thing by reason of the new impositions than it was to our predecessors yet to the people conformite is the same if not easier especially to them that I now speak to For it is the Liturgie Ceremonies and Ministry that most alienate them as I said before and not so much the subscription against the obligation of the Covenant And the Liturgie is a little amended as to them by the change of the Translation and some little words and by someâ—onger prayers And the Ceremonies are the same and thirty years ago there was many bare Reading not Preaching Ministers for one that there is now Therefore our case of separation being the same with what it was of old I take it to be fully confuted by the antient Non-conformists And I have so great a veneration for the worthy names much more an estimation of the Reasonings of Mr. Cartwright Egerton Hildersham Dod Amesius Parker Baines Brightman Ball Bradshaw Paget Langley Nichols Hering and many other such that I shall not think they knew not why they chose this subject and wrote more against separation than the Conformists did Nor do I think that the reasons of Mr. Iohnson and Mr. Canne can stand before them And it pittieth me to hear now many that differ from them say we are grown wiser and have more light than they when as our writings upon the same subjects shew that we are far in that below them And in other parts of knowledge alâ—s what are we to Reignolds Ames Parker and several of the rest But the world knoweth that the turn of the times put most of us into the sudden possession of our opinions without one half of the study it may be with most not the hundredth part which Cartwright Ames Parker c. bestowed upon these points And I never yet saw cause to believe that our present Dividers do learn more in a days study than those learned holy men did in twenty Nor do they shew more wisdom or holiness in the main I am very glad that the Pious Lectures of Mr. Hildersham Mr. R. Rogers and such other old Non-conformists are in so good esteem among good people where they will read them urging the people not only against separation but to come to the very beginning of the publick worship and preferring it before their private duties As for them that say If Dod Ames Hildersham c. had lived till now they would have been of our mind I desire them to prove it or not affirm it Is not the Liturgie Ceremonies and Ministery the same And what signs of such mutability did they shew Could your Reasons have conquered them more than Mr. Ainsworths Iohnsons or Cannes They were not so Light to be changed causelesly And I pray you mark that if you are wiser in this point of separation than all these old Non-conformists were than Iohnson and Canne and Howe were wiser also in that than they which doth not appear to us by their writings And then for all the greater Light that you think you have yet Iohnson Canne and Howe had as great Light and were in this as wise as you though Ames and the rest of the Nonconformists were not O that our brethren would but seriously read over the writings of these men especially Iacob Paget Ball and Bradshaw and Gifford against the separatists and try whether the case was not the same 20. Yea I must confess that when I think what Learned Holy Incomparable men abundance of the old Cenformits were my heart riseth against the thoughts of separating from them If I had come to their Churches when they used the Common-prayer and administred the Sacrament could I have departed and said It is not lawful for any Christian here to Communicate with you What! to such men as Mr. Bolton Mr. Whateley Mr. Fenner Mr. Dent Mr. Crook Mr. Dike Mr. Stocke Mr. Smith Dr. Preston Dr. Siâ—bes Dr. Stoughton Dr. Taylor and abundance other such yea such as Bishop Iewel Bishop Grindal Bishop Hall Bishop Potter Bishop Davenant Bishop Carlâ—tâ—n c. Dr. Field Dr. Smith Dr Iohn White Dr. Willet c. yea and the Martyrs too as Cranmer Ridley Hooper himself Farrar Bradford Philpot Sanders c. To say nothing of Luther Melanebthon Bucer and the rest of the forreign worthies Could I separate from all these on the reasons now in question Yea Calvin himself and the Churches of his way were all separated from by the separatists of their times 21. At least I cannot easily condemn the ancient Independents who were against separation as well as the Presbyterians Mr. Henry Iacob is accounted the Father of the English Independents And he hath wrote a book against Mr. Iohnson the separatist or thâ—s Title A Defence of the Churches and Ministery of England written in two Treatises against the Reasons and Objections of Mr. Francis Johnson and â—thers of the separation Commonly called Browâ—â—â—s And in the end he hath A short Treatise concerning the truness of a Pastoral Calling in Pastors made by Prelates And I intreat the Reader to note that Mr. Iohnson there chargeth the Church of England and their worship with no fewer than 91. Antichristian abominations And I would ask any of the dividers whether they have more than 91. Antichristian abominations to charge upon it now I am content that those I write to now will cast by my book if they will but read Mr. Iacobs And Dr. Ames was half an Independent and yet against separation I need not mention the great moderation of New-England where their late healing endeavors greatly tend to increase our hopes of reconciliation O that the rest of the Churches were as wise and happy Whose experience hath possessed them with a deep dislike of the spirit of separation and division Yea if any thing may be believed which I have not seen Mr. Ph. Nie himself hath writen to prove the Lawfulness of hearing the Preachers in the Parish assemblies And yet it is as confidently confuted by another of the Brethren as my book is by this Excepter And he that proveth it Lawful to joyn with them that profess themselves a Church in their ordinary Doctrine and pulpit prayers and Psalms of praise I think can never prove it unlawful at all times to joyn with them in the use of the Liturgie or in the Sacrament supposing the scruple of Kneeling removed For the most of the Liturgie is the reading of the Scripture it self and the rest is sound matter though in an imperfect mode and fashion of words 22. Is sects and heresies increase among us the blame of all will be laid upon the Non-conformists And so it now is They commonly say It is you that open the door to them all And how injuriously soever this be said it becometh our duty not only to see that it be not true but also to do our part against them And this was one great reason why the old Nonconformists wrote and preached so much more thâ—â— the Bishops
it be remembred that we never Vowed that God should not bring us back to the same case which had been blasphemy And therefore it had been bad enough if we had vowed not to do what was our duty in that state if God should return us to it 2. I earnestly intreat the doubting Reader that thinketh his duty and the Churches peace to be worth so much labour but to read over some of the old Non-conformists books against separation And if you there find the very same objections answered or more and greater than judge your selves whether their case and ours was as to this cause the same The books I would desire you to read are Mr. Iacobs the Independent against Iohnson Mr. Bradshaws against Iohnson with Mr. Gatakers defence of it against Canne Mr. Gifford Mr. Darrel Mr. Paget Mr. Hildersham Dr. Ames Mr. Cartwright Mr. Brightman and last of all and fulliest at the beginning of our troubles Mr. Iohn Ball in three books But of this having spoken already I shall repeat no more but only to profess my judgement that our ordinary boasters that think they know more in this Controversie than the old Non-conformists did as far as I am able to discern are as far below them almost as they are below either Chamier Sadeel Whitaker or such others in dealing with a Papist which of them can say that about Episcopacy as Gersom Bucer Didoclaue Blondell Salmasius have done and so of the rest QUEST IIII. Quest. 4. IS it not a shameful receding from our Reformation now to use an unreformed Liturgie and a pulling down of what we have been building Answ. 1. It is not fit here to enquire who it is that hath pulled down and destroyed Reformation though it be easie to discern it But this is certain that God hath set up the Government that is over us and that our Governours take down by their Laws that which we accounted Reformation This is not our worke but theirs And that they permit us not otherwise publickly to worship God And that a man in Goal doth ordinarily joyn in no publick worship at all And where men do venture on other manner of worship in forbidden assemblies the fears of some and the passionate discontent of others and the disturbances by souldiers and officers and such like do take off much of the edification and hinder us from such a frame of mind as is most agreeable to the work and day And to worship God no where is to go farther from Reformation than to worship him by the Liturgie 2. To do it of choice is one thing and to do it as a duty put upon us by Gods providence and our Governours when we can do no better is another thing It is God that hath pulled down our liberty and opportunity to serve him otherwise and we must obey him It is no faulty mutability to change our practice when God by changing our condition doth change our duty No more than it was in Paul who to the Jews became a Jew and circumcised Timothy and shaved his head for his Vow c. and became all things to all men And no more than it was in Augustine who professeth that he would worship God as to formes and ceremonies according as the Church did with which he joyned where ever he came Nor no more than it is in a traveller or merchant to joyn in several Countries in several fashions and ceremonies or rites of outward worship QUEST V. Quest. 5. WIll it not strengthen and encourage the adversaries of Reformation Answ. 1. We must not make such carnal policies our guides as to forbear that which God doth make our duty for fear of encouraging other men If we take this to be uncharitable factiousness in others to desire rather all these distractions in the Church than that the Non-conformists should be encouraged and strengthned by seeming to have justly desired a Reformation let us not be guilty of what we blame 2. If you will believe themselves it is the unwilling Conformists that they are most in danger of who profess that they conform of necessity and desire a Reformation As Dr. William Smith hath shewed in a book written to that end The Assembly of Westminster that set up the Presbytery were such Conformists 3. It is sinful pride and tenderness of their own honour which maketh some men avoid their duty and wrathfully grudge at them that speak for it because those that are against them thence take occasion to insult over them or reproach them If men do but say you are now turncòats and time servers and where is your reformation now and you are now glad to do as we do they think this reason enough why they should forbear that Communion and worship which is their duty Are these beseeming self denying humble persons Could they suffer death for their duty sake that cannot bear a little reproach for it Object If we knew it were our duty we would suffer for it Answ. But is it not this very suffering and reproach and insulting of others which maketh you think that it is not your duty And so carnal persons use to do They will believe nothing to be their duty which they must suffer by Let Gods honour be all to you and your own be nothing and you will not much stick at such things as these QUEST VI. Quest. 6. BUT will not this course divide us among our selves while one goeth to the Parish Churches and another doth not Answ. 1. Mr. Tombes did not stick at dividing the Anabaptists when he wrote for Parish Communion And Mr. Philip Nye did not stick at the fear of dividing the Independents when he wrote a M. S. as I am credibly informed for the hearing of the Parish Preachers though another wrote against it presently after And if an ordinary attendance on their publick doctrine be lawful this will go further than many think to prove the rest of the Communion lawful 2. We are already so far divided in our judgements as for one to hold it to be lawful and another to be unlawful And who can cure this division And why should it divide us more if mens practice be according to their judgements rather than for them to sin against their Consciences 3. The great thing in which we differ from the Prelatists yea and Papists too is that we would have our Union laid only upon Necessary things and liberty and Charity maintained in the rest And shall we now contradict our selves and say that things necessary are not sufficient for our union Cannot we hold union among our selves if some go to the publick assemblies and some do not What is this but to have the imposing domineering Spirit which we speak so much against We cannot better confute the uncharitable dividing Spirit of the world than by shewing them that we can hold Love and Union notwithstanding as great differences as this yea and much greater QUEST VII Quest. 7. SHall we not hereby
and heresies in meer opposition to their afflicters I know that the great objection is That under pretence of Love I would bring ungodly persecutors into reputation and tempt men to unlawful Communion with them and that I make an ill application of good principles to hide the odiousness of their sins that care so little for the souls of men as their usage of Ministers and people doth openly declare If I had only perswaded you to unite in Love to one another and not to think better of the destroyers of the Church nor to comply with them in their Idolatrous way of worship you could have born it Brethren will you that take it for injustice in a Iudge who will condemn a man before he hear him speak for himself be intreated but to repress your passions for a little while till you have calmely considered these things following 1. Did I ever perswade you to think well of the faults of other men while I perswaded you to love their persons unless you call the Communion a fault of which we are to speak anon Did I ever seek to abate your dislike of the sins which you most speak against Either malignity cruelty persecution or any other 2. The thing which I perswaded men to in that book was Communion with all Christians but differently as they differ in degrees of purity That which I motioned and pleaded for I summed up in the latter end with the contrary extreams which you may there read in five propositions 1. To adhere to the primitive simplicity and make nothing necessary to our Concord and Communion which is not so 2. To love your neighbours as your selves and receive those to Communion whom Christ receiveth and that hold the foresaid necessary things be they Episcopal Presbyterian Independents Anabaptists Calvinists Arminians Lutherans c. so they be not proved heretical or wicked Peruse the rest When you come to your selves you will confess that this was no unreasonable nor unchristian motion Which of all these Parties is it that you are angry with me for perswading you to Communion with Must every one of the Parties renounce Communion with all the rest O how unlike is this doctrine to that of the Holy Ghost 1 Cor. 1. 10. 3. 1 2 3. Rom. 14. 15. c. If not every one which of them is it Is any one of all these Parties the whole Church of God who dare say so Why should I refuse Communion with any one of these while I scruple not Communion with all the rest Or if it must be but with one sort how shall I know which of them it must be I know some men judge of others by their Own opinions and self interest But is that indeed the Christian Rule Some of the Episcopal way are angry with me for including the Independents when I doubt not but the far greater part of them are the sincere servants of Christ And since their Synods late moderation I know not many Churches in the world besides the Waldenses of the Bohemian Polonian and Hungarian Government who are neerer to my own judgement in Order and Discipline than those in New England are and none that for Piety I prefer before them Some are angry with me for taking in the Anabaptists when it is not such as the Munster Anabaptists that we have to do with but godly men that differ from us in a point so difficult that many of the Papists and Prelatists have maintained that it is not determined in Scripture but Dependeth on the tradition of the Church I am not of their mind and I have given them my reasons in my book for Infant Baptism But having had more invitation to study the point throughly and treat of it largely than most of those that are offended herein let them give me leave to say that I know it to be a very difficult point And I know as good and sober men of that mind as of theirs that are most against them And I know that in the dayes of Tertullian Nazianzene Augustine men had liberty to be baptized or to bring their children when and at what age they pleased and none were forced to go against their Consciences And I know not that our Rule or Religion is changed or that we are grown any wiser or better than they I once motioned terms of Concord to the Anabaptists and was in as hopeful a way for Peace with them as with most others till Some are offended that I put in the Arminians when I am confident that there is not one of many hundreds whoâ— are against Communion with them that know what Arminianisme is and truly understand the difference And the same men refuse not Communion with those Anabaptists who are Arminians And it hath been the work of not only Mr. Dury but many other excellent men for many years to reconcile the Lutherans with the Calvinists and it hath justly been thought a blessed work to draw them to Communion with each other And yet the Lutherans are not only of most of the Arminan opinions but also have superintendents liturgies ceremonies exorcisme Church-images c. When so much labour hath been bestowed in this work and so many excellent Treatises written for it by pious Dury Junius Paraeus Calixtus Ludov. Crocius Joh. Bergius Conrad Bergius Hattonus Amyraldus Hall Davenant Morton c. When all sober Protestants have prayed for their success or approved this design are we now come to that pass that those that seem the zealousest for the Church and mutuall Love shall think it to be a sin either to hold Communion with the Lutherans or to write for it But the great offence is that I put in the Episcopal as fit for our Communion which I suppose is principally because of their manner of worship in which we must have Communion with them Which foreseeing I answered more objections against this than against the rest which hath occasioned some falsly to affirm that I write only to draw men to Communion with the Church of England I will therefore here proceed to some further expostulations of this point 3. Is there ever a word in all my Book perswading you to Communion with a Diocesan Church as such 4. Is there one word in it for your Communion with a national Church that hath one political spiritual Constitutive Head under Iesus Christ though the Kings supremacie none of us question Do I once meddle with any such thing 5. Is there a word to perswade you to Communion with Persecutors Though I am forced to displease you by answering that objection and telling you that we should be Impartial and remember what most parties or many have done to others which you were not able it seems to bear though it was plainly necessary to the due resolution of the Case in question whether any Persecutors may be Communicated with 6. Is there one word to perswade you that every Parish is a true Church and fit to be Communicated
