they care not for hearing them having itching ears they hunt out or up heap teachers to themselves To these men I shall first offer two or three things that directly tend to their better information concerning their Obligation to their own Pastor and then I shall answer their complaints of him and shew how groundless their forsakeing the solemn assemblies is in this respect The notes I shall give tending directly to your better information are Mr. Hildershams again who I believe gives in them the sence of all the old Nonconformists in this point and if they be well weighed I do believe they startle those of he Presbyterian perswasion that separate themselves from our Church or set up private meetings in time of publick worship and consequently in oppositito it They are these 1. Doubtless it is Gods own ordinance that every Pastor should have his own flock to attend upon and labour amongst them for so it is written Å¿ Acts 14.23 the Apostles ordained Elders in every congregation so speaks S. Paul to Titus t Titus 2.5 for this cause left I thee in Creet that thou shouldest ordain Elders in every City as I had appointed thee 2. By necessary consequence from the former it must needs be alike the ordinance of God that every one of Gods people should have a Pastor of his own to depend upon attend unto For the duty of Pastor and People is relative and mutual if the one be obliged by Gods ordinance to attend to a particular people then is that particular people obliged by the same ordinance to attend to their particular Pastor He may discharge this duty indeed though they be so head strong as not to submit to his ministry though they will not hear or be warned by him as their watchman yet may he by a Faithful fulfilling the work that he hath recieved of the Lord deliver his own soul but then all this while they by their own perverseness may lose the benefit of his ministry and by forsaking him deprive themselves of those holy warnings and instructions which he from the Lord prepareth for them as the straying sheep doth of that inspection and provision which his careful shepheard would have over it had it continued in its just bounds so that it is every ones duty by the ordinance of God to expect the Law at his own Pastors mouth To depend upon his ministry and hear what the Lord shall speak to him Yea he is obliged to this even in order to his own benefit 3. It is Gods ordinance also because requisite by good order in the Churches which is Gods ordinance that Christians should be distinguished sorted into congregations according to their dwellings that they that dwell next together should be of the same congregation and assembly The general equity of these rules shewes that it is Gods ordinance u 1 Cor. 14.33 and 40. God is not the Author of confusion but of peace as in all the Churches of the Saints And let all things be done decently and in order the word Parochia signifying parish doth evidently in its Element denote a compass or circuit of Inhabitants dwelling next together and so belonging to the same Congregation this as it evidently took place for order sake amongst the Jewes Moses being read to every particular Congregation in their particular Synagogues in every Church every Sabbath day Acts 15.21 So for the same same good Orders sake which was the undoubted ordinance of God the same is still on force under the Gospel For St. Paul left Titus in Creet to ordain Elders in every City So that they that lived together in the same town was apparently to be under the charge of the same Pastor and Elder x Titus 15. Feed the flock of God which is among you taking the oversight thereof not by constraint c. y 1 Pet. 5.2 Stilling fleet Irenicum 353. Alii 4. Our Author while he with other moderate Dissenters from the Church have in some respects allowed mens leaving their own Pastors to hear others better pleasing to them yet have they so far acknowledged the evidence of the truth of these particulars shewing peoples obligation to their own Pastors that they taught it thus That men might not ordinarily or usually leave them and when they leave them they must carfully approve their hearts to God that they have no other ends in so doing but their own sound edification onely and that they go to another Pastor onely because they find they can profit more in knowledg or Faith or Sanctification than by their own they complain that many Christians make choice of and applaud and admire some particular teachers without any judgment or discretion That some admire another Pastor rather then their own because he makes more ostentation of eloquence or reading or learning or such like humane gifts As the Corinthians did preferring other teachers before St. Paul himself because he was rude in speech z 2 Cor. 11.5 6. And some onely leave their own Pastors to go to others for variety sake they have itching ears and so must have a heap of teachers a 2 Tim. 4. one teacher let him have never such excellent gifts cannot please them long And some preferrs others before their own Pastors onely because they shew more seeming zeal in their voice and gesture and Phrase of speech and manner of delivery though perhaps their teaching be nothing so powerful wholesome or fit to edifie their consciences as is the Doctrine of their own Pastor These and other particulars they complain of which shewes that people are fickle and giddy headed and leave their own Pastors for want of knowledge and judgment So that whoever they be that leave them must be sure to approve themselves to that God that searcheth the heart that they do it not for any other end or upon any other account but for better edification Nay the Authors urge that when a man leavs his own Pastor go to another though he doth it in uprightness of heart onely in a desire to edifie himself yet must he seek to do it with his own Pastors good leave and consent why It is his unquestioned duty to acknowledge that by the ordinance of God he owes duty to him as to his superior in things belonging to the soul b Thes 5. ii Know them that labour among you and are overseers in the Lord and admonish you and esteem them very highly in love for their work sake Nay he is bound to seek his Pastors comfort and give him all good incouragement that he may do the work of his ministry with joy chearfulness according to the Apostles rule c Heb. 13.17 Obey them thâ—t have the rule over you and submit your selves for they watch for your souls as they that must give an account that they may do it with joy not with grief for that is unprofitable for you See here what
