q. 6. Would you not deny your Liberty in a Cup of Drink or a Pipe of Tobacco to save the Life of one that in humour would destroy himself or his House who would set it on fire Q. 7. If not doth this Religion of yours much commend it self to the Nature of Mankind Or is he that writeth this fit to report us of the other mind unfit for subjection or Humane Society Can Christians be of your Religion Q. 8. Are not Souls more worth than Bodies And should not the Soul of a Sinner be as compassionately saved by us as his Body as far as we are able and at as dear a rate Q 9. Is that Man like to profit his Hearers or be taken for a faithful Pastor or an honour to the Church of England who would tell them I would not forsake a Pipe of Tobacco or a lawful sport or jeast to save any of your Souls who are vitious humourous or peevish Q. 10. Doth not this doleful Doctrine tell Men consequently that they should seek to save the Soul of no Sinner in the World For if you 1. Except all that have humour pride wilfulness or any other vitious Principle 2. And that but so far prevalent as to be resolved to make a Stumbling-block of some liberty of anothers What Sinner almost is not here excluded from your Charity Who is it that hath not as great sin as some humorous or peevish stumbling at some lawful thing or who is it that hath no pride no peevishness no humorousness or at least that hath no vitious Principle at all Is not that Man perfectly holy 3. And if to save such an one you would not so much as deny any of your liberty for him what would you do for him at all Who can expect that you should bestow any great labour or c 〈◊〉 st to do good or save a Sinner that would not lose a Cup of Sack to save him Q. 11. Do you not thus reproach Christ that set a higher price on Souls when you value them not at the price of a Cup of Drink Would you have it believed that they are purchased by his Blood Q 12. Would you have God care no more for your soul and value it at no higher a rate Doth he believe the immortality of Souls who will say so Q. 13. Should God give such a Law to all his Creatures for their acting towards your self and one another q. 〈◊〉 D 〈◊〉 ny not so much as a lawful Jeast or Sport or Ceremony to win and save any one in the world that out of any vitous principle will stumble at your liberty what Family or Common-wealth could subsist under such an inhumane privation of love Q. 14. If you loved your Neighbour as your self and did as you would have others do to you would you deny no lawful thing to save his Soul though he had some vitious principle Q. 15. What will people say of such men as you if you shall ever preach for Love and Good Works and would make people believe that its you that are for them and we against them when they compare this Doctrine with your words Q. 16. Why do such men call us Puritans as if we succeeded the old Catharists or Perfectionists and the Novatians when we are so far from so vilifying sinners that have a vitious principle and sin against some lawful thing by taking it for unlawful that we know none in the world that hath no vitious principle and is not to be helped at a dearer rate And seeing we find such real difference in our very Religion it self from such as this we cannot wonder if men of such Principles use us and the Nation no better than they do But we crave their solid resolving of these Doubts if they will lose so much of their Ease and Liberty for the convincing of persons judged so unworthy Pr. 50. For our parts we must profess that we take it to be our duty not only to deny a lawful thing or our liberty therein for the saving of Souls that have vitious principles and humours but to bestow our labours and endure poverty reproach persecution imprisonment and when God calls us to it death it self to serve Christ in the saving of such Souls Pr. 51. We suppose that Christ and his Apostles were
THE JUDGMENT OF NON-CONFORMISTS About the DIFFERENCE BETWEEN GRACE AND MORALITY Printed in the Year 1676. THE JUDGMENT OF NON-CONFORMISTS c. WHAT advantage the Enemy of God and Man hath got against Truth Holiness and Love by the Divisions of Christians and especially by the Contentions of their Teachers Experience hath been long telling the Christian World by smart and sorrow Where Envy and Strife hath begun Confusion and every Evil Work hath followed Little Breaches tend to greater The Cause which first made them will make them wider by calling in more Causes to its help and service Distinct Parties have their distinct Interests as to Commodity and Reputation And alas what work will selfishness and fleshly interest make What Moralities what Untruths Injustice and Unmercifulness is it pregnant with What Evil so great that it will not first venture on and then palliate and next justifie and lastly propagate if God do not mortifie or restrain it The foresight of this Danger to the Land of our Nativity moved some of Us to strive for the prevention of it while we thought there was place for our Endeavours But as our labour did but exasperate the Disease 〈◊〉 our doleful and dear-bought Experience of the prog â—â—ss and calamitous Fruits of Discord in the space of more than two Apprentiships hath wrought no perceived Cure on Mens Minds nor deliverance to the