Christians and in particular between the Non-conformists and Conformists 1. The General Part or Introduction Chap. 1. A Narrative of those late Actions which have occasioned mens displeasure of both sides against me The Reasons of my omitting the Narration of those former Actions which Mr. Durel and many others have reported falsly because they wrote of that which they knew not The Reasons of my earnest displeasing endeavours with the Bishops for Reconciling and Uniting terms in 1660. Our Common Profession about a Liturgie at that time and about this Liturgie and my practiee ever since How the Non-conformists must be united among themselves Of our judgement about Communion in the Liturgie and Sacrament with the Parish Churches in aâ— 1663. My ends in opening this 27. Reasons for the writing and publishing my Book called The Cure of Church-Divisions A word of the Debatemaker Of the filse reports that have been vented of my Book aâ—d me and of some Inferences to be noted by the Reporters Chap. 2. The state of the Controversie which I specialy managed in that Book with thâ—se that I called Diâ—iders Chap. 3. Objections and Questions about this subject Quest. 1. Doth not the second Commandment and Gods oft expressed jealousie in the matters of his Worship make it a sin to communicate in the Liturgie Quest. 2. Doth not the Covenant make it now unlawfull Quest. 3. Whether the case be not much altered since the Old Non-câ—nformists wrote against separation then called Brownisme And whether we have not greater Light into these Controversies than they had Quest. 4 Is it not a shameful receding from our Reformation now to use an unreformed Liturgie and a pulling down what we have been building Quest. 5. Will it not strengthen and encourage the adversaries of Reformation Quest. 6. Will it not divide us among our selves while one goeth to the Parish Churches and another doth not Quest. 7. Shall we not countenance Church Tyranny and harden Prelates in their usurpations and invite them to go further and make more burdens of Ceremonies or Forms to lay upon the Churches The manifold danger of feigning the Scripture to be a particular Rule where it is none The Contents of the Answer to the Exceptions Except 1. False Worship distinguished and opened Whether I speak very little against persecution Exc. 2. Whether I was as guilty as any one whatsoever in stirring up and fomenting the War Whether it be unbecoming a Minister to blame the sin which he hath been guilty of or to blame the Effects if he encouraged the Cause Whether nothing of the late Military Actions be to be openly repented of Whether I never mention the prophane but with honour Exc. 3. Of partial tenderness as to Reproof Whether my prayer was jesting c. Exc. 4. Of the supposed Expressions of my Pride Exc. 5. More of the Excepters mistakes Exc. 6. What separation Scripture calleth us to and what not Exc. 7. Of the Corruptions in the primitive Churches and of Imposing Exc. 8. Whether I be a Revealer of mens secrets Exc. 9. Whether the Universality of Christians ever took the Pope for their Head Of my Dispute with Mr. Johnson alias Terret on that point Whether all History be uncertain Whether it be intolerable to say that the Papists understand not that answer which is Christian sense and reason Exc. 10. Of Local Communion of separating from the particular Churches which we were never members of Exc. 11. Of Censurers requitals Whether a Papist can go beyond a Reprobate Exc. 12. Of Scandal and of Pauls case 1 Cor. 8. explained Exc. 13. More of my revealing secrets and other of the Excepters mistakes Exc. 14. Whether by Separatists I meant the Independents as such Exc. 15. Whether I speak slightly of Prayer in comparison of Study Whether it be a slighting of Christ to say that he increased in wisdom which is opened Whether Christ needed not prayer but as a pattern to us c. Exc. 16. Of expounding Scripture by the Impressions set upon our minds in Melancholy How the Spirit cureth our fears and giveth us comfort by twelve acts Exc. 17. Whether my saying that God hateth neither extemporate prayers nor forms be as if I could never speak meanly enough of prayer Whether I be a Trifler that neither believe the Scripture or my self for saying that in Christs time both Liturgies by forms and prayers by habit were used and that Christ yet made no question about them Seldens words upon the Iews Liturgies Exc. 18. Whether I did ill in disswading men from jeering and jesting at other true Christians manner of Worship And whether I purposely justifie persecution Exc. 19. Whether all be Idolatry which is used in the Worship of God without a Command of God to make it lawful The unhappy consequents of making so many Christians and Churches Idolatrous Exc. 20. More of the Excepters mistakes Exc. 21. Whether our presence at the prayers of every Church be a professing of consent to all that is faulty in those prayers Exc. 22. Of not silencing any truth for peace Exc. 23. Of imprudent speeches to superiours Exc. 24. Whether there â—e any weak ignorant and injudicious Christians and whether they hereby have been any cause of our divisions And whether these be vile Epithets not to be given to Christians but instead of them all Christians are to be told that they have the anointing and know all things Twenty proofs of such ignorance And the greatness of their sin especially Ministers that would hide it or deny it at this time manifested in forty aggravations Exc. 25. Whether any hearers use to be more moved with the affectionate delivery of meaner than with a colder delivery of more excellent things Of my forsaking the Lords work Exc. 26. Whether there be any Article necessary to salvation unknown to the universal Church Whether in points of difficult speculation one clear judicious well studied Divine be not to be more hearkened to than the Major Vote Whether the perfection and plainness of the Scriptures prove all Christians to be of equal understanding or to need no others help Exc. 27. Whether honest people be not in danger of following others into error and sin And whether to say so be enough to make people afraid of being honest Exc. 28. Whether it be new or intolerable to advise men not to imitate Religious people in the sins which they are most prone to What it is to flatter Professors of Religion and what it is in them to expect it Exc. 29. Of the name of a Sect. Exc. 30. Whether we must avoid that good which is owned by bad men Exc. 31. Of his accusations of my unsetledness in the point of Church Government and suspectedness in the point of Iustification Exc. 32. Whether we can speak bad enough of corrupted Nature Twenty instances of speaking too bad of it Whether I understand by the flesh only the sensitive Appetive Whether I be strongly inclined to deny Original sin
Of free-will Exc. 33. 34. Of other mistakes of the Excepter Exc. 35. Whether no persecution may consist with love Exc. 36. 37. Of the fewness of believers c. Exc. 38. More of his mistakes Exc. 39. Whether the same Spirit may not now use the ancient Prayers and Responses which first brought them in or used them Exc. 40. Of my comparing Ol. Cromwell to Maximus and whether I dedicated a flattering Book to his Son Exc. 41. Of his imputation of levity The Conclusion with some advice to the Excepter and a lamentation for the decay of Love A POSTSCRIPT SHewing how far as Mr. Jacob and the old Independents so the New England Pastors and Elders and Magistrates are from approving of the Principles of Separation Reasons why I am against the new terms of Church-membership and the approaches of some Independents toward Separation Reasons why the Independent Churches should as much fear the principles of Separation as any THE PREFACE TO THOSE READERS Who are of the Excepters mind and are offended at my Book called THE CURE OF Church-Divisions BRethren why should I wonder at the fruits of those weaknesses which we are all subject to some more some less in this state of imperfection and which I so lately told you of at large in my Character of and Directions for Weak-Christians If a spirit of Infallibility and Miracles in Paul and other the Apostles of our Lord could not overcome these lamentable failings in their hearers and followers in the Primitive Church why should such as I look for more success If Paul thought his Galatians foolish and bewitched Gal. 3. 1. and his Corinthian Christians to be babes yea Carnal and not Spiritual because there were among them 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 envying strife and divisions or as the words signifie zeal or emulation strife and separations or factions or dividing into several parties while one saith I am of Paul and another I am of Apollos what wonder if we are no better now But our sins are not the less because that others had the like but the greater because we take not warning by them when the spirit of God hath so smartly reprehended them I have as little reason as you to be ignorant what provocations the present militating and exasperated parties do give each others and how fair pretenses uncharitableness hath obtained And I know but few of you that have either more openly put themselves into the breach and attempted more to have prevented both severities against you and the present divisions among us than I have done or that have undergone more wrath and calumny to mention no other kind of sufferings for such attempts than I have done you cannot justly think that it is for want of your provocations and temptations to discontent that I am not of your mind I have had as many and great provocations as most of you all And I am not naturally without those passions which would take advantage by such usage A multitude of fierce and reproachful Volumes are written against me many of them abounding with gross untruths in matter of fact to all which I have for peace sake been silent to this day And none that know me do think that it is to escape mens wrath that I have been more for peace and unity than you I will do that right to them that have done me but little as to testifie that I verily believe could my Conscience comply with their Opinions and wills I could as soon have their favour as most among you But God is still the God of Love and Peace and Concord and so must all his servants be He changeth not and we must not change from this which is his Image This is my Religion and if any mens provocations must change me from this they must change my Religion I am not for such fruits of suffering as some late eminent prisoners in London were who turned Quakers in prison and lost their Religion with their liberty nor will I pretend Conscience for the defiling of my Conscience and the forsaking of the sacred life of Love Do you not your selves condemn a Carnal state Remember then that they are Carnal who are contentious dividers in the Churches 1 Cor. 3. 1 2 3. You will I doubt not joyn with me in disallowing of a fleshly mind and life Remember then that the workes of the flesh are these as adulteries fornications c. So also hatred or enmities variance emulations wrath strife seditions 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Dividings into parties heresies envyings c. I know you will confess that if any man have not the spirit of Christ the same is none of his Rom. 8. 9. Remember then that the Spirit of Christ is the spirit of Love Love to God and man is that Divine nature which God indueth all Christs members with The fruit of the spirit is Love joy peace long-suffering gentleness goodness faith meekness temperance Gal. 5. 20 21 22. When we think our selves wiser than those we differ from let us not shew it by masterly censoriousness or contempt but by being as much more Loving and peaceable than they are My brethren be not many Masters knowing that ye shall receive the greater condemnation And when other mens faults rise up before you watch both your passions and your tongues remembring that In many things we all offend And if any man offend not in word the same is a perfect man and able to bridle the whole body Who is a wise man and endued with knowledge among you Let him shew out of a good conversation his works with meekness of wisdom But if ye have a bitter envious zeal and strife in your hearts glory not and lie not against the truth This wisdom descendeth not from above but is earthly sensual devillish For where envying zeal 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and strife is there is confusion and every evil work Jam. 3. 1 2 13 14 15 16. Brethren no change of times will allow me to change from this which is my Religion No injuries from men will excuse me if I forsake it I hope I shall not be such a changeling in this which is the Great Command of the Gospel and the fulfilling of the Law and the very Heart of all Religion as to turn from it for a prison or a voluminous calumny and reproach I confess I must change but I hope it will be to turn still to more and more Love and Concord and not to Less It is not thank worthy to Love those that Love us nor to speak well of those that use us well nor to take it patiently when we are bussetted or punished for our faults But if we suffer for well doing and lose none of our Love or patience or integrity by our sufferings happy are we Alas how sadly do many mistake that fear only yielding to those whom they suffer by and do not fear those passions which would quench their Love and turn them unto sects
with If none of all this be there I hope your Patience is not very hard put to it if I do but intreat you to repent if you have said that of it which is untrue whoever told you so or at least not to proceed in untruths when you are so often warned of them 7. Do you think that it was done like tender conscienced Christians for so many to say that I write against your meetings yea that I conformed my self And this before ever they saw my book or ever spake with man that saw it And that men dare yet continue such sayings while the book is visible to prove them false and revile against it when they confess that they never read it Is this the fruit of the spirit of Christ But give me leave after these expostulations to come a little nearer to your objection and to tell you openly where we differ 1. You would have me speak for Love and Unity among the Nonconformists And I know no man that hath done it more frequently and more openly than I have done having these 24 years been offering or publishing terms of peace But God forbid that ever I should be of their opinion if there be any such who think that our union must be only with a Party and not with the whole Church of Christ or that we must Love none or seek peace with none but thâ—se that are in such points of our own opinion I am united first to Christ and the universal Church and consequently to all the parts as such though in divers degrees as they differ themselves in their Conformity to Christ. 2. I beseech you endure me with patience to tell you that I never took either the Non-conformists alone or the Conformists to be the whole Church of Christ or to be his only people in this Land nor the only faithful Ministers of the Gospel Bâ—ethren let not wrath and the faults of some deceive us to become injurious to others or to deny them Love and Iustice because that many of their opinion are bad Where in all the world do you know a Kingdom where the greater part are not too bad and where those that are of the Rulers Religion be it never so right do not comply with it to serve their flesh The Low Countries have no Bishops nor Ceremonies nor no such Liturgie as most are offended at with us but are under the Presbyterian Government And yet what the Commâ—n sort are there and in other such Countries I need not tell you Forgive me for telling you that if you know no godly persons Ministers or others of the Episcopal way I do and long have done And as my acquaintance increaseth I know more and more You that take me to be so bad as the Antidote describeth me will think it no great commendation to them that I profess to know those of them whom I take to be much better than my self Therefore I will say a greater word that I know those of them whom I think as godly and humble Ministers as most of the Nonconformists whom I know I doubt not but there are many hundred Parish Ministers who are no Persecutors nor ever consented to Persecution who Preach holily and live holily though I could wish that they were more And what reason have you to charge any other mens sins on them I am not ignorant what may be said to make them consequentially partakers But I must say this in answer to all that if God will charge undiscerned consequences upon them and us there will none of us all be found meet for Church Communion or for heaven I am judged by your selves to be too censorious of you and too sharp in telling you of that which I doubt not to be your sin why then are you so offended with me for being no more censorious and sharp towards others was I ever thought to be kinder to them than to you Is not every man naturally most favourable to those of his own opinion Is it Conformity or Non-conformity which I have most defended Is it as a Conformist or a Nonconformist that I have been judged and used these 33. years It is they that have lately written reproachfully against me It is they that have I need name no more But for the Non-conformists I must bear witness of their kindness to me that they never rejected me never forbad me to preach but one Sermon nor except particular angry parties whom I wrote against they never denyed me their good word What then can you think should draw me to be too sharp against them and too favourable to the other I look for no worldly advantage or benefit from them Surely be that is apt to be too sharp is liker to be so against dissenters from whom he suffereth than against those that have ever been his friends But truth is truth and the wisdom from above is without partiality and without hypocrisie Do but mark how both parties justifie me while both condemn me though I am too Conscious of my faultiness to justifie my self The one side think that I am not half sharp enough against the Anabaptists Sâ—pâ—ratists and Independents And you that I now write to think that I am not half sharp enough against the Conformists so that one side doth not only justifie me from the charge of câ—nsâ—â—iousness or sharpness against the other but blame me for the contrary and are angry with me that I am no sharper But Gods judgement of us all is right and his seal is sure The Lord knoweth who are his whoever shall deny it God will not judge of upright Christians as they judge of themselves when they unjustly accuse themselves Much less according to the judgement of their adversaries Brethren I think verily that I have as much to say against conformity as it is required of us Ministers as most of you that are most angry have And yet I tell you again that I believe there are many hundred Godly Ministers in the Parish Churches of England and that their Churches are true Churches and that I think not my self worthy to be compared with Mr. Bolton Whately Fenner Dr. Preston Sibbes White Field Uâ—her Jewel and abundance other old Conformists And you might forgive me if I compare them with your selves and if I again profess to you that if they were all alive and used now the same Liturgy and Ceremonies as they did then I could not find in my bea rt to think their Communion in Prayer and Sacrament to be unlawful nor to censure that man as injurious to the Church who should write to perswade others not to separate from them on that supposition I am sure the Assembly of Divines that sate heretofore at Westminster were so conformable when they went thither that I never heard of five Non-conformists among them besides the five dissenting brethren Their judgement was as Mr. Sprints that Confâ—rmity was lawful in case of necessity rather than to be deprived of