unto you Pharisees saith Christ for ye tithe Mint and Rue and all manner of Herbs and pass over judgement and the love of God these ought you to have done and not to leave the other undone Well if men will submit to the word of God the antidote against this strange partiality in the matter instanced of Christian union and concord is easily provided there being almost innumerable rules and precepts in the Scriptures to convince us of it Amongst which this Text is as full as any Now I beseech you Brethren by the Name of the Lord Jesus Christ that ye all speak the same thing and that there â—e no divisions amongst you but that ye be perfectly joyned together in the same mind and in the same judgement Thus St. Paul wrote with his Brother Sosthenes to the Church of God which was at Corinth nor wrote he so to them onely but b verse 2. with them to all that in every place call upon the name of the Lord Jesus both theirs and ours The words then are spoken to us also and all Believers in all places to the Worlds end Now the Apostle intending to condemn many vices in these Corinthians that he might not seem to do it out of malice or spleen or envy he begins first with a true commendation of their gifts and vertues that they were inriched in all knowledg and in all utterance that they came behind others in no gift c verse 7. But alas as knowledge is apt to pusse us up so these Corinthians began in their pride to divide themselves from each other So that d verse 12. one cryed I am for Paul another I am for Apollo and a third I am for Cephas therefore to make way for a sharp reproof hereof the Apostle brings in this grave obtestation in the text Now I beseech you saith he though I might be bold in Christ to enjoyn and command yet for love sake I rather beseech you I beseech you Brethren I do it in the bowels and affections of a brother Nay and by the Name of our Lord Jesus Christ that is by the power and authority of Christ and for the honour and glory of Christ I Paul so speak as if Christ himself did speak unto you For alas how the name of God and how the Doctrine of Christ is blasphemed through your divisions he that runs may read it and therefore for his sake I beseech you By the Name of our Lord that is by vertue of that commission and authority I have received from him who is our Lord and if he be our Lord where is his honour and in the Name of our Lord Jesus he who is your Saviour and as you hope for Salvation by him Our Lord Jesus Christ he that is the anoynted of God anoynted to be our Prophet Priest and King every word in the obtestation hath a sufficient weight to awaken us to attend it What even this exhortation I beseech you Brethren by that Name of our Lord Jesus Christ that ye all speak the same thing and that there be no divisions amongst you but that ye perfectly be joyned together in the same mind and in the same judgement It is a strange kind of earnestness and importunity the Apostle useth as elsewhere so here in this matter He was deeply sensible of the evil of divisions how they prejudice Gods truth for whilest they that profess it cannot agree in it the Fool is ready to scoff at it and to say in heart there is no God and how they endanger the Church and weaken it no engine that Satan and Anti-christ can use more than this the cutting of it into shreds like the Levites Concubine the blowing of the Coals of contention in it yea how they endanger the Souls of men by separating them from the Church and so from Christ who is the head thereof The Apostle was deeply sensible of the evil of divisions and therefore is strangely and more than ordinarily importunate in this Exhortation ushering it in with manifold obtestations See Phil. 2.1 2 If there be any consolation in Christ if any comfort in love if any fellowship of the Spirit if any compassion and mercy fulfil my joy that you be like minded having the same love being of one accord of one mind Ephes 4.1 I the Prisoner of the Lord beseech you that you walk worthy of that vocation wherewith you are called with all lowlyness and meekness with long-suffering forbearing one another in love endeavouring to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace Rom. 16.17 18 Now I beseech you Brethren mark them that cause divisions among you and avoid them for they serve not our Lord Jesus But to name no more this in the Text is full enough Now I beseech you Brethren by the Name of our Lord Jesus Christ that you all speak the same thing c. that there be no divisions among you Which words being apparently an exhortation must be handled in such method as best sutes with the nature thereof 1. I must explain and propound it 2. I must enforce and urge it by explication I shall lay open the nature and extent of the objectum quod or duty to which we are exhorted And then for the enforcing of it I shall press sundry powerful motives upon your Consciences to engage you to endeavour to practise it and lay down wholesome rules and directions for the better performing it if the Lord inable me the time permit and your christian patience give encouragement 1. To propound the Exhortation I need not at all insist upon the words they are so plain and intelligible in themselves that being read they may as easily be understood and to offer to give any sense of them particularly one by one might render them more dark and obscure Let it suffice to tell you that the matter of duty in them contained is the unity of the Church and the concord of Christians An universal accord amongst them is to be endeavoured so far as is possible in judgment affection and action this is the sum and substance of the Text. 1. The Exhortation is to an unity in judgement so the Apostle expresly prescribes it in the latter words that ye be perfectly joyned together in the same mind and the same judgment It is a thing much to be desired and by all good means to be endeavoured that according to our Churches prayer God would give to all Nations Unity Peace and Concord but especially that all that do profess his holy Name may also agree in the truth of his holy Word at least in the main and most substantial truths thereof and so that they may be perfectly joyned together in the same mind and in the same judgement But if this cannot be hoped for and attained in this life yet 2. That we must be sure of to endeavour to preserve an unanimity in heart and affection Desired it must be but hoped for it cannot