Church The Discord which began about Worship and Discipline is by some now pretended to be also in Doctrinals and about the Principles of Civil Government and Humane Society and Peace And whither increasing Discord by the power of Interest and Envy may yet carry the Charge or how much wider yet Dividers may perswade the Ignorant that the Difference is we cannot foretel But because we are sure that all tendeth to the ruine of Brotherly Love and that he that hateth his Brother is a Murderer and hath not eternal life abiding in him to save as many on both sides as we can from such a damning sin we take it to be our duty to detect the Errours of Contentious Dividers and to hinder their farther widening of the Breach Which we shall here attempt about this Question much agitated of late Quest Whether the Parties called Conformists and Non-Conformists do really differ about the nature and sufficiency of Morality compared with the Grace of Christ Neg. As to the Explication of our Terms 1. What we mean by Conformists and Non-Conformists we have lately shewed on another Question we mean not that if a Papist or Socinian or Quaker should join either with the Conformists or Non-Conformists they would not herein differ from others but that they that are now called Conformists and Non-Conformists herein differ not 1. Formally qua tales 2. No nor Materially qui tales being meerly such 2. We speak only of the Parties For as to some individual persons it cannot be expected that any Parties in the World should be wholly made up of men so wise as that none among them have Ignorance enough to wrangle in the dark 3. The Terms Grace and Morality must be anon explained in our Proof Which Proof as in our last Case we fetch I. From our common consent to the sacred Scriptures the ancient Creeds and the doctrinal Articles and Homilies of the Church of England which surely contain all that is needful to be held about the difference of Grace and Morality Nor hath either Party declared their dissent by any contradiction of any of the aforesaid Articles or Doctrines II. Our second Proof is by a sufficient explication and enumeration of the Points in which we are agreed I. The word GRACE is taken 1. EFFICIENTLY 2. OBJECTIVELY 3. SUBJECTIVELY I. EFFICIENTLY Grace is taken 1. For the Efficient Principle 2. For the Efficient Action of the first Cause 3. For the Efficient Means and its operation 1. Grace taken for the Efficient Principle signifieth God's efficient Favour Love Mercy or Will to do good freely to the Unworthy 2. Grace taken for God's Efficient Action signifieth the same Good-will of God ex parte sui but as connoting the Effect in fieri vel facto esse The former is considered as Decreeing or meerly Willing but this as Effecting 3. Grace taken for the Efficient Means is an effect of God's free Love and a second Cause of Man's sanctification and hath many parts of which CHRIST as Mediator is the Head or Chief and his Gospel Ministers Sacraments and Providences are inferior subservient parts All which are the Efficient Grace of God II. OBJECTIVELY Grace is all God's free-given Mercy as it is offered and proposed to Man's actual Belief Acceptance and Improvement or use Even as the word Fides signifieth 1. The fidelity or trustiness of God the Promiser or Revealer 2. The fidelity or trustiness of the Word promising or asserting 3. The Belief or Trust of the Believer Fidem promittentis fidem promissi fidem credentis So the word GRACE hath the like three significations 1. The Grace of the Giver 2. The Grace of the extrinsick Gift 3. The intrinsick Grace of the Receiver This Objective Grace or Free-Gift is 1. God himself as offered us Relatively through Christ to be our reconciled God and Father with his Love and our Relation to him as his Children 2. Christ himself to be our Head and Saviour and our Relation to him as his justified saved Members 3. The Holy Ghost to be our Sanctifier our Relation to him and his Grace as offered This is the Grace offered and given us in Baptism by Covenant on Gods part Under these are the Objective Means the Gospel as it is to be believed the sanctified Mercies of this present life the Ordinances as to be used c. and ultimately Heaven as the end of all Glory freely given being the perfection of subjective Grace and as proposed and offered being the perfection of objective Grace III. SUBJECTIVELY GRACE is 1. Gracious Dispositions and Habits 2. Gracious Acts viz. 1. Of the Intellect 2. The Will 3. The Executive power in practise The word GRACE hath in the use of Divines all these significations besides several sub-divisions which the Schoolmen ordinarily make And in Scripture I. For Efficient Grace see Exod. 34. 6. and 33. 29. Num. 6. 25. Neh. 9. 17. 31. Joh 33. 24. Psal 86. 15. and 103. 8. and 112. 4. Isa 30. 18 19. Joel 2. 13. Jon. 4. 2. 1 Pet. 2. 3. Heb. 4. 16. and 10. 29. Eph. 1. 6 7. and 2. 5. 7 8. and 6. 24. 2 Cor. 12. 9. Rom. 11. 5 6. and 5. 2. and 1. 7. and 4. 16. Acts 15. 40. Heb. 29. II. For objective Grace see Gal. 1. 6. and 5. 4. and 2. 21. Jud. 4. 1 Pet. 3. 7. and 1. 10. 13. Joh. 1. 17. Acts 20. 24. 32. and 14. 3. Rom. 6. 14 15. Tit. 2. 11. Heb. 12. 15. 1 Pet. 4. 10. and 5. 12. III. For Subjective Grace see 2 Pet. 3. 18. 1 Pet. 5. 5. Jam. 4. 6. Heb. 12.