liberty to preach the Gospel but that it was a burden which they should cast off as soon as they had liberty so to do And I knew some who urged them to declare their Repentance for their former conformity and to have confessed it to have been their sin But I never heard of any considerable number of them that ever did it or that changed their minds And though Ministerial Conformity as to Engagements is now much altered many of them that are yet living do again confâ—rm And though I then was not nor yet am of their mind my self yet I would not shun Communion with the Reverend members of that Assembly Twisse Gatâ—ker Whittaker and the rest if again they werâ—â—sers of the Liturgie among us 3. But what if in all this I be mistaken and if Communion in the Liturgie prove unlawful should you be so impatient as not to bear with one that in such an opinion differeth from you As I write for my opinion so do you for yours And why should not you bear with my dissent as well as I do with yours My judgement commanded me First to exhort all sober Christians to draw neerer and to lay by those principles which drive them from each other as not to be Communicated with And Secondly where that cannot be obtained to bear with one another in our several Assemblies or Churches and to manage them with Love and peace This was my exâ—â—rtation And the time once was even when the five Dissenting brethren pleaded their cause with the Assembly at Westminster that this motion would have been accepted or at least not judged so great an injury as now it is O brethren do not expose your selves and cause so much to the censure of impartial men and of posterity as to let them know that you are grown so high or that in the very day of our humiliation these terms seem so injurious to you as these exceptions intimate Mr. Nye and Mr. Tho. Good win were so friendly with Dr. Prâ—ston as to publish his works when he was dead And I verily think if you had been acquainted with such Conformists heretofore as he was and Dr. Stoughton and Dr. Taylor and Mr. Downam and those forenamed and abundance more you could not choose but have thought them both tolerable and lovely if you had not thought it lawful to Communicate with them Much more you should have endured such as the Non-conformists of that age who used Parish Communion and pleaded for it against the Separatists in far sharper language than ever I used to you as their books against Johnson and Cann and Brown and Ainsworth do yet visibly declare If you think their Reasons and mine for the Lawfulness of Parish Communion to be insufficient so do I think of yours against it I have read divers that charge the Liturgie with Idolatry Did I ever lay so heavy a charge on you Did I ever say that it is unlawful to have Communion with you as you say it is to have Communion with others Why then should you not bear with lesser Contradiction when others must bear with far greater from you Will you proclaim your selves to be the more impatient You will then make men think that you are the most guilty You say of such men as those before named your worship is Idolatry and it is unlawful for any Christian to hold Communion with you in it and all that are present and joyn with you are guilty of the Idolatry I do but say that you make the Case more odious than it is and injure others by this charge What a world are we come to when those that you count unworthy of your Communion must not take your charge of Idolatry as too sharp and yet you that should be most patient take it for a heynous crime and injury to be told that you wrong them and that you judge too hardly of them and that their Communion is not unlawful Nay is it seemly for thâ—se men that have said and done so much I say so much for Liberty of Conscience and would never consent to the Westminster Assembly to declare against it even as to those parties whom you counted very erroneous your selves to be yet so impatient of our liberty to tell the Church our judgement about the Lawfulness of other mens Communion Is it meet for them who are offended with those that silence us and restrain us of our liberty to be so tender as to shew by such language as this Excepter useth and by such unjust fames as some others have dispersed how little themselves can bear dissenters I know that displeasure and impatience in the divers parties is expressed different wayes But O that yet you would consider how near of kin the principles are and how much defect of Love and Patience there is in you as well as others 4. And I intreat you to mark but what your own objection intimateth You could endure it if I had only pleaded for Peace and Concord among the Non-conformists But doth not this intimate that Peace and Concord in it self is desirable among all those that should agree and be united Why I am as well able to prove that all true Christians should have Peace and Love and Concord for the strength of the Universal Church as any of you all are able to prove that any one Party should have Concord in it self The Episcopal part would have all possible Concord among those that are Episcopal and the Presbyterians among Presbyterians and the Independents among Independents and the Anabaptists among Anabaptists no party is for Divisions among themselves till the particular temptation doth prevail And yet I am not pardonable for motioning that all sober Christians as Christians may have all possible Love Peace and Concord among themselves Brethren I am sure that Christs body is but one I do not despise all those words of Christ and the Spirit which I cited in my book I know that the diversity of knowledge and gifts among true Christians should not make diversities of Churches 1 Cor. 12. When I know this and cannot choose but know it why should any be angry with me for knowing it I know that the Godly Conformists and Non-conformists in England should be united as well as each party among themselves I know that our division gratifieth the Papists and greatly hazardeth the Protestant Religion and that more than most of you seem to believe or to regard I know that our division advantageth Profaneness and greatly hindereth the success of Ministers on both sides I know that it greatly pleaseth Satan and buildeth up his Kingdom and weakneth the Kingdom of our Lord His own mouth hath told us so And shall I not believe him As in our Worcestershire Agreement heretofore we proceeded on terms which excluded not the Episcopal so in our desires and terms of Concord we must still go the same way and shut out none from our Love and Communion whom Christ receiveth and would
related to me by Mr. Vaughan a worthy Minister lately discouraged and come from thence would make a Christian heart to bleed To hear how strict and regular and hopeful that plantation once was And how one Godly Mininister by separation selecting a few to be his Church and rejecting all the rest from the sacrament the rejected party are grown to doleful estrangedness from Religion and the selected party much turned Quakers and between both how wofull are the fruits But the Case of England Scotland and Ireland which I foretold in my book of Infant Baptisme is yet a more lamentable proof what separation hath done against Religion so full a proof that it is my wonder that any good man can overlook it 16. Yea it tendeth to make Religiousness contemptible and the professors of it a common scorn when we are perceived to place it in unwarrantable separations and singularities and when we make men think that the greatest difference between those that they call Precise or Religious and others is but this that one of them prayeth without book and the other by the book that one of them will not joyn with those that use the Liturgie and the other will If we let men see that in indifferent things we are indifferent and that lesser evils we avoid as lesser and greater evils as greater and that the great difference between us and the ungodly is in our seriousness in our Christian profession and in our heavenlyness and true obedience to Christ it would much convince them of their misery and honour Religion in the world But when they perceive that the greatest contention which our houses and our streets do ring of is whether we shall hear a man that conformeth or not Or whether we shall pray with them that use the Liturgie Or whether we may sometimes Communicate with a Parish Church or not This turneth the thoughts of the careless and carnal the worldling and the sensualist from the necessary condemning of himself for his ungodliness and sets him on thinking that these stricter people do differ from him in things of no importance and that they are but an erroneous self conceited sort of persons and that he is much the wiser man Thousands in England are hardened into a neglect of Godliness to our suffering and the apparent danger of their own damnation by occasion of the unwarrantable singularities and the scandalous sins especially of those professors that have been most addicted to sinful separations 17. I am not causelesly afraid lest if we suffer the principles and practices which I write against to proceed without our contradiction Popery will get by it so great advantage as may hazzard us all and we may lose that which the several parties do contend about Three waies especially Popery will grow out of our divisions 1. By the odium and scorn of our disagreements inconsistency and multiplied sects they will perswade people that we must either come for Unity to them or else all run mad and crumble into dust and individuals Thousands have been drawn to Popery or confirmed in it by this argument already And I am perswaded that all the arguments else in Bellarmine and all other books that ever were written have not done so much to make Papists in England as the multitude of sects among our selves Yea some Professors of Religious strictness of great esteem for Godliness have turned Papists themselves when they were giddy and wearied with turnings and when they had run from sect to sect and found no consistency in any For when they see so many they say How can I tell that this or that is in the right rather than the other This it is that they ring continually in our ears Which of all these sects is in the right And what assurance have they of it more than all the rest that are as confident And how small a Church doth any one sect make And â—f hâ—w late original for the most But the poor deluded souls consider not that in going to the Papists they go but to another sect that is worse than any of the rest And though greater yet not past the third part of the Christians in the world And that Christianity is but one And that the way to rest is to unite upon the common terms of simple Christianity 2. And who knoweth not how fair a game the Papists have to play by the means of our divisions Methinks I hear them hissing on each party and saying to one side Lay more upon them and and abate them nothing and to the other stand it out and yield to nothing And who is so blind then as not to see their double game and hopes viz. that either our divisions and alienations will carry men to such distances and practices as shall make us accounted seditious rebellious and dangerous to the publick peace and so they may pass for better subjects than we or else that when so many parties under sufferings are constrained to beg and wait for liberty the Papists may not be shut out alone but have Toleration with the rest And shall they use our hands to do their works and pull their freedom out of the fire We have already unspeakably served them both in this and in abating the odium of the Gun powder plot and their other Treasons Insurrections and Spanish invasion of which read Thuanus himself that openeth all the mystery 3. And it is not the least of our danger nor which doth least affect me lest by our follies extremities and rigors we should so exasperate the Common people as to make them readier to joyn with the Papists than with us in Case of any competitions or their invasions or insurrections against the King and Kingdoms peace Sure I am that the Parliaments and peoples resolutions against them after the late fire and in the time of the last war when they were so much feared did discourage and depress them more than all the rest of their opposers And though we cannot rationally believe that the people of England much less wise and sober Governors will ever be such enemies to themselves as to subject themselves to the Romish Tyranny and to forget what Ireland and England have seen and felt yet because it is not only oppression that maketh wise men mad let us do nothing by unlawful alienations and singularities or fierce and disobedint oppositions which tend to make the people like better of the Papists than of us 18. I am not able to bear the thoughts of separating from almost all Christs Churches upon Earth But he that separateth from one or many upon a reason common to almost all doth virtually separate from almost all And he that separateth from all among us upon the account of the unlawfulness of our Liturgie and the badness of all our Ministry doth separate from them upon a reason common to almost all or the far greatest part as I conceive 19. Though Ministerial Conformity be to us another
against separation because all this spurious offspring was fathered on them and still laid at their doors And withal because they found how hard it is to stop men that begin to find real faults with other men from fancying abundance more that are not real and to keep men from running into extreams And experience told them that their own party was in danger of running from them and it was not easie to keep them stable in the sober 〈◊〉 of the truth Especially the Independents oâ— this account are obliged to be the greatest disswaders of separation because all sects are fathered on them and too many of their congregations in England and New-England have been lamentably corrupted or subverted and dissolved by them 23. There is 〈◊〉 man that is acquainted with Church history but knoweth that as Christ was Crucified between two thieves so his Church hath been 〈◊〉 and troubled between the prophane malignant persecutors and the heretical and sectarian dividers even from the dayes of the Apostles until this age Insomuch that Paul himself and Peter and Iude and Iohn were put to 〈…〉 as largely against the Dividers almost as the persecutors Iraenaeus Epiphanius Augustine Theodoret besides the rest do sadly tell us in their Catalogues and Controversies how lamentably these Dividers then hindered the Gospel and distressed and dishonoured the Church And the sad stories of Hâ—lland Munster and others in Germany Poland and especially these twenty years past in England do bring all closer to our sense And are not the Watch-men of Christ still bound to tell the Church of their danger on the one side as well as the other Yea in some respects to say more on this side than on that because Religious people are easier and ofter turned to be Dividers than to be Persecutors or Prophane 24. All these dangers lying before us and the Non-conformable Ministers being under great reproaches and lamentable hinderances from their sacred work and called by God to fidelity as in a day of tryal what guilt would be upon us what shame would be our due if we should all be silent whilest we see the principles of Division continually increase The 〈◊〉 principles which the old Non-conformists confuted greatly propagate themselves through the smart which alienateth the peoples minds And Reason doth so hardly prevail against Feeling that all that we can say will prove too little This is the true cause why they cry out now Oh the case is changed It is not with us as it was in the old Non-conformists daies Because they did but hear of what was in those daies but they see and feel what is done in ours Therefore we had so easie a work comparatively to perswade men that the old separatists were mistaken but can hardly now perswade them that the same principles are a mistake because now they smart and Passion is not easily held in by reason I can make shift to hold in a mettlesome horse while he is not provoked But if a Bishop will come behind me and laâ—h him or prick him and then blame the rider if he run away with me I cannot help it But sure if we must needs have to do with such men it concerneth us to hold the reines the harder And if after such grievous judgements as plagues flames poverty reproach and silencings and sad confusions which God hath tryed us with in these times his Ministers should through passion policie or sloth sit still and let Professors run into sinful principles and extreams it will be our Aggravated sin 25. And one reason why I set upon this work was because I saw few others do it If it must be done and others will not then I must take it for my duty 26. And another reason was because I knew but few that I was willing to thrust upon it so forwardly as my self for fear of being the author of their sufferings Many may be abler that are not in other respects so fit Some Ministers are young men and like to live longer to serve God in his Church and their Reputation is needful to their success If they be vilified it may hinder their labours And experience telleth us that the dividing spirit is very powerful and victorious in censorious vilifying of dissenters But I am almost miles Emeritus at the end of my work and can reasonably expect to do but little more in the world and therefore have not their impediment And for popular applause I have tryed its vanity I have had so much of it till I am brought to a contempt if not a loathing of it And whereas some brethren say that Censures will hinder the success of my Writings I answer No man shall do his duty without some difficulties and impediments If my writings will not do good by the evidence of truth in them and if the censures of Dividers are able to frustrate them let them fall and fail And some of my brethren have great Congregations to teach which are so inclined to this dividing way that they cannot bear their information But when I preached in my house to the most I knew scarce any of the Parish that came not to the Parish Church but such as lived in my own house Also many Ministers being turned out of all their maintenance have families and nothing to maintain them but what the Charity of Religious people giveth them Little do some know what the families of many godly Ministers suffer And some Independents are maintained by their gathered Churches and if they cast them off both reputation work and maintenance would fail For those that silence them will neither honor them nor maintain them And though I suppose that these brethren would serve God in the greatest contempt and poverty and self-denial if they perceive that God doth call them to it yet I think it a duty of Charity in me to go before them and do the more displeasing work to prevent the sufferings of such or at least not to thrust them on so hard a service For I have no Church that maintaineth me nor any people whose estimation I am afraid to lose that are dividingly inclined nor through Gods mercy have any need of maintenance from others and therefore may do my duty at cheaper rates than they 27. And I will add one reason more of the publishing though not of the writing of my book When it had been long cast by â—â—ound in the Debater and Ecclesiastical Polititian that the Nonconformists are made ridiculous and â—dious as men of erroneous uncharitable and ungovernable principles and spirits Though we subscribe to all the Doctrine of the Church of England And I thought that the publication of this book should leave a testimony to the generations to come by which they might know whether we were truly accused and whether our principles were not as much for Love and Peace as theirs and as consistent with order and government Is not the Non-conformists doctrine the same with that of the
