now it might have been even in that respect as bad as it is now with us as in other respects it was far worse §. 4. 4. He ends with a continuall strain of provoking language which I pass over and neglect and he concludes all goes on his side saith Well this first exception stands good against your assertion and why Because he saith Nothing I alledged hath proved that any will or doth by word renounce Christ who tenders himself to the Sacrament But I told him It was not necessary to destroy the exception to prove any will or doth but that it 's possible yea probable there might be such an one as would perpetrate such wickedness which cannot be denyed I would be content to lose my argument that it could Who can prove that any one wil commit fornication and continue obstinately under the guilt thereof visibly in some particular Church And yet it followes not thence that such wickedness if committed and be notorious is not a sufficient cause of Ecclesiasticall censure And our present case as to the probability of its occurring is the like PSALM 119. Part 13. N. 97 Nothing I love as thy law high which I mind all the day 98 None of my Foes are wise as I. ' Cause thy Hests with me stay 99 Norknow my Guides that which I do For all thy lawes I mind 100 Nay more than th' Ancients I do know when me thy statutes bind 101 Naughty wayes I have shun'd all That I may keep thy word 102 Nor from the judgements turn I shall For thou hast taught me Lord 103 Nothing sweet as thy word I tast no not the hony pure 104 Noon-light beams they on me cast All false wayes I abjure CHAP. XIV §. 1. A Second Exception I laid in against my Argument was this at numb 32. That such persons as aforesaid tendring themselves to receive cannot openly at that time profess their rejecting Christ because in the tender of themselves to this Ordinance they offer to profess the contrary viz. their owning of Christ To the which I answered 1. That the case under our present consideration supposeth him at the same time when he tenders himself to be admitted to the communion to profess being asked against his owning of Christ q. d. I desire to do as others do in receiving but I am resolved at present I will not submit to the commands of Christ nor part with my lusts which he bids me flye from Mr. W. now to take off this answer besides uncivil chidings here both in the Preface and Epilogue hath onely one thing which I hope was but a mistake in him to alledge Is it your practice saith he to provoke men in the open face of the congregation by asking them questions when they come humbly and reverently to celebrate the Lords Supper with their brethren It is our practice to know those who communicate before the time of celebration come and then when they signifie their intention to receive especially such as have not joyned with us before is a speciall season we lay hold on if any notorious wickedness in one who tenders himself give occasion to admonish him concerning the same And then is the time for suspension if there be just cause not in the moment of celebration there would be the execution of suspension if one suspended should thrust in thither by refusing to administer to him We have no such questioning there the case had no reference to it But it was thus as for example If a person notoriously known to live in whoredome and keeping a strumpet in his house shall tender himself some convenient time before the day of celebration of the Sacrament and then be asked Whether he will leave his wanton and he answer No he cannot leave that vice he hopes God will be mercifull to him notwithstanding and yet he desires to receive as others do will Mr. W. say it was unlawfull or unseasonable then to ask him that question and doth not the said vicious person by professed refusing to repent of and leave his lust renounce an essentiall of Christianity and therefore renounceth Christ notwithstanding his tendring himself to be admitted to the communion drawing on And was not this according to the order formerly appointed in the Church of England See the Rubrick before the communion where it is thus ordered So many as intend to be partakers of the holy communion shall signifie their Names to the Curate over night or else in the morning before the beginning of morning Prayer or immediatly after And if any of those be an open and notorious evil liver or have done any wrong to his neighbour in word or deed the Curate having knowledge thereof shall call him and advertise him in any wise not to presume to the Lords Table untill c. This mistake being discovered I shall not need to insist on the answering divers other passages Mr W. hath after in his Book which are grounded on this unreasonable catch §. 2. 2. My second answer to this second Exception was It 's not impossible for such a man to profess contradictions so that you cannot conclude he professeth not against Christ because he professeth for Christ at the same time or in one breath Mr. W. replie Yea we can and ought in the judgment of charity so to conclude and he would put me off with this slurre should we say it 's not impossible for you to professe contradictions you would rather laugh at our folly then conceive your selfe guilty Give us leave then to judge you none of the wisest for this ridiculous elusion Some prove themselves men by their visibility rather than rationality they will laugh you out an argument of their manhood sooner then give you a reasonable demonstration of it What ridiâ—ulous matter our brother hath here got to make himself merry with I see not if he keep close to the case we are considering of If I say I do accept Christ as tendred in the Gospel and yet in the same breath say Christ shall not reign over me I think I should professe contradictions and my profession of the former is no evidence that I do not profess the later He may turn his tune change his ha into ah and in stead of laughter see just cause of lamentation that such contradictory professions are too frequent An Arian saith I believe the Scriptures to be true yet I believe Christ is but a meer Creature The Socinian saith I take him for my Saviour and Redeemer yet in a proper sense he never redeemed me paid no price never was accursed sor me c. Those mentioned by Christ in the Gospel Matth. 21.38 said This is the heir come let us kill him They acknowledged him heir and so their Lord and Master and yet professe they would kill him was not here a contradiction in one breath professed agreeable to our present case §. 3. A third answer to this second Exception I suggested thus at numb
courtesie and therefore that double letter he hath made the character of himselfe in his dealing with mee shall still stand for his name in the discourse following And now Reader thou mayst next peruse a true Copy of my paper which he gave thee depraved with his pretended refutation thereof and then my defence which is Christianly submitted to thy impartial judgement I shall not in the least go about to court my Reader into a complyance with me I wish him not to take one step to accompany me in an errour appearing so to be nor will it be for his advantage to refuse any complyance which the light here offered may rationally require from him I leave the whole intirely before him desiring the Father of lights by his holy Spirit to guide him into and preserve him in the wayes or rather way of peace and truth Suspension Reviewed CLEARED SETLED upon plain Scripture-Proof THe Argument Mr W. impugneth was thus managed in my Manuscript It is said by some that no unregenerate or ignorant and scandalous members in the Church being baptized and of years not excommunicate may be debarred the Lords Supper they expressing their desires to receive and proferring themselves These words Timpson hath in his Answer to Collins p. 2. For the better understanding of this position according to the mind of the Assertors thereof it may be noted That 1. The Question which is at present under consideration reacheth to any course which is effectual for debarring of the foresaid persons whether it be by disswading them from coming or by forcing them in a way of Ecclesiastical censure to keep back Those who defend the forementioned Thesis hold it unlawfull to advice the forementioned persons to forbear as well as to hinder them by juridicall suspension I hold the lawfulness of debarring both waies and the proving of either overthrows the foresaid position according to the minde of them who assert the same 2. Supposing it to be an act of power whereby they are debarr'd yet then the Question is not at present concerning the subject of that power whether it belong to the Eldership and that whether Congregationall or Classical c or to the community of a particular Congregation or to one single person whether a Diocesan Bishop or a Minister 3. Nor yet is the Question what kinde of power that is whereby they may be suspended whether it may be done by vertue of the power of order inherent in a Minister as such or by the power of jurisdiction c. But the Question is only concerning the lawfulnes of the act of suspending the foresaid persons by any person or persons whatsoever in whatsoever capacity they are or by whatsoever kind of power it may be exerted by them or any of them 4. Those who hold the forementioned position do understand the excommunication which they speak of to contain in the essence of it an exclusion from all or divers other publique Ordinances in the Church as well as from the Sacrament So that to them one not excommunicate and one not excluded from or warned to depart the publique Ordinances of hearing and praying and singing in the Church are of equal importance Whence it manifestly follows that if I prove some persons scandalously wicked who are not kept from all other publique Ordinances may be suspended from the Lords Supper they must acknowledge their assertion fully overthrown 5. They also intend by excommunicat such as are fully and compleatly with solemnity excommunicate For they cannot be ignorant that our Divines who hold suspension when it is a censure take it to be a degree of excommunication and therefore call it excommunicatio minor And it is exclusio sive suspensio vel abstinentia a coenâ Domini quâ interdicitur peccator ad tempus coenae participatione as Trelcatius Trelca Instit l. 2. Bucan loc com 44. qu. 10. 16. Polan Syntag. Theol. l. 7. c. 18. To the like sense speaks Amesius med Theol. l. 1. c. 37 de conscientiâ l. 4. c. 29. Bucanus Polanus and others express it Neither doth Aretius deny this for ought I can finde I know in his common places he saith Excommunication is larger then Suspension from the Communion of the Lords Supper according to the Scriptures But I suppose he saith not any where there I am sure he doth not nor I think in his Commentaries that its unlawfull to inflict the censure of excommunication by degrees Unless therefore our Admissionists do take excommunicate for fully excommunicate they trifle egregiously For then the meaning of their Assertion would be no wicked Church members not excommunicate may be excommunicated and that because they are not excommunicate But rather they deny all gradual proceedings in excommunication and so reject the distinction of major and minor If therefore I prove that it is lawfull to begin excommunication in suspension for a time and to stay there some time before there be a proceeding to a more solemne curting off in the face of the publique Congregation and with their consent I suppose my Antagonists will acknowledge this a lawfull manner of combat against their free admission pleaded for 6. That passage in Amesius I judge very remarkable in this Question which he hath in his de conscientiâ lib. 4. c. 29. Suspensio ab usu coenae similibus ecclesiae privilegijs nihil aliud est quam gradus excommunicationis ideo vocari solct A Multis excommunicatio minor quamvis non ex singulari Christi instiruto ex aequitate tamen et rei ipsius naturâ praecedere debet aliquandiu continuari ubi scandali ratio ferre potest moram I wish some who have written for suspension had observed this passage and if they had attended to it I thinke they would have defended their Province never a jot the worse then they have done 7. It is not necessary in opposition to my Antagonists Assertion that I should say all unregenerate ignorant or scandalous members baptized c. may be debarred or suspended the Lords Supper But it is sufficient to overthrow their opinion if I prove that some may For their tenent in reference to baptized persons of years not excommunicate is an universall negative that none such may be debarr'd Now one particular affirmative destroys a universall negative It belongs not to the present disquisition for what or how many sins or in how many and what cases any person qualified as aforesaid may be debarred but whether in any case for any sin he may be debarred For if in any case it may be lawfull to suspend a person not fully excommunicate and that is according to the sense of my Antagonists here excluded from all publique service in the Church then that cannot be freed from untruth which they assert viz. that there is no such ordinance of suspension in the Church approved by Christ This caution is not more plaine in it selfe and what can be plainer then it is
right Reason doth dictate in respect of government in generall agreeing to all government as such as it doth in many things Christians are to make use thereof in reference to Ecclesiastical government Alwayes provided that that must not be accounted right Reason which thwarts the blessed Scriptures which should ever prevail against any conceit of our own Right Reason it self teaching us that God is infinitely wiser then we and that Christs lawes must be obeyed not disputed when once they appear to be his lawes But the light of Nature the spirit of man that candle of the Lord doth direct in many wholsome things for the due ordering of any society in a suitableness to the end for which the association thereof is lawfully made whether Civill in Families Towns Kingdomes States or Ecclesiasticall in particular Churches or in the associations of particular Churches greater or lesser 2. Yea the law of Nature or Naturall Reason is part of Christs law whereby he rules his Church And therefore Christians not onely may but ought to act prudentially in the administration of Church affairs as well as in other things and to make use of all the light of Reason in pursuing that general Rule Let all things be done decently and in order 3. Yet in Ecclesiasticall government Christ the King of his Church hath given us many positive Directions in his Word partly by express preceptive Rules and partly by obligatory presidents and examples such especially as were not suited to any temporary account of those times and the condition thereof but whose ground and reason still continues in all the succeeding ages and conditions of the Church These are Ecclesiasticall constitutions on a Divine right simply and strictly From these we may not digress upon any pretence of Reason whatsoever Yea because we must act rationally therefore we must close with all these the directions of wisdome it self and deal with all our conceits and humours making insurrections against the same as with mutiners which are in rebellion against their Lord and Master 4. In a larger sense also a government may be said to be by Divine right not onely in reference to its compliance with the foresaid positive Scripture rules and binding examples but also in respect of its rationall suitableness to godly prudence for the order and edification of the Church in things not particularly determined in the Scriptures and yet neither expresly nor by consequence thwarted by the same And thus I suppose who ever have owned a Church-government they have thought it by Divine right that is that it was according to the Scriptures and not contrary thereunto 5. And thus I was satisfied to comply with the constitutions of the Presbyterial government the government in substance upon the matter of all the forraign Protestant Churches in Europe composed by a learned pious and judicious Assembly imposed by authority of both Houses of Parliament when I first setled in this County and by their Ordinance of Aug. 29. 1648. still continued as much in force for ought I know as any other law at least as any other Ordinance of Parliament divers whereof are acknowledged to be still in force Upon the apprehension I say of the lawfulnesse of the said government partly upon a strictly Scripturall account in the main things and partly viz. in lesser matters upon a rational prudentiall account not contrary to the Scripture I did and do submit unto the same And I doubt not if it had been faithfully pursued according to the religious design and intention of the imposers thereof the excellent fruits thereof through Gods blessing would have been so great as might have silenced the most of its considerable adversaries §. 3. In my fifth note at Numb 10.11 12 13 14. I hinted the ordinary and common distinction among reformed Divines of the greater and lesser Excommunication Here Mr. W. crowes over me as flying to the authority of men of so late a standing for proving the abstention pleaded for Whereas any one yea one whose brains are as ill mar'd as he tells the world he fears mine are may easily perceive that I quoted them not to prove suspension but to shew that they called Suspension Lesser Excommunication And therefore those who oppose the debarring of the suspended should not have stated this question simply concerning the unexcommunicate without distinction And yet for all Mr. W. so much blames me for this he himself quotes Peter Martyr who saith he pag. 18. being as great an Antiquary and as great a reverencer of true Antiquity as any of you saith That though degrees of excommunication may easily be proved from the writings of the Fathers yet no such thing can be proved from Scripture And Mr. W. gives his own judgment thus pag. 20. 21. We deny not degrees unto excommunication nor in excommmnication unto further degrees of severity in case of persistance in obstinacy against the authority of the Church To both which I answer 1. Comparisons are odious Doth Mr. W. know that none who assert suspension do excell Peter Martyr in knowledge and esteem of Antiquity Belike he thinks his tongue is his own and he may talk at randome Our renowned Usher hath a glorious name in forreign Countries as well as in these Nations for the Prince of Antiquaries who hath merited such an Epitaph as Doctor Hackwell in hs Apology for Gods providence l. 3. c. 6. § 2. saith was bestowed on that Phoenix of learning Johannes Picus Earle of Mirandula Johanes jacet hic Mirandula caetera norunt Et Tagus Ganges forsan Antipodes Yet hath this our most learned Doctor and Bishop pleaded for Suspension and that as grounded upon the holy Scripture in his Body of Divinity pag. 435. 2. Did the Fathers think their degrees of excommunication which they admitted were not regulated within Scripture-bounds 3. If that degrees of excommunication may be proved from the Fathers how come those who now plead for degrees of excommunication to be charged with novelty and innovation and how came it to passe that Mr. W. in his Epistle passed his word to the judicious Reader that all men of reading know how much the Church government mentioned in or collected from the Fathers and in use in their dayes differs from our mens present Model Immediatly before these words Mr. W. exclaim'd High language It may very fitly be the Title and Epithete of these his words following What was Grotius no man of reading was he not a man confessedly impartiall in this matter who yet asserts the ruling Elder from antiquity Imper. sum potest circa sacra c. 11. quoted by Mr. Blake Covenant sealed cap. 7. § 16. Was our renowned Cambridge Professor Doctor Whitaker no man of reading who in his Defence of his answer to Campions ten Reasons against Dureus London 1583. l 9. de Sophismatis p. Mihi 807. saith Ita es ignarus ut esse in Christi Ecclesia presbyteros nescias qui gubernationi tantum non verbi
another Scriture phrase referring to the casting of a person out of the communion of the Church In the 2 Thess 3. There are two other phrases both relating to the denying some communion to disorderly Christians Many think these especially the first of these belong not to any authoritative sententiall excommunication pronounced and declared by the Officers of the Church but shew the duty lying on all Christians to use their own discretion to discern and seperate from these offenders so far as concerned them in their places and stations The first of them is at verse 6. We command you brethren to withdraw your selves from every brother that walketh disorderly And the later is at verse 14. If any man obey not our word by this Epistle note that man and have no company with him that he may be ashamed yet count him not as an enemy c. That also is a denying of some Christian communion which the Apostle exhorts to in the third Epistle of John verse 10 11. If there come any to you and bring not this doctrine that is a doctrine contrary to the doctrine they had received before mentioned receive him not into your house nor bid him god speed For he that biddeth him god speed is partaker of his evill deeds the which Doctor Hammond interprets of the wicked and Apostatizing Christian Gnosticks who taught men to deny Christ in time of persecution §. 6. From these hints the Scripture gives us about withdrawing communion from wicked Christians duely perused we may gather 1. That Excommunication is no Scripture word but is used by the Church to signifie all that just Ecclesiastical severity which over and besides admonition is to be used towards a wicked brother in respect of the Churches behaviour towards him for the reclaiming of him ond freeing the Church from the pollution of his intimate society For this description doth agree to the texts before mentioned as is manifest and therefore if excommunication do signifie what is the sense of those texts we shall not in the description aforesaid misconceive the importance of it That it is a part of Ecclesiasticall severity no one doubts all the texts mentioned do evince that That it is all that Ecclesiasticall severity the Church and members thereof do make use of besides admonition will not I think be questioned because so generally Authors do make Admonition and Excommunication the only divident members of Church censures in generall and because also neither the texts quoted nor any other do give ground for adding a third part of Ecclesiasticall censure distinct from these The rest of the description also is so plain in the texts that I shall not insist upon any of the particulars thereof viz. that the object of Excommunication is a wicked Brother that it is inflicted by the Church and the members thereof and that for the ends mentioned It is implyed in just Ecclesiasticall severity that it is done according to the appointment of Jesus Christ 2. Excommunication is nothing else but a Suspension of a person at present from personal priviledges not a cuttig him off simply from the Church But as I said a suspending him from the priviledges which as an orderly Church-member he might rightfully enjoy Mr. W. renders extra communionem ejectio an ejection out of the common union p. 15. But though some excommunicate persons are to be dealt with in some eminent respects as if they were cut off from and were none of the Church in reference whereto it is ordinary for Divines to speak of them as cut off Yet they are not simply cut off from all union with the Church thereby nor are so to he reputed which may be evinced from the forementioned Scriptures For 1. he that is most excommunicate according to those Scriptures is to be but as an heathen therefore not an heathen Simile quâ simile non est idem Now if he were simply cut off he should be an heathen and not onely as an heathen 2. Some excommunicate are to be accounted as Brethren 2 Thess 3.15 Therefore they are not reputed no Church-members 3. The Pastors are to have a pastorall care over the excommunicate and they and other Church members are still to admonish him as a brother 4. He is onely as a sick person under cure and Church remedies in order to his recovery 1 Cor. 5.5 Mat. 18.15 1 Tim. 1.20 Now there is no physicking of a member simply cut off 5. He is obliged to hear the word as a Church-member and to receive admonitions in publick and private For he is tied by vertue of the baptismall Covenant he hath professedly entred into to exercise himself in all the ordinances of Christ he hath opportunity for as he hath for hearing the word as well as an heathen with hope of receiving good thereby and for some other ordinances it is said that he looseth at present possessionem rather then jus as Mr Rutherford expresseth it and explains it by the similitude of a man having three houses who is for some offence confined to some one of them and sequestred from the other so as he may not make use of them 6. If he were made no Church-member by excommunication he should upon his repentance be rebaptized and so the Donatists rebaptized those who came into their Societies which was reasonable enough upon supposition that they were before no members of the visible Church as Mr. W. speaks pag. 22. 23. and passim alibi But the excommunicate when readmitted are not to be rebaptized therefore they were not reputed simply no Church-members whiles they were excommunicate 7. All say they are cut off but conditionally if they do not repent therefore they are not cut off till that condition be fulfilled which cannot be before their death for ought we know the sin against the Holy Ghost or the sin unto death I suppose can hardly if at all be known to be committed by any individuall person so as that the Church should conclude him absolutely irrecoverable To say a person is cut off conditionally includes he is not simply and absolutely cut off whiles that condition of his finall impenitency is not existent and accomplished Doctor Ricard Field of the Church lib. 1. ch 13 14 15. shewes how those three sorts of men who go out of the Church viz. Schismaticks Hereticks and notoriously wicked persons who are excommunicate do yet all of them remain still parts of the Church of God And concerning the last of them he thus speaks ch 15. Excommunication doth not wholly cut off the excommunicate from the visible Church of God For they may and often do retain the intire prosession of saving Truth together with the Character of Baptisme which is the mark of Christianity and so far forth notwithstanding their disobedience still acknowledge them to be their lawfull Pastors and Guides by whose sentence they are excommunicate that they would rather endure and suffer any thing then schismatically joyn themselves to