necks they are properly stiled children of Belial their hellish design is clean contrary to the Text to cause divisions and offences amongst you 2. As it is necessary to prevent divisions that you submit to the same Government so that you walk by the same rule What is that It is either Principal or Subordinate Principal even the Law and the Testimony the sacred Scriptures Subordinate even according to the Scriptures the rules and canons and Customes of the Church without a due respect to both these rules in their right places it is impossible Christians should speak all the same things but there will be divisions among them I dare assert and think it not difficult to maintain by the Scriptures as well as clear reason that there is an obligation upon the members of that Church in which they were born baptised and bred up to submit unto and obey the rules and canons and customes thereof if they be not able to prove them contrary to the Scriptures or the clear light of natural reason in us or at least such conclusions as are properly directly and evidently deduced from them There is much in that argument of the Apostle to confirm the sober-minded herein p 1 Cor. 11. If any man be contentious we have no such custome neither the Churches of God And in that of our Saviour If the Offender will not hear the Church let him be to thee as an Heathen and a Publican and again he that heareth you heareth me and he that despiseth you despiseth me and he that despiseth me despiseth him that sent me Do not think I ascribe to the Church any Popish infallibility or call for any blind obedience unto it O no if any of its rules or injunctions appears to be contrary to the Word of God like Nebuchadnezzar's to the three Children to fall down to his Image or Darius his to Daniel not to pray to any other God or the High-Priests to the Apostles not to speak in the name of Jesus then must we answer with them whether must we obey God or man judge ye But then we must not deny our obedience to such Church rules and canons as repugnant to God's Word upon light surmises and slender presumptions this were to speak evil of the things we know not q Jude 10. O no r As I take it this is the excellent Bishop Sanderion in one of his Sermons No worse for that as in the Courts of Civil Justice men are not ordinarily put to prove themselves honest men but the proof lieth on their accusers part and therefore it is sufficient for the acquitting any man in soro externo that there is nothing of moment proved against him it being requisire to the condemning a man that there be a clear and a full evidence against him So in these moral trials when enquiry is made into the lawfulness or sinfulness of our Churches rules and customes and our Governours commands it is sufficient to warrant them if there can be nothing produced from express Scriptures or sound reason against them and to condemn or disobey them upon remote consequences and weak deductions though it be from Scripture-Texts can ne'r be excused of rashness and unrighteousness Sure obedience is an unquestioned duty obey them that have the rule over you saith the Apostle for they watch for your Souls and therefore unless it be manifest that their Lawes and injunctions be against the Word of God all our questions are but carpings and needless stumbling blocks laid in our way by the Troublers of Israel The safest way is obedience which also is absolutely necessary among Christians that they may speak the same things and that there be no divisions among them Then 3. More particularly still to this end that as Christian Brethren ye may speak the same things without divisions it is necessary that ye all joyn in the same form of prayer praise and manner of worshipping God It was David's earnest desire O magnifie the Lord with me Psal 34.3 and let us exalt his Name together And the Holy Ghost in the Acts mentions this Uniformity in the Churches Infancy and time of her first love to be one chief cause of its prospering and inlarging Acts 4.24 The multitude of Believers lifted up their voice in praises with one accord Acts 4.24 The people with one accord gave heed to the things that Philip spake Acts 8.6 And it s a great part of the blessedness of the heavenly Jerusalem Rev. 4.10 that the Elders sing with one voice unto the Lord. So doth the Apostle make it his earnest prayer for the Romans Rom. 15.6 that they might be like minded one towards another that with one mind and with one voice they might glorifie God the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ with one mind and with one mouth too while men think to glorifie God in several ways and several forms it is scarce intelligible how they can do it in this desirable manner with one mind and with one mouth so many several ways so many several mouths and that can never tend to the glory of God The Apostles expression intimates that like-mindedness unanimity and uniformity are very subservient to the glory of God What an honour is it to the God of Israel when all Israel came in as one man to do him worship when that admirable variety of Gifts and Administrations and Offices that are in his Church do not jar and clash one against another but sustain and mutually supply out of their stores the wants each of other and all conspire together in their several kinds to glorifie God What else is musical harmony but concord in discourse variety in consort it makes the musick full and delightful when there is a well-ordered variety of voices and instruments in it but if all instruments were perfectly well tuned yet if the men could not agree what to play but one would have a nimble Galliard another a frisking Jig another a grave Air and if all of them should be so wilful as without yielding to the rest to scrape on his Tune as loud as he could what a hideous hateful noise may you imagine would such a mess of Musick be no less odious to God and equally grievous to every godly man it is when such Vices as these are heard in the Church of God I am of Paul and I of Cephas 1 Cor. 1.12 and I of Apollo When one Pamphleteer will have the Church governed after this fashion another after that when one Mountebank in Religion will have this way of Worship and form of Prayer another that to the great scandal of the Reformed Religion and the manifest dishonour of God Surely beloved such an Uniformity as of all Christian Members of the same Church to be of one mind and worship God in one place and in one way and form and manner with one accord would be the most beautiful and comely and happiest thing in