mens mouths doth never make you scruple their Communion I intreat you do but study an answer to one that would separate from you all upon such grounds as these First for the sin consider of these texts Exod. 23. 1 2. Thou shalt not raise a false report put not thy hand with the wicked to be an unrighteous witness Thou shalt not follow a multitude to do evil neither shalt thou speak in a cause to decline after many to wrest it Psalm 15. 3. He that backhiteth not with his tongue nor doth evil to his neighbour nor taketh up a reproach against his neighbour Rom. 1. 30. Backbiters â—aters of God 2 Cor. 12. 20. Lest there be debate strifes backbibitings whisperings c. Prov. 25. 23. An angry counterance driveth away a backbiting tongue Tit. 3. 1 2. Put them in mind to be ready to every good work to speak evil of no man 1 Pet. 2. 1. Laying aside evil speakings 1 Tim. 6. 4. Whereof cometh evil surmisings Eph. 4. 31. Let evil speakings be put away from you Jud. 10. These speak evil of those things which they know not Jam. 4. 11. Speak not evil one of another He that speaketh evil of another and judgeth another speakevil of the Law and judgeth the Law Have you more and plainer texts of Scripture agninst the Common Prayer than all these are Now suppose one should say that a people of such sin as this should not be Communicated with especially where there is no discipline exercised that ever so much as calleth one man of them to repentance for it what answer will you give to this which will not confute your own objections against Communion with many Parish Churches in this Land 5. Lastly hence note how still overdoing is undoing By the Principles of Love and Peace conteined in the book which some reproach had they not disowned them they might have had their part in this just Vindication against them that accuse the Non-conformists Principles of Enmity to Love and Peace But they would have no part in it and have cast away their own vindication and so have confirmed their accusers and tempted them to believe that some Non-conformists are indeed such as they described But I must again intreat them to distinguish Many sects go under the name of Nonconformists from whom we differ incomparably more than we do from the Conformists as the Quakers Seekers Bâ—hmenists and some others We are none of those men that because we all suffer together under the Prelacy do therefore more close with these than with the Conformists with whom in doctrine and the substance of worship we agree But because it is their own resolved choice to disown the Principles and Vindication of that book I shall only say I. To our Accusers It is not these Dividers which we Vindicate that will not stand to our Vindication II. To posterity whose historical Information of the truth of matters in this age I much desire If you would know what sort of men they are that these times call sectaries and Dividers or separatists I will give you but their own Character of themselves that you may be sure I wrong them not Peruse the book called The Cure of Church-Divisions for they are persons so contrary to that book as that they take it to be an evil and mischievous thing and greatly to be lamented and detested in so much that some of them say It had been well if the Author had dyed ten years ago and others that this book hath done more harm than ever he did good in all his life So intolerable is it to them to have their Love-killing and dividing principles so much as thus contradicted while they cry out against the Imposing spirit of others The measure of their distaste against these Principles of Love and Unity I leave you to gather out of the exceptions which I am now to answer CAP. 2. The true state as the Controversie between me and those whom I call Church-Dividers BEcause the Excepter carrieth it all along as if he understood not what I say or would not have his Reader understand it I must state the Case as it standeth between us for the sake of them that love not to be deceived nor to be angry at they know not what Know therefore that the design of the Writer of that Book was to restore Love and Unity among Christians which he saw decaying and almost dying through the temptation of our sufferings from some and our differences with others and through the sidings of parties and through the passions which conquer some mens judgements and the hy 〈…〉 e of others who place their Religion in their sidings and in the forms or fashions of the words of their prayers or the circumstances of outward Worship And to acquaint Christians with the wiles of Satan who would kill their Grace by killing their Love whilst they think they do but preserve their Purity And to open to them the secret windings of the Serpent and the workings of Pride and Wrath and Selfishness against the works of Love and Peace And to shew them the great deceitfulness of mans heart which often fighteth against God as for God by fighting against Love and Unity and which oft loseth all by seeming to overcome and forsaketh Religion by seeming valiant for it And I especially intreat the Reader to note that I said much more about Principles than Practices Because I know that as to Communion with this or that Church mâ—ns practices may vary upon accidental and prudential accounts of which I pretend not to be a Judge And therefore I first speak against Love killing Principles and then against such Practices only as either proceed from such Principles or increase them If I see a man stay from Church as I know not his reasons so I judge him not unless as he doth it upon sinful causes and especially if he would propagate those Causes to others and justifie them to be of God when they are against him And whereas Hatred and Enmity worketh by driving men from each others Societies as wicked or intolerable and Love worketh by inclining men to Union and Communion and again mens distance increaseth the Enmity which caused it and their nearness and familiarity increaseth Love and reconcileth them I did therefore think it a matter of great necessity to our welfare to counsel men to all lawful nearness and Communion and to disswade them from all unnecessary alienation and separation from each other Let the Reader also understand that in this my purpose was not to condemn mens separation from the Parish Churches only nor more than any other sinful separation But from any true Church of Christians whatsoever when uncharitable Principles drive them away Whether it be from Presbyterians Independents Anabaptists Arminians Lutherans c. Only because that those I deal most with make most exceptions against Communion with the Parish Churches I bestowed most words in answering such exceptions Therefore
observe 1. That it is none of our Question Whether you should Communicate with the Parish Churches alone and no other 2. Nor Whether you should Communicate with every Parish Church or any one whose Pastors are through insufficiency heresie or impiety intolerable which I have written against Dir. 36. p. 202 c. 3. Nor Whether we may hold local Communion in Worship with a Church which denyeth us such Communion unless we will sin This I have oft enough denyed p. 203 c. 4. Nor Whether caeteris paribus local Communion with a purer and better Church be not ordinarily to be preferred before local Communion with a worse which I assert p. 203 c. 5. Nor Whether a man be a Separatist from another Church meerly because he is not locally present with it For then when I am in one Church I separate from all other in the world 6. Nor Whether it be lawful to remove ones dwelling for Communion with a better Minister and Church supposing that we are free p. 204. 7. Nor Whether it be lawful to remove to a better Church without removing ones dwelling in a place where another Church is near to which we may go without any publick injury or hurt to our selves or others which is greater than the benefit pag. 204. 8. Nor Whether we may remove both from Church and Countrey by the occasions of our Callings or Trades or other outward weighty reasons pag. 298. 9. Nor Whether we may keep in Communion privately with our lawful Pastors if they be turned out of the publick Temples Which I have asserted pag. 299. and have said that where the Pastor is there the Church is in whatever place they do assemble p. 250. which Dr. Hide also thought when he began his Book with an assertion of the necessity of separating then from the publick places And so did other Prelatists then and so think the Papists now and most other parties 10. Nor is it any of our Question Whether you should have Communion with a Diocesan Church as such It is a Parochial Church with such others that I spake of and never a word of a Diocesan Church 11. Therefore it is none of the Question Whether you must own our Diocesan Bishops 12. Nor yet Whether you must have Communion with any thing called A National Church as a Political Society constituted of an Ecclesiastical Head and Body and denominated from that form â—r Constitutive Head Though we must own a National Church as it is improperly so denominated from the King that is the Civil Head accidental and not Constitutive to the Spiritual Church And as it is a Community of Christians and a part of the Universal Church united by the Concord of her Pastors who in Synods may represent the whole Ministry and be the means of their agreement 13. Nor is it the Question Whether you must needs hold Communion with those individual Bishops whom you account the Persecutors and Causes of our silence and confusions I have told you in the Story of Martin how he separated from the Synods of thâ—se individual Bishops and from their local Communion without separating from the Office the Churches or from any other Bishops This is a matter that I did not meddle with because it is not their Communion that you are called to but the Parish Churches Indeed to save mâ—ns lives he did yield to the Emperour once to communicate with them But saith Sulp. Severus â—iâ—l 3. p. Bib. Paâ— 254. Summa vi Episcopis nitentibus ut communionem illâ—m subscriptione firmaret extorqueri non potuit And the Angel that appeared to him said Merito Martine compungeris sed aliter exiâ—e nequiâ—ti repara virtutem resume Constantiam nâ— jam non periculum gloriae sed salutis incuâ—reris Ita ab illo tempore satis cavit cum illa Iâ—haâ—ianae partis Communione misâ—â—ri And after finding his power of Miracles abated with tears he conâ—essed to Sulpit. That propter Communionis illius malum cui se vel puncto temporis necessitate non Spiritu misâ—â—isset dâ—trimentum sâ—etire virtutis Sâ—dâ—â—im pâ—sâ—ea vixit annos nullam Synodum adiit ab omnibus Episcâ—porum Conveâ—â—ibus se remâ—vit But this was only from those Bishops who by provoking Magistrates against the Priscillian Gnosticks had brought all strict Religious people under scorn But he separated not from any others 14. Nay I made it none of our Question Whether you should Communicate with any Parish Minister who concurreth with theâ— in the said matters whiâ—h yâ—u â—â—cuse the Bishops of aâ—y farther than by Câ—â—â—orming to the Laâ— For it is but few o◠〈◊〉 Parish Ministers that were Convâ—cation Men or that you can prove did ever consent to our silencing 15. Nor is it any of the Question Whether those also be guilty of separation and divisions whâ— shall make unnecessary Engines of division and â—â—y upon the neâ—ks of any Churches such unnecessary things as have a tendency to divide Who hath said more against this than I have done 16. Nor is it any of our Question Which of the two is the greater cause of divisâ—â—â—s or which of the foresaid persons is mâ—â—t 〈◊〉 Who hath spoken plainlier in this than I Iâ— the Brother that excepteth would maâ—â— you believe that any one of these is the 〈◊〉 iâ— you believe him he doth but deceiive you But whom I mean by Sâ—paratiâ—â— I havâ— plaâ—ly told you pag. 249. 2â—0 c. ☞ And that which I perswade men to is this 1. To love all Christians as themselves 2. To hold nothing and do nothing which is contrary to this Love and would destroy it 3. Therefore to deny no Christians to be Christians nor no Churches to be Churches nor no lawful Worship of any Mâ—de or Party to be lawfull 4. Not to sepâ—â—ate from any others upon any of these three false suppositions or accusations viz. 1. As no true Christians 2. As no true Churches 3. As having no true Worship or as worshipping so as it is not lawful to joyn with them 5. To choose the most edifying Ministry and the soundest Church and purest manner of worshipping God that possibly you can have on lawful terms as to your ordinary use and Communion so far as you are free to choose 6. To joyn with a defective faulty true Church ordinarily and in a manner of Worship which is defective when you can have no better on lawful terms as without the publick injury or your own greater hinderance than help And I prove that this is the worst that you can charge as to this matter of Communion on those Parish Churches in England that have honest compâ—tent Pastors and the same others charge on the Churches of Independents and Anabaptists And that it is a duty to hold communion with any one of thâ—se constantly when you can have no better 7. That if you can statedly have better yet sometimes to Communicate with a defective Church as a stranger may do that is
the dangerous guilt of Adding to the Word of God under pretence of strict expounding it and defending its perfection and extent 3. By the same Rule as they deal thus by one Text as the second Command they may do so by all And if all or much of the Scripture were but thus expounded I leave it to the sober Reader to consider what a body of Divinity it would make us and what a Religion we should have 4. It altereth the very Definition of the holy Scripture and maketh it another thing That which God made to be the Record of his holy Covenant and the Law and Rule of Faith and Holiness and the General Law for outward Modes and Circumstances which are but Accidents of Worship is pretended by men to be a particular Law for that which it never particularly medleth with 5. It sorely prepareth men for Infidelity and to deny the Divine Authority of the Scripture and utterly to undo all by overdoing If Satan could but once make men believe that the Scripture is a Rule for those things that are not to be found in it at all and which God never made it to be a Rule for he will next argue against it as a delusory and imperfect thing He will teach every Artificer to say That which is an imperfect Rule is not of God But the Scripture is an imperfect Rule For saith the Watch-maker I cannot learn to make a Watch by it saith the Scrivener I cannot make a Legal Bond or Indentures by it saith the Carpenter I cannot build a House by it saith the Physician I cannot sufficiently know or cure Diseases by it saith the Mathematician Astronomer Geographer Musician Arithmetician the Grammarian Logician Natural Philosopher c. it is no perfect particular Rule of our Arts or Sciences The Divine will say It tells me not sufficiently and particularly what Books in it self are Canonical nor what various Readings are the right nor whether every Text be brought to us uncorrupted nor whether it be to be divided into Chapters and Verses and into how many Nor what Metre or Tune I must sing a Psalm in nor what persons shall be Pastors of the Churches nor what Text I shall choose next nor what Words I shall use in my next Sermon or Prayer with abundance such like Only in General both Nature and Scripture say Let all things be done in Order and to Edification c. Spiritually Purely Believingly Wisely Zealously Constantly c. He that believeth it to be given as such a particular Rule and then findeth that it is silent or utterly insufficient to that use is like next to cast it away as a delusion and turn an Infidel or Anti-scripturist 6. This mistake tendeth to cast all Rational Worship out of the Church and World by deterring men from inventing or studying how to do Gods work aright For if all that man inventeth or deviseth be a forbidden Image than we must not invent or find out by study the true meaning of a Text the true method of Praying or Preaching according to the various subjects Nay we must not study what to say till we are speaking nor what Time Place Gesture Words to use no nor the very English Tongue that we must Pray and Preach in Whereas the Scripture it self-requireth us to meditate day and night to study to shew our selves workmen that need not be ashamed to search and dig for knowledge c. Do they not err that devise evil but mercy and truth shall be to them that devise good Prov. 14. 22. I Wisdom dwell with Prudence or subtilty and find out knowledge of witty inventions Prov. 8. 12. The Preacher sought to find out acceptable words Eccles. 12. 10. Banish study and you banish knowledge and Religion from the world The Spirit moveth us to search and study and thereby teacheth us what to judge and say and do and doth not move us as I play on an Instrument that knoweth not what it doth 7. This Opinion will bring in all Confusion instead of pure reasonable Worship While every man is left to find that in the Scripture which never was there and that as the only Rule of his actions one will think that he findeth one thing there and another another thing For it must be Reality and Verity which must be the term of Unity Men cannot agree in that which is not 8. Yea it will let in impiety and error for when men are sent to seek and find that which is not there every man will think that he findeth that which his own corrupted mind brings thither 9. And hereby all possibility of Union among Christians and Churches must perish till this Opinion perish For if we must unite only in that which is not in being we must not unite at all If we must all in singing Psalms agree in no Metre or Tune in the Church but one that Scripture hath prescribed us we shall sing with lamentable discord 10. And hereby is laid a snare to tempt men into odious censures of each other Because studied Sermons printed Books Catechisms and Forms of Prayer are Images and Idolatry in these mens conceits all Gods Churches in the world must be censured as Idolatrous And almost all his Ministers in the world must be accounted Idolaters Children must account their Parents Idolaters and disobey them that would teach them a Catechism Psalm or Form of Prayer Our Libraries must be burnt or cast away as Images And when Ministers are diminished and accounted Idolaters if Satan could next but perswade people against all the holy Books of the Ministers of Christ such as Boltons Prestons c. as Images and Idols had he not plaid a more succesful game then he did by Iulian and doth by the Turks who keep the Christians but from humane Learning 11. Hereby Christian Love will be quenched when every man must account his Brother an Idolater that cannot shew a Scripture for the hour the place of Worship the Bells the Hour-glasses the Pulpit the Utensils c. or that studieth what to say before he Pray or Preach 12. And hereby backbiting slandering and railing must go currant as no sin while every Calvin Cartwright Hildersham Perkins Sibbs c. that used a Form of Prayer yea almost all the Christians in the world must be accused of Idolatry as if it were a true and righteous charge 13. And all our sins will be fathered on God as if the second Commandment and the Scripture perfection did require all this and taught Children to disobey their Parents and Masters and say your Prayers and Catechisms are Images and Idols c 14. It will rack and perplex the Consciences of all Christians when I must take my self for an Idolater till I can find a particular Law in Scripture for every Tune Metre Translation Method Word Vesture Gesture Utensil c. that I use in the worshipping of God When Conscience must build only in the air and rest only on