also because in a neighbourhood and association of Congregationall Churches this excommunication passed in some one of them is not likely to be effectuall for humbling the offender unless the rest also comply therewith And it cannot be expected they should unless they have satisfaction concerning the justness thereof Therefore we judge it requisite that where a Classis may be had this excommunication be managed with their advice and consent that so other Ministers and Churches may not admit an excommunicate of any one to their Communion among them either sacramentall or that private encouraging fellowship which by excommunication he is justly debarrd from at home §. 12. 5 Lastly from the Texts before mentioned it may also appeare that there is an excommunication ipso jure as well as facto that is 1. where the Law of God determines who are to be withdrawn from and it s left to the discretion of the Church-Officers and private members to determine who those persons are who by the Law are so excommunicate upon a notorious manifestation thereof And 2. where there is required the juridical sentence of some Ecclesiastical Judge to determine that such a person is to be excommunicated This latter none doubt of And the former is proved by 2 Thes 3.6 and 3 John ver 10 11. That learned Gentleman Mr. William Morice quotes Estius saying that If the crime be so notorious that by no gainsaying it can be denied it seemes not that the sentence of the Judge is to be expected in order to the avoyding of the offender This quotation he hath in the 147 page of his booke which he hath entituled Caena quas◠〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The new Inclosures broken down and the Lords Supper laid forth in common for all Church-members having a dogmatical faith and not being scandalous Which position if it be limited to Church members adult who have duely once made a personal recognition of their baptismal Engagements And if herein he exclude not the profession of a justifying faith as if it were not necessary to be joyned to and with the dogmatical faith he speakes I say if that position of his be so understood as I see not but it may according to the tenor of his discourse following I finde nothing therein to be gainsayd For all such Church members are to be reputed and dealt with as justified sincere beleevers §. 13. In my sixth particular concerning the state of the Question in the M S. numb 15 16. I made use of Ames his words to expresse my minde viz that the lesser degree of excommunication which consisted in suspension hath place in the Church not by any particular express Institution of Christ but from equity and the nature of the thing it selfe There first Mr. W. flouts me as quoting so low an Authority and adjudgeth me to be stiled a private man for it I had been more private but for him But it s evident I built nothing upon the authority of Ames here no more then Mr. W. doth on the Author of charity mistaken or Tornesius which he quotes in his Epistle Next he gives us his observations concerning the time and order of Ames his workes and that in part I thinke to shew my quotation of him to be amisse And though he after mention his Transcriber of my copy his diligence he commends that none of the faults may be taken off my selfe Let him excuse his Transcriber as he pleaseth my paper quoted Ames de Consc lib. 4. cap. 29. But who could thinke this lofty Eagle would deigne to catch at such poore flies as these But he had leasure enough it seemes and a mind to say any thing so it might be against me And then because Ames is not of my minde in all things about the subject of the power of excommunication he tells the world I wrong Ames in quoting that passage from him When as our dispute was purposely and expresly separated from the Question about the subject of this power Numb 5 6. §. 14. My seventh and last note was to this purpose One particular affirmative overthrows an universal negative and therefore if I prove some in the Question in any case may be suspended I attaine my end The which is so manifestly true to every fresh man that Mr. W. hath not the face to deny it yet he chides about it extreamly but most impotently as if he would challenge our Wych-wallers to a scuffle with him Your majesticall severity in a bead roll of words as if you would charm the senses of the vulgar with your rare skil in Logick to delude the simple by fraudulent and illogical arguments c. Thus his tongue runs at random and he hath confuted me fluently if his Reader will but do him this small very little favour as to beleeve him without proofe But in the midst of this ranting fit he interweaves two impertinent Questions Pag. 31. The first is this Why all unregenerate ignorant and scandalous members should not be debarred as well as some seeing they all as well as some do stand guilty of the same notorious cause of exclusion To which I answer 1. Some may be unregenerate who are neither ignorant nor scandalous 2. There are degrees of ignorance and scandall and therefore some may be more debarrable than others 3. I no where say that any notoriously ignorant or scandalous should be admitted but its sufficient for the overthrowing their universall negative None such may be debarred if I evince any may let him look to it whether all such may my present province not putting me on the proofe thereof His second Query is Whether your pretented flagitious Burgess may lawfully be whipt before be he carefully convented or convicted or after If before tell us by what Law if not till afterwards Then you no wayes contradict our Assertion As if I had brought this simile to prove suspension when as I used it only to shew that a particular affirmative overthrows an universall negative viz. that if some flagitious Citizen may be whipt then its false that none such may so it some scandalous Church-members may be suspended then its false that none such may The matter he queries as to some excommunication of scandalous persons notoriously such although no juridical sentence of an Ecclesiastical Judge hath passed on them to be such hath been answered in the last section And now having dispatcht his cavills against my explication of the Question and the management thereof I shall attend him in the argument it selfe But first let me take a little refreshing PSALM 119. part 3d. C. 17 Choyce bounty shew that whiles I live Thy Word I keepe with awe 18 Cleere up my dim eyes to perceive The wonders of thy Law 19 Conceale not from me thy Lawes high I am a stranger here 20 Care breakes my soul whiles all times I Long for thy Judgements deare 21 Curst are the proud whom thou dost blame Who from thy precepls stray 22 Cast not on
Respondent indeed But what he might have said as befitted a Respondent in a few lines he must spend many leaves upon though not altogether in the following part of his booke This being the very point of my argument and this place most fit to consider it more throughly I shall here make my reply to him upon it once for all §. 3. Visible unbeleevers is not taken saith he p. 47. in the same sense in the Major and Minor In the Major according to the ancient and famous sense of the Catholique Church for pagan Infidels for men without for non-receivers of Christian doctrine but positively standing under the delusion of some visible Idoll or Idolls In the Minor according to your moderne Brownisme that 's one of the flowers he useth to dress me a garland with and private sense for Christians within the Church baptized and adult but manifestly defective in their Christian Ethicks though orthodoxall otherwise in all points of faith and frequenters of our Church Assemblyes and solemnities as professedly of our Protestant perswasion in point of Religion and divine worship By the way I might reply What if these baptized adult persons are not orthodox in faith nor frequenters of our Church assemblies and Solemnities Are they then unbelievers in the first sense or must there be a third sense devised for them The Reader will observe this confusion But if he had applied this distinction such an one as it is he had done somewhat becoming the place he hath taken upon him But that he leaves at large Well since one good turn requires another I will endeavour to make out his Answer as he ere-while thought to do my Argument And it may be this Visibly unbelievers may be taken in a two-fold sense 1. For Pagan-infidels 2. Morbid-Christians under which term I suppose he will contain scandalous and notoriously-prophane Christians or else he saith nothing to the question Now take visible unbelievers in the former sense for Pagan-Insidels and then I grant the Major Those who are visibly unbelievers that is Pagans are such to whom the Lords Supper ought not to be administred And then I deny the Minor All who in word openly renounce Christ are not visibly unbelievers that is visibly Pagans But take visible unbelievers in the later sense for Morbid-Christians and then I grant the Minor Those who by word openly renounce Christ are visibly unbelievers that is Morbid Christians But then I deny the Major and say That those who are visibly unbelievers that is Morbid Christians are not such to whom the Lords Supper ought to be administred I appeal to any judicious Reader whether I wrong Mr. W. in this guessing at the application of his distinction and answer thereupon to my Argument And indeed this elsewhere he gives us in as his sense many times over and over p. 50. saith he You mis-judge in taking the Morbid Church members of our Parochial Assemblies to be unbelievers and Infidels positively as Pagans c. So p. 51 52 53. and passim alibi §. 4. Here Mr. W. asserts that to use the word Infidel or unbeliever for any but Pagans who never took on them a positive obligation to the service of the true God is Brownisme And that the Scripture and Catholique sense of the word doth onely denote Pagans But how hastily was this asserted by him shall be shewed in the following observations concerning the Scripture use of the word 1. Christ said to Thomas John 20.27 Be not thou 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 be not an unbeliever but a believer Was not he now in a possibility ex natura rei though baptized to have become an unbeliever by apostasie from the principles of the Christian faith especially this that Jesus is the Messias 2. Those two Texts 2 Cor. 6.14 15. Be not unequally yoaked with unbelievers What part hath a believer with an Infidel and Titus 1.15 To the unbelievers nothing is pure c. are both expounded by Dr Hammond whose reasons are worth weighing to be understood of the Gnostick Hereticks called there Infidels or unbelievers in that their doctrines and practices made so great an opposition to the Gospel 3. And on Matth. 24.51 he makes those two words hypocrites and unbelievers of equall importance i. e. saith he Knaves false deeeitfull persons expressed by S. Luke in setting this down ch 12.46 by 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 unbelievers or unfaithfull And he renders the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Rev. 21.8 unfaithful that fall off from Christ 4. The Jewes after Christs ascension who received not Jesus for their Christ or Messias were unbelievers in Scripture-sense Act. 14.2 and 17.5 yet were they not then Pagans under no positive obligation of worshiping a false God And an excommunicate person who hath been baptized and still professeth the Christian faith is to be dealt with as an Heathen yet he is no Pagan nor absolutely cut off from the Church as hath been shewed above And the Apostle tells us that the Jewes were broken off by unbelief though they were Church-members before Rom. 11.23 5. Belief doth ordinarily in Scripture-sense denote such a professed acceptance of the Gospel-call as includes sincere obedience and visible believing visibly sincere actuall obedience And on the contrary unbelief and unbelieving may in Scripture-sense denote wilfull disobedience and rebellion against the Gospel and visible unbelief such visible notorious rebellion or actuall disobedience Therefore some disobedient within the Church may be termed unbelievers For the Concrete is rightly denominated from the abstract a just man from justice so an unbeliever from unbelief prevailing The Antecedent is manifest in many Scripture-instances 1. That believing to which justification and pardon of sin is annexed is a sincere and obedientiall believing 2. And so also is that to which salvation is promised But to a Scripture-believing is annexed justification Act. 16.39 and pardon of sin Act. 10.43 And also to it is promised salvation and that most frequently Act. 16.31 Rom. 10.9 1 Cor. 1.21 Gal. 3.22 Eph. 1.19 2 Thess 1.10 Heb. 4.3 10.39 John 3.15 16 18 36. 6.35 40 47. 11.25 26. 12.46 Rom. 1.16 9.33 Mark 16.16 1 Pet. 2.6 1 Iohn 5.10 3. It may also be observed how Abraham is called the Father of believers in respect of that eminent and exemplary faith of his which was truly justifying and saving and included in it sincere actuall obedience Rom. 4.3 Gal. 3.6 So not to believe is not to obey Rom. 15.31 Rom. 10.16 They have not all obeyed the Gospel For Esaias saith Lord who hath believed our report And this is referred to the Jewes who were Church-members at least before Christs death And those in the later time who should depart from the faith may be called unbelievers those departers from the faith mentioned 1 Tim. 4.1 2 3 4. the learned Mr. Mede doth shew are meant of Papists and the grand apostasie of the Antichristian Man of Sin So those who draw back from the truth
you In the Common-prayer book it is Take eat this in remembrance that Christ died for thee Drink this in remembrance that Christs blood was shed for thee The Directory saith in Pauls words This is the body of Christ which is broken for you Whence I argue The Lords Supper ought not to be administred to them to whom these words may not be spoken particularly in the administration of it But to such unbelievers as are such in respect of their notorious visible disobedience to the Gospel these words may not be spoken particularly in the administration of the Sacrament Therefore to them the Lords Supper ought not to be administred The Major is above exception For those ought not to be admitted to whom the Minister may not say what he ought to apply to the communicants The Minor I shall further insist upon and labour to clear In order whereto I must enquire into the meaning of the foresaid words to be used in the form of administration It must be acknowledged that these words considered absolutely and in themselves may be interpreted more generally either 1. of Christs being sacrificed for the redemption of all the world of mankind the genus humanum and that not onely sufficienter for that which is paid for the redemption of persons is not strictly a price because it is sufficient in its own nature to be a worthy and valuable consideration to redeem them but conditionally by way of Christs intention also to redeem mankind that is upon the condition of believing So that this Gospel may be preached to every humane creature not so to any lapsed Angel He that believeth and is baptized shal be saved God so loved the world c. Or 2. if this please not the fuller explication whereof may be seen in learned Camero and the larger disquisition of it in the acute Amyraldus Christ dyed for all in that he bought all to be Lord and Ruler over them as Mediator in the Kingdome he hath received by dispensation from the Father to be Lord of all Or 3. as he procured some common benefits for all But I conceive it 's manifest these words of administration considered as words of administration in the Sacrament and so with speciall relation to the Sacrament cannot be understood in so large a sense q d. Christ died for thee if thou will believe or on condition of thy faith or Christ died for thee or was broken for thee that he might have power over thee as Lord and Judge or to purchase some common benefits for thee as he did for all mankind For so they might be applyed to heathens yea to the most wicked of heathens and such as are visibly in the most nototious opposition of and apostasie from the very name of Christianity and so this should be no more an application of comfort to the visibly most worthy receiver then is applicable to the vilest Mahumetan on the face of the earth §. 11. There is another as narrow a sense put on the words as the former is large and that is to restrain them to the application of the benefits of Christs death absolutely to every receiver q. d. This is the body of Christ in which thou hast saving interest As surely as thou receivest the outward signes so certainly is the inward grace there also But this cannot be the meaning here because no Church nor Minister can certainly tell who those are who are sincere believers who onely are partakers absolutely of the remission of sins purchased by Christs broken body and his blood made over unto them There remains onely a third sense that I know of which is a mean betwixt the two former And this is to be founded on the manifest sense of other such like passages in Scripture and the nature of the Lords Supper it self Paul saith to the Corinthians 1 Cor. 5.11 But ye are washed but ye are are sanctified but ye are justified in the name of the Lord Jesus and by the spirit of our God And to the Ephesians Eph. 2.1 8 19 20 21 22. You hath he qu ekned who were dead in trespasses and sins by grace ye are saved through faith chap. 5.8 Ye were sometimes darkness but now are ye light in the Lord. Abundance of such passages there be in Scripture where it is manifest the Apostle applies to them the comforts and benefits of sincere believers as theirs and yet he knew not their sincerity absolutely It must needs then be that according to his knowledge of their sincerity so was the application he makes to them of the priviledges annexed onely to sincerity that is according to the judgement of the Church which received them as such probably If they were such as Ecclesiastieally they appeared to be then all these benefits were really theirs And hence the baptized are said to be illuminated and sanctified because in the judgement of the Church they were such who were admitted to baptisme who if they were really what they were by the Church esteemed to be were certainly sanctified and enlightned so I humbly conceive the meaning of these words This is the body of Christ which is broken for you is this q. d. If thou be really what the Church taking thee into her fellowship judgeth thee to be whiles it being in a capacity to judge hath not judged thee contrary then thou art certainly partaker of the inward grace of this Sacrament All the saving benefits flowing from Christs blood are thine If thou art sincere as the Church or Minister hopes and judgeth of thee in admitting thee then Christ is thine really Not if thou wilt believe Christ is thine but if thou now dost sincerely believe as thou now appearest to do which supposeth that he is taken for one who doth sincerely believe by them who regularly admit him the governing Church or Minister alone in some cases How incongruous would it be to say to a rebell who was erewhile visibly in Armes and was breathing out treason against his Soveraign and hath not yet visibly recanted the same and therefore is still visibly in the way of treason how incongruous would it be to say to such a one If thou art a good subject the King is thy friend And it is manifest in part by what hath been before quoted from the Common-prayer book and Canons that the Church of England which used that form of administration Christ died for thee understood it as to be applied onely to the visibly justified believers because they excluded the notoriously disobedient though not fully excommunicated and warned all to refrain who lived and allowed themselves wilfully in secret sins which the governors of the Church could take no cognizance of Thus in the third Exhortation after the warning of the wicked persons that they come not to the Lords Table In the invitation following those onely are called who are truly penitent To them it 's said Draw neer and take this holy Sacrament to your comfort They never seemed
faithfully set down what in my own thoughts seemed considerable and therefore alledged them not as my Antagonists exceptions as Mr W. insinuates Yet I do not see that he himself hath any thing so materiall to object as I had before objected to my self in these exceptions which he labours but in vain to make good against my argument The first exception was at numb 28. that no baptized person adult and not fully excommunicate tendring himself to communicate will or doth ever so openly in word renounce Christ To which I answered at numb 29 the case may yet be supposed yea it may happen And that is a reall power for censure which may be exercised upon an occasion which may possibly occurre whether it doth actually occurre or no. In reply hereunto he pretends not to deal with the substance of my answer but promises to consider it in the fourth Exception But he hath by businesses enough in the interim to engage in whereby the unwary Reader might be drawn away from the poynt we are upon As the Lapwing makes a great cry to draw the passenger from her nest § 2. 1. He is still angry at the distinction of fully and not fully excommunicate and saith You grant a degree of excommunication to lye upon the party debarred by your suspension and therefore your suspension is essentially excommunication for things that differ gradually are essentially the same p. 69. 1. I do grant a degree of excommunication on him who is properly suspended from the Lords Supper and therefore I told him the question ought not so to be stated Whether one qualified as aforesaid and not at all excommunicated may be debarred the Sacrament For all Divines I think who hold suspension do acknowledge it to be a degree of excommunication But whether such an one as aforesaid not debarred all publick ordinances according to our Antagonists sense of excommunication may be debarred the Lords Supper But this plain sense will not sink into his head and therefore he goes on thus Your pretended Antagonists propound their case candidly clearly and ingenuously see Mr. W. can give good words when he hath a mind and say not excommunicated removing excommunication altogether from the parties they admit look upon them as in Church-fellowship and communion And do not we do so also to them we admit The question is not of them we admit but of those not admitted But you saith he lay down your case obscurely fraudulently and captiously as if you meant no fair dealing And why alas but because I will not trifle in the question to enquire whether one not excommunicated may not be suspended that is in our sense excommunicated or go from my own principles and the principles of our reformed Divines who so generally hold juridicall suspension to be an excommunication 2. Things which differ Physically onely in degree may differ Morally in kind to be adjudged to have a small scarre in the flesh and to have the head cut off differ gradually as a greater or lesser wound yet they are punishments of a different kind and nature the one capitall and the other not The residue of his answer to the exception is almost all a bundle of untruths one of the most eminent whereof is this That none with us are Church members till admitted after our examination and triall of them And this in sense divers times repeared p. 70. And he hereupon tells us how we prepare our people for Anabaptisme Be it known to him the truly learned Mr Blake and Baxter are as likely to understand what is of tendency to Anabaptisme as he no disparagement to him neither and yet they both hold the lawfulness of suspension of some of the persons mentioned in our Question And though they have some differences among themselves yet they both agree against Mr W. his doctrine A second thing I added was The case of some such persons qualified as aforesaid their renouncing Christ is supposeable not onely as possible but probable to occurre at numb 30. if as under the Episcopal government all baptized persons adult should be required under a purse-penalty to communicate once or twice a yeare then many open rejecters of Christianity and who averre there is no Christ without them might to escape the penalty tender themselves to receive The same may be said of hundreds who account the Sacraments meer carnall things in our times To this Mr. W. saith 1. This is my malicious slander of the Prelaticall government If it be a slander doth he know it to be malicious too Hath he dived into my breast Good words I pray Whence is all this heat He tells us the 21 Canon of the Church of England 1. Jacobi enjoyned Ministers so to order matters that every parishioner might communicate at least thrice in the year but not a word of forfeiting any sum of money in case they did not But he tells us not of a 22. Canon next ensuing which requires all to receive the Sacrament thrice a year under the penalty and danger of the Law But wil Mr. W. go about in this age to perswade people that they were not punished by purse-penalties when presented in the Prelaticall Courts for not receiving and accuse them as malicious slanderers who say they were Mr W. talked of one following truth so close that it dash out his teeth This is not Mr. W. he hath not lost his teeth he can bite deep enough I am sure But I am afraid his forehead is in more danger when he can set a face on so notorious a bad businesse Were not they required under a purse-penalty to communicate who were commanded to receive under the penalty and danger of the Law and felt that penalty was chargeable to their purses §. 3. 2. In an angry dialect he saith that those instances I mentioned of such as might deny the essentials of Christianity and yet probably to avoid an externall penalty might come to communicate do no way make for me But he is too wise to tell us why they do not Is there not a possibility yea probability such in such a case would tender themselves to communicate And did not that take off the exception which said none such would come to the Sacrament 3. In the next place he seems to have a mind to extol the Episcopal government And it is not my business to disparage it yet I doubt not the Presbyterian government is lawful according to Scripture But the Reason he gives for the excellency of the Prelaticall government as it was in England formerly above the present Ecclesiasticall government established by the State Aug. 29. 1648. because under that government such monsters durst not appear and prosessedly shew themselves as now swarm every where without controul I say this Reason is not valid For the State-assistance then was afforded which is not now so effectually as to the execution of our government If the State had left men to their liberty then as much as
Mr. W. saith p. 99. We begin now to feare the feverity of your Church Officers But our comfort is that neither Titus 1.16 nor 1 Cor. 5. nor Math. 18.15 16. nor Rev. 2.2 doe establish your suspension nor command us to submit to your Church Officers 2. That Timson calls them intruded Elders p. 99 100. 3. The Question now in agitation with us is Whether open scandalous and presumptuous offenders in the Church are to be punished by the discipline of the Church We affirme positively that they are such offenders in words or deeds The correction of these do fall properly under Ecclesiastical discipline yet not so as the Christian Magistrate is to be excluded And yet all this doth not inferre the necessity of your suspension as a censure distnct from excommunication viz. that every Parish Priest with his Elders after his own humour should be Judge in his own cause use partiality exclude men from the Lords service meerely at his pleasure for not submitting to his Examination though otherwise judicious and of good example albeit the cry be against men ignorant and of gross behaviour And then tells us It s fit the correcting discipline should lye in indifferent and impartial hands more publique then the Parish Priest and his Elders And oft-times it will fall out that a Pastour and his Elders will be Judges in their own cause and then suspension was become private revenge and parties will become Judges All this p. 101 102. 4. He askes Is your Parochial suspension with your Classical power in being by toleration civil an universal Remedy against all the Errours that belong to Ecclesiastical cognizance As yet you have no place for publique Judicature allowed by the State no Power to issue out Warrants for the legall summoning in of offenders And therefore your proceedings in suspension are without all form of Law p. 103. 5. I see that ipso facto men must be suspended by you for their former miscarriages and present words of sorrow and of promising obedience for the future must not serve the turne This he insists on in many words p. 103 104 105 106 107. and labours to confute mee by Luk. 17.4 and askes Whether the Church which is coetus misericors and deales not against men in rigour of Justice but with bowels of mercy may not take mens present words of repentance for a reall dissenting from their former evill deeds and beleeve in charity that their word-Testimonies of Repentance are serious Retractations of their former evil deeds And now I desire the Reader to do himselfe Mr. W and me that right as to compare these five answers severally and joyntly with my argumentation which should be confuted by them and let him try his best skill to fit them thereunto My reasoning for the confirmation of my Consequence recited in the beginning of this Chapter which Mr. W. here assaults thus proceeded If the above mentioned Consequence from the suspension of word-Rejecters of Christ to the suspension of some deed-Rejecters of Christ do not hold it is either because no deed-rejection of Christ is so manifest visible and hainous a rejection of Christ as word-rejecting of Christ is or els because the Officers in the Church have some good Rule according to which they may dispense with or not deny the Sacrament for deed-rejecting of Christ rather then word rejecting of Christ or for some other Reason But neither of these do enervate the Consequence nor any other Reason therefore its good and valid not the latter because no such Rule can be produced but rather the contrary Titus 1.16 1 Cor. 5. Math. 18.15 16 17 Rev. 2.2 Not the former because c. which may be perused at numb 44 45. § 2. Mr. W. in answering hereof doth neither assert that either of the Reasons mentioned doth enervate my Consequence nor fault the enumeration of obstructive Reasons which might enervate it nor assigne any other And yet his foresaid returnes must serve for solutions and he in the strength of them thus flourisheth it out and shews his mettle p. 108. The proofe of your Consequence we have examined at large we have shewed Causes why we cannot approve of it You may take time to consider and reply if you have any stomack to the undertaking But I feare me you will consider of it ten times before you will undertake it once Truly I may consider it twenty times before I can finde any thing herein pertinent for me to reply unto such an adversary may safely challenge and provoke to Disputation Did ever any Quaker returne a more impertinent pretended solution to an Argument And yet they will be as bold as Mr. W. himselfe hath attained to be and tell you no body dare or can answer them And under the shelter of that their irrational impudence they often escape Replyes to them And so might Mr. W. for mee if others Judgement had not prevail'd against my owne for this once hereafter I hope my Friends will not urge me in this kinde any more But though these his five Reasons against my Consequence so you see he calls them else I had wanted a name for them as the Painter that wrote This is a Lyon over the picture he had drawne that no body should take it for a Bull though I say these his answers are manifestly nihil ad Rhombum yet because it may be thought he may like a squinting Fencer wound me some where els by them though he touch not the place he makes a shew to aime at I shall therefore satisfie his importunity this once as I have sometimes gratified the Quakers to make some reply to them severally and then I shall as I promised confirme my own argumentation §. 3. To his first It s plaine I cited not those texts to prove suspension immediately I brought them to prove that Church Officers have no good Rule according to which they may dispense with deed rejecting of Christ any more then with word-rejecting of Christ in point of sacramental administrations thus If there be a deed rejecting of Christ for which Ecclesiastical Censure is to be inflicted as wel as for a word rejecting of Christ then the Church Officers have no Rule to dispense with or not deny the Sacrament for the former rather than the latter The Antecedent is proved by the texts quoted Titus 1.16 In words they profess Christ in deeds they deny him And the other texts proved a deed-rejecting of Christ yea when in words Christ is owned to be causes of Ecclesiastical Censure and therefore as truly as word rejecting of Christ is To his second I say Mr. W. it seemes hath found one man as bold as himselfe to reproach Elders without offering any Argument against them or invalidating those produced for them A confident man as I have lightly met with who though then a private Christian as he stiles himselfe without blushing tells us in his Epistle to the Reader before his Bar removed I looke to