is such by Nature or Accident they cannot make Evil and forbid what God commandeth on pretense of judging They have Power to judge that all the Articles of our Faith are true but not that any of them are false They are Judges that the Commands of God must be all kept but have no power to judge the contrary In what Cases we may be bound to obey them when they erre we have opened in another Paper and may partly be discerned from what is here said Pr. 61. The Bishops or Pastors of the Church are above others obliged to exercise paternal tender love to all the Peoples Souls If they are peevish and humorous and quarrelsome and proud and have other vitious Principles it is their Office and Work under Christ to cure them and to use all that gentleness and forbearance which is needful to their cure and to become all things lawful to all men to win and edifie them not doing greater hurt by injuring others or the Publick Good for the sake of those that are few or less considerable If therefore they should either scandalize them and hinder their salvation by things unnecessary or whose good will not countervail the hurt or if they should say we are not bound to forsake our own Liberty no not in a trifle for the sake of such as are inclined to offence by their vitious Principles they seem to us much to forget or renounce their proper Callings as well as Humane Charity to Souls as if a Physician should say I am not bound to medicate any that are sick but only those that are in health And if all that have vitious Principles be so far from under the Ministers 〈◊〉 are we see no Reason why the Kingdom should maintain so needless a Ministry at so dear a rate nor why they should be had in so much honour and why we should not all be silenced at once Pr. 62. The sin of tyrannical abuse of Power is so contrary to the Nature of all Good Rulers and so contrary to their own true interest peace and comfort and final justification before God and so contrary to the welfare of all Mankind and doth at this day so much mischief in the world by serving Satan maintaining Idolatry Mahometanism Popery and Prophaneness and keeping out the Gospel from the most of the whole world that the Flatterers that would for their own ends and carnal interests promote it and make all odious to Rulers that dislike it will one day be known to be the great Enemies of Princes and People of Church and State of Jesus Christ and God the Soveraign Lord of all Pr. 63. And Confusion Anarchy Popular Rage Faction and Sedition dishonouring our Rulers and all Rebellions and Schisms must be odious to all men of Interest Wisdom and true Religion as being ultimately against the God of Order and the Glory of his Wisdom and Soveraignty in Government who is to be honoured and obeyed in Kings in Pastors and Parents and all that are under him authorized to Govern us Pr. 64. Perjury justifying thousands in perjury deliberate lying covenanting against great and known Duty corrupting Gods Worship and Church Government cruel denying christendom and salvation to the Infants of thousands of godly Christians and casting out godly Christians from the Churches Communion causelesly for a gesture pronouncing all Atheists Infidels Adulterers and other wicked Persons saved so be it they be not unbaptized excommunicate or make away themselves none of these nor any such other in our judgment will ever be made lawful by any Command or Accident nor will ever be lawfully commanded nor shall we ever number them with Things Indifferent nor revile or persecute any as humorous obstinate disobedient Schismaticks or seditious for refusing them FINIS What Meer Non-Conformity is not THE PROFESSION OF SEVERAL WHOM THESE TIMES Have made and called NON-CONFORMISTS Printed in the Year 1676. What Meer Non-conformity is not THat we may not after near fourteen Years suffering and silence yet tell the World what our Non-conformity is without offending our Superiours and incurring all the censures and farther sufferings which we have reason to expect is more grievous to some of us than all the corporal pressures by Ejections Deprivation of Maintenance Prosecutions Fines and Imprisonment which we have undergone when we consider not only that the little remnant of our opportunities for Ministerial Work the preservation whereof hath done much to restrain us is by the Odium cast upon us made less profitable to Mens Souls but especially how many Thousands do defile their hearts with false uncharitable Conceptions of their Brethren and their tongues with false Reproaches if not their hands with cruel Prosecutions because they are falsly informed of our Cause When we think how Satan is served by this how odious sins are multiplied through the Land how Christian Love is killed and divisions made among all Ranks of Men and in all places When we think how God is hereby provoked the Land dishonoured and endangered and how fast the guilty post one after another into another World where such work will cost them dear with many a heart-tearing groan some of us have long said Must we be silent and see all this In a Christian state must we be condemned imprisoned driven about as Rogues and seditious Persons and our Ministry vilified and that by Clergy-men who think that it is their right to be believed and not have leave once to speak for our selves so far as to tell men what it is that we take for sin and why must we see so many Thousands going in such guilt into another World and distracting a Kingdom that hath been too long distracted and weakening both the Protestant and the Christian Interest and by building and keeping up a Wall of separation serving the great Enemy of both and must we not in compassion speak for peace but only say as Christ Father forgive them for they know not what they do If God forgive Men he turneth their hearts and giveth them Repentance And we are commanded to pray Forgive our enemies persecutors and slanderers and turn their hearts And must we pray and not endeavour At least now at last we shall endeavor to stop them by this short Profession from believing those Tongues or Pens which tell them that we make a Schisme for things which our selves confess Indifferent and that our Non-conformity consisteth in what it doth not If we must not tell them what it is that we think men command and God forbids we may tell them what it is not For this may be some service to themselves But we must premise that if any that are called by other names denoting other Opinions besides Meer Non-conformity or any Persons else whosoever do hold any thing unlawful which we here allow it is none of our meaning to declare their judgements which they are fittest to declare themselves We profess but our own and such as by familiarity we have