a word which never was 15. It will have a confounding influence into all the affairs and business of our lives 16. Lastly It will affright poor people from Scripture and Religion and make us our Doctrine and Worship ridiculous in the â—ight of all the world The Doctrine which we hear maintained which hath no better fruits than these must be avoided as well as the contrary extream which would indeed charge the Law of God with imperfection and cause man to usurp the part of Christ. And we must first know How far God made the Scripture for our Rule and then we must maintain its sufficiency and perfection II. Also on that extream we must do nothing to countenance those Practices which tend to alienate Christians hearts from one another and to keep up Church-Wars or to feed bitter censures scorns and reproaches And we that must not scandalize the Religious sort must avoid all that thus tempteth them which is the real scandal But of this I have said enough in the Book which I am now defending Part II. An ANSWER to the Untrue and unjust Exceptions OF THE ANTIDOTE Against my TREATISE for LOVE and UNITY DEar Brother for so I will call you whether you will or not the chief trouble that I am put to in answering your Exceptions next to that of my grief for the Churches and your self by reason of such Diagnosticks of your Malady is the naming of your manifold Untruths in matter of fact It is it seems no fault in your eyes to commit them but I fear you will account it unpardonable bitterness in me to tell you that you have committed them If I call them Mistakes the Reader will not know by that name whether it be mistakes in point of Fact or of Reason And Lies I will not call them because it is a provoking word Therefore Untruths must be the middle title EXCEPT I. Page 1. Tâ—e whole dâ—sâ—â—n of this Book being â—â— make such as at this day are carefull to kâ—â—â— themselves Pure from alâ— defilements in False worship Odiâ—us it may well be affirmed iâ— was neither seasonable nâ—r hâ—nest Answ. THat 's the fundamental Untruth which animateth all the râ—â—â— when 〈◊〉 had got a false apprehension of the design of the Book you seem to expound the particular passages by that Key That which you call The whole design is not any part of the design but is expresly and vehemently oft disclaimed and protested against in the Book And whoever readeth it without a Partial mind will presently sâ—â— that the whole design of the Book is to deliver weak Christians from such mistakes and sins as destroy their Love to other Christians and cause the divisions among the Churches 2. False worship is a word of various sensâ—â— Either it signifieth 1. Idolatry in worshipping a false God 2. Or the Idolatrous worshipping of Images as representations of the true God 3. Or worshipping God by Doctrines and Prayers that consist oâ— falshoods 4. Or devising Worship-Ordinances and falsly saying they are the Ordinances of God 5. Or making God a Worship which he forbiddeth in the subâ—â—anâ—e and will not accept 6. Or worshipping God in an inward sinful manner through false principles and ends as hypocrites do 7. Or in a sinful outward manner through disorder defectiveness and unhandsome or unfit expreâ—â—ions Oâ— these I suppose you will not charge the Churches you separate from as guilty of the first second fourth or sixth which is out of the reach of humane judgment For I suppose you to be sober As for the third through Gods great mercie the Doctrine of England is so â—ound that the Independants and Presbyterians have still offered to subscribe to it in the 39 Articles according to which if there were any doubtfulness in the phrases of their Prayers they are to be interpreted For the fifth if you accuse them of it you must prove it which is not yet done supposing that you take not Government for Worshipâ— nor can you do it So that it must lie only on the seventh And for that if you will take the word false-worship in that sense do not you also worship God falsly when you worship him sinfully And are not your disorders and unmeet expressions sins as well as theirs Alas how oft have I joyned in Prayer with honest men that have spoken confusedly unhandsomly and many waies more unaptly and disorderly than the Common Prayer is How oft have I heard good old Mr. Simeon Ash say that he hath heard many Ministers pray so unfitly that he could heartily have wished that they had rather used the Common Prayer When did any one of us pray without sin How ordinarily do Anabaptists Antinomians Arminians Separatists c. put their Opinions into their Prayers and so make them false Prayers and so false Worship Nay could you lay by partiality and knâ—w your self a very hard thing you would presently see that you who wrote these Exceptions are liker to Worship God falsly than they that do it by the Liturgie that is in the third sense Because the Doctrine of the Prayers in the Liturgie is sound but if you account this Script of yours to be Worship and why not writing as well as preaching or if you put the same things into your Worship which you put into your writings as is very usual with others then it is false Worship indeed as consisting of too many falshoods If you pray to God to encline men against all that Communion which you write against or lament such Communion as a sin this is falser worship than any is in the Liturgick Prayers And if you will call all those modes of worship false which God in Scripture hath not commanded what a false worshipper are you that use a translation of Scripture a Version and tunes of Psalms a dividing the Scripture into Chapters and Verses yea the Method and words of every Sermon and Prayer or most and abundance such like which God commanded not God never bid you use the words of Prayer in the Liturgie Nor did he ever bid you use those which you used last without it O Brother if you knew your self and judged impartially you would see that whatever you say against mens communicating with other mens tolerable failings as false worship may be as stronglie urged for avoiding communion in disordered prayers that are without book and much more in the prayers of honest erroneous Separatists Anabaptists Antinomians c. which yet for my part I will not so easily avoid I confess if my judgment were not more than yours against dividing from each other in the general I should be one that should be as forward to disclaim Communion with many zealous Parties now received by you and that as false worshippers as you are to disclaim Communion with others I am sure you worship God falsly that is sinfully every time that you worship him 3. But seeing my Book disswadeth you equally from unjust avoiding Communion
with all sound and sober Christians I ask you whether all these several parties are false worshippers save you alone Did not the Presbyterians and Independants agree in worship when you gathered Churches out of their Churches and when thousands separated from all the Parish Churches almost then existent Indeed the Anabaptists charged us also with false worship but it was not truly But the ordinary Dividerâ— had not that pretense 4. O how easie a thing is it Brother for a man without any supernatural Grace to reproach another mans Words in Worship and then to abhor it and avoid it and think I am one that keep my self Pure from false Worship But to keep our selves pure from pride censoriousness uncharitableness contention evil speaking and sensual vices is a harder work Others can as easily without mortification or humilitie keep themselves pure from your false worship as you can do from theirs EXCEPT ib. Since the crying sin this day is not separation but unjust and violent Persecution ½ which Mr. Baxter speakâ—eth very little against Answ. 1. A Las dear Brother that after so many years silencing and affliction after flames and Plagues and dreadful judgments after twenty years practice of the sin it self and when we are buried in the very ruines which it caused we should not yet know that our own uncharitable Divisions Alienations and Separations are a crying sin Yea the crying sin 〈◊〉 well as the uncharitableness and hurtfulness of others Alas will God leave us also even us to the obdurateness of Pharaoh Doth not judgment begin with us Is there not crying sin with us what have we done to Christs Kingdome to this Kingdoms to our friends dead and alive to our selves and alas to our enemies by our Divisions And do we not feel it Do we not know it Is it yet to us even to us a crime intolerable to call us to Repentance Wo to us Into what hard-heartedness have we sinned our selves Yea that we should continue in the sin and passionately defend it When will God give us Repentance unto life 2. And whither doth your passion carry you when you wrote so strange an untruth as this that I speak very little against it â— Was it possible for you to read the Book and gather Exceptions and yet to believe your self in this Doth not the Book speak against Church-Tyranny Unjust impositions Violence and taking away mens Liberty and rigor with Dissenters from end to end If any man that readeth but the Preface as page 14 15 16 17 18. and all the second part besides much more can possibly believe you I will never undertake to hinder him from believing any thing 3. But suppose I had said little against it will you charge me with Negatives or omissions before you know my Reasons Or would you have no better people hear of their sin and duty till Persecutors will endure to hear of theirs Exod. 6. 12. Behold the children of Israel have not hearkened unto me how then shall c. â— saith Moses Have most or many of the Separation said more against severities than I have done 4. But could you possibly be ignorant that a License is not to be expected for such a Discourse as you seem here to expect You deal by me as the late Perswasive to Conformity that vehemently calls to me to publish my Reasons for Nonconformity while he knew my hands were tied by the Laws and Licensers 5. But what if I had not in this Book spoken much against Persecution Is it not enough that I have done it in others I have not here written on many subjects which in other Volumes I have written of And why should I If I had would you not have blamed me for writing one thing so oft But you most unhappily chose this Instance for your quarrel I think in the judgment of all the Land that have read my writings Besides my five Disputations of Church Government how oft have I written against Persecution The few Publick Sermons that ever I Preached had somewhat against it Read our Papers to the Bishops in 1660. especially the Reply to their Exceptions and the Petition for Peace Enquire again of the long provoking Conference at the Savoy and the reason of the following indignation against me and afterwards read this Book again and then I modestly chalenge you 1 to name those men in England especially of the Separatists that have said and done more against that severity which you call Persecution than I have done 2. To name me one Licensed Book since the silencing of the Ministers and since the Printing Act That hath said so much against Severity and Persecution as the Book which you quarrel with hath done EXCEPT II. Mr. B. mentioneth with much bitterness what was formerly done in the time of the War which is in him a most unbecoming practice because first Mr. B. was as guilty of stirring up and fomenting that War as any one whatsoever and none ought to blame the effect who gave rise and encouragement to the Cause Answ. 1. IF you mean that my words taste bitterly to you I cannot deny it You know best But for my part any Reader may see in the Book which the Preface referreth to that I only lament our too open undeniable uncharitableness and divisions and the effects thereof and use the mention of some mens former faults with whom they and I can hold communion to prove by way of Argument that they ought not to avoid communion with others for the like or less And I know not how to convince men well if I must pass by all such experimental Arguments 2. Do you not mark your partialitie Brother In our Reply to them 1660. pag. 7 8. et alibi and in my 5 Disput. c. I tell the Bishops of faults past of Silencings and Suspendings c. of the excellent Ministers afflicted and laid by and how ordinarily are they told of the things charged on Bishop Laud Pierce Wren c. in their Articles to the Parliament And when did you blame me or others for so doing Can I believe that this offendeth you And is it sin to tell your selves of your former sins and none to tell the Bishops of it O that we could know what spirit we are of 3. Your third untruth in point of fact is that I was as guilty of stirring up and fomenting that war as any one whatsoever Could you possibly believe your self in this 1. I suppose you never saw me till above ten years after I had done with Wars 2. I suppose you lived far from me 3. If you know whom and what you speak of you know that I was never of the Assembly I never Preached to the Parliament till the day before the King was Voted home I was forced from home to Coventry There it was that I did speak my Opinion but refused their Commission as Chaplain to the Garrison In Shropshire my Father was twice imprisoned that
as much sign of pride in you to think you know more than I as in me to think that I know more in this than you The truth is Pride is not a true valuing but an over-valuing our selves and our own understandings If either you or I be in the right and both think our selves confidently to be so he is the Proud person which ever he be that is in the wrong For it is he that over-valueth his own understanding Here therefore the Evidence must decide the Case EXCEPT V. p. 3. Answered Your 5th Exception implieth more Untruths The first is that I did not consider that fault of the Imposers which I have written in that very book so much against and elsewhere and before said more against than any man that I know in England This was not considerately spoken The second is that all or most of those that you separate from made tearing engines and dividing impositions If this be not implied you speak not to the point But you may easily know that in all the Parish-Churches of England there is not one man or woman no not one Minister of very many that ever made or imposed such Engines The third implied untruth is that I plead either for subscribing Assent or for such Communion as cannot be had without subscribing Assent to what you know is sinful when you may joyn as far as I desire you without subscribing any Assent at all EXCEPT VI. Answered 1. As to the sense of 2 Cor. 6. 14 15 16. and Rev. 18. 6. You confess that the Texts do directly and properly concern only Infidels and Idolaters there mentioned 2. You say It belongs to others that are guilty of the same Crimes under the name of Christians proportionally Answ. Very true If it be not a contradiction If any called Christians be notorious Infidels and Idolaters they are not Christians and so not fit for Christian Communion But from the Societies of such we must flie our selves But not from the societies of Christians alwaies when some such shall intrude 3. You say We are commanded strictly to separate from every one that is called a brother if he be covetous or a railer c. Answ. The Church and not a private man must exclude such a one from Church-Communion And you your self must exclude him from your private familiarity But you are not commanded to separate from the Church if they exclude him not I am not bound to separate from the Church where you are for this Book which you have written though I could prove it railing How few separated Churches know you on earth that have no Covetous person or railer Or at least where the people hold it their dutie to separate from their own Church if any Covetous person or railer be there 4. You add that if notwithstanding all admonition any Church will still retain them we are not to own such a Church as a Spouse of Christ and therefore must come out of it c. Answ. 1. I have in that Book proved the contrarie by abundant Scripture instances And in the next exception you your self confess the primitive corruptions and lay the stress of your Separation only on Imposed Conditions of Communion 2. You give us no proof of this naked assertion If a Scolding woman or a Covetous Professor be reteined in a Church otherwise pure you are not therefore bound to separate much less to take it for no Church For that is a true Church which hath the true essentials of a Church But so may one that reteineth a Covetous man or a Scold Ergo By your rule you must Separate not only from Parish Churches but from most of the Separated Churches that ever I was acquainted with I find no particular Church called A Spouse of Christ but the universal only As a Corporation is not a Kingdome but a part of a Kingdome 5. Above twenty Arguments in my book for Infant Baptism shew that you did not truly say that the best argument that all learned men have ever defended it by is the proportion it hath to Circumcision EXCEPT VII Answered You say that I impertinently recite the Corruptions of the Scripture Churches to prove that we are not to separate c. your reason is Because many Errors in Doctrine and life were formerly admitted yet none of them were imposed as conditions of Communion Answ. Do you not see that here you seem to deny what you said so confidently in the last Exception There you say We must come out if they will receive such for members after all admonition and retein them Here you seem plainlie to yield that up and to lay all on imposed Conditions of Communion as if else you could communicate with Churches so corrupt You can bear your own contradiction better than mine 2. What is imposed on you as a condition to your Communion in the Doctrine and Prayers of the Parish Churches but your actual Communion it self If you will say that their bad Minister and their imperfect form is imposed as a Condition because you must be present so they may say that you also impose your imperfect manner and expressions on them as Conditions of their Communion in your Churches And thus you are all Imposers EXCEPT VIII Answered First you say I said that I met with many Conscientious Professors c. That 's your fifth untruth I said no such thing but only many Censorious professors 2. You say It is hardly possible to believe it But that is possible to men that use to be more careful of speaking truth themselves and that are acquainted with the people of England by such means as Conference which is hardly possible to others 3. You ask Ought not such things to be concealed And you abuse Scripture to confirm it But 1. Are you not here partial Is it your judgement that we should conceal the faults or ignorance or errors of the Bishops Conformists and Parish members Or be they not commonly multiplied and aggravated And yet must the Separatists ignorance and error be concealed 2. Do you desire their Repentance and humiliation whose faults you would have concealed And do you imitate Nehemiah and others of Gods Servants that use to Confess the sins of all ranks and sorts of men 3. Do you use in publick humiliations to confess this ignorance of Professors or not If not what a kind of humiliation do you make If you do do not you publickly reveal this secret 4. How grosly are you unacquainted with England that take this for a secret or for hardly to be believed when we have Congregations and multitudes of such and the land and world ringeth of them 5. Do you not thus harden them that charge us with factiousness when you shew your self so solicitous for the Concealment of the ignorance of your party while you have no such care for others 4. But it is your sixth Untruth in point of fact when you say