of the Church I am informed by a Manuscript Copy I have of the Resolves of a Provincial Synod held at Preston in Lancashire Novemb. 14. 1648. that the said Synod among other things resolved in their sixt particular That there is not only one way prescribed or warranted by the word of god for the Elderships satisfying themselves of the sufficiency in point of knowledge of persons that are members of their Congregations respectively that they may be admitted to the Lords Supper 7. That it is not lawfull for the Elderships to tye themselves to one way as aforesaid suppose it be examination before them when that one attaines not the end and another may probably doe it So they In the businesse of Marriage its necessary the consent of the parties should be expressed before competent witnesses but the Christian Magistrate may determine who shall be competent witnesses whether a Justice of peace or a Minister shall be present to take and record the signification of their consent Yet no sober man cryes out Why are unscriptural conditions put upon persons to be marryed The like may be said concerning the present point Yet in this case methinkes that should sway most for our direction herein at present which is commended to us by both Houses of Parliament after their removal of the Common prayer book with the advice of the Reverend Assembly Form of Church Government to be used in the Church of England and Ireland of Aug. 29. 1648. p. 30. But if people in some Congregations will not be gotten to comply with that direction in the letter of it I know not but there may be some variation without offence as the Minister or Elderships of particular Churches with advice of their Classis if extant may judge expedient for the satisfaction and edification of the Church See Mr Blake Covenant sealed Ch. 7. § 14. p. 230 231 232 233. and § 16 p. 272 273. I am afraid I have been too long on this Digression The urgency and misrepresentations of the thing here handled must be my excuse I humbly submit it to the judicious peaceable Reader who will consider how to shew a cleerer way before he censure this And I shall easily neglect discontented furious uncivil Wranglers whose businesse is to carp at others but build nothing consistently of their own in this matter 4 Your pretended Church order saith Mr. W. p. 4. requires an account of mens saith auricularly And p. 28. You deny the Lords Supper to such as will not give an auricular account to you or your Elders c. Auricular confession is a phrase used to denote that which is required among the Papists 1 viz. that every one do confesse all his sins though private to the Priest alone whispering the same into his eare Now what a shameful slander is that Mr. W. puts on us in the application hereof to the profession of faith required among us cannot but be manifest to every observer 1. We require no confession of private sins but abhorre it unfeinedly 2. Who knows not the great quarrel many have against the Presbyterial Government is because it allowes not the Minister alone of his own head to seclude the other Officers chosen by the people from joyning with him in receiving this confession of faith required But let the Reader here see what cause he hath on this occasion to accompany me in a serious lamentation that envious animosities should so farre prevaile upon any as to hurry them on to such calumnies as malice it selfe could not devise more impudent 5 Mr. W. addes p. 4. Which very auricular account is the basis of your new model or pretended Church constitution And p. 9. Those you refuse to canonize by your ghostly approbation though baptized them you look upon as the world c. The like he hath over and over p. 11 21 22. Such are no Church-members with you p. 60 61 88 113 c. To name these things is to confute them I have spoken of their untruth in the Treatise Ch. 8. § 4. Ch. 21. § 1. and need to adde no more in so palpable a falshood 6 But he addes to this sad heap of falshoods when he saith p. 124. Let men be suspended by you do what they will afterwards let them be Atheists or of what sect they will afterwards you regard not The like he hath p. 122. And woe be to us if this be truly charged on us But I defye him and the Accuser of the Brethren to boot to prove the charge 7 And the language of envy powres out it selfe further p. 123. When they are suspended you look after them no longer unless it be for your Tithes and Church dues It may be the man who affected to date his Epistle from his poor house at Leek grudgeth others their Tithes His neighbours may do well to consider his complaint But a man should carry himselfe honestly though in a poor house and then he would forbeare these criminations which our course of personal instruction may manifest to be false even to a proverb 8 He tells me p. 124. Debarring from the Lords Supper with you is the comprehensive of all Discipline and that power to debar being granted you are content And who told Mr. W. this tale perhaps he is not so ill provided as to be destitute of some body or other to father it upon no more then he was for that story he tells the world in his Apology about his Antagonists designe to obstruct the impression of his book which I could never learne any thing of to this day But we are for admonition before suspension and for a further excommunication or withdrawing Communion after suspension as opportunity may be offered and the case require see Form of Church Government p. 18 39 40. Let Mr. W. tell what figments he please to the contrary Certainly he is no child but he doth what children doe when he is so busie in raising bubbles made of his own froth and then shouting aloud tosseth them about with that breath which first raised them 9 In the same page last mentioned he further gives his word against us You saith he make your Brethren your slaves 10 And by your uncontroulable power of suspension you assume to your selves more authority over the people then ever did the most domineering Prelate among us in making poor people sland to your courtesie for the Lords Supper To both these joyntly I answer 1. How is that an uncontroulable power to make our Brethren slaves with or at our courtesie 1 which is limited by the Ordinance of Parliament so that we may not adde of our own heads to the enumeration of the meritorious causes of suspension Form of Church Government p. 30 31 34 35. c. And 2 when any may appeale from a Congregational Eldership to higher Judicatories in case of wrong done them according to the constitution of the Presbyterian Government Form of Church Government p. 15. 2. How do
been baptized 4 There are two manifest Instances of private baptisme the one of the Eunuch Act. 8.35 36. the other of the Jaylor and his houshold Act. 16.33 5 That of Pauls baptism is more doubtful Act. 9 11 17 18. 22.16 The probabilities â—â—me rather to cast it among the Instances of publique baptisme according to the opportunities of those times which appeare by laying these circumstances together 1. Paul was miraculously converted in his going to Damascus struck blind neer to Damascus to which place he was led 2. In Damascus there was a brotherhood of Christians a Church at this time Act. 9.19 3. This miraculous conversion of Paul could not be concealed from these brethren there For there were divers with Paul when he was miraculously converted who heard the voyce from heaven who were likely to speak of it the very novelty and wonder of the matter would make them divulge it besides also they being Pauls companions on his journey and probably assisting to him in his persecuting designe could not be insensible of their concernment in the voyce speaking Saul Saul why persecutest thou me which would be an obligation on them to give God the glory of the vision by declaring it And what story could they make in Damascus to satisfie them who should enquire concerning Pauls blindnesse who was led by them but they must tell the truth the weightiness and strong influence of the present providence not permitting a dissimulation of the matter And the same may be said over againe much more to shew that Paul himselfe was not likely to conceale this thing 4. Paul was three dayes blind at Damascus before Ananias came to him 5. It s very probable Paul after his conversion being now under the terrour of his former cruelty against Christ in his members and at present blind would desire to be conducted to the house of some disciple at Damascus or at least send for some disciples to him 6. And as probable it is that many disciples would flock in to him hearing of the mighty work of God done on him 7. It s also noted that he fasted the three dayes and three nights of his blindnesse and that likely for a religious end and then he would joyn solemn prayer therewith to which I suppose the voyce speaking to Ananias especially refers which saith of Paul Behold he prays i.e. now he is praying or joyning in prayer having set himselfe seriously to be humbled for his former sin 8. And now it s not likely he spent 3 dayes in prayer all alone It s probable therefore there were the Disciples in Damascus gathered to him into the house of Judas whither Ananias was instructed to goe to Paul and where he baptized him Neither may it be forcibly objected that because of his former rage against Christianity the disciples in Damascus would not so soon trust him as to come unto him Upon which account some time after the Church at Hierusalem durst not receive him into their company For these at Damascus who heard of his vision might see him humbled under his blindnesse would hereby be made fearlesse of receiving hurt from him And yet the Disciples at Hierusalem who wanted those advantages of confidence might prudently scruple at a suddain admission of him into their society If all these taken together wil not amount to a probability that here were with Paul a considerable number of Christians and a free invitation of them hither which in those times might be such an assembly as used there solemnly to joyn in publique ordinances who might be present when Paul was baptized by Ananias yet I thinke more will hardly be said for a probability of the contrary and so I leave it 6 It appears then that in all cases it was not unfit much less unlawful to administer Baptism privately yet there seem to be but two cleere undoubted examples thereof in Scripture when as all the persons baptized by John and so probably those baptized by Christs Disciples before Christs death seem to have been openly baptized And we have perused 5 Scriptures which speak of many multitudes thousands baptized after Christs ascension whose baptisme was as publiquely administred as was the preaching of the word ordinarily in the Christian Churches Hence I think I may reasonably conclude 7 That publique baptisme is according to the ordinary common Rule private is the Anomalon or an exception in some peculiar extraordinary Cases These two conclusions are to be handled distinctly and first of the first 8 It s according to the ordinary common Rule of the N. T. that baptisme be administred publiquely i e. as is aforesaid according to the opportunity of the times and so that it be as publique as ordinary preaching in the Church assemblyes is This I shall further illustrate and shew in these Reasons hereof ensuing 1. The nature of this ordinance is a publique seale of the covenant of grace and so annexed to the Gospel therefore it s fit it should be annexed to the preaching of the Gospel and be as publique as that is ordinarily Matth. 28.19 20. 2. One effect of Baptism is the solemne admission of Christians into the visible Church 1 Cor. 12.13 Therefore its fit to be done ordinarily in the face of a Congregation I say solemn admission for they are Christians before now the solemnity requires publiquenesse so far as may â—â—e 3. The great use and benefit of having this ordinance publiquely pleads against the private administration thereof where it may be publike 1 In â—egard of the person baptized to have the prayers of 〈◊〉 Congregation 2 With respect to the parents that they may be more quickned by the solemnity of the ordinance in renewing their covenant with God on this occasion 3 For the whole Congregation to be minded of the nature of this ordinance and the engagements which have been layd upon them herein for themselves and their children they have formerly in baptisme devoted to God 4 And lastly the Minister herein hath opportunity to approve himselfe publiquely in the administration hereof in a right manner and to subjects capable of the same according to Gospel Rule 4. The horrible abuse formerly and now in some places making many baptismes private transactions with a few women only present besides the Minister Father of the infant baptized as also the observation that this is generally the imployment of scandalous Ministers should make us lesse free in complying with them herein least we bring contempt on our persons function and Ministry 5. The contempt in our dayes cast on this sacred ordinance by many and the aptness we see in divers of our people to make it a matter of state formality for the entertainmeÌ„t of friends not regarding the prayers of the Congregation rather then a business of serious devotion should provoke us to labour after a greater solemnity in the administration hereof 6. The exceeeding great snares and inconveniences which private baptisme brings
on the Minister when he baptizeth some privately and not others may disswade us from gratifying any herein unlesse we would comply with all who may desire it and then I thinke in some places we should have few baptized in the publique Congregation What grudges and surmises of partiality this may beget we cannot be ignorant 7. Either baptisme is a private or publique ordinance If private then it needs not at all to be administred publiquely If publique then it ought not to be administred privately where it may be publiquely and that fitly I say fitly for sometimes even solemn preaching may be in private places but not when it may fitly be in publique so is the case here 8. If private baptismes be admitted I see not how private communions in the Lords Supper will be rationally avoyded which yet are now exploded and I think justly according to 1 Cor. 11.22 For which see also Mr Medes discourse of Churches for Christian worship in the primitive times p. 4.9 Private baptism would be too neere a symbolizing with the Papists who lay the stress of salvation upon baptisme Necessitate medij and with the Separatists who leave our publique Assemblyes retire into corners for the performing of publique ordinances 10. Lastly The judgement of the Churches of God especially the Church of England may disswade from private baptisme Zepperus de polit eccl l. 1. c. 12. saith Baptismum in primitivâ ecclesiâ Catechumenis adultis qui e gentilismo vel Judaismo ad christum transibant non nisi ferijs paschalibus pentecostes natalitijs Domini administrari solitum idque magno cum apparatu solenni omnium piorum laetitiâ ex illorum temporum monumentis manifestum est Nunc quia alia ecclesiae ratio est illaque ex christianorum parentum liberis ferè constat colligitur quotiescunque publici ecclesiae Caetus ordinariè habentur christianorum parvuli testimonio sigillo Baptismi christo ejusque ecclesiae inferentur quidem patre ipso ad Infantis sui baptismum praesente atque astante This is evidenced by the ancient custom of sponsors who were to make promise before the Church for the instruction of the baptized in the christian faith Fideijussionem saith he sponsionem susceptores apud baptismum coram Dei ecclesiae ipsius facie sacrosanctè praestant The learned Beza in libello Quaestionum Responsionum christianorum speakes home to this businesse Q. An de loco baptismi nihil statuendum putas R. Imo quum omnia decenter ordine fieri in ecclesiâ oporteat sit autem evangelici Ministerij pars Baptismus eundem locum verbi sacramentorum ministerio attribuendum censeo ut in coetu Ecclesiae communibus precibus adjunctis Baptismus administretur neque istos nescio quos necessitatis casus temerè admiser◠I shall only hereunto adde the determinations of the English Liturgy and the Directory Though in some cases of great necessity as the Common prayer book speaks it permit private baptism yet if the child live it is to be brought to the Congregation where the Sponsors shall make solemn professions as in the order for publique baptism and the Congregation being so satisfied the child is publiquely to be declared solemnly received into the Church Now how shamefully do many of our corner Baptizers who pretend much for the Episcopal Government and Common prayer book offend against this Direction The Directory which I suppose is owned as a considerable Authority humane especially in a doubtfull case in this County most of the Ministers names whereof then resident here when the Presbyterial Government was first commended to us by the Parliament I have by me subscribed with their own hands to a profession of their judgement for that way and resolution to put the same in practice it orders expresly thus Baptism is not to be administred in private places nor privately but in the place of the publique worship and in the face of the Congregation There is but one I know of professing the Congregational way who comes to private houses in the Country and with the parents and a few women baptizeth and this I think is offensive to the Ministers of the same way he professeth as well as to others of us his neighbours Now we all profess to be studious of peace But how shall we make it appear if in such a thing which all I think acknowledge lawfull we comply not with the Directions of the former constitutions of the State and Church of England and the present Rules commended to us by the Parliament with the assistance of so Reverend an Assembly as they had herein which yet respect only our uniform practice and tie us not to an opinion of necessity that Baptism should be ever administred thus publiquely Should not those Scriptures Rom. 14.19 Phil 3.15 16. and such like have some impression upon us as to this matter I leave it to the consideration of the peaceably Judicious Now I come to my second Conclusion I deduced probably from the perusal of the forementioned examples of Baptism viz. That 9 From the ordinary Rule of publique Baptism there is some exception in some special cases That there is such an exception is already proved by the Scriptures produced But to set down a perfect enumeration of such cases wherein that exception hath place I dare not professe ability to undertake but I shall endeavour somewhat herein according to my poor measure 1 Negatively 2. Affirmatively 10 Divers things are pretended as of weight when they occurre to challenge an exception from the common Rule of publique Baptism which I humbly conceive are of no validity for the same 1. The childs weaknesse and danger of death is no sufficient reason for private Baptism this is the only exception allowed by the Common prayer book Indeed this seems rather a reason for the denying of private Baptism then granting it least they who demand it should be strengthened hereby in the conceit of the necessity of Baptism for salvation of the infant ratione medii They should rather by our preaching and practice be informed in the right doctrine of the Sacraments It 's true some of the Ancients in the heat of their opposition to the Pelagians who denied original sin went so far as to lay stress of salvation upon Baptism But others were more sound who teach that not the defect or want simply but the neglect of them is the crime Now there is not a neglect where the first opportunity is taken for solemn publike Baptism no more then there is a neglect of the Lords Supper although it be not received by him who cannot come to the Congregation who yet is ready and desirous to lay hold on the first opportunity he can to joyn himself in the publique Communion of the Church in that Ordinance 2. Nor is the gratification of mens or rather womens humours a sufficient reason for private Baptism For then it
usefull and necessary to be remembred in this dispute I shall therefore further illustrate it by a familiar similitude If one should say that no flagitious Englishman who is not cut off from the freedom of the Corporation where he is a member may legally be whipt I need not to contradict him prove that all flagitious English persons not deprived of their freedome aforesaid may be whipt but to prove that some may in some cases is a sufficient contradiction to him who saith none may in any case so is the present case in reference to Ecclesiasticall polity In opposition therefore to the foresaid position I assert That it is lawfull for some persons in some cases to debar by disswasion suspending their own act of administring or by Ecclesiastical Censure I say to debar some persons from the Lords Supper who are baptized and not warn'd to depart or kept from other publique Ordinances of hearing praying singing c. in the publique Congregations of the Church Arg. 1. Those who are visibly such whom the Lord hath in his Word declared to be persons to whom he would not have the Lords Supper administred may be sulpended from the Lords Supper But some baptized persons not fully excommunicated may be visibly such whom the Lord hath in his word declared to be persons to whom he would not have the Lords Supper administred Ergo some baptized persons at years not fully excommunicate may be suspended from the Lords Supper The major is cleere if it be understood that by visibly I meane such as are proved and appeare so to be by Scripture Characters And now the major is not likely to be deny'd Because God hath placed a power somewhere in his Church for the managing of his Ordinances so as that they may not be dispensed to such as he hath declared in his word he would not have them administred unto The minor is thus proved Those who by word openly renounce the Lord Jesus Christ are visibly such to whom the Lord would not according to the revelation of his will in his word have the Lords Supper administred But some baptized persons at years not fully excommunicate may be such as openly by word renounce the Lord Jesus Christ Ergo some baptized persons at years not fully excommunicat may be visibly such to whom the Lord would not have the Sacrament administred The major here againe I thinke will not be deny'd But least it should I thus prove it Those who are visibly unbelievers I meane who ought to be judged and taken to be unbelievers are visibly such to whom according to the word the Sacrament of the Lords Supper ought not to be administred But those who by word openly renounce the Lord Jesus Christ ought to be judged and taken to be unbelievers Ergo those who by word openly renounce the Lord Jesus Christ are visibly such to whom according to the word of God the Lords Supper ought not to be administred The first of these is cleare For if the word warrant us to administer the Sacrament only to believers which none can deny that is such as are to be taken for believers then it excludes all them who are to be judged and taken to be unbelievers The latter is no lesse manifest For to professe to renounce Christ is to professe not to believe and he that seemes seriously for so I intend it to profess his not believing that is his renouncing Christianity cannot be by any warrantably judged or taken to be a believer If to the minor of my second Syllogisme which was this Some baptized persons at years not fully excommunicate may be such as openly by word renounce the Lord Jesus Christ it be answered Excep 1. That no baptized person at years not fully excommunicate tendring himselfe to receive will or doth ever so openly by word renounce the Lord Jesus Christ I answer Ans 1. The case may yet be supposed yea it may happen and if in any case supposable which may fall out suspension as distinct from that full excommunication before mentioned may have place according to the Rule of the Word which shuts out professed open unbelievers from the Sacraments then suspension cannot be denied universally to have any place distinct from that full excommunication That is really a power for Censure which may be exerted upon an occasion which may possibly occurre whether that occasion do ever occurre or not actually So a fuperiour may have power to correct his inferiour in such a manner for such a fault if he do commit it though perhaps he never do commit it 2. Besides the case is supposable not only as possible but probable to occurre if that which my Antagonists in this Question so much commend and which they say was happily exercised under the Episcopal Government in England should be revived and brought againe into practice among us viz. That all baptized persons of years should be required under a purse penalty to communicate once or twice in the year then many open rejecters of Christianity and who professe against the same and averre there is no Christ without them c. might to escape the penalty tender themselves to communicate I have been credibly informed concerning the Atheisme of an eminent person who not many yeares agoe dyed in London who on his death-bed told his friend who urged him to receive before his death That to gratifie him he was willing to communicate but yet with all professed he looked for no good from such things Whereupon the Bishop who was there to have given hâ—m the Sacrament turned away from him But what speak I of one These times declare that there are hundreds I feare thousands who are above all Ordinances and count the Sacraments carnall things and say so who yet its probable to escape a penalty would come to ask the Sacrament 2 Excep If againe it be said that persons baptized and tendring themselves to receive cannot openly at that time profess their rejecting Christ because that in this tender of themselves to this Ordinance they offer to profess the contrary viz. their owning of Christ Ans I say first the case under our present consideration supposeth him at the same time when he tenders himselfe to be admitted to the Communion to professe being asked against his owning Christ at least in this Ordinance q. d. I desire to do as others doe in receiving but I am resolved at present I will not now receive the commands of Christ nor part with my lusts which Christ bids me fly from I would I had not known such a sad case as this occurre 2. It s not impossible for such a man to profess contradictions so that you cannot conclude he professeth not against Christ because he professeth for Christ at the same time or with one breath 3. He that openly denyes Christ expressly he professeth to receive Christ only by consequence from the nature of the Ordinance which he desires to joyn in although perhaps he