leave not thy place E sede itio may with a little heat turn into sed itio saith Doctor Reynolds Quidam in corpore Christi oculi quidem manus saith S. Basil All are not eyes and hands in the Body of Christ to take upon them the burden of great affairs Are all Apostles saith S. Paul are all Prophets are all Teachers hath not God dealt to every man a several measure hath he not placed every man in a several order have we not all work to do in our own places must we needs rush into the labours and intrude our selves into the business of other men Haec magistro relinquat Aristoteli canere ipse docet It was a sharp rebuke of Tully against Aristoxenus the Musitian who would needs turn Philosopher whereunto agreeth the Answer of Basil the Great to the Clerk of the Emperours Kitchin when he jeered him for his soundness against the Arrian Faction 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Your business it is to look to the seasoning of your Broth and not to revile the Doctrine or Doctrines of the Church All these do commend the Apostles Exhortation unto you let every one study to be quiet to do his own business * 1 Thes 4.11 The Connexion more than intimates the next way to be quiet abroad is to be busie at home We shall never learn well to be quiet unless we learn also to keep our own business The excellent Bishop Lany hath fully discovered See Doct. Lany Bishop of Ely upon this Text. how guilty of the contrary hereof are both the Pope the Covenanter and Sectary in his Sermon on this Text Quietness is the natural and genuine effect of orderly keeping in our Callings and Stations and our own business For all discord must be between two either persons or parties and that which commonly kindles the Fire is envy or some supposed injury Now he that minds his own business only can give no occasion to others of either envy or complaint and so in recompence of keeping to his own business he shall sit quietly under his own Vine and under his own Fig-tree Let none of us then out of ambition discontent emulation or any other Polipragmatical distemper grow weary of our own imployments and interpose our selves in things that are without and above our order But according to the Apostles rule n 1 Cor. 7.24 Let every one abide in his calling and keep the station wherein God hath set him and this will be an excellent help to our speaking the same things our unity unanimity and uniformity and that there be no divisions amongst us 8. To this add also Remember that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 injoyned by the Apostle o Rom 12. be wise unto sobriety When you are 〈◊〉 deal with things divine set bounds 〈◊〉 your selves that you break not through to gaze p Exod. ◠12 21. think not to draw every thing in Religion to the rule of your own crooked presumptuous Reason to give a quo modo of every thing in Faith Upon this account it is that S. Paul charges the Colossians q Col. 2.8 to take heed of Philosophy and vain deceits not but that there is admirable use of sound Philosophy and of Reason raised and rectified so long as it is subordinate to Faith but when Reason shall be so proud as to judge of Faith it self and admit or reject it as it shall be consonant or disagreeing to her prejudice this is a Tyranny which will quickly overthrow all Other cause than this there hath been none of the desperate Heresies wherewith the Socinians have pestered the World but that they will have all truths to stand or fall at the Tribunal of their presumptuous Reason Happy we and the Church of God if all curious Novelties in sacred things be esteemed prophane Modesty becomes Christians especially cum de Deo agitur as Seneca said be we wise to sobriety This would confer much to our speaking the same things and to take away divisions from amongst us and of this advice the two next will be a sull explication and improvement So let that be the 9. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 keep your selves close to the form of sound words r Rom. 10. ◠2 Tim ◠13 Those words and Doctrines which accord best with the grounds of Faith and love in Christ those which ascribe most glory to God and the Grace of God and which most conduce to the humbling and abasing of the pride of man which most tends to the practice of godliness to the purifying of Conscience and edifying of the Body of Christ It is a weighty saying of S. Austin ſ De Civ Dei lib. 10. c. 23. Non parum inter est ad Christianam pietatem quibus vocibus utamur It is of no little moment to Christian Piety what words we use they must be according to godliness t 1 Tim. 6.3 and our knowledge the knowledge of the truth according to godliness To which add 10. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Be sure to retain and bear reverence to the customs of the Church of God Contra fundatissimum morem nemo sentiat u Aust ep 28. Let no man be in love with his private sentiments contrary to the Churches well-grounded Customs Nemo nobis molestias exhibeat sic enim sentit ac docèt Sancta Dei Ecclesia ab origine Epiphan in Anchorat Let no man trouble us in these things for thus the Holy Church thought and taught from the beginning In quibus nihil certi statuit Scriptura mos populi Dei instituta majorum pro lege tenenda sunt saith S. Austin * A known place Where the Word of God determines no certainty and where there is no express and evident variation from Divine Authority there must be the Customs and received practices of the Ancient and pure Ages of the Church and Constitutions of her Pastors be retained as a Law and to contemn and oppugn them he somewhere calls it insolentissima insania a most proud or insolent madness only this Rule must be qualified with this necessary limitation that no Authority hath any Authority in matters of Faith Worship or Doctrine of Religion to prescribe or deliver any thing as in it self and immediately obligatory to Conscience which is either contradicted or omitted in the Word of God for that we believe to be fully sufficient to make the man of God perfect and thoroughly furnished to every good work x 2 Tim. 3.16 17. but as for matters accessary of indifferency order decency and inferiour nature and in matters of testimony to the truths of Scripture and for manifesting the succession flourishing and harmony of Doctrine through all Ages of the Church the godly Learned hath ascribed much to the Authority and usage of the Ancient Churches the study of the Doctrine whereof Vide Littler's Reformed Presbyte rian Hooker's Ecclesiastical Polity Mr. Baxter's Disputation with several other Authors the