brethren and not â—o divide the Church of God 2. And that you say He regardeth not your sufferings who suffereth with you and writeth so much as that book containeth against your sufferings 3. And that you should call that your Innoâ—ency which I have proved so largely to be against the new and great Commandement and when you make so poor an answer to the proof I might number these with your Untruths but that I will choose out the grosser sort such as is the next 15th Untruth that I speak slightly of Christ. Is it slighting Christ to speak the words and undenied truth of Scripture Two things I say of Christ 1. That he increased in wisdom in his youth Do you not believe that to be true Surely Mr Ieanes in all his writings against Dr. Hammond of that point did never deny it 2. That he would not enter upon his publick Ministry till he was about 30 years of age Do you not believe that also What then is here that is a slighting of Christ The reason of this later which I humbly conjecture at and elsewhere express is that he might be an example to young men not to venture and enter too early upon the Ministry The reason you alledge from Num. 4. 2 3. I gainsay not though I think it far fetcht that Christ must not enter sooner upon his publick Ministry in his extraordinary office because the sons of Coâ—ah were numbred from 30 years to 50. But you insinuate another untruth yea express it while you flatly say I insinuate that Christ staid till 30 years old that he might be more perfect in wisdome I had no such word or thought My following words It had been easier for Christ to have got all knowledge by two or three earnest prayers than for any of us refer only to the first clause of his growth in wisdom and not at all to the later of the time of his Ministry But you deny that Christ had any addition of wisdom except as to manifestation I believe Gods word And with others he will be as pardonable that believeth it as he that denyeth it I did not expound it But if I must I will I think that according to the present frame of humane nature the incorporate soul receiveth the several objects it must know ab extra by the fantasie and that by the senses and that our acts of knowing exterior things are as Philosophers affirm objectively organical though not efficiently and formally that is that the Intromission by the senses and phantasie is necessary to the right stating of the object And therefore that in all those acts of Knowledge which Christ exercised as other men do 1. The Object 2. The Organical capacity and aptitude of the body were necessary not to the perfection of his humane soul in Essence Power Virtue Inclination Disposition but only to the Act of Knowing And so I think Christ when new born knew not actually as a man all that he aftâ—r knew no nor long after And that he increased in Actual knowledge 1. As Objects were presented 2. And as the Organs increased in Capacity and aptitude and noâ— otherwise Yet I believe that Christ prayed before his Organs and actual knowledge were at the highest and that he could had it been his Fathers will and his own by prayer have suddenly attained their perfection and that Culpable imperfection he never had any nor such as is the effect of sin in Infants now If this be an error help me out of it by sitter means than reviling You adde that Christ needed not prayer for himself but as a pattern to us c. Answ. Christ had no Culpable need nor as God any natural need But brother take heed of the Common error of them that think they can never say too much or do too much when they are once engaged for this is but undoing 1. Do you think that Christs humane nature was not a Creature 2. Do you think that all Creatures are not Dependant on the Creator and need him not 3. Do you think Christs humane nature needed not Divine sustentation in existence life and motion and Divine influx or Communication hereunto seeing that in God we live and move and be 4. Do you think that Christs body needed not created means as the earth the air meat and drink and sleep and rest And that he needed not drink when it is said he thirsted Ioh. 19. 28. I thirst And Ioh. 4. 6. being wearied with his journey c. ver 7. Give me to drink Whether he needed not cloathing and needed not ordinary bodily supplies when it is said that some ministred to him of their substance Luke 8. 3. As our Father knoweth that we have need of all these things Mat. 6. 8. 32. So I think that Christs humane nature needed them and that he gave not thanks at meat for his Disciples only and that he bid them speak nothing but the truth when he said Mat. 21. 3. Mar. 11. 3. Luke 19. 31. The Lord hath need of him And that it was for himself that he prayed three times that the cup might pass if c. though for our instruction Luke 22. 44. Matt. 26. 42. 44. Heb. 5. 7. Whâ— in the daies of his flesh whâ—n he 〈◊〉 offered up prayers and sâ—ppliâ—atiâ—ns with strong crying and tears unto him that was able to save him from death and was heard in that he feared though he was a son yet learned he obedience by the things which he suffered and being made perfect c. I believe that when he was on the Cross he needed deliverance and when his body was in the grave it needed the Divine power for to effect his resurrection And how a man would have been formerly judged of that had denyed any of this You may learn by the severities of many Councils against the Eutychians Nestorians Monothelites c. I am so regardful of your sufferings that I would not put your mind to any needless grief But yet I heartily wish your Râ—pentance not only for your errors but that you should let out your unknown spirit to such vehemency in your revilings upon such pittiful grounds as when you adde So that to speak so lesseningly of Prayer and Christ to undervalue so much the unspeakable usefulnâ—ss the of one and the incomprehensible Majesty of the other becomes very well the spirit that Mr. Baxter writes with This is but a repetition of untruths EXCEPT XVI p. 9. Answered Having Dir. 27. given five proofs by which I knew many to be mistaken that expound Texts of Scripture by the Impressions on their own spirits I said Dir. 28. It is very ordinary with poor fanciful women and melancholy persons to take all deep apprehensiâ—ns for revelations and if a Text come into their minds to say This text was brought to my mind and set upon my spirit as if nothing could bring a text to their minds but some extraordinary
extreams to consider that If it was a long Liturgie they should not compare the Puritane to the Pharisee in his long prayers as they use to do but to others But if they were extemporate Prayers 1. To one side I say that if Christ had been against extemporate praying he would have put that into his rebukes 2. To the other side I say If the Pharisees had the gift of long extemporate prayers we must take heed of over-valuing such a gift and ascribing it too much to the spirit so that the Pharisees long prayers as a two edged sword cut both extreams in this pievish Controversie 3. This Controversie whether the Iews had a Liturgie is handled so largely by Mr. Selden that I must refer the Reader to him that would see what is said for the affirmative in Eutych Alexandr pag. 35 to p. 63. Where he shews that till Ezra's time there was none but the Scripture Liturgie And that in Ezra's time eighteen Prayers were made and shews how far they might or might not adde Where having cited abundance of Rabbins he shews that however the Jewish Rabbins are fabulous these historical testimonies are our best means of information and are credible and addeth the words of Ios. Scaliger Hic fuit vetus Ritus Celebrationis Paschae temporibus Messiae Quod vetustissimi Canones in Digestis Talmudicis manifesto probant Nisi quis eos neget antiquos esse Quod idem ac si quis capita Papiniani Pauli Ulpiani aliorum Iurisconsultorum in Digestis Iustiniani producta neget esse eorum Iurisconsultorum quorum nomine citantur Quod nemo sanus dixerit EXCEPT XVIII p. 10. Answered Here you except against me if for any thing for being grown so scrupulous and so tender as to be offended if any break jeasts upon Common Prayer Answ. 1. I spake of jesting on both sides at one anothers devotions and not of one alone 2. If you are for that way of breaking jeasts and scorns at other mens prayers with what measure you mete it will be meted to you again They will requite you to the full with jeasts and scorns at yours also 3. Brother do you like this way or do you not If you do what a spirit are you of If you do not why do you quarrel with this advice And whereas you cite my own words in the Reply to the Bishops I must tell you 1. That I know nothing in any of those Papers or Treaty as to the matter that I have changed my judgement in or repent of And I admire that the Prelates that ask so often What will satisfie us and others that carry it to the World as if we had said nothing should to this day leave that Reply and our Liturgie then offered them and our Petition for Peace so much unanswered Which few that knew them will believe is for want of will and fervour or indignation against them 2. That yet the sentence cited by you Whether it be that the Common-Prayer-Book hath never a Prayer for it self I confess is sarcastical and I unfeignedly thank you for calling me to review it and I do unfeignedly repent of it and desire pardon of God and men for speaking words of so much derision Though I then no more perceived my fault than you do yours I mentioned some that were scandalized at the scorns of men at the Liturgie heretofore And 1. He calls it a prophane story fitter for Ranters 2. He challengeth me to tell the names of them that used those expressions 3. He thinks I did greatly sin in repeating them 4. Else he will think I invented them on purpose to make my brethren odious and justifie the persecution against them Answ. 1. If it be so bad why are you so angry with me for being against it and thâ— like or â—ny scorns at other mens tolerable devotion 2. Your challenge is but a drop of your unrighteousness I told you I knew them that were inflamed by those words but not that I knew the Speaker And how should a man know the names of all that look in at a Church-door How oft have I had Quakers in the face of the Market and of the publick Congregation revile me and curse me as in the name of God and speak as bad words as those when I seldome asked what their names were And yet I must name them or be to you a malicious lyar And shall I noâ— be so with you if I obey your challenge Is it not unsâ—voâ—â—y to name men in such stories Well I will thus for this once obey you In 1640. coming up to London to the Physitians I lay at Bosoms-Inn in Laurence-â—â—â—â—e On the Lords-day the Inn-keeper an old man Mr. Hawkshead as I remember his name was came in from Laurence Church with some guests in a very great passion We ask'd him what the matter was He answered that as he went into the Church a fellow look'd in and spake those very words I recited save that he said The Deele instead of The Devil And from very sober honest people I have I believe many score times heard them call the Common Prayer Porridge and say He is not out of his Porridge yet 3. If I sin in repeating them I pray you justifie not that spirit that uttered them Nor be not of the mind of the Councellor of the wicked in this age whose policy is to perswade men to commit such heinous sins Perjury Lying c. which sound odiously in the naming and then no man may ever accuse them lest he be guilty of railing incivility c. 4. Brother a very low degree of ingenuity would have taught you to have judged such a Plea for Love by one that in this book speaketh more against Persecuting you than ever you read I believe in a Licensed book since the printing Act to have come from no malicious persecuting intent Yet as if you were so eagerly set on the Defence of the dividing scandalous miscarriages of this age as to take it for persecution so much as to lament them or pray against them you gather the same conclusion from my very prayers to God for pitty to his Church that is distracted and endangered by such usage And here seeing your sufferings are so much talk'd of and I am numbred by you among your persecutors endure me to tell you that suffering hath its temptations as well as prosperity And that the temptations to passion and to run too far from those we suffer by and to lose our charity to them and their adherents are so much stronger to me I leave others to judge themselves than the temptations to fear and timerous complyances that I was much more jealous of my heart in this when I suffered most than at other times For I knew that it is one of Satans designs to rob me of my Charity and Integrity in which he would more triumph than in depriving me of my maintenance reputation and liberty And I must
confess to you brother that though I once hoped that we should have been great gainers by our sufferings the fruit of them now appeareth to me to be such in many as maketh me more afraid of imprisonment for the sake of my soul than of my body lest it should stir up that passion which should bear down my judgement into some errors and extreams and corrupt and destroy my Love to them by whom I suffer And truly Brother I am fully convinced that many that think their sufferings are their glory and prove them better men than others are lamentably lost and overcome by their sufferings I think your companion and you are no gainers by it who presently by preaching and writing thus bring water to the extinguishing of Christian Love I think those two Gentlemen before mentioned that turned Quakers in prison and left their Religion as many more have done were losers by it And I think many thousands in these times that are driven into various errors and extreams and have lost their charity to adversaries and dissenters have lost a thousand times more than their liberties and money comes to Woe be to the World because of offences And woe be to them by whom offence cometh Experience of too many maketh me less in love with sufferings than I have been And to think that the quiet and peaceable preaching of the Gospel though under many other disadvantages if God would grant it us would be better for our own souls EXCEPT XIX Answered You proceed But Mr. B. being once got into the chair of the scornful will not easily out and therefore goes on It is an odious sound to hear an ignorant rash self-conceited person especially a Preacher to cry out Idolatry Idolatry against his brethrens prayers to God because they have something in them to be amended Whereas we do not therefore think any thing to be guilty of Idolatry because it hath something in it to be amended but because it is used in the worship of God without any command of God to make it lawful And this we must tell our Dictator is a species of Idolatry and forbid in the second Commandement And if he will not receive it so it is to use his own arrogant and imperious words because he understands not Christian sense and reason Answ. 1. The charge of Idolatry against the Liturgie and Conformable Ministers I found in Iohn Goodwins book and Mr. Brownes and others But this Brother carrieth it much further 2. He contradicteth himself in his Negation and Affirmation For whatsoever is to be amended which is used in Gods worship hath no command of God to make it lawful For it is sin But whatsoever is used in Gods worship without any command of God to make it lawful he affirmeth to be Idolatry Ergo whatsoever is used in Gods worship which is to be amended he maketh to be Idolatry 3. Reader if this one Section do not make thy heart grieve for the sake of the Church of Christ that our poor people should be thus taught and our Congregations thus distracted and unholyness that is uncharitableness fathered upon the God of Love and our sufferings and non-conformity thus turned to our reproach and wrath and reviling pretended to be Religion thou hast not a true sense of the concernments of Christianity and the souls of men I shall propose here these few things to thy consideration Quest. 1. Whether an Idolater be not an odious person and unfit for Christian Communion That these men think so their practise sheweth Q. 2. Whether he that writeth and preacheth to prove others Idolaters do not write and preach to make them so far seem odious and to perswade men from loving them and having communion with them as Christians Q. 3. Whether he that preacheth up hatred causelesly and preacheth down Christian love do not preach down the sum of true Religion and preach against God who is Love Q. 4. Whether preaching against God and Religion be not worse than talking against it in an Ale-house or in prophane discourse And fathering all this on God and Religion be not a sad aggravation of it Q. 5. Whether this brother that affirmeth this to be Idolatry that he speaketh against should not have given us some word of proof especially where he calleth me that deny it a Dictator And whether both as Affirmer among Logicians and as Accuser among men of justice the proof be not incumbent on him Q. 6. Whether here be a syllable of proof but his angry affirmation Q. 7. Whether thou canst receive this saying of his if thou have Christian sense and reason so far as to believe that all the Churches of Christ fore-named the Greek the Abissine the Armenian the Coptics the Lutherans and all the Reformed Churches that fall under his Charge are Idolaters And couldst bring thy heart accordingly to condemn them and separate from them And whether thou canst take all the holy Conformists of England such as Bolton Preston Sibbes Stocke Dike Elton Crooke Whateley Fenner c. for Idolaters yea and all the non-Conformists that used and joyned in the Liturgie Q. 8. Whether thou canst believe that this same brother himself that writeth at this rate do use nothing in Gods worship which hath no command of God to make it lawful Is all this reviling all this false doctrine all his untruths commanded of God Or doth he not make himself an Idolater Q. 9. Whether if he teach true doctrine there by any Church or person in the World that worshippeth not God with Idolatry I give my reasons 1. There is no one but sinneth or useth sin in the worship of God But no sin is commanded or lawful Ergo there is no one according to his doctrine but useth Idolatry in the worship of God 2. There is no one that useth not some things not commanded to make them lawful in the worship of God Therefore if he teach true doctrine there is no one but useth Idolatry The antecedent I have oft proved by many instances The method of every Sermon and Prayer the words the time and length the translation of the Scripture whether it shall be this or that the dividing of the Scripture into Chapters and Verses the Meeter of Psalms the Tunes Church utensils Sermon notes which some use Catechisms in forms c. the Printing of the Bible or any other books c. none of these are commanded And all these are used in the worship of God And must all Christians in the World be taught to fly from one another as Idolaters Is this the way of Love and Unity Q. 10. Why should this brother be so extream impatient with me for calling Dividers weak and pievish and censorious Christians If in his own judgement all men be Idolaters that use any thing in Gods worship not commanded Is not this to censure all men as Idolaters And yet is a censure of previshness on these Censurers a justifying of persecution Q.