understand it not or doth plainly reject his owning of that Consequence 3 Excep But some will say Such an one at that time should be fully excommunicated and may be as well as suspended Ans Whereunto I returne But there may not ordinarily cannot be power in that particular Congregation or the Officers thereof fully to excommunicate him How should he be excommunicated at that time when a meeting of other Officers a Classis cannot then be had by whose advise and authority full excommunication should be managed And other barres besides may sufficiently disswade from an instantaneous full excommunication as soon as a person discovers his rejecting of Christ 4. Excep Furthermore If it be pleaded That we have no such instance in our times and therefore it s to little purpose to perplex our thoughts with forecasting what might be done in such an extraordinary case But the present Controversie is concerning such as in word do professe to own Christ when they tender themselves to communicate although there be visible testimony that their lives are not agreeable hitherto to this profession Ans I answer It s no needlesse point of wisdome to labour to foresee the necessary ill Consequents which may ensue upon the receiving of a principle although at present there is no opportunity for the actuall existency of them If a wise man foresee that his principle if followed close will in some cases which may occurre run him on the rocks he may justly suspect his principle not to be so good as it should be If suspension in the case proposed cannot be deny'd then it must not be universally rejected as having no place in the Church 2. But I shall further adde though not for confirmation of the argument I have already proposed to prove and evince this conclusion viz. That some baptized persons at yeares not fully excommunicate may be suspended for that needs not this addition But for the improving the argument to further usefulnesse I shall I say further adde That this case already proposed though it seeme so rare and extraordinary yet by necessary consequence it concludes other instances of daily and ordinary incursion For if he who in words rejects Christ may be debarred then he who by some notorious deeds rejects Christ though not in words may be debarred although he be a person baptized at yeares not fully excommunicate The consequence I prove thus If this consequence do not hold it must be either because no deed-rejection of Christ is so manifest visible notorious and hainous a rejecting of Christ as word rejecting of Christ is or els because the Officers in the Church have some good Rule according to which they may dispense with or not deny the Sacrament for deed-rejecting of Christ rather then word rejecting of Christ But neither of these do enervate the consequence nor any other Reason Ergo its good and valid Not the latter because no such Rule can be produced but rather the contrary Titus 1.16 1 Cor. 5. Math. 18.15 16 17. Rev. 2.2 Not the former Because words are no otherwise Testimonies then as they are signes of a persons rejecting or owning what in and by these words he professeth to own or reject And some deeds are more satisfactory Testimonies then words Validior est vox operis quam oris Where there be two cross-witnesses the Testimony of the more credible witnesse justly prevailes against the other So when deeds cross words in the present case the Deeds may be more credible Testimonies and signes of a persons rejecting Christ then his words are of the contrary And therefore this deed-witnesse is to prevaile against the word witnesse I have heard from a great Lawyer that in our common Laws they have this Rule that Actions speak either assent or dissent And shall not the Church make use of the same meanes naturally subservient to the discerning of persons who are to be admitted to or rejected from the Sacraments Furthermore If the deed-rejecting of Christ were not of as certaine credible signification concerning a persons infidelity as word rejecting is Then no person who denies not Christ in words may be fully excommunicated especially if he desire to cōmmunicate and that earnestly which these men say is a testimony of his seriousnesse which we may not refuse in his profession to believe And doubtlesse the Church ought not by full excommunication to declare a person to be as an Infidel and so to be dealt with who now makes a credibly serious profession of his faith and willingness to submit himselfe to the Lord Jesus Christ But if they do fully excommunicate him they do declare him in a state wherein he is to be looked on and to be dealt with as with an Heathen or by word-professed Infidel By all this which hath been said as an Appendix to this Argument and much more might be added to the same purpose It may appear that If it be granted that one though formerly baptized and not yet fully excommunicated yet now being an openly and by word professed Infidel may be suspended in any case when there is a barre against his then full excommunication then at least in the like case some scandalous livers in the Church may be suspended And therefore because so much depends upon the former I have so largely insisted on the proving and cleering of the same I remember I have read somewhere in Salvian Qui Christiani Nominis opus non agit Christianus non esse videatur And Infidelis sit necesse est qui fidei commissa non servat Agreeable whereunto is what I finde quoted from Tertull. apolog cap. 44. who speaking of the Heathens prisons saith Nemo illic Christianus nisi planè tantum Christianus aut si aliud jam non Christianus ¶ There was another argument in my paper for the taking off the imputation of novelty which is charged on suspension But not above a fourth part of it is printed by Mr. W. the rest not answered by him So I shall not here transcribe it Perhaps divers things therein will occasionally fall in to be mentioned elsewhere And I have no such conceipt of my writings as to trouble the Reader with any more of them then I am in a manner forced unto I shall now apply my selfe to the consideration of Mr. W. his pretended refutation of the argument mentioned and I shall intend to omit nothing material he hath produced yea I shall take in much more then I apprehend pertinent alledged by him But the most of the Digressions as about examination Elders and the like I shall designe to speak to by themselves that the discussion of the argument be not made too confused by the intermixture of those heterogeneals therein And there are few things but are mentioned by Mr. W. many times over and therefore though I sometimes lightly pass over some things he hath in his first or second perhaps third or fourth speaking of them I must entreat the Readers patience and
aut sacramentorum administrationi operam darent Art thou such an Ignoramus as to be ignorant that there are Elders in the Church of Christ who should be imployed onely in governing not in the administration of the Word and Sacraments And he quotes 1 Tim. 5.17 and Ambrose on it And p. 820 he tells the Papists that Luther Zuinglius Bucer Oecolampadius and many others of our Reformers were Presbyters ordained by Popish Bishops and then to prove against them the lawfulness of our Ministery that these being Presbyters might ordain other Presbyters Tum si Presbyteri erant sunt presbyteri jure Divino iidem qui Episcopi alios etiam Ecclesiis presbyteros praeficere potuerunt Yet he adds Sed nolim existimes a nobis vestros ordines tanti fieri ut sine illis nullam esse legitimam vocationem statuamus c. Or is it the business of Suspension the pretended subject of his Book which he saith all men of reading know differs much from the Fathers why then hath he acknowledged by Peter Martyrs mouth that degrees of excommunication may easily be proved from the Writings of the Fathers For there 's no question I think but suspension will be allowed to be one degree if degrees be once granted §. 4. But Aretius quoted by me as not against suspension as a lesser excommunication at Numb 11. Mr. W. takes himself specially concerned in though yet he saith pag. 19. that he never engaged Aretius as opposite to our suspension The reason of my mentioning Aretius was an information I received from him who desired my paper that Mr. W. quoted Aretius against suspension And how easily might Mr. W. have certified his Parishioner of this mistake without troubling the world with it in Print since he doth not disprove in the least what I alledged concerning that Author Yet that he may seem not to say nothing he will shew that Aretius useth not nor pleads for the distinction of greater and lesser excommunication which thing it is manifest I did not affix on him But he hath here another and that belike no small quarrell I cited Aretius his Common places and Mr. W. saith He knowes no such Piece I should have said his Problemes as if his quarrelsomness were not more to be blamed then such a mistake supposed O how exact will Mr. W. have us to take him in the very names and editions of Books But why may not Problemata be rendred in English Common places my most severe Master Aretius himself I hope may be allowed to give us the meaning of his own words to save a labour of turning to Holy-oke under whose leaf recubans sub tegmine Mr. W. beneath p. 137. would shelter himself In my Book Edit Lusannae 1578. the first page thus begins Problematum sâ—u locorvm theologicorum pars altera And it is likely Mr. W. his Book is of the same Edition because his quotation of pag. 48. which he hath p. 20. agrees with the 48. leaf of mine If I should tell him I find no such thing as he quotes in the 48 page but it is in the 48 leaf should I not be ridiculous to him and yet he might then see his own weakness in mine §. 5. But the substance and design of my fifth note was to shew that as I apprehended mine Antagonists do deny the distinction of greater and lesser excommunication and in special they deny suspension or abstention to be one degree of excommunication which may lawfully be exerted by it self against any person And therefore in their asserting that the persons spoken of in our question if not excommunicate may not be debarred by not excommunicate they mean not cut off in our sense of full excommunication and that otherwise they should but trifle viz. if they took excommunicate for such as were under a lesser degree of excommunication in our sense The which is so manifest that I see not how any man of reason can deny it Now to this Mr. W. answers pag. 23. Why put you your non-sense upon us and say we egregiously trifle unless we admit of degrees of excommunication in your sense What shal one do with a man who heeds not what he saith He chargeth me with putting and affixing on my Antagonists the distinction of greater and lesser excommunication unless they would be guilty of non-sense whereas I did flatly remove from them that distinction and said they did not acknowledge degrees of excommunication particularly not this of Suspension adding that if they did own them in this question as they hold it they should but trifle And yet Mr. W. will needs face every body down against the evidence of plain words before their eyes And he talkes his pleasure of Sophistry and Imposture and at last apeals to the judicious Reader under whose eye I willingly leave him with the paper he pretends to be answering In the interim I will step aside to take a little refreshing in the PSALM 119. 2d part B. V. 9 By what shall you ths wayes cleansed be By heeding holy Writ 10 Behold my whole soul hath sought thee Let me not erre from it 11 Because I would not sin thy word I hid in heart and will 12 Blessed art thou most mighty Lord Teach me thy Statutes still 13 By my lips have declared bin The Judgments of thy mouth 14 By Riches none more mirth can win Then I have by thy Truth 15 Busy'd in thy Precepts I muse And all thy wayes respect 16 By them all joy to me accrues Thy Word I 'le not forget CHAP. III. §. 1. THe terms of Excommunication full or not full sundry times do occurre in the following Argument These Mr. W. rejects as adokima's as fooleries as not considerable c. and in a fume piping hot he fancies the bag-pipes when he hears them named p. 151 Such arguments as these must be his apodicticall proofs against them in refuting whereof belike his friends think I shal be hard put to and they conjecture not amiss I shal hardly devise a reply weak enough to bear a fit protion to such sorry pretensions But in stead thereof I shal judge it requisite to offer somewhat concerning excommunication and that distinction of it submitting the same in all humility to the sober and judicious as followeth 1. The consideration and strict perusall of the places and phrases of Scripture treating on this matter is the best foundation of a right knowledge and discerning hereof 2. Yet some places speak of an excommunication which is not pertinent to our times or at least not to our present controversie I mean that excommunication by way of Anathematizing and cursing an incurable offender to which kind Polanus Syntag. l. 7. c. 18. referres Gal. 1.8 and Rom. 9.3 which he calls the simplex anathema and 1 Cor. 16.22 called Anathema maranatha And that cutting off mentioned Gal. 5.12 not to speak of Hierome and Grotius their interpretation of it for the smoothing or dismembring the parts
of those Hereticks who so much pressed circumcision It is by the learned Doctor Hammond made parallel to that of 1 Cor. 16.22 viz. as he saith on the place as an expression of excommunication of the highest degree answerable to the SHAMATHA among the Jewes which he explained on 1 Cor. 16.22 to be excommunicated from the hope of the Lord and as leaving the offender to Divine vengeance agreeable to the denunciation of Enoch Jude v. 14. which is denounced against them who love not Christ that is as he excellently expounds it who fall from Christ by renouncing of him to avoid persecution especially if teachers of others so to do and justifying the thing as lawfull as it is said the Gnosticks did See Doctor Hammond in Apoc. 21.8 denying the Lord before men who bought them 3. That phrase also of delivering to Satan though a tolerable sense of it may be and is accommodated to the ordinary excommunication still in use in the Church yet many if not most learned Interpreters think it had a further and more peculiar sense in those Apostolicall times which the Church doth not now look at nor expect viz. the externall buffeting the offender by Satan 4. There are two other passages which though they are by divers referred to some excommunication yet I think we can build little or nothing upon them in the explication of this point The first is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to be cast out of the Synagogue used John 9.22 and 14.42 and 16.2 Now this is applyed only to the Jewes their wicked practice against them who owned Christ and the phrase is no where that I know of justified by Christ or his Apostles And me thinks we have little reason to seek for the nature of Christs Otdinance in the vile practice of his enemies taken by it self The other passage is in 3 John 10. where Diotrephes is said to cast the Christian Jewes out of the Church that is a Church of the Gentile-Christians Let us a little peruse the Text which runs thus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 1. I would ask Who are these he cast out of the Church Not those who would entertain the Jewish Christian strangers there is no probability any would be so sottish as to excommunicate them for their will desire or intention to have entertained those guests and if those he is said to have cast out were the guests themselves called the brethren then excommunication cannot be here meant because they were not under the jurisdiction of that Gentile-Church nor any Officer therof and so could not be cast out of that particular Church in which they were not before 2. It cannot be proved that Diotrephes was any Church-officer in that Church 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 may signifie one who seeks inordinatly or assumeth dignity as well as one that useth immoderatly the same and it is very probable saith Doctor Hammond that this Diotrephes did this without having any reall authority in the Church as a presumptuous confident bold person and then his act in casting any out of the Church would not be accounted a sentential excommunication 3. The word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is frequently used in the New Testament to signifie any hindring although it be not by any act authoritative forbidding nor pretend thereunto and is rendred to hinder Luke 11.52 and to withstand Acts. 11.17 and to let Rom. 1.13 and therefore that passage wherein this Diotrephes is said to forbid or hinder and withstand them who would be more hospitable then himself doth not invite us at all to interpret the following words of any authoritative Ecclesiasticall censure Upon the whole matter I humbly conceive that this passage here He casts them out of the Church doth denote nothing else but his thrusting out the Jewish guests from being kindly harboured telieved and accommodated in that Church he by his factious and pragmatical endeavours taking upon him to be thought some body more then ordinary laboured to draw the Church to joyn with him in that inhospitality wherein he had among many too good successe But I shall not contend in this onely I have signified the probabilities which incline me to conceive that Ecclesiasticall excommunication is not strictly signified by the phrase of casting out of the Church here used at least that it is so dubious that it will be no foundation stone in the Doctrine of Excommunication §. 3. I shall now proceed to consider the less questionable and more plain phrases and passages in the New Testament whereby excommunication is intimated which are such as these Let him be to thee as an Heathen and Publican Matth. 18.17 that is in some respects as to thy behaviour towards him and esteem of him as generally the Interpreters I meet with do understand it To bind on earth v. 18. doth also relate to the same thing That fifth chapter of the first Epistle to the Corinthians hath most in it concerning Excommunication of any one chapter in the Bible Here are severall phrases signifying the same thing v. 2. That he who hath done this deed might be taken away from you So also v. 13. Put away from among your selves that wicked person The phrase of delivering to Satan used vers 5. and 1 Tim. 1.20 so far as it may signifie what is yet of continued use in the Church is commonly interpreted by the words of Christ before mentioned Matth. 18.17 Let him be to thee as an Heathen and Publican Satan being visibly the God of the Infidell world and of the manifestly and notoriously prophane and wicked men as the Publicans though Jewes were accounted by their own Nation But there are in this chapter two more expressions concerning excomunication which we must somwhat more insist upon especially the former which wil help to clear the later The one of these in v. 9. and 11. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 I wrote to you in an Epistle not to keep company with fornicators c. the meaning wherof he cautions against mistake v. 10. yet not altogether with Fornica-tors of this world 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 may be rendred not at all as 1 Cor. 16.12 or in no wise as Rom. 3.9 or taking 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for an Adverb of confirming not surely as Luke 4.23 Act. 18.21 21.22 28.4 And 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is not found in that ancient manuscript which the profoundly learned Doctor Hammond hath given us an account of in what it differs from the other received Greek Copies Quasi dicat What I wrote to you concerning your not keeping company or not being mingled with fornicators In that word Fornicators I meant not at all or surely I meant not or at least I did not altogether mean the Fornicators of this world c. For ye must needs go out of this world For with Calvin I so understand those words 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 q. d. Quid opus est vobis praeclpere de fili is seculi quando ut semel
any other communion So he And in the same chapter speaking of suspension he saith The lesser excommunication excludeth onely from the Sacramentall pledges and assurances of Gods love which when it is pronounced against them that stubbornly stand out and will not yeeld themselves to the Churches direction and disposition is properly named Excommunication I have the rather insisted on this because of two consequences which wil naturally and easily flow from this doctrine viz. 1. That the scruple hinted by Mr. W. p. 133. and insisted on by others in opposition to our abstension or suspension is manifestly frivolous and groundless They say if a parent turn not his children out of doores he will not deny them bread and apply their simile that in like manner those who are not excommunicated or not cast out of the Church should not be denyed the Sacramentall bread in the Lords Supper 2. That Church-membership taken at large doth not give right to persons of years to the Lords Supper For then they who are cut off by any excommunication should be admitted they being still parts of the Church of God as Field calls them §. 7. 3. Since excommunication is a withdrawing or rejecting of one from communion hence it follows that as communion is more or lesse so this withdrawing and therefore excommunication is capable of degrees to be more or less And some more notable degree may be denominated by one name and another by another Thus it was among the Jewes the common nature of whose excommunication was a withdrawing from some communion as ours is Many of the learned have described theirs in the three speciall degrees of it as Schindler pentaglot in voce 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Gerrard harm Evang. c. 178. gives a summary account of them out of several Authors The first was truly a separation or withdrawing But the second was more solemnly such Quâ quis solenniter in totius Ecclesiae conspectu exclusus est The word solenniter some such man as Mr. W. would catch and cavill at as he doth p. 18. against such a passage in my papers What saith he is your Suspension such an Apocryphall business that it deserves no solemnity in the managing thereof Unto such inconsiderable flirts I shall not trouble my self nor the Reader with any answer But I insist not in describing wherein the severall sorts of their excommunication did consist there being much difference among the learned in that See Dr. Hammond on 1 Cor. 5. But that there were severall sorts and in those that one was a severer degree of exclusion or separation and withdrawing from then another The four degrees or steps in the censure of excommunication among the Greeks formerly are mentioned by most who have written on this controversie The stantes succumbentes audientes and plorantes But the Gentlemen who oppose us alledge that those were steps in readmission of the excommunicate not steps or degrees in excommunication But though I confess this is an ingenuous answer yet methinks we may rationally inferre the lawfulness of proceeding by steps in excommunication from that supposed lawfulness of admitting severall steps of delivering out of excommunication Sure I am there is as much ground in Scripture and reason too as I apprehend for the former as there is for the later And that conceit of excommunication under the notion of a dismembring and turning out or cutting off from Church-membership being I conceive sufficiently and clearly refelled in the fore-going Section this inference will appear much more evident and convincing But I shall offer here these two considerations for the further confirming of gradual excommunication or putting out of Ecclesiasticall communion 1. If there be nothing in the nature of excommunication it self which is against a graduall procedure in excommunication nor any Scripture prohibition of it and if it be not contrary to the generall Rule of doing all things in the Church orderly and to edification then it is lawfull But the former is true therefore the later also That there is nothing in the nature of excommunication against it hath been shewed in that withdrawing communion which expresseth the nature of all excommunication is capable of degrees That there is no Scripture prohibition hereof is to be reckoned upon till some Scripture prohibition be produced which I could never yet see nor hear so much as pretended by any Nor is it contrary to the Rule of orderly and edifying transaction of affairs in the Church since courses of mildness and gentleness are most likely to edifie when they thwart not Justice and Right as those do not which are not contrary to the Word the Rule of Right and Justice 2. Again if a person may have no right to yea ought to be debarred the Sacrament who yet ought not to be turned out of all that private Christian communion which some excomunication deprives of then there may be degrees of excommunication or putting one out of Ecclesiasticall communion and particularly one degree of abstension or suspension preceding for some time the withdrawing of private Christian communion But the former is true therefore the later The Consequence I suspect not the deniall of the Antecedent stands firmly upon these two pillars viz. 1. That no Christian notoriously under gross and scandalous wickedness hath any right to the Sacrament nor hath the Minister any rightfull commission from the Donor or author of the Covenant and Seals thereof to administer or give the Sacrament unto him As suppose in point of faith a notorious Heretique who denies a fundamentall of the Christian Creed or in point of manners suppose one hath committed whoredome and it is notoriously known both these remaining visibly impenitent are uncapable of having the Lords Supper lawfully given unto them And yet 2. an offender though so notorious as in the forementioned cases ought not forthwith to be rejected and turned out of all that Christian private communion which some excommunication deprives of For the proof of the former of these two propositions I must crave the Readers patience and God willing in the following discourse he shall find it I hope clearly and convincingly confirmed The later of them I know none that deny And there is Scripture-evidence for it The heretick Titus 3.10 is not to be rejected and cast out of all that private Christian communion which some excommunication deprives of till after the first and second admonition which are not to be given together and at one time as all acknowledge but at some distance And a person is not thus to be rejected till obstinate Now obstinacy in wickedness referring to faith or manners cannot be suddenly manifested but requires several admonitions being to be rejected by an offender before he can be declared obstinate §. 8. 4 There are sundry sorts of persons in sundry capacities concerned and exercised in withdrawing from a scandalous brother 1. The Ministers the Stewards of the Mysteries of God 2 The people 3. The whole Church of Officers