for themselves have no promise to be heard non aequè exoras quum solus Dminum obsecras saith the Father Thou doest not so soon obtain thy desire when thou prayest alone as when in the assemblies of the Brethren for in those Assemblies there is some thing more then prayers even the concord and consent and joyning in Love and Charity and the cry of the Priest whose office it is to make intercession for the people and being of the stronger size to carry a long with them the weak prayers of the people and carry then unto heaven Quod quis apud seipsum precatus accipere non poterit hoc cum multitudine precatus accipit Quare quia si non propria virtus tamen concordia multum potest The thing that a man cannot obtain by himself alone praying together with the multitude he shall obtain why because when his own worth cannot yet the concord and union of the Assembly may avail much It is no reproach to call the Churches Liturgy Common prayer the more common it is the better it is and the more effectual when not onely two or three but a whole Congregation are joyned nay all the Congregations of a whole nation do in the same words put their Common petitions and supplications O what a shrill noise must this needs make in the ears of God St. Jerom likened it to a thunder clap St. Easti to the roaring of the Sea it is like the several strings of a Well tuned instrument that makes a ravishing harmony as the flame of one stick is nothing to that of a bundle on fire together such is the devotion of one man to that of a whole Assembly vis unita fortior force vnited is somuch the stronger a threefold cable is hardly broken So do the joynt prayers of Gods people united and publiquely put up unto God move him as it were omnipotently and irresistably they mount up to heaven they rap at the gates and cannot easily be denyed entrance like as the petition of a whole Corporation is more avaliable to a King then the single petition of any particular person such is the power and profit of publique worship and devotion And that by the way is a forceable argument to disswade the truely Religious from forsaking the assemblies that 's the fifth Proposition the more publique religious worship is the better it is The next in order is this Prop. 6. That divine worship may be truely publique There is requisite the free and full assembling of our selves together in a publique place set a part for the same So you see I come home to my Text so set it home upon your judgments 〈…〉 with fulness of evidence and strength of reason as well as Holy Scripture Give me leave to prosecute this Proposition by parts To publique worship to make it publique there is requisite the assembling of Minister and people in a publique place 1. Of Minister His presence is necessary unless in case of unremoveable impediment as some sudden sickness or some weighty cause of absence for he is a person set a part for the administration of Gods publique worship he is consecrated to draw nigh unto God he is by office an Ambassador or Messenger between God and man Gods mouth an Ambassador to the people appointed to beseech them in Gods stead to be reconciled unto him And he is the peoples mouth and Ambassador unto God to offer up their requests for grace and mercy unto him Gods mouth to them in preaching and their mouth unto God in prayer Hence c Joel 2.18 the Priests are required to put up petitions and supplications Let the Priests the Priest of the Lord stand between the Porch and the Altar and say spare thy people good Lord spare them And as under the Law it was the Priests office to to burn incense and Vzziah was smitten of God with a loathsome leprousie for usurping it So still under the Gospel it is the Ministerial office to offer the Sacrifice of publique prayer unto God which is as sweet smelling incense in the nostrils of God and for preaching the word is express how shall they preach unless they be sent d Rom. 10. â—0 how able so ever they be to teach the word and sound doctrine yet if they have not a mediate and ordinary call or sending which though it be by man yet is divine as Luther saith they cannot preach to your prâ—fit they come not to edifie but to destroy They are Luthers words Let no uncalled speaker Beloved have any encouragement at your hands having no mission from God Our Saviour tells you that what shew soever they make of holiness and spiritualness and godliness and saintship and the like yet they are wolves in sheep cloathing thieves spoiling Gods heritage deceitful workers underminding the truth therefore takeheed of them or forsaking the publique assemblies to run after them to your perversion and distruction such is the first requisite to a publique worship the Ministers the rightly called Ministers presence in the Assembly 2. That puplique worship may be publique indeed the people ought to come and joyn in it every one that would be saved must be member of the true Church for extra ecclesian nou est salus out of the true Church â—nd Religion no man can find assurance of comfort and Salvation Japhet cannot be saved until perswaded to dwell in the tents of Shem nor Noahs family out of the Ark. The visible Church of Christ is a Congregation of faithful men in which the pure word of God is preached and the Sacraments are duly administred according to all those things that are necessarily requisite for the same A true Church is chiefly to be distinguished from a false by purity and soundness of doctrine and due administration of the Sacraments in it And surely these are unquestionable in our Church of England even in the confession of our adversaries as it stands at this day reformed from the dreggs of Popery in its doctrine and worship So then to this Church let every one joyn himself and not seperate from it if he would be saved e Acts 2.47 The Lord added to the Church such as should be saved Regia via The King of heavens high way to Salvation is by adding to the Church not by seperating from it If God be our Father the Church is our Mother f Gal. 4.26 Jerusalem which is above is the mother of us all Hence the Church is oft called the Kingdome of heaven g Mat. 13.44 And that promise that is made h Esa 33.24 the people that dwells there shall have their sins forgiven is to be understood of the catholick Church and so by consequence is applicable 1. The Tabernacle where the Arke of the Covenant and the Altar was placed There God promised to meet with his people that worshipped him hence it was called the Tabernacle of the Congregation or the Tabernacle of Meeting as