11. Whether this kind of talk be not sport to the Papists to hear us call one another Idolaters as well as them and do not make them deride us and harden them in their bread-worship and image-worship as being called Idolatry on no better grounds than we so call one another Q. 12. Whether it be not a great dishonour to any man to suffer silencing because he cannot add to Gods worship the Ceremonies and Liturgie and at the same time to add to Gods word new and false doctrines of our own by saying that It is a species of Idolatry forbidden in the second Command because it is used in the worship of God without any command to make it lawful And if we should suffer such false doctrine and additions and Love-killing dividing principlesas this to go uncontradicted whether we do not betray the truth and our flocks and shew that we were too worthy of our sufferings But that this assertion or definition of Idolatry is false I need to prove no otherwise than 1. That it is unproved by him that is to prove it and 2. That it denieth Christ to have a Church on earth or to have any but Churches of Idolaters 3. That it turneth all sin in Gods worship into one species even Idolatry And so every false doctrine used in Gods worship is Idolatry Every Antimonian Anabaptist Separatist or of any other error be it never so small must be presently an Idolater if in prayer or preaching he speak his error And what man is infallible When your Companion promised in the Pulpit that there should be no more Tythes no more Taxes nor no more King in Worcestershire after Worcester-Fight this must be Idolatry For certainly no error is commanded of God 4. That it maketh the description of a thing indifferent to be the description of Idolatry For as a thing forbidden is the description of sin so to be not commanded speaketh no more but Indifferency Though the prohibition to do any thing not commanded speaketh more if it could be proved 5. It is contrary to the Scripture which never useth the word IDOLATRY in that sense Peruse the several texts and try 6. It equalleth almost all Churches with the Infidel and Pagan World 7. It heinously injureth God who is a hater of Idolaters and will visit their sins as God-haters on the third and fourth Generations to feign him to be thus a hater of his Churches and of them that use any thing in his worship not commanded 8. It tendeth to drive all Christians to despair as being Idolaters and so abhorred of God because they have all some uncommanded yea forbidden thing in worship For by this mans doctrine a sinful wandring thought a sinful disorder or tautologie or bad expression is Idolatry as being not commanded 9. It tendeth to drive men to give ever worshipping God because while they are certain to sin they are certain to be Idolaters when they have done their best 10. It hardeneth the Mahometans in their enmity to Christianity who being the great exclaimers against Idolatry do already falsely brand us with that crime But what ever else it do I am sure it is so pernicious an engine of Satan to kill Love and divide the Church to feign every Conformist how holy soever and every one that useth in worship any thing not commanded to be an Idolater that I may well advise all Christians as they love Christ and his Church and their own souls to keep themselves from such mistakes Were it not that it is unmeet to do great works â—â—rily on such slight occasions in such a discourse as this is I would here stay to open the meaning of the second Commandement and shew 1. That there are abundance of lawful things in Gods worship as circumstances and outward modes that are not commanded in specie or individuo 2. That somethings forbidden in that Commandement indirectly are not Idolatry 3. Much less are they a sufficient cause of separation But this is fitter for another place And I again refer you to Mr. Lawson in his Theopolitica EXCEPT XX. Answered This Exception is but a bundle of mistakes and the fruit of your false interpretation of my design 1. That I prove not what I say is not true when the many instances fully prove it and you your self deny them not 2. When I explain my self frequently and fully who I do not mean by Dividers and what separation I allow you feign me to open my mind very unwillingly and to defend those whom I traduce that you may make men believe that I mean those whom I still profess that I mean not and that you know my mind better than I my self This is not true and righteous dealing EXCEPT XXI p. 12. Answered When I say Our presence at the prayers of the Church is no profession of Consent to all that is faulty in those prayers he saith The Apostle thought otherwise in a like â—ase of sitting at meat in an Idols Temple Answ. Brother of all the men that ever I had to do with scarce any hath dealt so superficially without saying any thing against the proofs which I lay down noâ— seeming to take any notice of them How can you choose but see your self that by denying my proposition 1. You make it unlawful to joyne with any Church or person in the World and so would dissolve all Church-Communion and Family-worship For do not all men sin in prayer And must any man consent to sin 2. How do you reflect on God that forbiddeth us to forsake the assembling of our selves together If consenting to sin be unavoidable 3. I told you we Consent not to the faults of our own prayers much less to anothers that are less in our power What work would this one opinion of yours make in the World If we are guilty of all that is faulty in all the prayers of the Church or Family we joyn with yea more do by our presence profess Consent to them and withal if all not commanded in worship be Idolatry what a World are we then in It 's time then to turn seekers and say that Church and Ministry are lost It is these principles brother that I purposely wrote my book against But you speak much besides the truth when you say The Apostle thought otherwise in a like Case For you never prove that he thought otherwise Dare you say I beseech you think on it that Paul and all the Apostles and all the Churches professed consent to all the faults in worship which they were present at How know you that they were never present at any such as Paul reproveth in the Corinthians Yea was Christ a professed Consenter to all that he was present at Or all that he commanded men to be present at when he went to the Synagogues and bade the cleansed go shew themselves to the Priests and offer c. And bade his Disciples hear the Scribes and Pharisees c. I do not charge the
you avoid what you injuriously impute to others when you cry out What could Parker c. have spoken more reproachfully c. Sure you thought I had spoken against fervent preaching it self or else you would not have talk'd as you do Here also after some mention of my Pride and Folly you adde two more gross Untruths 1. That what I spake of individual persons without respect to any party Conformists non-Conformists or Separatists and instanced in many of my own acquaintance some of which now Conform yea are zealous Conformists who were the ferventest loudest Preachers that ever I knew in all my life If I will not tell you who they are alas man did you never know such you must think it concerns all that are at this day engaged in a Gospel separation Answ. Had you said We will think so it might have been true But 1. I had made no mention at all of separation in the whole Direction nor intended any more than I expressed But only meant to direct people to avoid that error in the choice of Teachers which prepareth them for any seduction and division 2. I had largely spoken there for affectionate Preaching 3. I am not acquainted with very many such as in England have been known by the name of Separatists that go no further But those few that I do know I take to be colder duller Preachers than those that are called Presbyterians byfar for the most part of them so far was I from meaning them But Quakers and Fifth-Monarchy men and some Anabaptists I know and many revilers of the Ministry I have known in Armies and Countreys that were just such as I describe 2. It is an untruth that you had no pretence of Reason for that I can think of that I have left off the Lords work and instead of helping it forwards with you am weakening your hands and disgracing the builders If you mean that I preach not in the Pulpit no more do you If you mean that I have not a separated Church I never had one on your principles at least If you mean that I preach not in London 1. I cannot if I would 2. I never had any Pastoral Charge nor place in London but preach'd one year up and down for others and another year took but a voluntary Lecture 3. London I was forced eight years ago to forsake for my health and life 4. Gods work is not only in London 5. I have no call thither nor any people related to me as a Pastor there 6. There are very many worthy men there that want both employment and maintenance whom I will not injure Are not all these reasons enough But if you think otherwise 7. Are not all the Preachers in England forsakers of Gods work that preach not in London 8. I think you preached not for many years when you lay so long in prison Did you then forsake Gods work But I must confess Brother I have alwaies been too slothful and unprofitable a servant and still am Yet I can say that I know no other employment that I have and that I spend no more time in other things than necessities of life require I play away none and I idle away but little and preaching were it oftner is a small part of my work and that will be proved to be the Lords work which you think is against him as all have done that ever I wrote against almost And I love you much the better for being zealous for that which you do but think is the Lords work But I am past doubt that it will prove at last that such doctrines passions and practices as yours will be the weakeners and hinderers of the builders EXCEPT XXVI Answered p. 16. I intreat the Reader to peruse my words which you except against so angrily and I am assured he will find them useful to him in the great Question Who shall be Iudge And to help him out of his perplexities 1. It is a notorious untruth that you say It is altogether a new way of deciding Controversies to affirm Dictator like in all points of belief or practice which are of necessity to Salvation you must ever keep company with the Universal Church Be it right or wrong who knoweth not that knoweth what was held of old that it is the way that Irenaeus Tertullian Epiphanius Hierome Augustine Optatus and abundance more have largely written for And which Vincentius Lirinensis wrote his book for Quod semper ubique ab omnibus c. 2. Note Reader that he leaveth out that I said here no man must be Iudge no not the universal Church but only that they are our associates and that here every Christian maketh the Articles of his Faith his own and upon no mans authority c. But I maintain that it is no Article of absolute necessity to Salvation that hath been unknown to the Universal Church till now for then it were no Church But saith our brother who shall tell us what is the Universal Church And where shall we find it Answ. Are these Questions now to be answered by me Did you never before hear it done by others The Universal Church is the Universality of Christians It is to be found militant on this habitable earth Did you not know this But you ask How comes the Scripture not to be mentioned Answ. Because it was not seasonable or pertinent I was not defining the Church If I had it was definable without the naming of the Scripture at least before the Scripture was written And whence think you did I mean men should make the doctrine of Faith their own past controversie but by the Scripture Good brother till you have written more books for the authority of Scriptures than I have done or preach'd more for it own not such disingenuous intimations 2. You say that what he addes is much more conceited and singular In matters of high and difficult speculation the judgement of one man of extraordinary understanding and clearness is to be preferred before both the Rulers and the Major Vote Answ. It is another Untruth that this is singular My very words are almost verbatim in Mr. Pemble Vind. Grat. elsewhere cited Why do the Scotists so far follow Scotus and the Nominals Ockbam and the Dominicans Aquinas c. if this were a singular opinion Do not all the Peripateticks say the same of Aristotle in Philosophy And the Atomists of Epicurus Democritus and Lucretius and the Cartesians of their Master Doth not Dr. Twisse say the like of Bradwardine and of Piscator And do not many besides Rutherford think the same of him Do not the Ramists say so of Ramus Do not the Protestants say so of Calvin as to all that went before him Nay is it not almost the common opinion of all Learned men And a thing beyond dispute Did ever any man put such points of high speculation to the Major vote Alas brother that you should
you never read 1 Cor. 10. 1. 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12. It 's too long to transcribe Did you never read Heb. 3 and 4 Nor read of the sins of the Polygamy the putting away of wives and other faults of the better sort and the generality of the Jews Did you never read how common the high place-worship was even under godly Kings Nor yet how the Law was neglected till the book was almost unknown Did you never read of the sins of Noah Lot and his Family Abraham Isaac Iacob Moses Aaron and his sons the company of Corah David Solomon Peter c Did you never read of Christs rebuke of his Disciples for their hardness of heart their ignorance their striving who should be greatest And how he took that occasion to warn them by the comparison of a child and by his washing and wiping of their feet Nor yet of his rebuking their common expectation of a temporal Kingdom Are not the errors of the several Religious Sects reproved by the Ancient Writers Irenaeus Tertullian Epiphanius Augustine c. Did you never read any writing counselling men to avoid the errors and sins of the Donatists nor the Novatians the Monothelites the Nestorians Eutychians c The errour of the Religious sort among the Lutherans is Consubstantiation Church-Images Ceremonies c. The error of the Religious Calvinists is too much neglect of the Lords day What those of the Arminians and the Anabaptists and many other sorts are I leave to you Did you never read any man that warned others to avoid these sins and errors Did you never find in the Antimonians writings that the stricter sort of good people went too far in pressing humiliation tears and degrees of sorrow so as to be too dark and sparing in pressing the doctrine of Grace and Love And it was partly true Did you never hear or read how superstition â—remetical and monastical lives excessive fastings and austerities were caused by the strictest people Nor yet of touch not taste not handle not Nor of some lawful things feigned to be unlawful Nor yet that ever Paul wrote to the Corinthians Galatians c. And Christ by Iohn to six of the Asian Churches to know and avoid the sins of Christians together with the hereticks among them Nor yet that Paul said Act. 20. Of your own selves shall men arise speaking perverse things to draw away Disciples after them Nor yet that he said I have no man like minded as Timothy for all seek their own things and not the things that are Iesus Christs Nor that all forsook him at his appearing before Nero Nor that all his Disciples forsook Christ and fled Nor that Paul said that the Ministers of Satan transformed themselves into Ministers of Righteousness In a word that beside all other sins the carnal siding and divisions which Paul reproved the Corinthians for most ages have among the stricter sort been guilty of Would you teach your hearers to put their doctrines or practices to a Major Vote of Professors Do you think we know the sincere from hypocrites Or that either hypocrites or sincere are without sin Or that we must take no warning by good mens falls Must we all do over again all the faults that Religious men have done these 30 years You make my heart grieve Brother to think that there should be a man among us that thinketh the Church must be built up by such doctrines and such means as yours You say We are commanded not to conform our selves to the World Answ. Nor to sinning Christians neither But first say you to suppose that the Religious party have generally some common errors among them and then to advise that we should carefully study to escape them This counsel we think Mr. Baxter may be the father of nor do we envy him the honour of it Answ. 1. Have the Religious sort among the Greeks Abassines Nestorians Iacobites Armenians Lutherans Anabaptists Arminians c. no common error among them 2. Are you for more Infallibility and Perfection than the Papists themselves 3. Will any Christian besides you that is sober deny that we should study to escape them 4. Did you ever read any sober Writer of another mind I beseech you take heed of