and people together These ought to be distinctly considered and not confounded as too usually they are 1. The Minister are exercised herein by the power of Order which enables them to take cognizance of their capable or uncapable subjects of any of their administrations as in reference to the reproof and admonition of scorners so epecially in reference to the Sacrament especially where there is no governing Church which might over-sway their particular judgements of discretion And they are to bind and retain sins not onely by preaching the Word and denouncing the judgements of God against such as walk in wicked courses indefinitely Matth. 16.19 John 20.23 but also by with-holding the sacramentall pledges of Gods favour so far as concerns their office and administration thereof from such as are manifestly and notoriously impenitent though not yet declared obstinate in such gross wickedness And much more are they to deny the Sacrament to them who are by Ecclesiasticall juridicall procedure manifested to be obstinate in such scandalous prophanenesse this is included in though not the whole of those texts directed to the Apostles and Ministers Matth. 18.17 18. Titus 3.10 being compared with other Scriptures which authorize them to administer the Sacraments onely to obedientiall believers of which we must treat beneath and therefore do inhibit their administring to any other Of this excommunication I suppose they especially speak who sometimes deseribe it with reference onely to a withdrawing from sacramentall communion So Camero in one of his Epistles inter opuscula mifcellanea pag. mihi 532. col 2. thus speaks Haec una est legitima excommunicatio quare sic definâ—o Excommunicatio est sententia peecatori impenitentiam profitenti vel reipsâ vel etiam verbo denuncians peecata ejus non esse remissa proindeque abstinendum esse illi sacramentorum usu quae sigilla sunt remissionis peccatorum And Calvia hath a passage to the like purpose in his 278 Epistle Qui suspensi à sacra coena protervè judicium Ecclesiae respuunt declarant se extraneos ac proinde nihil senioribus restare video nisi ut Magistatum exslimulent ad cos durius coercendos nam in poenis Ecclesiasticis ultima est excommunicatio On this account I suppose it is that Chrysostome so much and vehemently warns Ministers that they admit not such as they know to be under gross wickedness to the Lords Table Chrysostom Hom. 60. ad populum Antiochenum de sumentibus indigne divina sancta mysteria Let no cruel no unmercifull no impure one any way approach Haec tam ad vos qui communieatis quam ad vos qui ministratis dicta esse volo No small punishment hangs over your heads if yee suffer any one to partake of this Table whom you know under wickedness For his blood shall be required at your hands If a Captain if the Consull himself if he who hath the Diadem approach unworthily do thou hinder and restrain him This he amplifies by one having the charge of keeping a Well clean And a little after the same Father adds But thou wilt say How shall I know this or that man what he is I dispute not what sins are unknown but what are known Dico horribile quoddam atque tremendum non est ita malum demoniacos intus esse sicut istos qui peccatorum sordibus polluuntur Illud enim pessimum est sicut Paulus ait Christum conculcare Testamenti sanguinem ducere communem spiritus gratiam contemnere Multo igitur Demoniaco pejor est qui petccati sibi conscius accedit Let us therefore exclude all whom we see come unworthily c. And that speech of Chrysostome is known sufficiently I will sooner give my life then the Lords body to one unworthily And I will sooner endure my blood to be spilt then I will allow that most holy blood to any but the worthy So also in Cyprians time to give or deny the communion was all one as to give or deny the Churches peace See his Epistle 54. Cyprianus Liberalis Caldonius c. Cornelio fratri § 9. 2. Private Christians in the Church wherein also are included the officers considered in their private capacity common to them with other members are concerned and exercised in excommunication or withdrawing communion For to them as such seem those instructive directions and precepts to belong 2 Thess 3.6 14. Rom. 16.17.3 Ioh. verse 10.11 to withdraw from and avoyd and not entertain some notorious offenders yea and that whether these offenders are censured and declared to be such by the governing Church or no. Indeed it is most orderly that the Guides and Officers go before and direct the people concerning such as are to be avoyded yet are not the people excused in their neglect of withdrawing communion in their places and stations viz. as to private encouraging intimate communion from notorious obstinate offenders although their spirituall Governors enjoyn them not this withdrawing from the foresaid obstinate notorious offenders For these Scriptures do absolutely command this withdrawing and give no such dispensation to the people in case of the negligence of their guides And when the people follow the injunctions of their Officers herein as being thereby and therewith satisfied concerning the obstinate wickednesse of such particular offenders they do close therewith not meerly because the governing Church requires this for then they should be bound so to withdraw from any whom their leaders may warn them to avoyd but especially because they are satisfied in their opinion of the integrities and abilities of their guides or by their personal knowledge of the parties censured or by some other way that these particular persons whom they are warned to avoyd are such as the Scripture commands them to withdraw their foresaid intimate and encouraging communion from 3. The Officers and people of the Church conjunctly are to withdraw communion from some offenders For to them as together the Directions for this purpose are prescribed 1 Cor. 5.1 2 4 5 7 13. When the Church is met together Whether it refer to any parricular congregation met among the Corinthians or to a classicall meeting of sundry congregations comes to one pass as to the present point For in a classicall Church-meeting there are as there were in that Synod Acts 15.2 22 23 besides the Ministers others of the brethren delegates from the rest and therefore representatives of their whole congregations respectively with respect to the transaction of a withdrawing by these excommunication is thus described as Aretius hath it Problem Theol. de Excommunicatione Excommunicatio est alicujus prosessi religionem nostam à consortio fidelium in sacris prophanis rebus exclusio facta in nomine virtute Christi per ordinarios Ecclesiae ministros consentiente reliquâ Ecclesiâ facta emendandi peccatoris causa ad liberandum à contagione peccati Ecclesiam And thus in Cyprians time it 's manifest great respect was
had to the people or brethren as such in the management of Ecclesiastical jurisdiction and especially in matters of Excommunication or Absolution of their members and they had so great a stroke that they had a negative voice and scarce any thing done without or at least against their will in these great affairs Remeant quotidie saith Cyprian Epislola 55. Cornelin sratri ad Ecclesiam pulsant nobis tamen à quibus ratio Domino reddenda est anxiè ponderantibus solicitèe x aminantibus qui recipi admitli ad Ecclesiam debeant Quibusdam enim aut crumina sua obsistunt aut fratres obstinatè firmiter renituntur ut recipi omnino non possint cum scandalo periculo plurimorum Neque enim sic putamina quaedam eolligâ—nd a sunt ut quae integra sana suntvulnerentur nec utilis ac consultus est pastor qui ita morbidas contactas over gregi admiscet ut gregem totum mali cohaerentis afflictione contaminet ut gaudent laetuntur cum tolerabiles minus culpabiles redeunt ita contrà fremunt reluctantur quoties immendabiles protervi vel adusteriis vel sacrificiis contaminati post haec adbuc insuper superbi sic ad Ecclesiam remeant ut bona intus ingenia corrumpant Vix plebi persuadeo imo extorqueo ut tales patiantur admùti And even in the weighty business of installing or ejecting Ministers Epistola 68. Cyprianus Caecilius Primus Polycorpus Felici Presbytero c. it is said Propter quod plebs obsequens praeceptis dominicis Deum metuens à peccatore praeposiio separate se debet nec ad sacriledgi sacerdotis sacrificia miscere Quando ipsa maximè habeat potestatem vel eligendi dignos sacerdotes vel indignos recusandi Instruit ostendit ordinationes sacerdotales non nisi sub populi assistentis conscientiâ fieri oportere vel plebe praesente vel delegantur malorum crimina vel bonorum merita praedicentur sit ordinatio justa legitima quae omnium suffragio judicio fuerit examinata §. 10. This joynt act of the Ministers and people or the major part thereof declaring according to the word of God a notorious and not only so but obstinate flagitious brother to be as an Heathen and Publican and so to be removed from that Ecclesiasticall communion which an heathen may not be admitted unto This I say I take to be the greater or full Excommunication which yet is not simply a cutting off the excommunicate from the Church but in some respects only viz. in regard of the suspending them from some priviledges of the Church as Maccovius saith Loc. com c. 84. Non igitisr penitus è corpore gladio hoc excommunicationis amputatur sed quoad certas quasdam communicandi rationes per sacramenta familiarem consuetudinem This withdrawing in these two respects viz. 1. in respect of sacramentall communion And 2. such inward encouraging familiarity as might not be afforded to an obstinate heathen being declared and denounced by the Church as aforesaid against an offender I conceive includes the utmost which is in any excommunication now in use in the Church of God I know some extend it further both for the exclusion from the word and prayers of the Congregation and from almost any civill communion except in some cases of very neer relation to the excommunicate yea and then too from praying with them that the wise might not joyn in prayer with the excommunicate husband But this severe Doctrine I know not how to prove and therefore must not assert it I find indeed an Antichristian excommunication Revel 13.17 That none might buy nor sell save he that had the mark of the Beast But it is dangerous as one faith to sweep Christs floore with Antichrists besome I know some of the Ancients speak of the excommunicate as deprived of the suffrages and prayers of the Church But then I think their meaning is that they are not prayed for as the faithfull are not but they were prayed for under the notion of impenitents that God would give them true repentance as the Church prayes for the conversion of the heathens Some were thrust out of the place of the Assembly but then mostly those places were I conceive private houses where the Church had their meetings of their coming to which there is not the like reason as there is of their liberty to come to our assemblies where the excomunicate may have a civill right to a seat as well as others And where there were seats for the excommunicate distinct from the faithfull there also were such like distinct seats for the Catechumens and Heathens whereby as it appears they were not excluded from the hearing of the Word so it is also manifest they were not excluded any more then Heathens were which is all contend for in this matter The reverend Vindicator Mr Humsreys Vindic. p. 149. is so ingenuous as to acknowledge he thinkes there 's reason to come to composition with his worthy Antagonist about the admitting the excommunicate to the Word and Prayer from 1 Cor. 14. I could be willing saith he to compound the matter with one distinction Exclusion is either reall or relative I shall leave it to him that will dispute with Mr Drake how the Church can exclude the excommunicate really from being present at the Word and Prayer and it shall suffice me that they are excluded cluded relatively however so that though they may be present as heathen yet are they cut off from all their interest in them still as members so here But why will not this handsome distinction be applyed to the receiving the excommunicate to the Sacrament also really though not relatively if that this excommunication did not essentially containe in it a withdrawing from communion in the Sacrament and not so in other Ordinances And why should our Brethren check us for making such a difference as they say we do betwixt Ordinances of equall sanctity viz. the Word Prayer and Sacraments when they themselves are here forced as to admission to them to do the same thing Exclusion from the Word and Prayer I doubt not may be exercised on an excommunicate and so on heathens where no civil right he hath hinders not in some cases as prudence may direct But then its an accidentall and was not intended in the sentence of excommunication considered in it selfe That great mistake of taking excommunication for a cutting off from Church-membership hath been sufficiently I hope manifested in the sixth section of this Chapter §. 11. I shall only adde one thing more concerning this full excommunication As the consent of the particular Congregation whereof one is a member is necessary for this his excommunication because else it cannot have its execution and therefore cannot be inflicted where the major part of that Church are against it though the Officers are never so urgent in it So
either in respect of doctrinall or practicall apostasie are opposed to them who believe Heb. 10.38 39. Therefore those who apostatize do not believe and so are not believers in some Scripture-sense which also agrees with the usuall signification of the word Budeus Comment Ling. Graec. saith 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 cui credi debet fidem faciens verbo suo And Scapula explains 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to be incredulus qui fidem non adhibet Item infidus cujus suspecta est sides cui fidendum non est Item perfidus 6. I acknowledge the words believe and not believe belieliever and unbeliever are used more largely sometimes in Scripture as I shall perhaps shew beneath But that some Church-members that is such men on each as by their positive engagements and promises are obliged to believe in Christ and forsake their sins may yet by their notorious disobedience become visibly unbelievers in some Scripture-sense is all that I here contend for And therefore my reverend brother comes off me thinks but blewly who puts so great an honour on Brown as to call this the Brownisticall sense of unbeliever opposing it to the Scripturall and Catholique sense of the same §. 5. 2. Now I proceed to the application of the foresaid distinction and the very stress of our controversie will lye on this point Whether to those who are visibly unbelievers in this sense I have proved to be a Scripture-sense of the word that is as are visibly in the way of actuall notorious disobedience to the Gospel whether to these I say the Lords Supper ought not to bè administred though they be baptized adult intelligent and not excluded other publique ordinances in the Church I explicated visibly unbelievers by such as are according to the word of God to be judged and taken to be thus unbelievers Such explications Mr. W. cannot endure Oh! how he puffs and storms at them p. 60 61. and in very sad earnest calls them Bombast c. But let us leave our brother to cool at his leasure and calmly consider the thing it selfe now before us And herein I shall design 1. To premise some considerations as introductory to what followes 2. To determine and prove against Mr. W. the negative of the question last proposed 3. To annex some cautions at the later end for the further clearing and preventing mistake in this doctrine I must insist upon The considerations to be premised are these 1. It is certain that a distinction ought to be made betwixt Believers and those we are to account and deal with as in the way of believing actually The same is to be said of the difference to be put between unbelievers and those we are to account and deal with as in the way of notorious disobedience and unbelief As to the habit of faith or unbelief and the denomination a person may receive from the existence or predominancy of either of them we cannot certainly know that any besides our selves are so believers or unbelievers But we may know who are visibly in the way of faith or unbelief And therefore I own and comply with the substance of what Mr. W. saith concerning the impossibility of our knowing who are true believers in respect of the habit p. 55 57. c. 2. Yea I do not onely grant this in respect of the habit of justisying and saving faith but in respect also of a dogmaticall faith that is assent to the propositions of the Christian faith as truths such as the Divels may have and the damned who doubt not of the truth of the Gospel And if this be made out I hope the Disputes may be somewhat allay'd which are at present on foot betwixt very learned and godly men viz. Whether a dogmaticall faith or justifying faith entitle to the Sacraments The one may with like reason be granted as the other and both are attended with equall difficulties or inconveniences supposeable I may as certainly know whom I am to account a justified believer as whom I am to account a dogmaticall believer yea and most commonly perhaps as easily too Is a persons professing his assent to the Articles of the Creed or owning the Scriptures a sufficient character of his believing dogmatically or historically So is his professing consent and cordiall submission to the doctrine of the Gospel as sufficient and ready a note to us of his being a justified believer yet we cannot be certain he is of that perswasion in the Articles he professeth assent unto no more then we can be assured he sincerely consents to the same according to his profession of sincerity Is on the contrary a persons disclaiming the principles of the Christian faith a sufficient token whereby we may be directed in accounting him dogmatically or historically no believer so his professed renouncing of subjection to Christs Lawes quasi dicat I will not yet forsake my lusts that I may obey Christ is a sufficient note whereby we are to account him at present as out of the way of actuall justifying faith Is a persons denying Christs divinity a note to us that he is not a dogmaticall believer though yet he profess he believes the Scriptures to be true and so contradicts himself So is a persons disobedience to and actuall rebellion against the Commands of Christ when notorious a sufficient token to us that he is not in the way of actuall justifying faith although he doth profess in word that he believes sincerely and obedientially and so in this contradicts himself But of this we shall have occasion to say somewhat more beneath §. 6. 3. Sometimes persons are called holy and Saints and perhaps may be beleevers too and such like titles attributed to them whiles here alive in this world on the account of their being positively obliged by their own promise to holiness faith and the service of the true God so as the Heathens and other Nations were not Thus all the nation of the Jewes who were devoted to God by their professed acceptance of the Covenant of God tendred to them were an holy people children of the Kingdome the Church of God c. And so all those persons alive are now Saints and holy and beleevers who have solemnly taken an engagement upon themselves by their promise made to believe in Christ and they are in Covenant that is they have by their own promise covenanted with God and bound themselves thereby unto his service so as Pagans are not And no one can be sure that that promise was not in sincerity and therefore we cannot say absolutely of any such though never so wicked and censured too that he is no Church-member that is that the hath not devoted himselfe to Christ in truth But now an heathen hath not visibly devoted himselfe at all to Christ and therefore cannot be a Church-member yea though he be of Gods Elect. But for those who have visibly devoted themselves to Christ this indelible character remaines on them though they
to call or encourage the prophane to come to be converted from that their wickednesse although God may work such an effect by the Sacrament even in an heathen if he were though finfully admitted §. 12. All Divines I think have held that in the Sacrament there is an application of comfort to the communicants particularly As the Minister is to give each their portion in due season and so is prudently to hold forth and apply the promises to those he judgeth humbled and capable of having them fitly and sately applyed to them and not to the visibly impenitent in that stare except so as to encourage them to repent that they may be capable of them So in the ministration of the Sacrament comfort is applied to the communicants upon supposition of their being in such a capacity for it really as to the Church they are apparently In short if the delivering the Sacrament to a communicant in this form Christ dyed for thee or the like words be an application of the richest Gospel-promise to him at that instant for him to lay hold upon for his present comfort and is so intended by the ministrator of the Sacrament to him then he is supposed in the judgment of the Church which receives him or in the prudentiall judgement of the Minister where there is no governing Church to involve his particular judgement in theirs that he is one who at present is in a capacity to believe that he hath saving inrerest in Christs body and blood exhibited there unto him sacramentally and signally which they must judge of not by his being a Church-member in the largest sense from which excommunication doth not simply cut him off but by his being visibly to them in the way of actuall obedience to the Gospel he professeth So much for this Argument Before we passe to the next it will not be amisse to take a little repose in the fifth part of the 119 Psalm PSALM 119. Part 5. E. 33 Eternal God teach me thy way Which I shall keep to th' end 34 Endue me with that wit I may Thy Law with whole heart tend 35 Ever me guide in thy Lawes blest For therein I rejoyce 36 Estrange not my heart from thy hests But from vile avarice 37 Engage me not to see vain wo In thy way quicken me 38 Establish now thy word unto Thy servant who fears thee 39 Early prevent my fear'd disgrace For good thy Indgements be 40 Each word of thine I did embrace In just grace quicken me CHAP. VI. §. 1. I Proceed to my fifth and chiefe Argument in the management whereof we shall derive cleere light from the holy Scriptures And it may be thus framed The Lords Supper ought not to be administred to them who do visibly and notoriously want that faith which is necessarily required to be visibly present in them who may be lawfully admitted thereunto But such as are unbeleevers by notorious disobedience to the Gospel do visibly want that faith c. Therefore the Lords Supper ought not to be administred to them The Major is undeniable The Minor I thus confirme Such as visibly want that faith which is necessarily required to be visibly present in the adult who may be lawfully admitted to Baptisme do visibly want that faith which is necessarily required to be visibly present in them who may be lawfully admitted to the Lords Supper But such as are unbeleevers by notorious disobedience to the Gospel do visibly want that faith which is necessarily required to be visibly present in the adult who may be lawfully admitted to Baptisme Therefore unbeleevers by notorious disobedience to the Gospel do visibly want that faith which is necessarily required to be visibly present in them who may be lawfully admitted to the Lords Supper §. 2. The major proposition here is proved by the analogy which divers have shewed betwixt the two Sacraments there is the same Covenant sealed in both and the same benefits conferred at least on the adult in both And if any make any difference herein the advantage is given to the Lords Supper and so our argument is more strong a minori ad majus But I shall not siay on this since the learned and ingenuous Mt. Humphreys the strongest opposer of the suspension our controversie is now about that I have seene hath granted that Adult is eadem est ratio utriusque sacramenti And in his explication of that Rule that it may suit with his own hypotheses the better and explicating himselfe thereupon Rejoynd sect 5. p. 65. he saith You must take the meaning thus There is cadem ratio but not in omnibus It holds in the maine that the same saith which will admit one of age to be baptized will also admit him to the Lords Supper and that is an historical faith only in profession yet as for making that confession though it be needful in Baptisme in admitting them to be Church-members seeing we have Scripture for it yet not at this Supper where we have none For when men are Church members already their very coming is their profession So he §. 3. Here are indeed some passages I am far from consenting to as that Baptisme admits persons to be Church-members when as the great argument for the Baptisme of children goes upon a contrary position viz. That Church-members whom no barring crime is charged upon may be baptized Therefore they are Church-members before Baptisme though in that their Church-membership is solemnly signified and publiquely acknowledged And his concluding it not needful to have this confession made before a person be first admitted to the Lords Supper as it was before persons adult were admitted to Baptisme will not hold unlesse he could shew where persons baptized in infancy were or ought to be in Scripture admitted to the Lords Supper without a personal recognition of the Christian faith But because this is not particularly determined in any Scripture example we must needs argue by analogy to Baptisme about it There is the same reason for requiring a profession of faith from one baptized in infancy before he is first admitted to the Lords Supper as there is for requiring it from the adult for their Baptisme especially such as Augustine and others who were many years Christians in profession before they came to be baptized and the Jewes who were Church-members before their being baptized But to let these things passe here Mr. Humphreys grants the Rule so far as I intend now to make use of it viz. that it holds in the maine that profession of faith historical saith he but most lamentably wrong is the Rule for admission to both Sacraments only in the baptisme of the adult it was verbal profession and at receiving he saith their very coming to receive is their profession Though he maketh the manner of testifying the faith required in adult persons to be baptized different from the manner requisite for testifying the faith required in him who is to be admitted
actuall remission of sin and are so designed by the ministrators thereof It is true where we require actuall faith habituall is supposed but habituall is not sufficient though we could be assured thereof being not sufficient in its kind as a condition for the obtaining of pardon of sins And this leads us to the second Caution which is this §. 7. 2. That a person is not judged by the Church or Minister to be destitute of grace no not visibly and apparenter necessarily upon the account of their debarring him from the Sacrament but onely that he doth not live in the visible actuall exercise of faith but walketh in wayes inconsistent therewith And which therefore bring him under guilt at present so that his sins are retained in heaven that is unpardoned as well as on earth in the Church As by the preaching of the word they are retained in soro interno or poenitentiali so by the Church-censures in foro externo juridicali Matth. 16.19 18.18 As in preaching I say the threatnings or comforts mens conditions are manifested to their own consciences so in Church-censures inflicted on offenders and in Ecclesiasticall restoring of them there is a solemn application of the threats or promises of comforts to particular persons upon credible evidence of their states being such as may require the same respectively either the one or the other Now a godly man may have need of having the threatnings applied to him supposing his fall into any gross sin not particularly repented of And so may have his sins retained by the Church not onely he who hath the habit of saving faith inwardly and undiscernably as to others but also he of whose habituall justifying or sincere faith the Church or Ministers have probable hopes at that very time As suppose in Davids case one who had long known his former upright life might by that have had more probable grounds whereupon to judge and esteem him habitually holy then from his present crimes to judge or esteem him destitute of true holiness The like is the case of some few of the Quakers and such notorious heretickes in our dayes who upon the account of their former holy conversation a long time are hoped to have a seed of grace in them which will in due time through Gods mercy exert it selfe for their conversion from their present blasphemies as it hath done in some Yet what sober person can doubt that at present they are in such wayes of actuall infidelity and wickedness as to be rejected as they are by our Churches §. 8. The third Caution that must be here remembred which was hinted before viz. That it belongs primarily to the governing Church to judge what persons are so unbelievers in respect of their notorious disobedience to the Gospel as that the Lords Supper may not be administred to them this being confessed by all to be one instance of Ecclesiastical punishment or rather castigation viz. in exclusion from the Sacrament And then where the Church is in such a capacity to judge I humbly conceive the Minister while he is their Minister is to administer according to their judgement yea although their publick judgement thwart his own opinion For in such a case the question is not whether unbelievers by notorious disobedience to the Gospel should be admitted that he cannot recede from to gratifie any but whether this or that person be such an unbleliever which is regularly in a Church under Ecclesiasticall government to be determined by a publick judgement wherein particular persons are and an Officer considered as a single person is concluded so as it may not be resisted by him alone though he hath the liberty of appeal as opportunity is offered As when a Judge acquits one upon the verdict of the Jury whom he thinkes ought not to be acquitted The question there is not whether the guilty should be acquitted that may not be done by him upon any terms but whether that person is guilty and here without any injustice he submits his own opinion to the publick judgement of them whom the Law makes Judges in some sort of the fact in such cases I said while the Minister continueth to be their Minister he is obliged thus to comply but in some gross and palpable male-administrations it is thought the Minister and so the Judge in the former instance should leave his place rather then continue to execute the wicked determinations of the publick judgement aforesaid As Hooker in the Preface to his Ecclesiasticall Polity sayes Calvin did in such a case preaching his farewell Sermon upon such a wrong judgement passed by the Consistory of Geneva for the admission of a notorious offender to the Sacrament §. 9. 4. But when the Church is not in that capacity there being not a governing Church nor can be procured I suppose it is devolved to the diseretion and prudence of the Minister for suspending his own act of delivering the Sacrament to such as are openly wicked and profane and as it were ipso jure excommunicate For the proving hereof or what is tantamount that reverend Divine Mr. Blake hath given us his ren reasons in his Covenant sealed ch 7. § 16. well worthy of consideration and answered objections made by Mr. Jeanes against the same To which if it would not be counted too much presumption I would add There is no one I think doubts but a Minister if cast among heathens to whom he preacheth the Gospel and they tender themselves to baptisin might make use of his prudence and judgement of discretion to direct him in administring or not administring baptism to those he discerns capable or incapable who are fit Catechumens and who not who seem to professe the Christian faith seriously and who saying the same words do yet manifestly scorn what in words they profess And where he hath no governing Church to whose publick judgment he should have recourse I see not but the case as to this is of the same exigence either he is to administer to all that come or he must discern and judge who are to be refused and who embraced Now there is no publick judgement for him to be guided by But none sure will say the former The Minister is greatly concerned to do his endeavour in keeping the manifestly uncapable from participating even where there is a governing Church much more where there is not and so agreater burden is cast upon him Cyprian in his 54. Epistle Cornelio fratri after advising him to admit the penitent to the communion saith Si autem quod Dominus avertat à fratribus nostris aliquis lapsorum fefellerit ut pacem subdole petat impendentis praelii tempore communicationem non praeliaturus accipiat seipsum fallit ac decipit qui aliud corde occultat aliud voce pronunciat Nos in quantum nobis videre judicare conceditur faciem singulorum videmus cor scrutari mentem perspicere non possumus De