But as it was that solicitous care I had of your present and everlasting Welfare that did at first engage me to Preach upon these subjects so the very same fire burning still in my heart being earnestly desirous the truths herein delivered may not be forgotten by you even while you have use for them this almost irresistibly urged me to enter upon the stage to encounter the harsh Censures I seriously expect for it These Sermons you know together with others upon other texts relating to this subject which to imprint also would swell the book to too great a bulk was preached both in Church and Chappel The design of them was evidently to deal with your Consciences and inform them aright in this present juncture of publick affairs what your Obligation is to your own Pastors and to prevent your Chismatical forsaking the Publick Assemblies to joyn to an Independant Conventicle Pardon me if I mistake it for I believe it cannot as it is circumstantiated consist with the principles of the old sober Presbyterians nor yet with the Modern that have any remains of settled principles concerning Church unity and Church Assemblies in them But having preacht them I easily perceived all my labours utterly lost and useless to many that either would not or could not hear them or else basely without any shew of reason reflected on them Hence I began to desire they might have some way of approving themselves further to the World and especially that they might be exposed with better advantage to your more serious and retired consideration and perusal and if it were possible that they might be known unto and narrowly examined by all under my charge These and other Motives especially knowing that other books of better worth of this or like subjects have never reacht your hands nor in likelyhood ever will do being entertained prevailed and wrought a trembling resolution in me to offer them first to some Christian friends perusal and after to put them upon this publick tryal though at first in composing them I never purposed more than the delivering them vivâ voce to your private audience It is admirable to consider how this perticular national Church suffers by Traduces and Blasphemies on all hands Meet as Christ was crucified betwixt two thieves so on the one side the Papists Anathematize us the Faithful Ministers and Members of the Church of England because we are the most professed enemies to their usurpations Idolatries and superstitions on the other side the separating Members of our Church do hate and maligne us and sometimes saucily and petulantly brand us with Popery and Idolatry and so make us limbs of Anti-christ and therefore no true or faithful Churches of Christ and that meerly for those few innocent indifferent significant ceremonies which we retain and observe for the order and decency of the Worship of God Thus are Christs sheep in the midst of Wolves His Spouse a woman in the Wilderness of wilde Beasts of all sorts this is Ephraim against Manasseh and Manasseh against Ephraim but both against Juda Herod and Pontius Pilate made friends Pharisees and Sadduces combining and agreeing against Christ But blessed be God so safe is our Church and so warrantable is our standing in it that this Flag of Defiance we can hold out against all Sadduces and Opponents that we have in most of our adversaries confessions those things in the Midst of us that in the judgements of all the Reformed Churches as may appear by the Harmony of their confessions are the only undoubted marks and infallible characters of a true Visible Church where ever they are Such are the pure preaching of the Word of God and the Right Administration of the Sacraments And this I made good to you upon that text Acts 2.42 which I trust you will remember Now whoever is once assured that the National Church he lives in and in which he was baptized is a true Visible Church of Christ He can never have just cause while it remains such essentially to separate from it but ought to live and rest with quietness and chearfulness of Spirit in communion thereof For it is every mans duty to profess himself a Christian and to own his Religion publickly and therefore publickly to partake of and frequent the Ordinances and Sacraments of the Gospel in order thereunto but this he cannot do without society and communion with some Church or other Every Christian as such is bound to look upon himself as a member of a Body viz. The Visible Church of Christ but how can he be known to be a member who is not united with the other parts of the Body Hence follows that upon all Christians there lyes an Obligation to engage in a Religious society with others for partaking of the ordinances of the Gospel Now a Christi an being actually joyned in Church society with other Christians is so long bound to maintain society with them till his communion with them becomes sin The separatist must prove that every one sins that keeps in the Communion of the Church of England or else he himself must inevitably lye under the guilt of sin for separation from it there being nothing that can justifie the withdrawing from the society of that Church wherein a Christian was baptized but the unlawfulness of continuing it Nor is it any corruptions that are crept into a Church which still remaines true and and Faithful as to its constitution and Essentials that will make it a Christians duty to withdraw from it or to gather new Churches in and out of it though it be upon pretence of purer administrations Which by the way is all that is pleaded by most of our adversaries against us viz. Some defects or Corruptions in the exercise and administration of Church order and discipline for there is no Church on earth perfectly free from these and as it is proved in these ensuing Sermons especially upon the latter text So is it excellently done by the famous Mr. Norton in his answer to Apollius as I find him quoted by Dr. Edward Stillingfleet in his Irenicum p. 111. That it is Lawful for Christians to joyn with Churches so defective and if it be Lawful to joyn with them it must needs be unlawful to separate from them for how can the God of Love and Vnity endure any rents or Schismes in the Body of Christ and then how dare any one forsake the Communion of that Church whereof they are natural and immediate members if they be not assured that it is either no Church or a false one or that it is unlawful to hold communion with it This is evidently is the Case of our Church in her separation from the Church of Rome the main ground hereof being the sin of Communicating with that Church in her Idolatry and superstition and the impossibility of Communicating with her and not partaking in her sins the practice of her Idolatry being made a necessary condition of her