this pernicious flattery of Professors And I beseech all the Religious that love their souls to take heed of being ensnared by such flattery into a proud impenitent state And in the grief of my heart here I must say to the people that which I expect this brother should impute to enmity to godliness You see by this manner of teaching what you have brought your selves and your Teachers to I have oft grieved to observe that many look that Preachers should make it their business to flatter them and extoll them in the highest praises and to prick others as deep and vilifie them as much as may be and this is the preaching that they are best pleased with I know that the precious and the vile must be widely differenced and he is no Preacher of the Gospel that doth not do it But when the Preacher must notifie our party as precious and cast dung on those as vile whom uncharitable men without proof think vile and must hide all our sins as if to touch them were to reproach Religion it self and must aggravate theirs even the greatest that differ from us or else be a flatterer and temporizer O that such knew but what manner of spirit they are of You adde that I make my advice ridiculous by forgetting that I bid men agree with the Universal Church Answ. I said expresly In the necessary Articles of Faith And must we therefore agree with them in all their sins and errors Or may I not say separate not from most or any Christians as to things true and necessary and yet avoid their sins and he followers of them as they are of Christ. Alas poor Christians that ever you should either be instructed at this rate or yet have need to be instructed against it EXCEPT XXIX Answered Why Brother did you never till now hear either Familists Socinians or the grosser Quakers such as Major Cobbet writes against and Smith called by the name of a Sect Had you no greater thing to quarrel with You shall call them how you will Your anger I pass by EXCEPT XXX Answered Yâ—â— say May we not justly suspect that to be bad in the worship of God which the wicked sort do love Answ. I spake not of what they love but what they are for This change of my words is unrighteous I only advised men not to reject a good cause because it is owned by some or most bad persons And why did you not answer my instance of the Pharisees long prayers We have had many Religious persons or sects that have of late been some against Infant Baptisme some against singing Psalmes some against Ministry and Church-meetings and some against Sacraments and instituted Ordinances and some against Tythes
and Universities and humane Learning And Mr. Norton of New England told me that with them A Church separated from a Church or was gathered out of it rejecting their Pastors and choosing unlearned men and would receive and endure none that had humane Learning and that Moses and Aaron as his words were Magistrates and Ministers went down on their knees to them with tears and could not move them to relent unto unity or to receive a learned Minister nor get any answer from them but that is your judgement and this is ours I speak his very words as neer as I can possibly spoken to old Mr. Ash and me before his yet living companion Mr. Broadstreet a Magistrate of New England Now all this the common people are against Must we therefore be against Magistrates Ministers Ordinances and all because the common people are for them How commonly are they against the Quakers and the Familists and the Infidels and Heathens and with us the Papists Are all these therefore in the right Let any Familist deny the Scripture or the immortality of the soul and the common people will be against them Must we deny God and Christ because we live in a land where they are owned Brother consider 1. That some truths the light of nature teacheth all 2. And some common illumination teacheth multitudes of bad men 3. And some good education and the tradition of their fathers and the Laws of the Countrey teacheth 4. And some are better persons among those that you separate from than many are that separate from them Let not us then be bad and more erroneous than those whom you account the worse and all because they are no worse The Text which you wish me to read on my knees I have done so and I thank you for that advice but I answer not your hope of retracting what I have written in that but contrarily 1. On my knees I pray God to forgive you such abuse of Scripture 2. And to give you a sounder mind For the Text speaketh of Infidels or denyers of Christs incarnation and maketh this the differencing Character Every spirit that confesseth that Iesus is come in the flesh is of God and so on the contrary But are all these Christians that you plead for separation from and charge with Idolatry Infidels and denyers of Christ And all the Churches on earth that use a Liturgie O brother you use not Scripture oâ— the Church aright We grant that in professed Christians also the carnal mind is enmity to God and they that are most carnal are likest to reject the truth But yeâ— we would not wish you to measure Truth by the quality of the Receiver For Christ is truly Christ though many workers of iniquity shall say we have prophesied in thy name Many hereticks have been strict and temperate when the greater part of the Orthodox have been too loose Yet that did not prove the Christian doctrine to be false EXCEPT XXXI Answered I have little here to do but number your visible Untruths in matter of fact One is 21th Untruth He flyes upon all sides that are for order in any kind When I speak not a word against Order nor against any side but the instances of some mens extreams which all that are for Order hold not Your 22d Untruth is Without expressing himself whether he is for Papal Presbyterian or Independent Government in the Church And if this were not crime enough to seem unsetled in so necessary a point What signification have I given of unsetledness When I have long ago publickly told the World my judgement about all this to the full in my five Disputations of Church Government and in a Book called Christian Concord and another called Universal Concord another of Confirmation besides many more But might not a man be setled that were as I am in the main of the same judgement as is expressed in the Waldenses or Bohemian Government described by Laseitius and Commenius which taketh in the best of Episcopacy Presbytery and Independency and leaveth out the worst and the unnecessary parts Are all the Hungarian and Transilvanian and old Polonian Protestants that come neer this order withour Order or unsetled 3. It is your 23d Untruth that I write very dubiously about Iustification whether we are to take it to be by Faith or by works When as all that I was here to say of it is spoken very plainly I have written many books to make my mind as plain as it is possible for me to speak As in my Confession my Disputations of Iustification my Apologies my Answer to Dr. Barlow and in my Life of Faith which was printed before this where I have detected a multitude of errors about Justification and many more And if you expect every time I name Justification I should write the summ of all those books over again I shall fail your expectation though I incur your censure who no doubt ' had I done it would justly have censured such repetition for tedious vanity You adde We fear he is not sound in that point Answ. Your fear is your best confutation and the best assistance that you afford to make me as wise and judicious as your self The Lord say you We hope in mercy to his Church and particularly to those who have been deceived into a good opinion of him will bring this man upon his knees that he may make a publick acknowledgement of his folly Answ. If that be your work it is the same with his that it is said you sometime wrote against so many Volumes have been written already by Papists Prelatists Anabaptists Quakers Seekers and many other Sects for this very end to cure mens good opinion of me as if a man that could but think ill of me were in a fairer hope of his Salvation that if all these have not yet accomplish'd it nor all the famous Sermons that have been preach'd against me I doubt brother that your endeavours come too late You may perswade some few factioâ—s credulous souls into hatred but still those that love God will love one another And I confess of all that ever I saw I least sear your book as to the bringing men out of a good opinion of me unless your name and back-bitings can do it When you say that I say that The presumptuous do boast of being Righteous by Christs imputed Righteousness in conscience and honesty you should not have left out without any fulfilling of the Conditions of the Covenant of Grace on their part Is this just dealing Are there no such presumptuous boasters Or will you justifie them all that you may but vent your wrath on me My judgement in the foresaid point of Imputation of Christs Righteousness I have opened at large in the foresaid writings The Life of Faith Confession Disp. of Iustif c. EXCEPT XXXII p. 18. Answered I said The good of nature is lovely in all men as men even in
I say for these reasons I shall give you as my Conclusion the Order of the Governour and Council of the Massachusets in New-England to all the Elders and Ministers in their Jurisdiction for Catechizing and private labours with all the Families under their Charge Dated at Boston Mar. 10. 1668. To the Elders and Ministers of every Town within the Jurisdiction of the Massachusets in New-England The Governour and Council sendeth greeting Reverend and Beloved in the Lord WHereas we find in the Examples of holy Scripture that Magistrates have not only excited and commanded all the people under their Government to seek the Lord God of their Fathers and do the Law and Commandment 2 Cro. 14. 2 3 4. Ezra 7. 25 26 27. but also stirred up and sent forth the Levites accompanied with other principal men to teach the good knowledge of the Lord throughout all the Cities of Iudah 2. Chron. 17. 6 7 8 9. which endeavours have been crowned with Gods blessing Also we find that our Brethren of the Congregational Perswasion in England have made a good Profession in their Book entituled A Declaration of their Faith and Order Pag. 59. Sect. 14. where they say That although Pastors and Teachers stand especially related unto their particular Churches yet they ought not to neglect others living within their Parochial Bounds but besides their constant publick Preaching to them they ought to enquire after their profiting by the word instructing them in and pressing upon them whether young or old the great Doctrines of the Gospel even personally and particularly so far as their strength and time will permit We hope that sundry of you need not a spur in these things but are consciously careful to do your duty yet forasmuch as we have cause to fear that there is too much neglect in many places notwithstanding the Laws long since provided therein We therefore think it our duty to emit this Declaration unto you earnestly desiring and in the bowels of our Lord Jesus requiring you to be very diligent and careful to Catechize and Instruct all the people especially the Youth under your Charge in the Sound and Orthodox Principles of Christian Religion and that not only in publick but privately from house to house as blessed Paul did Acts 20. 20. or at least three four or more Families meeting together as strength and time may permit taking to your assistance such godly and grave persons as to you may seem most expedient And also that you labour to inform your selves as much as may be meet how your Hearers do profit by the Word of God and how their Conversations do agree therewith and whether the Youth are taught to read the English Tongue taking all occasions to apply suitable Exhortations particularly unto them for the rebuke of those that do evil and for the encouragement of them that do well The effectual and constant prosecution hereof we hope will have a tendency to promote the Salvation of Souls To suppress the growth of Sin and Prophaneness To beget more Love and Unity amongst the people and more Reverence and Esteem of the Ministry and will assuredly be to the enlargement of your Crown and Recompence in Eternal Glory Given at Boston the 10th of March 1668. by the Governour and Council and by them Ordered to be Printed and sent accordingly Edward Rawson Secret FINIS I desire the â—â—ader to 〈◊〉 the most judiâ—ious â—oâ—â—rate Expositioâ— oâ— thâ— sâ—cond Commandment a oâ— all the est iâ— Mr. George Lawson's Thâ—opolitica 1 Untruth False Worship what seven senses of that word 2. Untruth 3. Untruth Of my mentioning former things Whether I were as guilty as any in stirring up the War And guilty of all which he calleth the Effects Whether nothing past must be repented oâ— The Reader must note that I wrote the full Narrative of my Actions herein which this presupposeth but after cast it away because neither part of the accusers can bear it 4 Untruth Whether I never mention the prophane but with honour Of partial genderness Of my foolish talking Of my Pride Whether it be easier to pray extempore or by memory of words Who is to be judged Proud More mistakes Whom we must come out from Whom we must disown as no Church The Corruption of the Scripture Churches 5 Untruth Of concealing the faults of Dividers Of concealing the faults of Dividers * Read but Hornius his description of the English Sects Eccles. Hist. and see what strangers think of us Of my revealing Secrets 7 Untruth 8 Untruth 9 Untruth The Cause of Popery tried Of Mr. Iohnson's Reply to my Book 10 Untruth Whether it be intollerable Pride to say that the Papists understand not Christian sense and reason 11 Untruth Of Separation Of Censuring Papists Of Pauls not scandalizing the weak I know that Expositors much differ about the weak brother here described but not in the point that I now urge the â—ext for More of revealing secrets 12 Untruth Whom I mean by Dividing And of his Curse 13 Untruth Whether I slight prayer And whether wisdom is to be got by prayer alone without any other means 14 Untruth 15. Untruth Whether I speak slightly of Christ How Christ increased in wisdom Whether Christ needed Prayer for himself Of melancholy misinterpretations of Scripture 16 Untruth Whether God hates book-prayers or forms Whether the Jews had a Liturgie in Christs time See Psal 92. and 102 c. 1 Chr. 16. 4. and 25. 2 Chron. 8. 14 15. Of jeasting at other mens â—â—ayers The temptations of sufferings Many are overcome by suffering who think they overcome It 's a reproach to our Nation that Hornius Hist. Eccl. saith Ita ut seperatismus sive Brownismus non alios habeat authores quam cum Tyrannide superstitione Episcopos Dominantes pag. 244. So much good suffering doth Whether all that use any thing in Gods worship not commanded and in particular a form of prayer be Idolaters And what this censure of Idolatry signifyeth Whither we are guilty of consenting to all that is faulty in the prayers that we are present at 17 Untruth Of flattering Christians Whether any 〈◊〉 be 〈…〉 ignorant and injudicious See my book of Directions to weak Christians to grow in grace The greatness of the sin of thus flattering Christians How sad is it to read in Hoâ—nius Salmasius and others abroad such horrid descriptions of the English sects and scandals Though the Actors were not so many as some of them thought Of the loud voice of the Preacher and a sound judgement 18 Untruth 19 Untruth Whether I have left off the Lords work Note how ordinarily Christ himself and his Apostles avoided persecution by removing Of the judgement of the Univeâ—sal Church Of the judgement of Learned men in difficult speculations 20 Untruth Whether honest people be not apt to stray after one anothers example Whether we should mark and avoid the sins of Christians in the time and places where we live Whether the Religious sort may not have some common errour to be avoided 21 Untruth 22 Untruth 23 Untruth Of Justification Whether we can speak bad enough of nature See Act. 17. and 14. And Rom. 1 and 2. 24 Untruth 25 Untruth Whether there be any free-will Whether he that counts all natural men as bad as he can name will not hate them and say bad of them without fear of slander 26 Untruth Whether no persecution can consist with Love 27 Untruth 28 Untruth 29 Untruth Of the fewness of Believers 30 Untruth Whether the same spirit may not be restored to the ancient forms 31 Untruth Maximus Imperator Râ—mpub gâ—bernahat Vir omni vitae merito praedicandus si ei vel diadema non lâ—gitâ—mâ—â—umultuaâ—te milite impositum repudiâ—re vel armis civilibus abstinere licuissâ—t sed mâ—gnum Imperium nec sine peâ—iculo renâ— i nec sine armis potuit teneri Sulp. sevâ—rus Dialog 3. cap. 7. Beda etiam â—ist Eccl. l. 1. c. 9. Maximus vir strâ—nâ—us pâ—obus atque Augusto dignus nisi contra Sacramenti fidem per tyrannidem emersisset c. Invitus propemodum ab exercitu câ—eatus Imperator c. Had not this man brought the Catholick-Church into a little room