should have been of some who are Saints and no Saints to have fitted beleevers and unbeleevers the denomination is taken from the prevailing or predominant part §. 3. Then for the thing it selfe First he describes positively beleevers such who are soederally and professedly of the Christian perswasion Well and are not all the excommunicate or most of them so have not they a dogmatical faith And 2. are they not foederally positively engaged no time nor condition can take off or free them from their baptismal engagements Well but in his explanation of his unbeleevers negatively he addes more to the description of his positively beleevers as namely 1. Visible submission to the outward meanes of faith and reformation not as aliens but of the houshold of faith 2. Not justifying their miscarriages 3. But coming to our solemnities 4. Professedly hoping in Christ for salvation and 5. in no other Saviour And p. 57. he further describes them thus The baptized among us that frequent our Assemblies heare our doctrine with reverence and attention joyne with us in our solemnities give us visible testimony of their assent to our doctrine to such we are to administer as beleevers c. Now 1. I would know what Reason Mr. W. can produce for putting in these qualifications into the description of his positively beleever rather than that he should in generall walk according to his profession which makes a visible Saint or justified beleever 2. If all these be necessary to make up his positive beleever who must have the Sacrament then if these or any of these be wanting visibly in a baptized person adult and not excommunicate he is not or not enough a positive beleever and so must not be admitted to the Sacrament It should seeme then it s Mr. W. his doctrine that if a person baptized and adult either will not be reproved is a desperate swearer who as the dog turns againe to rent him that though never so prudently and meekly casts the pearles of admonition before him or if he frequent not come not above twice or thrice a yeare to any publique religious solemnities or if he do justifie and plead for his miscarriages or if he know not whether Christ be God or no whom he saith he hopes in or whether Christ be man too and dyed yea or if he do not heare the word with reverence and attention and give us visible testimony of his assent thereunto In any of these cases much more where all concurre suspension is allowed of and I presume Mr. W. would not have this person for any one of these offences excommunicated in his sense viz. excluded all publique Ordinances And yet whiles he grants all this he pretends to justifie the position I opposed viz. that no ignorant or scandalous baptized adult and not excommunicated person should be debared the Sacrament our Gentleman who is so impatient of being contradicted by me can calmly and contentedly contradict himselfe and that in so many instances altogether 3. I would demand where God hath promised to him that beleeves dogmatically only and professeth so and that he is willing to receive c. that he shall have the Sacrament either the bare signes or the thing signified thereby If he will forbeare to answer these scriblings as his severity calls my writings till he have some cleere proofe for that I thinke we shall be no more honoured with his publique assaults But I may not impose such hard conditions on him his tongue and pen are his own 4. But if his positive beleever do truly profess the whole Christian perswasion that is to assent to the doctrine of the Gospel understandingly for a man cannot be perswaded of what he understands not and that he hopes in Christ that is in Christs way he is a justified beleever If he do but credibly profess the same no one doubts of his admission to the Sacrament But then the Question will be whether this word profession is credible when his deeds do notoriously contradict the same of which we must speake beneath §. 4. Mr. W. addes p. 51. And we read not of any debarring this had people the Israelites from the solemnity of the Passeover There were no such imperious Masters of Reformation in those dayes which gathered proselytes of the better sort into a faction and excluded all the rest from Church fellowship as the world aliens unbeleevers and no Church members Likewise the Apostle saith We are Jewes by nature and not sinners of the Gentiles so our people are Christians by nature and birth and not sinners of the Pagans positively by the proper Rules of their very profession This latter assertion of our being Christians by birth as the Jewes were Church members borne I deny not But that 's no medium to prove the general admission he pleads for The former words of his are argumentative after a fashion The argument is gathered from comparing the Sacrament of the Lords Supper with the Passeover among the Jewes and our Ministers with the Jewish Governours then And here first we have the flowers of his argument Imperious Masters of Reformation faction He should remember he was to dispute not revile now But some mens mouthes do so abound with the distillation of reproachfull termes that they can hardly speake vehemently without spitting abusively 2. We have his false intimations that we gather proselytes into a faction excluding all the rest c. This falshood runs almost through his book that we gather new Churches and disclaime the old constitution as null lay another in examination notorious untruths I shall say no more to them now but demand whether the Constitutions and Cannons ecclesiasticall primo Jacobi which Can. 27. enjoyned that all should kneel at the Communion and that the Minister should not deliver it to any if they did not kneele were intended by the Imposers thereof or did it amount in the nature of the thing it selfe to a new constitution of the Church Did they gather the kneelers into a faction as their proselytes Mr. W. I thinke will hereby cross his affection to the Prelatical Government hinted in his p. 73. so as to say that was a factious designe And then all excluding some-from the Communion in our Churches without excommunicating them from all Ordinances yea though upon unscriptural grounds for I am of opinion their kneeling was not jure divino no more than bowing at the name of Jesus is not a demolishing of the former constitution of the Church and erecting a new one in a faction And I might ask whether every time the people of the Jewes were by their godly Magistrates called to renew their Covenant with God and sometimes so strictly enjoyned hereunto that he that refused should be severely punished yea separated from the Congregation 2 Chron. 15.9 12 13. 34.29 31 32. Ezra 10.3 5 7 8.11 12.19 Whether I say then they pulled down the old constitution of their Church and made a new one in a faction But
ground thereof Doth not the soul thus argue Could I love God so little and the World so much be so mindless of Gods service so sluggish so careless of my soul if I did really believe the truth of Gods promises the immortality and pretiousness of my soul the vanity of the world the danger of Gods displeasure and that now is the day of grace offered to me the continuance whereof I have no assurance for an houre longer If a man promise to poor beggars that if they will but come to such a Prince a few miles off they shall there have great riches c. and yet they sit still and stirre not would not another suspect and may not they suspect themselves that they believe not there is truth in the proposition and motion made unto them Quis enim Domino mente credit facultate non credit Quis Deo animam suam mane pat pecuniam negat Quis promissis coelestibus fidem commodat non agit ut esse possit particeps promissionum Et ideo cum videamus homines haec non agere cogimur non credentes palam evidenter agnoscere Salvian ad Eccl. Cathol l. 2. And I think the great Physical if I may so call it work of conversion lies in illumination of the understanding Eph. 1.17 18 19 20. And the will is sweetly moved according to the nature of such a faculty yet necessarily in respect of the event to close with such through convictions A man may profess a dogmaticall faith and so also a justifying faith who hath it not And we must believe his credible profession But I think that man whose understanding is so farre enlightned with Gospel-truth as a sincere believers is is a sincere and justified believer that predominat assent being inseparably joyned with consent also This consideration I have the more insisted on that it might be an answer to that Objection viz. If justifying faith onely intitle to the Sacrament then none may receive who want assurance Let those who hold dogmaticall faith intitles to the Sacrament answer and say what he must do who doubts and wants assurance of his dogmaticall faith and it will serve to direct him who doubts concerning his justifying faith the case is the same in both 3. Mr. W. here insinuates if I understand him how we must have a certainty of their being believers whom we administer to viz. by our having a certainty of their baptisme and their true doctrinall consession of the Faith This will rationally put an end to the Controversie about that which is called Examination before admission to the Sacrament But that is not now to be insisted on 4. I grant after they have once given a certainty that they have in their own persons made a true doctrinall confession of the Faith with professed consent thereunto their right to the Lords Supper is not to be denied till they do by notorious wickedness as before hath been declared incurre Ecclesiasticall censure §. 3. 5. I know not well what Mr. W. means by visible conformity to the means of Faith and solemnities of publick worship which he saith is a visible testimony of their owning the Christian Religion If he mean that their conversations are not notoriously opposite to the faith they have professed I concurre If their coming to Church what ever their lives be otherwise then I demand whether a Christian may be censured for no misdemeanour unless he neglect coming to Church And if he may then his coming to Church is not a sufficient testimony that he is such a visible believer who hath right to the Sacrament 6. That should seem to be intended as an argument which Mr. W. adds viz. For Ministers are but the outward Ministrators of the Elements and then it would be to this purpose If Ministers are but outward Ministrators of the Elements in the Lords Supper then the outward administration to them who are baptized and come to Church though notoriously prophane in their lives is equally their outward right with the strictest livers But Ergo. I deny the consequence neither is there any semblance of connexion in it If the governing Church do retain prophane persons in their sacramentall communion that might have some more probability of inferring the Ministers duty to administer to them But what is that to our case §. 4. 7. Whereas Mr. W. further adds therefore as long as the Church holds men baptized and grown to years in her outward communion in other ordinances so long doth she hold them in the outward worship of celebrating the Lords Supper with her members as their due and duty I answer Nay rather from what was before asserted whence this is inferred by Mr. W. viz. That Ministers are but Ministrators it follows that they are to minister and officiate to them as in the Churches communion only so far as the Church retains them in her communion And therefore if the governing Church exclude any from the Sacrament though not some other Ordinances the Minister answerably may officiat to them in other ordinances but not in that 8. Whether the governing Church may exclude some from communion in the Lords Supper who are retained in other Ordinances I know is questioned and perhaps Mr. W. may aim at such a thing here But I see not how his words do signifie it I shall not therefore here stand upon it having laid down those grounds before upon which the question may be determined in the affirmative And thus have I adventured more particularly than otherwise I should have thought needfull to answer Mr. W. his Pretensions in this thing because that in his confidence of my weakness he here so vauntingly vapours and concludes in these words p. 62. In your next let me understand what you can produce and offer for refutation hereof which I believe you neither will do nor can do PSALM 119. Part 11. L. 81 Longing for thy heart faints my heart In thy word I hope Lord. 82 Looking thou shouldst comfort impart Mine eyes fail for thy word 83 Like to smoak't Bottles I am now Thine Hests I 'le not forget 84 Let me my dayes-count know when thou wilt pay my Foes their debt 85 Leud men have digged pits for me in pride ' gainst thy word true 86 Lawes made by thee all faithful bee help me when Foes pursue 87 Loe they on earth almost me spent but I left not thy Law 88 Let thy kind love my dulness rent I le keep thy word with aw CHAP. XII §. 1. HAving cleared and confirmed that those who are visibly in a notorious way of wickedness inconsistent with the exercise of true faith are on that account such unbelievers visibly as have no immediate right to the Lords Supper and so ought not to have it administred unto them The Assumption follows at numb 25. in my M. S. That those who by word openly refuse the Lord Jesus Christ are visibly such unbelievers and therefore they are such visibly
to whom the Lords Supper ought not to be administred This assumption I thus confirmed numb 27. hecause to profess to renounce Christ is to profess not to believe now he who seems seriously to professe his not believing that is his renouncing Christianity cannot be by any rightly judged and taken to be a believer that is such a believer as aforesaid I here gave an instance of one uncapable of rightfull admission to the Sacrament and therefore not to be admitted though he be baptized adult and on whom the sentence of the Church may not perhaps have passed for excommunication The Instance was of one who doth in words renounce Christianity I added seriously not in opposition to madness or distraction as Mr W. trifles p. 63. For then the Instance would not have fitted the Question Mr. W. himselfe excludes the unintelligent p. 34. but in opposition to both 1. Ironicall uttering of words which then signifie not what otherwise they would as those words are usually interpreted Gen. 3.22 Behold he is become like one of us And 2. a questioning or doubting uttering of words which though in forme assertive yet are otherwayes manifest to be intended not as assertive but probational So Josephs speech is fairely interpreted Gen. 42.9 16. By the life of Pharaoh yee are all spyes So Psal 73.13 Verily I have cleansed my heart in vaine but after he cleeres his meaning was only a questioning or doubting of it v. 15. If I should say thus I should offend against the generation of the just Now such an one as thus in words significative of a renouncing of Christianity where the circumstances of uttering them declare the meaning of the speaker is not ironical nor probational only doth profess to renounce Christianity I said is not in a capacity of rightful admission to the Sacrament And by this one Affirmative I overthrew their universal negative they say none adult baptized not put off from other ordinances may be suspended or debarr'd the Sacrament I say such an one as we have mentioned may therefore their universal negative proposition is false except further limited §. 2. I thinke now there are few who understand any thing concerning disputation but would expect Mr. W. should have answered either by affirming that this word renouncer of Christianity should be admitted to the Sacrament if he tender himselfe to partake or els by distinction have put some limitation on the universal negative I assault whereby it might have appeared that such an instance as this was not comprehended in it But to admiration he can answer and doubts not to refute mee without denying or distinguishing as followes 1. He saith The whole depends upon a meere supposition It is rather a thing imagined than a cause likely to happen in the Church This exception I made my selfe and answered it which answer of mine Mr. W. endeavours to take off beneath where I shall make my reply 2. He saith But if such a case should fall out viz. That a man in the Church should professedly renounce Christianity then he renounceth the Lords Supper too And so your suspension in this case would be needlesse There is no need of suspending or excommunicating such a wilfull renouncer of Christianity I answer by distinguishing 1. Betwixt renouncing of all the essential parts and some essential part of Christianity 2. Between his renouncing the Lords Supper in particular as to his using it for the end and use Christ hath appointed it for and renouncing it altogether upon all accounts whatsoever And 2. now I say 1. To renounce an essential part of Christianity is to renounce Christianity though a man profess not to renounce all the essential parts of Christianity It is essential to Christianity that Christ be accepted embraced and submitted to as Lord and Saviour to save us from sin Math. 1.21 as well as from punishment therefore to reject Christ as Lord is to reject Christianity He that saith I beleeve Christ dyed for me to redeeme me from hell c. But I will not obey him he shall not reigne over me I neither will nor can spare my lusts at least not yet c. doth renounce an essential part of Christianity and so by Consequence Christianity it selfe For any essential parr of a thing being removed the thing it selfe is removed I may say of our accepting Christ as King and Saviour as the Epigrammatist spake of his two poysons Dividat haec si quis faciunt discreta venenum Antidotum sumet qui sociata bibet 2. He who thus renounceth Christianity renounceth also expresly or by consequence the Lords Supper as to a maine end and use Christ hath appointed it viz. for the engaging the soul neerer to Christ and resigning it up in grateful and holy obedience to him who is the author of salvation to them who obey him But yet he may not renounce it as to all other respects he would do as others do in the outward work c. And therefore there is need yea a necessity of suspending or excommunicating such a wilful renouncer of Christianity §. 3. 3. Mr. W. tells us this supposed renouncing Christianity cannot abolish his positive estate which stands on the free grace of God by Baptisme and so he is a beleever for his positive estate in point of Religion by vertue of his consecration unto the Christian faith in Baptisme and God will judge him as a Christian if he continue in his revolt till death not as a Pagan Infidel p. 63 64 65. Ans 1. Who ever said his wickedness disobliged him from his baptismall engagements 2. Mr. W. confesseth that this renouncer of Christianity is a Christian and beleever by vertue of his Baptisme at the day of Judgement when condemned And doth he thinke such a Christianity as is in hell gives right to the Sacraments here Who then can be excluded A damned Christian is a baptized person consecrated to Christian duties and not wholly disobliged from the same 3. And yet Mr. W. saith p. 63. I should judge of him rather by his continuance or non-continuance in this supposed abrenunciation What would he judge of him to be a Pagan Infidelâ—e So he is not when damned therefore cannot so be judged of by his foresaid abrenunciation here and continuance therein or will he judge him to be an unbeleever as destitute of habitual saving grace that belongs not to us to judge of but to God alone who knows the heart or must he be judged an unbeleever as lying under notorious wickedness inconsistent with the exercise of faith that indeed we may judge of But then to what purpose doth he thus judge of him in reference to his sacramental claime If to allow it and admit him then its all one as to this as if he were not so judged of If to exclude him then I have what I contend for unless there be no judging of a man till he be dead and then no man can be excommunicated for any crime
severely they were punished and thence concludes against the Jewes for their abusing the Prophets and rejecting Christ himself as they themselves perceived verse 45. The force of such arguments lies not in the existence of the case supposed but in the merits of the cause supposed and in the parallel and likeness betwixt the case supposed and their cases whom he deals with Comparata etiam ficta arguunt fidemque faciunt as P. Ramus rightly observes and gives many examples thereof Dialect l. 1. c. 18. So here whether word-renouncer of Christianity be existent or no if he be to be debarred the Sacrament and the case of one who in deeds rejects Christ be parallel to that as to a visible renouncing of Christ the Argument is valid from the former to the debarring of the later §. 4. 2. Another exception Mr. W. makes against the expression he saith is mine of quotidian and ordinary rejectings of Christ. This expression saith he is somwhat harsh and rigorous p. 96. the like he hath p. 103. But expressions warranted by Scripture are not too harsh nor rigorous but such is this For the Scripture frequently puts this language on the notorious acts of disobedience even amongst Gods people by dedication and verball profession 1 Sam. 8.7 10.19 15.23 26. 2 King 17.15 Jerem. 16.19 8.9 Hosea 4.6 And Christ Jesus makes these two phrases of rejecting him and not receiving his word of equall importance John 12.48 And would to God this were not too ordinary and frequent 3. Mr. W. adds p. 96 97. Perhaps some of your reverend Pastors grave Elders may possibly be involved in the crime It is supposeable nay possible to use your own weapon that such may be word or deed-rejecters of Christ in your sense If such an extraordinary emergent as this appears who then shall suspend the Parish Pope or his Vestry Cardinals They will haply have a privat Mass though none of the Congregation wil joyn with them In this supposable case which possibly may occur though it doth never actually occur what instantaneous Remedy have you Methinks such wise men as you should foresee the evill and be furnished with an instantaneous Remedy against it when such a case shall occur though it never actually doth occur Shall I retort upon you this Counter-buff viz. That God hath placed a power somewhere in his Church for the instantaneous checking of this supposable evil or else must you renounce your principle which upon a close pursuit will cast you on this rock We onely here improve your Argument to such further usefulnesse as you never expected and the improvement is rather good against you than against us because it is your own argument Despising his scornfull language I answer 1. Mr W. doth here manifestly abuse me For in his Counter-buffe as he calls it he puts this Pofition down in a different Character as if it had been mine assertion and words viz. That God hath placed a power somewhere in his Church for the instantaneous checking of this supposable evill The passage of mine he alludes to was in the beginning of the Argument where one proposition in my Syllogisme was Those who are visibly such as the Lord hath in his word declared to be persons to whom he would not have the Lords Supper administred may be suspended from the Lords Supper And this I said is clear because God hath placed a power somewhere in his Church for the managing his Ordinances so as they may not be dispensed to such as he hath declared in his word he would not have them administred unto And I had before limited the Question thus That we are not now enquiring by what power any may be suspended but only concerning the lawfulness of the act of suspending the persons mentioned in the question by any person or persons whatsoever in whatsoever capacity they are or by whatsoever kind of power it may be exerted by them or any of them So that if it were lawfull for a Generall Council to suspend it proved the assertion sufficiently which I undertook You see then 1. that the expression of an Instantaneous remedy he talkes on was not mine but his own 2. Besides we may distinguish of debarring 1. by a Rule for debarring and 2. by the execution of that debarring the Rule appoints In the former sense there 's an Instantaneous remedy as he speakes in the case propounded by him to keep the ordinances from being dispensed to such as have no actuall right thereunto For the word of God so debarres them that they ought not to approach to the seal of the Covenant without their reall and present accepting of the Covenant-terms which they cannot do whiles they lye under notorious wickedness unrepented of In the later sense there may not be ever an instantaneous remedy to execute the Rule effectually But we are not disputing what men do but what they ought to do according to Scripture-Rule He might in the same manner trifle about suspending the unclean from the Passcover and say But what if the Priests and Governours were to keep back the Legally unclean were so unclean themselves who must suspend them and hence argue that they might not debarre others because there was none to debarre them or not instantly when as yet the Rule debarred them as well as others and they sinned in not complying with it themselves as well as in not executing the same for the debarring of others And thus the Reader may perceive our Gentlemans Counter-buffe is but the blind-mans-buff and fitter for an hood-winkt boy than a learned censurer of others Logick But O my soul stop here restrain yea extinguish the rise of a seeming just indignation by attending wholly to the divine and calming meditation of PSALM 119. Part 16. Q. 121 Quietly I do judgement just Save me from Tyranny 122 Quasht let me not be by proud dust For good be my surety 123 Quite fail mine eyes for thy goodness and for thy right'ous word 124 Quickly to me mercy express Teach me thy Statutes Lord. 125 Qualifie me with grace to know thy Testimonies right 126 Quickly Lord work It is time now For men thy Law null quite 127 Questionless therefore I do love Thy Truth above gold best 128 Questionless thy Lawes right I prove and each false way detest CHAP. XVII §. 1. THe consequence in my argumentation at numb 41. If word rejecters of Christianity though baptized adult and not fully excommunicate may be debarred the Sacrament then also some such deed-rejecters of Christianity may be debarred my paper proved at numb 42. as is related by Mr. W. p. 98 99. Which we shall have occasion anon to repeat I shall now gather up the summe of what Mr. W. answers for the enervating thereof and then having compared my argumentations with the pretended solutions he returnes thereunto I shall make my Reply to them severally and then adde more proofe for the confirmation of my Consequence aforesaid 1.