and drinking the same spiritual drink in the holy Communion and therefore all reason that as members of the same Body and servants of the same Family we speak the same things and there be no divisions amongst us Mr. Baxter in his Cure of Divisions urgeth two or three things well in this Topick of the Church as that our union with the Church is a sign of our proportionable union with Christ and our separation from the Church is a sign of our separation from Christ nay that union is not only an accident but of the very Essence of the Church without which it is no Church and without which we can be no members of it Unity being necessary to the very being of the Church and of Christianity and that our union is necessary to our nourishment from and Communion with Christ and his Church but I refer you for these to him See it page 66. whom perhaps some will rather hear than us if we should speak the same words I shall amongst many particulars urge only four things with reference to the Church that shews the need you have to speak the same things and that there be no divisions amongst you 1. This is the only way to forward the work of God for the building up of the Church which Faction and divisions on the other hand obstructeth so as nothing more You often read in Scripture of edifying the Body of Christ Eph. 4.12 2 Cor. 12.19 and of doing all things to edifilcation The expression is metaphorical taken from material buildings often used by the Apostle with application to the Church of God and the spiritual building thereof 1 Tim. 3.15 for the Church is the House of the Living God and all Christian-members of this Church are as so many stones of this building whereof the house is made up and the bringing in unbelievers into the Church by converting them to the Christian Faith is as the fetching of more stones from the Quarries to be laid in the building Now the building in it self and that is edification is the well and orderly joyning together of Christian men as living stones in truth and love that they speak the same things and that there be no divisions amongst them that they may grow together as it were into one entire building to make up a strong and comely house for the Masters use and honour a 1 Pet. 2.9 Indeed there is nothing more conduceth hereunto than Peace Love and Concord Knowledge is very little or nothing but a puff in comparison of Charity in order to Edification b 1 Cor. 8.1 It may swell and look big and make a shew but Charity doth the deed c 1 Cor. 1.10 It lays the stones together and makes them couch close one to another and binds them up with Fillings and Cement to make them hold Hence that wise Master-builder S. Paul that knew well what belongs to this work when he speaks of compacting the Church into a building mentions the edifying of it self in love d Eph. 4.16 Indeed when all the Workmen intend the main business each in his place and office performing their appointed task with chearfulness and good agreement then doth the work go on and the building gets up apace and strongly but when one man draws one way and another another way one will have things done after this fashion another after that one mars what another makes pulls down what another sets up how is it possible while things go thus that ever the building should be brought to any perfection or handsomness and therefore well doth the Apostle joyn these two together 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 e Rom. 14.19 Let us follow after the things that make for peace and things wherewith we may edisie one anot her Where the hearts and tongues of the builders are divided the building will either come to nothing or prove but a Babel of confusion for where envy and strife is there is confusion and every evil work f James 3.16 Strife will make ill work it will build up nothing unless it be Babels walls It is peace and concord that builds up the walls of Jerusalem which as it hath its name from peace so hath it also its perfection from peace and then and not before shall Jerusalem be built as a City that is at unity in it self g Psa 122.3 whe◠they that build Jerusalem are first at unity amongst themselves when they speak the same things and there is no divisions amongst them 2. As this is the way to build the Church so it is the way to preserve in both in peace beauty and safety 1. In peace The concord of Familie is their peace so is amity and concord in the Church whereas the divisions and discords of Christians disturbs their minds and discomposeth the Church Pray for the peace of Jerusalem h Psa 125. saith the Psalmist but by different forms and ways there is a breach of that peace such divisions in the Church are like wars and tumults in the Commonwealth they discompose and set it out of order It was Sir Henry Wotton's excellent saying Disputandi pruritus Scabies Ecclesiae The Itch of Disputing doth cause the Scab of the Church Every Sect finds some little pleasure in scratching by zealous wranglings and disputes for their several Opinions till the blood be ready to follow and at length it proves the bain of peace and charity and love which is the very life and soul of Christian Religion Now is not this or should it not be an effectual Motive to this Unity Unamity and Uniformity How dear should be the Churches peace to every member thereof Dulce nomen pacis the very name of peace sounds sweetly to the ear there is such a mixture of pleasantness and profitableness in it as wrapt the Psalmist into admiration ut prius miraretur quà m ostenderet he admires it himself and rouzeth others to the like admiration i Psa 133.1 Behold how good and pleasant a thing it is Brethren to dwell together in unity some things are pleasing not good as Epicurism and Good-fellowship some things good not pleasing as Fasting and Martyrdom but this both for pleasure it is like the Oyl poured out on Aaron's Head for goodness it is like the Dew on Hermon's Hill which made the Valleys fruitful So good and pleasant it is that nothing can be pleasant without it It is the desire of all hearts the rest of all Nations the end of all Contentions pacem te poscimus omnes nothing more desirable in Families in Kingdoms much more in the Church And therefore lest we violate the Churches peace it concerns us to speak the same things lest there be no peace but divisions amongst us 2. It is the way to preserve the Church in beauty and honour the concord of Christians is their beauty and honour and their divisions and discord is their deformity and shame The Church