be censured for this my presumption in dissenting from the common interpretation of several Scriptures and asserting some things against the judgement of many or most Divines and godly Christians c. Assault Humphreys and Timson crys Mr. W. p. 48. The men like Ingenuous Worthyes appeare in print c. It s pitty that such a learned and ingenuous Divine as Mr. Humphreys appeares to be should be yoakt so unsutably with Mr. Timson Mr. Humphreys wants not assaulting Mr. Timson as to our controversie will not I thinke deserve an assault untill now in his publique capacity Mr. W. intimates he gaine the repute of lesse arrogance and more learning than his former writings so far as they reach our case have discovered If such a man as Mr Humphreys will pick out that which lookes as considerable in this controversie in Timson it would sooner be answered But I wonder not Mr. W. and Timson so well agree For they are both good at provoking words and it s a jolly Champion whose name Mr. W. hath mentioned 26 times I take it in his booke When I have little els to doe I may perhaps answer him as Mr. W. challengeth mee But I hope to be better imployed And the truth is I agree with him and Mr. Humphreys in so many things they treat of for substance that the service of answering them is not so proper for me as their peculiar Antagonists But see what an answer this is Timson is against Elders Ergo there 's no consequence from the suspension of word rejecters of Christ to the suspension of deed-rejecters of Christ Sampsons new withes will not tye these together This is to dispute at a low rate indeed §. 4. 3. To his third I say 1. Our question was not whether open scandalous and presumptuous offenders in the Church are to be punished by the discipline of the Church I wonder he hath the face to say it was and tell the Reader so who hath the Question stated before him otherwise But whether any of these might be debarred the Sacrament though not fully excommunicated Therefore Mr. W. his debate here is not only impertinent to the present argumentation he pretends to answer to but also to the whole controversie in hand 2. His odious Insinuations of every Parish Priest after his own humour using partiality with the rest of that riff raff have been answered before 3. But that which ad ravim usque he talkes on is suspending for non-submission to Examination and that of persons otherwise judicious and of good example Our Question was whether for any cause any might be suspended not for what causes Yet this Digression I intend to say somewhat to when it comes among the Digressions at the latter end to which I refer it 4. If it were not fit the correcting discipline should lye in the hands he excepts against because of their cohabitation with them who should be corrected which may cause partiality then the Corinthian Officers should not have had in their hands the correcting discipline wherewith to censure the Incestuous person because forsooth he was among them and they might if Mr. W. had been their prompter have evaded the Apostles objurgation for neglect of disciplining him and have said It was not fit for us who live with him to censure him some body els more remote who might be presumed more impartial should have taken him in hand And belike the same Reason would as well perswade Justices of peace that it s not fit for them to take cognizance of offences among their neighbours they are fit to minister Justice to those who are remote from them not to them who cohabite with them in the same Hundred or Parish And yet though Mr. W. talkes thus consideratly as he saith himselfe p. 103. yet a while agoe he seemed to have a better mind to exercise discipline among his neighbours if the State would enough assist him therein For said he p. 90. we have ordinary cases enough in being for the full exercise of Ecclesiastical discipline had we power from the Christian Magistrate to convent offenders before us authoritatively and to inflict punishments upon them after their legal conviction according to the quality of their crimes and should not rather be a ludibrium to bold offenders then any way reform them To the former part whereof I answer Did he never see the Ordinance of Lords and Commons of March 29 1648. entituled The Form of Church Government to be used in the Church of England and Ireland agreed upon by the Lords and Commons assembled in Parliament after advice had with the Assembly of Divines Is that but a toleration or was it ever repealed But some Ministers and others pretend ignorance of such an Ordinance and wonder when it s shewed them and well they may that they should no more regard the affaires of the Church Others have pretended It was but an Ordinance and therefore not valid after the dissolution of the Parliament who made it and yet in the meane time have sued for their tithes upon an Ordinance built upon the same Authority To the latter part I returne Cyprians answer Epist. 55. ad Cornelium Quod si ita res est frater charissime ut nequissimorum timeatur audacia quod mali jure atque aequitate non possunt temeritate ac desperatione perficiant actum est de Episcopatus vigore de ecclesiae gubernandae sublimi ac divinâ potestate nec Christiani ultrâ aut durare aut esse jam possumus si ad hoc ventum est ut perditorum minas atque infidias pertimescamus And after Non id circo frater charissime relinquenda est ecclesiastica disciplina aut sacerdotalis solvenda censura quoniam convitijs infestamu◠aut terroribus quatimur c. §. 5. To his fourth I answer It s most of it answered in what was lately mentioned whereby it appeares if Ministers were not the greatest hinderers of Church Order they might see that presbyterated Churches have power from the State authoritatively to send for offenders yea to give Oath if need require But as long as the Magistrate doth not compel them to do their duty herein by depriving them of their maintenance for neglect hereof as well as for total neglect of preaching they cannot see sufficient authority for their acting herein That Question Mr. W. here propounds whether Parochial suspension with Classical power in being by toleration civil be an universal remedy against all the evils that belong to Ecclesiastical cognizance Lanswer negatively Who said it was But doth Mr. W. thence evince the consequence of my fore-recited argument to be invalid Good Reader Respice titulum Look to what Mr W. is answering to all along and then judge whether it was handsome he of many should have told the world how he feares my braines are almost marred as he doth p. 89. I am beholding to him for his care of me But I cannot desire he should be fo
sollicitous about mine as so pittifully in the interim to neglect his owne §. 6. His fifth Answer or Reason against my foresaid consequence is a meere fiction the product I thinke of an extravagant phansie and too fruitfull an invention ratified and excited by a passionate heat I never said that former acts of wickednesse though amounting to a rejecting of an essential of Christianity nor yet word-rejecting of Christ when retracted by a visible repentance should debar any from the Sacrament They are then cancelld and blotted out when repented of and are no more to be mentioned against the offender As Cyprian saith Epist 55. Cornelio fratri Primus foelicitatis gradus est non delinquere secundus delicta cognoscere Illic currit innocentia integra illibata quae servet hic succedit medela quae sanet But as in the beginning of the argument I spake all along of a word-rejecting Christ which a person is found in when he tenders himselfe to communicate so here the deed rejecting of Christ was such as he was then visibly still guilty of which he is not when he hath seriously retracted it by repentance and promise of Reformation And yet where this Gentleman is most amisse he is usually most confident and if I may use Cheshire language threapes me down thus p. 104. You cannot say I misconceive your meaning no by no meanes If he say white is black he must not be contradicted no not when he pretends to know my thoughts so infallible is he the seven Hills aspire not to this Elevation I trow Marsilius Ficinus who interprets Plato saith Platonis quidam familiaris vir doctus edidit librum cujus inscriptio fuit Contradicendum non esse eidem de eo Platonem consulenti respondit Plato Cur me consulis si tibi prohibes contradici I shall leave him in his confidence and returne to the Ark of my trust PSALM 119. part 17. R. 129 Right wondrous are thy statutes bright My soul keepes them therefore 130 Receiving of thy words give light Th'simple with knowledge store 131 Restlesse I cal'd and pant for I Longing thy precepts crave 132 Regard me with that rich mercy Which doth thy lovers save 133 Regulate my steps in thy Word Let no sin rule o're mee 134 Rescue mee from mans wrongfull sword So I 'le thy Lawes keep free 135 Rayes from thy face shine on me now Teach me thy word to awe 136 Rivers of teares from mine eyes slow Because men breake thy Law CHAP. XVIII §. 1. ANd now having answered Mr. W. his Reasons as he cal'd them The Reader may discerne how my argumentation concerning deed-rejecters of Christ their suspension remaines untouched by him much more unwounded and safe But because the point is of great influence into the present controversie I shall adde somewhat more hereunto to prove that notorious gross wickednesse continued in without visible repentance of it is and ought to be taken in the judgement of the governing Church or where there is no governing Church in the judgement of the Minister officiating as equivalent to word-Rejecting of Christ and therefore equally renders a person uncapable of having the Lords Supper administred unto him The argument I before propounded at numb 44 45 was to this purpose If words are no otherwise testimonies then as they signifie the mind of the speaker then words of profession for owning Christianity are not significative of the mind in that profession when there are some such deeds at present owned which do more probably signifie the mind to the contrary This consequence is cleere because the use of words is to be signes of things when they manifestly are not so they cease to have the use of signifying the mind in the thing spoken of Verba quid audio facta cum videam Cyprian de unitate ecclesiae catholicae saith Credere se in Christum quomodo dicit qui non facit quod Christus sacere praecipit The Antecedent also is manifest For §. 2. 1. In other matters some deeds practiced and continued in render words to the contrary incredible and there is the same reason of them and this case as to the thing wherein I now compare them The command is to Give to him that needeth but every one who saith he needeth is not to be taken for a needy person when as the contrary other wise appeares to us by his abundance visibly under his hand and his large and unnecessary expences So he that repents is to be forgiven but he that says he repents is not to be beleeved when actually and visibly he continues in the wickednesse he saith he repents of Non remittitur peccatum nisi restituatur ablatum and that before God or men If a theefe rob me of my purse and then say he is sorry for my loss and that he hath so injur'd me yet will not restore my purse to mee Is his saying I repent a probable indication of his mind Is that a credible profession St John shewes 1 John 3.17 compared with Chap. 4.20 If a man say he love God or his neighbour and yet so manifest his hatred that he will not relieve his brother in distresse he is a lyar and therefore so must be judged of by that manifestation of his deeds contrary to his words Was not the enmity of the Jewes Adversaries as to building the Temple signified by their practising against the same more then their friendship was by their good words Ezra 4.2 Let us build with you for we seeke your God as ye doe c. So Jer. 8.8 9. How do ye say ye are wise they have rejected the word of the Lord and what wisdome is in them 1 John 2.4 He that saith I know him and keepeth not his Commandments is a lyar and the truth is not in him 1 John 1.6 If we say we have fellowship with him and walke in darknesse we lye and doe not the truth Now sure a lye manifested to be so is not credible nor a significative testimony of what in words is asserted When the Pythonisse maide Act. 16.16 17 18. gave testimony to Paul and Sylas verbally saying These men are the servants of the most high God which shew unto us the way of salvation Was that a credible profession or testimony Augustine libro de Mendacio ad Consentium saith Ille mentitur qui aliud habet in animo aliud verbis vel quibuslibet significationibus ennnciat §. 3. 2. Words are more apt to be counterfeit then some deeds therefore some deeds may be more credible testimonies of the mind then words contrary thereunto When Saul said to Samuel 1 Samuel 15.13 14. Blessed be thou of the Lord I have performed the Commandment of the Lord. Samuel said But what meaneth this bleating of the sheep in my cares and the lowing of the oxen which I heare And Sauls disobedient deeds of sparing Agag and the best of the Amalekitish flock though pretended for sacrifice was a more credible
Corinthian Lais I dare not answer according to this folly No wonder if he crow over me as wanting stomack and not being stomackfull enough p. 108 118. for such doughty disputings He makes it appeare though unmannerly what a full stomack he hath by his continuall cructations of such putrid and adust choler For after all this he is rifting again in this very place and afterward as sowrely as if he had had no vent before and at last p. 114. brings up that crude calumny which he for the once belcheth forth to besmear me with it viz. the denying the Pope to be Antichrist .. I see its parlous to be neer a man in his casting fits or that owing one a spite hath the trick of the new organon salutis and can with his provang unload his stomack at his pleasure And this he ushers in with a parturiunt montes and saith you know my meaning I know indeed what followes and thence conclude M. W. is content to be a Mouse-trap that my paper may seeme ridiculous But if he remember the story Sir Walter Rawleigh hath out of Herodotus it may lessen his confidence of vanquishing the Mouse he laughs at The story is thus in History of the world p. 612. Herodotus saith Senacheribs great hoast which he had when he threaned Hezekia by Rabsheca was intended against Aegypt But a great multitude of feild mice entring the Camp of Senacherib by night did so gnaw the bowes quivers strings and straps of his mens armour that they were faine the next day to fly away in all hast finding themselves disarmed In memory whereof saith Herodotus the statue of this King is set up in the Temple of Vulcan holding a mouse in his hand with this Inscription Let him who beholds mee serve God I 'le not apply the particulars but only thus The mouse Mr. W. despiseth if it may have faire play I doubt not will disarme this warriour and cut in sunder the nerves of his arguments But the parturiunt montes I thinke may be more fitly applyed to his â—â—â—ving and groaning to be delivered of that flatulent falshood that Mola or monstrous birth of the Antichristian lye which at last he brings forth and exposeth to the view of the world And let the world at his own instance and desire behold how he travaileth with iniquity hath conceived mischiefe and brought forth falshood But this filth I shall wipe off beneath For I am afraid of displeasing the Reader by having too much of these personal fooleries together I shall therefore leave them and speak only to the thing remaining which Mr. W. hath here touched upon namely concerning the description of Excommunication which he pretends to gather out of some expressions of mine to be a declaring of a person to be as an heathen and so to be dealt with If he had perused Math. 18.17 Let him be to thee as an heathen and publican sure he durst not have scoft at that He that is to be to us an heathen is to be judged as an heathen and so to be dealt with that is in some respects viz. in those wherein he is to be to us as an heathen Neither the Scripture nor my paper here said he was to be judged an heathen simply But it saith let him be to thee as an heathen with which manner of expression my scriblings as Mr. W. fitly calls them did wholly comply And what now hath our learned Gentleman to oppose hereunto that you may seeke for some where else unlesse this may be allowed the place and honour of an objection in stead of a better which skulkes in an implicit Ambuscado namely the interpretation he puts on my expressions aforesaid that is saith our learned Expositor to be counted as an enemy and not to be admonished as a brother But if Paul be not against his Master this will do us no hurt Even an heathen any neighbour as such is to be admonished as a Brother in some sense and not counted an enemy simply Eph. 5.11 Levit. 19.17 10.36 Mark 12.33 And a Christian excommunicate ought to be admonished though in some respects he is to be to us as an Heathen The reconciliation is easie Take it in the learned Zanchius his words on 2 Thess 3. Obj. Videtur sibi contrarius Apostolus praecipit ne commercium habeatis cum eo excommunicato tamen habete eum pro fratre Resp Prohibet familiaritatem non necessariam periculosam noxiam quâ indulgeamus eorum vitijs aut saltem conniveamus non edentes ullam significationem odij improbationis peccatorum quâ denique in similia peccata induci ipsorum scabiae inquinari possimus or as Zepperus thus Although no one ought to joyne himselfe in stricter familiarity and private offices to the excommunicate yet charity shall be exercised towards him in publique and private prayers to God and frequent admonitions de polit ecclesiâ p. 164 165. But the excommunicate are not to be driven away from the publique Assemblyes of the Church to heare Gods word least they should grow hopelesse and the doores of repentance be shut to them §. 5. 6. The Rest Mr. W. hath besides personal vagaries is the old business of Examination p. 113 114. and his Question what difference we make betwixt suspension and full excommunication hath been answer'd before And now let the Reader use his own eyes and judgement whether any or all these six answers do in the least infringe my argument he pretends to evervate hereby Which was this If deed rejecting of Christ may not be a cause of Excommunication where there 's a desire signified to receive the Sacrament then none who desire to receive may be excommunicated The latter is false therefore so is the former Fit now his answers to this mark and then determine of them as Reason directs I must crave thy excuse for holding thee so long in the examination of Mr. W. pretensions on this point Wee will now the more greedily and eagerly drinke of those cordial waters of the Sanctuary PSALM 119. Part 20. V. V. 153 View thou my straites save me thy Lawes I forget not O Lord. 154 Unloose my bonds plead thou my cause Quicken mee by thy Word 155 Vile men are from salvation farre Who seek not thy command 156 Very great Lord thy mercies are Life by thy Judgements send 157 Various foes strive mee to oppresse Thine hests I 'le not forsake 158 Viewing Transgressours greiv'd I was When they thy statutes brake 159 Vouchsafe to see thy Law I love Lord kindly quicken mee 160 Very true I thy Word long prove Thy Judgements lasting bee CHAP. XXI §. 1. BE of good cheer my Reader Mr. W now saith I pray let us come to an end I hope he is somewhat neer for this time an end of his revilings and impertinencies How-ever having tyred thy patience sufficiently whiles I have insisted too long on his extravagancies in the last chapter I 'le promise thee
before delivered we distinguish with Mr. W. and say 1. Some persons are and are called Christians beleevers c. only upon the account of their being positively and solemnly engaged to Christianity and the Christian faith And 2. some are and are called Christians and beleevers not only on the account of their being so engaged as aforesaid but of their visible conformity to those Christian engagements All who are Christians in the former respect are Church-members whiles alive and within in the Apostles sense 1 Cor. 5.12 that phrase of us Mr. W. inserts too if it referre to 1 John 2.19 is difficult to be understood and its a great question whether it be equipollent to the within 1 Cor. 5.12 so I shall omit it here A disciple or servant is sometimes denominated from his being entred into a School having covenanted with his Master to serve him and therefore these are lyable to Ecclesiastical Censures And yet they may be no Christians nor beleevers visibly upon the account of the latter respect and therefore cannot claime the priviledges belonging to disciples who learne and servants who obey their Masters whiles they notoriously refuse to learne and obey Christ And this mindes me of the second thing Mr. W. hath in the fore-mentioned pages which seemes to need an answer here It s page 139. where he saith A man undeniably without and utterly uncapable of the Lords Supper may have the Scripture characters of faith in your sense i. e. he may be instructed in the Christian faith be able to give an account yea a true account of his faith submit unto your Church order of examination and be of Christian behaviour without exception in his private carriage and yet be such a visible unbeleever to us as the Lord in his word would not have the Lords Supper administred unto viz. because not baptized c. yea though as he before said he may be regenerated 1. Sometimes Mr. W. makes to be within and to be a Christian or beleever of equal latitude as in his last exception I have answered Here he acknowledgeth one not within to be a true and reall beleever and therefore I should conclude a true Christian though not so solemnly For I am of opinion none can expect to be saved but true Christians and these Mr. W. saith may be truly regenerate and goe to heaven 2. But whereas he tells us this catechumen or heathen Proselyte may be without exception of Christian behaviour in his private carriage and yet not be capable of the Lords Supper I utterly deny this For if he were of Christian behaviour without exception he would submit to Baptisme the contempt whereof all acknowledge to be a damning sin and then in the same day and houre for ought I know he might communicate And if he have opportunity to desire the Communion he hath opportunity to be baptized and therefore cannot be excused in the neglect of it nor then be accounted in that neglect a beleever in respect of visible complyance with and obedience to the Gospel Who only hath a visible right to the Lords Supper And now Sir saith Mr. W. p. 145. to your Allegation out of Tertullian viz. Nemo illic Christianus c. This also was quoted by mee for the same purpose as the passages of Salvian were viz. that the name or word profession of Christianity is no argument nor testimony he is a Christian whose deeds do notoriously contradict the same And my paper they expressed it at numb 50. Agreeable whereunto is what I finde quoted from Tertullian Apolog. cap. 44. speaking of the Heathens prisons Nemo illic Christianus nisi planè tantum Christianus aut si aliud jam non Christianus Now Mr. W. hath left out the word prisons in the copy he hath printed as mine and when he hath so done takes paines from the context in Tertullian to informe mee that the Father speakes of the Christians sufferings in prisons as if I had not understood it before Is not this a brave confutation to be boasted of He excuseth his Transcriber of my paper p. 115. And whether he must take this non-sense to himselfe he hath printed as mine or on whom else he will lay it I know not I list not to upbraid him with frauds imposture and cheating c. which yet he usually puts on mee so wonderful civil and well manner'd is hee 2. Mr. W. addes But why shall I trouble you with these things seeing you are so ingenuous as to acknowledge that you act herein but by vertue of another mans Quotation He had before said to mee p. 60. I finde no ingenuous dealing in all your paper And here to do me a spite he will contradict himselfe like as elswhere he complaines of the obscurity of my paper p. 80 82 88. as if he could not know what I would have and yet begins his Postscript with these words Sir after all this I returne you thankes for this plaine declaration of your minde in this peice of yours But by his favour he is too hasty in concluding I had not perused Tertullian my selfe and the same may be said of his censuring my childishnesse for referring to divers Authors as mentioned by Zepperus because I said I finde Tertullian thus quoted there being other causes of such references viz. 1. When we have perused Authors not now with us and so the reference at second hand helps us only to the place where that is which we would quote And 2. When the reference to such later learned Writers who have quoted those Authors for the same intents as we would make use of them doth adde weight to the quotation by affording a probable proofe that the passages quoted are rightly understood and interpreted to the true and genuine sense of the original Authors 3. After his telling us of his favour in mentioning another passage of Tertullian for our advantage and his favours are not so ordinary and common that I should reject any of them though it shall appeare beneath I act not by vertue of his quotation He falls foul on Tertullian and as scoldes when one in any thing displeaseth them rake in all old fores and reckon-up all the faults they can really or upon uncharitable suspition charge him with so because Tertullian hath the hard hap to cross Mr. W. as himselfe conceives and to favour mee the world shall now be told what failings he had or he was thought by some to have had other wayes But what if there were some called Tertullianists accounted heretiques when yet the name heretique was very rife who denied second marriages and said that the souls of wicked men became Divels after their departure out of this life and that the soule is continued by going from one into another as much as to say by carnal descent and succession as Doctor Meredith Hanmer in his Ecclesiastical Chronographie reckons up their tenents out of Augustine What are any of these to the present controversie
appeare to be of a right faith and doctrinally true beleevers And againe saith he p. 61. By our administration to beleevers is meant such beleevers as we may have a certainty that they are beleevers Now if we must know them to be beleevers by hearing them say the Creed and testifying their beleefe of every Article therein before we can have a certainty they are beleevers capable of admission to the Supper then they must give an understanding visible account of their faith in order to their admission Their having been baptized in infancy is no demonstration and less then demonstration will not serve for the infallible certainty Mr. W. requires of their personall doctrinal faith this doctrinal faith they cannot be expected to have without instruction preceding and the meanes of instruction afforded to them is no proof of their proficiency therefore according to Mr. W. his own concessions they must give an account of their proficiency under the meanes of instruction they have had for the attaining this indispensably necessary doctrinal faith which we must saith he have an infallible certainty of before we administer unto them 4. The same Reason which will justifie the requiring a Parents renewing his profession of faith and renouncing what is contrary thereunto when he presents his childe to baptisme will as effectually prove that he should personally professe the faith before he was admitted to the Lords Supper And therefore whereas an ancient Divine in this Country as I am informed at the celebration of a Baptisme having asked the Parent the usuall Questions then offered to his Brethren Why that parent might not be admitted to the Lords Supper without any further Examination before Minister or Eldership since he had now made an open profession of his faith at the baptisme of his child It may be answered 1. That if he please to give a reason to warrant his demanding that profession from the Parent before the infant should be baptized the same will shew what he desired He may try at his leasure to give a Reason for the one which will not as effectually reach the other 2. Yea much more strong will it be in the latter than former case In his datum than quaesitum supposing the parent had been upon a personall owning the Covenant engagements admitted before that time to the Lords Supper 3. I should readily grant if this parent have not or not upon a personal confession of the faith been admitted to the Lords Supper before that this profession he was occasioned to make at the baptisme of his infant may so far as it goes serve without renewing of it at his admission to the Lords Supper But then it should be considered whether the answering in that forme I beleeve I renounce for sake c. may be reasonably judged an understanding owning of the Covenant where it appeares not by previous conference with him or a present more full explication of himselfe or some other probable way that he doth understand what he answers unto 4. Lastly I answer That the parent who is to be admitted to the Lords Supper ought not only understandingly to own the Covenant and baptisme as one seale thereof which he makes profession of at the baptisme of his infant but also particularly the ordinance of the Lords Supper the signification of the sacramental elements and actions therein and the end of celebrating the same that he may be in a visible capacity of discerning the Lords body And therefore there is manifest reason why he should make a further profession supposing he hath not done it before for his own admission to the Communion then was required from him at the admission of his Infant to baptisme And so much in answer to this proposall of the Minister aforesaid of which I desire his candid acceptance Some other passages mentioned by him at the same time I neglect as savouring of calumny and passion The tide may turne and the brooke therewith I grudge him not the liberty of Retract on but then it were seemly to be without detraction from others who still own the opinion he was lately most zealous for I now proceed 3 It makes no alteration as to the matter in hand whether this understanding profession of the faith be immediately before a persons first admission to the Sacrament or a longer time before so that the thing be done And therefore where Confirmation was in use and seriously managed that might serve this purpose sufficiently according to the direction of the Common prayer book before recited Ch 4. § 3. 4 If persons have been unduely admitted to the Lords Supper without making this understanding profession of the Christian faith before that excuseth them not from being now called to make it in order to their present admission this will stand good till it can be evinced that a neglect excuseth from duty that that must never be done which hath been sinfully left undone and that because of that irregular omission although as fit an opportunity is againe afforded for the doing of it as that was which formerly was not taken hold of as it should have been for the same And indeed as the Provincial Synod of London in their Vindication hath observed The great Odium cast upon the Presbyterial way is occasioned by the shameful neglect formerly of the Rules then appointed for Examination of all before they should have been admitted to the Lords Table And now the Reformation endeavoured in this thing is not so much for the amending the Rule which before was prescribed as in calling people up to a stricter observation of the same Rule for matter and substance 5 It hath bin already shewed that the Presbyterian Government which is that confirmed by the Parliament after advice had with the Assembly of Divines not what some Presbyterians may hold doth not require all persons now should be againe examined who have formerly upon the due profession of their faith been admitted to the Sacrament But it forbidding the ignorant to be admitted only inferres that such as hitherto have not understandingly owned the Covenant of grace should now be called to do it if they would partake of the Sacrament And therefore where any have formerly performed that in substance which is now required from them who are to be first admitted to the Supper and can make it appear there is no necessity according to Presbyterian principles for their rene wall of it as to their present communicating 6 This profession must be made before sufficient and comperent witnesses else it cannot be a satisfactory profession But who those must be is a consideration of another nature For this may vary according to the different circumstances of persons times and places and the judgement of the Church thereupon or of those who are most eminently concerned in the management of such things pertaining to the prudential order thereof so that the end be attained for the good of the persons admitted and the satisfaction and edification
refuse not only my conscience but also my hand hereunto subscribed would beare witness against me Rothsterne Janu 27. 1656. Ad Martindale Mr Newcome and Mr Edge severally testifie the same in substance and speak of some particulars more largely out of their written Notes they took of my Sermon I shall onely add one passage from Mr. Newcome because it is thought Mr. W. would father his Story on him Speaking of me he saith He did over and over assert that the Pope was the Man of Sin the Whore of Babylon and properly so called the Antichrist of the later times both as Antichrist signifies Vicarius Dei and one opposite to Christ And that the Apostle might refer and allude to this Antichrist of the later times in what he discourses of the Antichrist in that place of those times This was the substance of what was delivered If therefore Mr. W. referres to any discourse of mine as the ground of this reproach that he casts upon Mr. Langley I do hereby witness the contrary to what he sayes of him in this thing which if he had not meant to abuse himself he might further have enquired into and have understood before he had so far engaged in such a grosse untruth Henry Newcome In short my judgement was and is this He was primarily and directly the Antichrist spoken of in Johns Epistles to whom those Characters of Antichrist 1 John 4.2 3. and 2 John 7. did primarily and directly agree And those were the Antichrists of those dayes the false Christs Matth. 24.24 He is secondarily and by consequence even in Iohns sense the Antichrist to whom those Characters do secondarily and by consequence agree and this is the Man of Rome upon which I vindicated our Protestant Writers in their referring to Rome in their Commentaries on these Epistles so far was I from clashing with them And this man of Rome is properly the Antichrist of the latter times directly deciphered 2 Thess 2. and 1 Tim. 4. and in the Revelation under the Titles of the Man of Sin Whore of Babylon c. though the holy Ghost doth never directly and in the primary sense of any place where Antichrist is mentioned in Scripture it being never used but in the Epistles of St. Iohn affix the same on them of Rome but by consequence onely Alas good Reader I am very sorry this Antichristian business hath held thee so long I would make an Apology but that would need another for staying the with it I will therefore passe on to the next 13 But your self saith Mr. W. p. 77. are not over-confident that this answer is sufficient and so you add more Let us have your second The Over-confidence I willingly yeeld to himself the very center thereof But what a silly Reason is this after one answer given to an objection I add a second therefore I distrust the first Wonderfull witty 14 Mr. W. tells us p. 11 12 of parties known to be Christianly judicious and of blameless behaviour who yet purposely refuse our examination upon the account of our divine right judiciously discerning the way and design to be Brownisticall and not Scriptural And so saith he these last mentioned may judiciously refuse that they might not countenance superstition 1. To whom are these parties known to be Christianly judicious If to all the Church-officers I do not think they would debar them if they do I disown their practice 2. And I know none who require them necessarily by divine right to renew the profession of their faith in order to their communicating who are already sufficiently known to be not onely judicious but Christianly judicious as Mr. W. speaks 3. And if any Church did so require it none do engage the parties spoken of to believe they must needs submit on that account to this examination that they may be capable of the Sacrament 4. The word Brownisticall is often taken up to disgrace the Presbyterian way as it was formerly against the old Puritans If Mr. W. had that of a Man in him he finds desiderated in me p. 154. he might have told his Reader of Browns opinions condemned and then it would appear whether the Presbyterian Principles were guilty thereof and not fight against us with the Rattles of meer names But take these Clackes from him of Brownists Anabaptists Mormoes c. and you half spoil him 5. If Mr. W. can make that out that the parties he speaks of may lawfully separate from our communions because of examination required yea suppose amiss I will undertake upon the same ground to evince that his people may judiciously separate from his sacramentall communion lest they should countenance prophanesse And if any do withdraw from him upon the later account he may thank himself for giving them such a weapon to defend themselves against him with But for my part although I think the one as justifiable as the other I must profess I justifie neither I think this is a main thing of Brownisme and Donatisme to hold that we may lawfully separate from the ordinances of God in Churches holding the fundamentals because of some supposed male-administrations therein which we are not necessitated in our joyning with them to approve of And yet this Mr. W. hath asserted by clear consequence when he said that persons may judiciously separate from our communions because of a supposed miscarriage in the Church-officers in requiring examination who yet never require the persons examined should professe their beliefe of the necessity jure divino of the said examination as a condition prerequisite to their admission Augustine the mall of the Denatists contra Parmen l. 3. glossing on those words 1 Cor. 5. auserte malum ex vobu whether in the strict sense of the place or no I now dispute not Per malum suum malis quisque consentit Si autem ex scipso auserat malum alieno malo non est unde consentiat Quapropter quisque etiam contempscrit Ecclesiae Dei disciplinam ut malos cum quibus non peccat quibus non favet desistat monere corrigere arguere si etiam talem gerit personam pax Ecclesiae patitur ut etiam à sacramentorum participatione quempiam possit separare non alieno male peccat sed suo Ipsa quippe in tanta re negligentia grave malum est ideo sicut Apostolus admonet si auferat malum a scÃpso non solum auferat audaciam committendi aut pestilentiam consentiendi sed etiam pigritiam corrigendi adhibita prudentia obedientia in eo quod praecipit Dominus ne frumenta laedantur And this I take to be the right mean betwixt unwarrantable either separation or admission 15 Mr. W. p. 123 124 saith He looketh upon no deductions from Scripture as obligatory unless we have some clear revelations for such deductions For saith he clear revelations of holy Scripture are the genuine principles into which our faith is resolved 1. If by clear revelations he
mean the light of solid Reason he saith here no more but this q. d. we look on no deductions from Scripture as obligatory to us unless we doe rationally discern that they are right deductions And this suits with a passage he hath a little after The Scriptures saith he were given as a sufficient and infallible Rule for the government of the whole Church so that any deduction not conformable thereunto must either be rejected as erroneous or suspected as impertinent and needlesse 2. But I submit it to the impartial Reader whether his former words do not fairly intimate q. d. That we are not obliged by consequential deductions from Scripture unless the Scripture also cleerely reveale that consequence and then indeed it ceaseth to be a deduction only For he explaines himselfe in the next words viz. For cleere Revelations of holy Scripture are the genuine principles into which our faith is resolved that by cleere Revelations he meanes the revelations of holy Scripture not the reason whereby we draw just deductions from the Scripture I desire the Reader to take Mr. W. in the most favourable sense his words are capable of But I thought meet to disclaime this latter sense least the Quakers should thinke we complyed with them in denying consequences from Scripture to be obligatory to us And the rather because I find that was a studied trick the Papists have long since taught their disciples to put upon us viz to require us to prove all we held by expresse Scriptures because we ground all the points of our Religion upon the Scriptures and not on the authority of the Church And by such like crotchets of denying syllogismes disputing by Queries c. Some of the Papists have bragged they would undertake to make a Cobler able to put the most learned Ministers of France to a non plus As may be seene with the whole Popish plot now acted in England with a little necessary variation of the method discovered in that little but very learned tract of D. Chaloner then Principal of Alban Hall in Oxford entituled Credo Ecclesiam sanctam Catholicam Printed at London 1638. long before the name of a Quaker was heard of in England and therefore appeares not devised to make them odious p. 134 135 160 161 162 c. Where he shewes the Popish designe out of their own Records agreed upon viz. to send Missionaries as they themselves called them culd out of all orders and Universities who dispersing themselves shall after Sermon ended by this method blanke the Ministers of the reformed side The which may not be unprofitable to have observed in reference to our present times and the behaviour of divers under the names of Quakers Seekers c. among us 16 M. W. addes in the page last quoted And for the sense of obscure places of Scripture we prescrre Catholique Expositions before any mans private sense or Interpretation accommodated or applyed to favour his own or his modern parties pretension For answer to this see the last quoted Author Credo Ecclesiam sanctam c. part 1. § 7. p. 150 151. And Bishop Usher in his answer to a challenge made by a Jesuite in Ireland Edit London 1625. p. 32 33 34. Where he shewes that divers of the Papists themselves grant what they blame in us that a man may without arrogance dissent in interpretation of Scripture from what is given by the most of the Doctors before He quotes Fisher the Jesuite confessing that it cannot be obscure to any that many things as well in the Gospels as in the rest of the Scriptures are now more exquisitly discussed by latter wits and more cleerly understood then they have been heretofore And Cardinal Cajetan in the beginning of his Commentaries upon Moses advising the Reader not to loath the new sense of the holy Scripture for this that it dissenteth from the ancient Doctors but to search more exactly the text and context and if he finde it agree to praise God that hath not tyed the exposition of the Scriptures to the senses of the ancient Doctors As for that passage Mr. W. addes Accommodated to favour his own or his modern parties pretension it s only a begging the thing in question All acknowledge that its a wrong to interpret the Scripture in favour of an old or new errour But none will grant his own interpretation is accommodated to an errour But if Mr. W. would have kept to his own Rule he hath here given he would not have set 1 Cor. 9. 3 4. upon the rack in his Title page for the countenancing the designe of his discourse following When as those words he there sets downe Mine answer to them that examine me is this are by the stream of Interpreters I have seene referred to the preceding words v. 3. q. d. mine apology to them who question my Apostleship is this Am I not an Apostle to you doubtless I am For the seale of my Apostleship are yee in the Lord. Not to the following words as he hath by corrupting the text with his viz. inserted before Have we not power to eate and to drinke And if it should referre to the subsequent words Mine apology to them who examine mee is this have we not power to eat and to drinke have we not power to lead about a sister a wife as well as other Apostles c What then is that passage Have we not power to eat or to drinke to sacramental eating or drinking Like as much as paveant illi had to the excusing the Priest from paving Over the head of this quotation he tells us he published his book for the satisfaction of weaker consciences But what ever he thought of their consciences me thinkes he presumed of their strong stomacks and sharp set that he can proffer them such a crude morsel in the first messe a bad omen it s counted to stumble at his own threshold and it brings to minde what D. Whitaker Regius professor sometimes of Cambridge in his defence of his Answer to Campions Reasons said to Duraeus lib. 1. de sacris literis Nihil est quod metuam me tu mihi scripturarum possessionem cripias praesertim cum scripturis aut rarò admodum utaris aut imperitè ac pueriliter abutaris 17 Mr. W. it may be will not take it well if I should neglect the ornaments of his book rather then we should fall out about this I will adventure upon the Readers patience to insert some of them here especially the fine liveries he is pleased to cloath me his meanest servant with Magisterial rashness p. 8. You delude the Countrey with a loud cry p. 9. Specious cheat p. 21. And thus you may see what conscience it is that you pretend to p. 22. Majestical severity Bead roll of words as if you would charm the senses of the vulgar with your rare skill in Logick p. 30. A meere sophister p. 46. Your heterodoxal brownisme p. 53. Your malicious slander p. 72.
of soules declaring that they gave the false Teachers no suck Commandment to preach any such doctrine v. 24. 3. The Elders and Brethren as well as the Apostles say It seemed good to the holy Ghost and to us v. 28. 4. The Elders and Brethren as well as the Apostles did impose upon the Churches no other burthen then these necessary things v. 28. In all which its manifest the proof is as strong for the joynt authoritative acting of the Brethren here as it is for the Apostles and Elders I speak of a joynt act in the same kinde of power how farre the Apostles might excell the Elders or the Elders the Brethren in the degree of power in each respectively is not now enquired for All I can thinke of which may be objected against this proof is 1 That in divers places the Authors of this synodical Decree are mentioned under the name of the Apostles and Elders without joyning the Brethren with them As 1. The Antiochian Delegates are in their Instructions directed to make their address to the Apostles and Elders about their Question v. 2. And 2. the Apostles and Elders came together to consider of this matter v. 6. And 3. the Decrees of this Synod are said to be such as were ordained by the Apostles and Elders which were at Jerusalem Act. 16.4 2 That the Brethren may be named here no otherwise then as in Pauls Epistles Timothy or Sosthenes and sometimes all the Brethren with him are which denotes only their consenting thereunto To the first of these I answer 1. That its ordinary to name the whole from the predominant leading more noble part 2. These Scriptures do not say the Apostles and Elders only excluding others were Authours of this Synodical Determination and therefore they are no prejudice to those other Texts which put in the Brethren with them To the second I say Though Paul joyne others with him in his Epistles sometimes yet 1. the title of those Epistles beare his name only 2. He manifests in the Epistles themselves that they are his only speaking in the first person therein Gal. 1 2 6 9 10 c. 1 Thes 5.27 2 Thes 3.17 The salutation of me Paul with mine own hand which is the token in every Epistle so I write 3. If we had no such cleere Reasons elswhere to prove Paul only the Authour under the Holy Ghost of such Epistles the joyning others with him in the Preface would be a sufficient ground of our taking them who are so mentioned in the Preface to have been joynt Authours with him thereof But now here 's nothing can be shewed to invalidate the title of the Synodicall Decree in its strictest sense Act. 15.23 2. The Decree speakes all along in their names which are prefixed thereunto 3. Decrees and Lawes speake most strictly and properly especially in the Titles and Prefaces thereof which declare the power whereby they are made and promulgated as a Law made by Kings Lords and Commons Although in familiar Epistles there 's ordinarily more liberty of a larger expression 2. The latter part of the Minor proposition in the Argument I am upon is this viz. That these Brethren were not private Christians the Disciples or Members of the Jerusalem Church 1. This I beleeve will not be denied by our Brethren either of the Episcopall or Presbyterian judgement if they be convinced that these Brethren acted authoritatively in the Synod Which I thinke is cleerly proved above For no private Christian is allowed by them as such to have right of authoritative suffrage in Ecclesiastical Councils 2. I have only here against me the Brethren of the Congregational way who though from other Scriptures they own the Officers I dispute for yet here say that these Brethren were the members of the Jerusalem Church as such But that I humbly conceive cannot be The Apostles Elders and Brethren v. 23. are the same with the whole multitude v. 12. And the Apostles and Elders with the whole Church v. 22. Now this whole Church and whole multitude must either referre to the whole Church of Jerusalem or to the whole synodical Assembly only of that and other Churches there met together which the Reverend Mr. Cotton in his book of the Keyes p. 54 59. is pleased to call a Synod of Churches or a Congregation of Churches yea a Church of Churches It cannot referre to the whole Jerusalem Church because neither that whole Church nor the greater part thereof could meet in one house much less a private house as its probable this was to manage the synodical affaires orderly as appeares by the great numbers of that Church recorded upon count 120 Act. 1.15 3000 Act. 2.41 5000 men Act. 4.4 here are above 8000 and multitudes besides Act. 2.42 5.14 6.7 as is more largely shewed by the London Ministers and most excellently by the Reverend Assembly in their Answer to the Reasons of the dissenting Brethren where they undoe the Exceptions made against it so solidly learnedly and perspicuously that they seeme to have left no place for a colourable Reply Whereby among other Arguments they demonstrate that the Jerusalem Church was a classical Church or a Church by association of sundry particular Congregations called one Church Act. 8.1 11.22 15.4 It remaines therefore that the whole Church and multitude Act. 15. must be the synodical Assembly of the Apostles Elders and Brethren which Brethren must needs be the Delegates of the Brethren or those who represented the Brethren members of several Churches The Delegates of Antioch are expressly mentioned v. 2. and probably there were some from Syria and Cilicia v. 23. who were as much concerned in the businesse consulted about as Antioch was Thus farre it s evinâ—ed that some of the Brethren not preaching Elders being delegated and appointed by the Church may according to Apostolical patterne authoritatively joyne with preaching Elders in acts of external government of the Church And then if Presbyters with such delegated brethren may be the subject of Church power in higher Assemblyes and matters it will easily thence follow such brethren may have and exercise a proportion of Ecclesiastical power in lower matters and Assemblyes This Argument I humbly submit with all else I have written to the peaceably judicious I shall conclude with the 34th Psalme that these 22 Digressions may be attended with a refreshment proportionable to the 22 Chapters of the Treatise above The 34th Psalme in the original whereof the initiall Letters of the Verses proceed Alphabetically save only that the 5th Yerse beginning with He ends with Vau the next Letter and so the Psalmist omitting Vau in the beginning of the next Verse goes on with Zain c. whereby it comes to pass that the 22 Hebrew Letters being gone through and ending in the 21st Verse the last verse of the Psalme is super-numerary rendred according to the Acrosticall conceipt of the Original 1 At all times I the Lord will blesse my
should be denied to none who demand it on that account one mans humour being of as much validity as anothers and this will not weigh down the Disswasives from a private celebration before rehearsed And then again a sick mans desiring the Communion should be a sufficient reason for our private administring of the Lords Supper unto him in a private house where the Church hath not free accesse of which there is no footsteps that I know of in the holy Scriptures 3. Nor is the pretence of a custom to have feastings and entertainments which may not fitly be on the Lords day a sufficient reason for private baptism for that custom ought rather to be altered then the ten former inconveniences of private baptism should be admitted And it is altered easily in some places by the Ministers perswasion that they have their feastings on a week day where they are of ability to have them when the baptism is on the Lords day But it 's known experimentally that many invited to such entertainments in Country Villages do not use to come to the Church to be present at the baptism as making this the least part of their businesse at such a time And upon the same pretence last mentioned two or three perhaps more Lords daies or other opportunities for publique baptism are neglected till they be prepared for their dinnerings which I suppose is a fault in the Parents agreeable to what the fore-praised Zepperus in the Chapter mentioned quotes out of Augustine in his Sermon de immolat Isaac Rogo vos fratres ut quicunque filium aut vernaculum suum baptizari desiderat jam nunc Ecclesiae eum offerre non differat that phrase suits best to publique baptism Quia non est justum ut res quae tam magna tam praeclara creditur negligenter aut tardiùs quam expedit requiratur I now proceed to speak positively to the point under consideration by laying down this Rule 11 Private baptism then hath place when the case is such as the expediences thereof for the general good of the Church do over-weigh the fore-mentioned inconvenicies More particularly as 1. In the first gathering of a Church since they who are to be members thereof are to be solemnly made disciples by baptism there may be a necessity that some who are the first fruits of the place must be baptized privately for Church order supposeth a Church existing wherein it should be exercised and observed But where a Church is constituted there this hath no place 2. In times of persecution when there cannot be set solemn Assemblie◠but Christians as they may catch at an opportunity of convening It 's a greater inconvenience to the Church that Baptism should be omitted then that it should be celebrated privatly But I did not need to put in this case unlesse the persecution be raised against this Ordinance rather then preaching for as I have stated the Question baptism is not to be called private which is as publique as the ordinary preaching in the Church is at that time 3. A like case hereunto is that in times of grosse defection and Idolatry in the Church where this ordinance cannot be publiquely administred without superstitious or heretical mixtures as in Popish Countryes 4. There may possibly occurre some Instance wherein an eminent respect to Gods glory propagating the Gospel and the good of the Catholique Church may warrant private baptisme that being to be preferred to the advantages of a particular Congregation in some respects This I suppose was the case of the Eunuch to whom Philip was directed by the extraordinary dictate of the Spirit who being on his journey to his own remote Country was converted and then instantly baptized of whom Eusebius in his Ecclesiastical history lib. 2. c. 1. according to Hanmers translation saith He was the first of the Gentiles which obtained of Philip the holy mysteries by the inspiration of the heavenly word he was made the first fruits of the faithfull throughout the world And as it is reported after his return unto his native soyle he preached the knowledge of the Universal God which giveth life unto men and the coming of our Saviour whereby the prophecy was fulfilled which said Aethiopia shall stretch her hand before unto God so he And so this instance falls also under the first case for private baptism That example of the Jaylors baptism and his houshold comes under the first and second case that being a time of persecution and Paul and Silas then imprisoned and knew not when they might hope to be released much lesse when they should have an opportunity of assembling the Church in that neighbourhood And it s not altogether improbable that many other Christian prisoners might be there and then there might be a solemn assembly agreeable to the allowance of those troublesome times What other cases there may be of like exigence as to private baptisme I refer to the disquisition of better judgements 12 None of these singular cases wherein baptisme was privately administred do for any thing I know occur in the present times among us If there be conceived to be some analogical or proportionate to these as to this matter it concernes them who think so to name them and to prove the same the three fore pretended ones I have already shewed not to be such And I know none else pretended except 1 the gratifying Separatists some whereof would suffer their children to be baptized at home with a select company of their own only present but separate from our publique Assemblyes as no rightly constituted Churches 2 And very rarely perhaps one convinced of the errour of Antipedobaptisme who hath been tainted therewith before seemes inclinable to have his children baptised at home but is loath to honour God so far as publiquely to appear in the devoting his seed to God in this ordinance But if we comply with the former we wrong our Churches and seem to take upon our selves the disparagement they lay upon us in their unwarrantable separation And the humouring the latter seems to be a wrong to baptisme it selfe the honour whereof had need to be carefully preserved in these times And the Question in this case seems to be whether the real honor of Gods holy ordinance or the imaginary supposed though indeed false honour and credit of these people should be most respected I have now plainly layd down before you my apprehensions in this matter shall add nothing more herein save that upon a review I conceive it may be needful to expresse my selfe more fully in one thing which hath been hinted already viz. What we shall call publique baptisme to which I have answered that such a place convention of Christians as is judged meet for the ordinary exercise of ministerial publique preaching is a place and society to administer baptisme in if we would have it to be publique baptisme According to which rule more particularly I say 1. Baptisme in a private
house is not publique though many be there present because this would not in times of freedome be counted a fit place for ordinary conventions of the Church for preaching 2. Baptisme on the week day at the place of publique assembly where there is not so considerable a number present as it would be counted expedient for a publique Sermon to be made to is yet but private baptisme 3. I suppose it also requisite that the Congregation on the Lords day before have notice of the time of a baptisme intended there the week following unless there be some known lecture or exercise there at that time or at least we may probably expect a considerable number of Christians then that they may freely repair unto the Word and Sacrament then to be dispenced the usuall signes being given for warning a publique transaction 4. Yet if it be judged unfit frequently to call an assembly of the Church I suppose at such time when we cannot urge a considerable number of our Congregation to attend in publique nor blame their absence we may not appoint a publique ordinance for them to be present at For this seemes little better then a prevaricating with them 5. To conclude Hence it follows that it s not this or that number present which is necessary to the making a baptismal administration publique in the place of publique Church meetings For then we should be at a losse what should be the least number necessary But the administring it at such a time and in such a place where and when the Congregation may freely and is obliged to attend We may in some Parishes or Chappelries suspect somtimes on the Lords dayes and upon other special and important occasions for preaching on other dayes when we call an assembly that few wil be present yet do we then preach publiquely though to never so few because it s not our fault that the Church is so empty But if it were our fault that so few are present by taking inconvenient times either of the dayes of the week when their occasions call them another way or of the houres of the day which are not usuall nor commodious for an assembly or lastly if we should call them to attend preaching so frequently that we could not reasonably expect the attendance of a considerable Congregation I suppose in these cases we should offend in pretending to the exercise of publique preaching before so small a number And the same should I say concerning publique baptisme For this is my maine direction that these ordinances of publique preaching and administring Baptisme ought to go parallel one with another in regard of the publiquenesse of dispencing the same ¶ It remaines now much honoured Sirs only to crave your pardon for this overtedious interpellation of you your courteous acceptance of my unfeined respects to you and your earnest prayers at the throne of grace for me the which I hope you will be more fervent in on my behalfe by your observing of the many weaknesses clogging me in this present service And now it s my humble petition for you who are called to the weighty function of the Ministry that the Father of mercies may ever direct and prosper your precious labours in his vineyard for the honour of his name the edification of his Church and the joyfull refreshment of your own spirits And for you Sir who are honoured to be an Instrument for preserving of natural life in many my hearty request at the throne of grace is that your soul may live the life of grace here in the exercise of godliness in the power of it which you have seene in a precious instance most neerly related to you is the sure and unshaken foundation of unspeakable comforts and peace passing all understanding in life and at death that so you may live the life of glory hereafter In testimony of which my cordiall and uncessant prayers for you all I subscribe my selfe with all readinesse Decemb. 15. 1657. Your assured and affectionate servant in our deare Lord and Saviour SAMUEL LANGLEY To the Reader I Have here in the following discourse endeavoured rightly to state and cleere the doctrine and practice of suspending notoriously prophane and scandalous persons from the Lords Supper and to vindicate the same from Misrepresentations and exceptions made against it And although I could rather have desired to have performed this in my own method yet I was advised in reference to these parts where a book entituled Suspension discussed is spread and taken notice of to accommodate my discourse in way of refutation of that book which pretended to answer a private sheet I had occasionally written Concerning which an Account is given at the latter end of this my defence Yet have I not so confined my selfe thereunto as not to take in other things I apprehended of most importance in this subject especially such as I had seene least spoken to by others who have owned the same Conclusion with me And although I have not particularly and expressly answered all the objections I have found in some Authors against me fearing least the book should swell too big under my hand and perceiving the most of them sufficiciently answered already by others yet I have as I humbly conceive given in those grounds which are fitly applicable for the easie expedite and cleere solution of them as the peaceably judicious I hope will discerne I like Augustines counsell contra lit petil Don. l. 1. at the conclusion Diligite homines interficite errores sine superbiâ de veritate praesumite sine saevitia pro veritate certate orate pro eis quos redarguitis atque convincitis c. And before my Reader judge mee to have transgressed this Rule in the following sheets I must desire him to observe 1. Whether there was any one tart expression in the paper which the Authour of Suspension discussed answereth 2. Whether he doth not uncivilly trample upon me in his answer and not me only but the Reformed Churches with the Reverend Assembly yea and the Parliament which commended the Presbyterial Government to us 3. Whether there is not a meane betwixt a sheepish insensiblenesse whereby further abuses should be invited and a passionate returne of such calumnies and reproachfull revilings on my Antagonist as he hath bestowed on me which I have touched upon Ch. 20. § 4. and Digress 12.17 And then I trust the equal Reader will allow me without condemning my selfe to say to my Answerer what the formentioned Augustine said to Petilian l. 3. Si ego tibi vellem pro maledictis maledicta rependere quid aliud quam duo maledici essemus ut ij qui nos legerent alij detestatos abijcerent sanâ gravitate alij suaviter haurirent malevolâ voluntate And because the Gentleman I stand on my defence against hath told me that he favoured me sufficiently in concealing my name in his booke setting L for it I shall not be wanting in retaliation of the like