of their feet They are but like Cain as fled from the place of rest so dwelling in the Land of Nod i.e. of wandring Vid. Dr. Stillingfleet's Sherinah in locum till they return to the Ark again They are like children tossed to and fro with every wind of Doctrine and even when they think themselves fixed they most-what still have some jealousies remaining in their minds that possibly they are deceived so that they seldom have any rest unless they come at last to a hardness of of heart and a stupid and benumming in sensual security crying Peace where there is no Peace for no true peace no true rest is to be had till they come to this speaking the same things without division from their Brethren How often do we see them like drunken men reeling to and fro carried from this to that extreme till they come at last to conclude in Atheism and Infidelity whereas by being united particular Christians would be strengthened in the truth having nothing more to do but to grow in Grace and make Progress from degrees to degrees in Holiness which is the very design of Christianity Indeed 3. It concerns every one to labour after this Unity if they do but consider that this alone will put them in a fit posture to receive the blessing of God It is remarkable the Psalmist e Psa 134. exhorts the people Behold bless ye the Lord all ye servants of the Lord which stand in the House of the Lord. Mark he exhorts them plurally Ye and all ye bless ye but in the third verse he prays to God to bless the people singularly The Lord bless thee out of Sion Plures hortatur ut benedicant iâ—se uni benedicit saith S. Austin He exhorts all to bless the Lord but he blesseth all from the Lord as one man It hints that then God useth to bless his people when they are at unity as one man So Christ came to his Disciples with a blessing when they were a rowing together f Mâ—â— 1â— 2â— and to his Apostles with a blessing of Peace when they were assembled together g John 2â— 19 and he sent his Holy Ghost to them when with one accord they were met together And so the Promise runs Where two or three is met together in my Name there am I in the midst of them While Christians disagree in their manner of serving and blessing and worshipping God God will not bless them as He will do if in one way and with one mouth and heart they glorifie their Father if they speak the same things and there be no divisious amongst them if he will hear the prayers of Christians when two or three are united together how much more when several thousands nay not only all in a Congregation but all in all Congregations throughout a whole Land are united speaking and asking the same things In this case sure if in any the Kingdom of Heaven suffereth violence and the violent taketh it by force On the contrary if there be divisions we can never be so hopeful in our prayers for these divisions most-what causeth alienation of affections and so we cannot pray with such hopes of Audience because we cannot then lift up pure hands without wrath the clamour of our boiling malice to each other will out-cry our prayers our dissentions will make that sweet Incense stink in Gods Nostrils and will turn our Prayers into Curses if we do not speak the same things but there be divisions amongst us Many more Motives I might heap up to inforce our Exhortation especially that drawn from the many examples we have set before us as that of God the Father who being provoked by us yet by all means seeks peace and union with us hath sent his Ministers of Reconciliation to beseech us to be reconciled unto him loadeth us with his blessings causeth his Sun to shine and his Rain to fall on us and all to induce us to be at peace with himself And can we be partakers of the Divine Nature or Sons of our Heavenly Father if we be not Followerâ— of him as dear Children in endeavouring to be united one with another Nay Christ his Son did become Incarnate to unite us to God and make our peace with God yea and loe the Prince of Peace came to dwell amongst men for this end when peace was amongst men in Augustus's days when there was general quiet and union through all the World and at his Birth the Angels proclaimed peace on Earth good will towards men O how then can we be Disciples of Christ and not follow after peace to speak the same things and that there be no divisions amongst us yea and this Oyl of Charity poured on Christ the Head did run down to the Beard yea unto the skirts of all his garments for all the Saints of God now in heaven have gone thither in this way of peace Abraham said to Lot Let there be no contentions amongst us for we are Brethren Stephen prayed for his Persecutoâ—s Father forgive them The Saints were ever peace-makers and not peace-disturbers or dividers Nay very wicked men and Devils are sensible of the benefit of this way of union one with another therefore did Ephraim and Manasseh agree together against Judah Herod and Pilate Scribes and Pharisees against Christ Nay very bruit beasts covet an union saevis inter se convenit ursis and shall we be more blockish than they In a word God stiles himself the God of Peace Christ the Prince of Peace his Name is Immanuel a Name of Peace was Crowned at his Baptism with a Dove the Emblem of Peace being in the building 〈…〉 Church 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a Corner-stone the place of Peace coming into the World with a Song of Peace and going out of the World with a Legacy of Peace The Spirit the Bond of Peace the Gospel the Covenant of Peace and the word of Reconciliation Ministers Ambassadours thereof Jerusalem the type of the Church signifies in the Hebrew Tongue the Vision of Peace and the bliss in Heaven we all look for is nothing else but Eternal Peace where we shall all speak the same things without division to the glory and praise of God If then we be Sons of the God of Peace Servants of the Frince of Peace Temples of the Spirit of Peace Professors of the Gospel of Peace if we have any Consolations in the Ministers the Ambassadours of Peace if we be Citizens of Jerusalem the Vision of Peace and hope to be gathered to our Fathers to enjoy an eternal Sabbath of Peace if there be in us any consolation in Christ any comfort of love any fellowship of the Spirit let it be our care to walk by this Rule of Peace Unity Unanimity and Uniformity with our Brethren to speak the same things and that there be no divisions amongst us but let us be perfectly joyned together in the same mind and the same judgment and as
many as walk according to this Rule peace be upon them and the whole Israel of God Now that you may see how Christians are to speak the same things and how they may and must order their endeavours to avoid divisions give me leave to close my Exhortation with sundry Directions picked out of the Analogy of Faith The skilful Physitian must not only discover the disease and perswade his Patient to use all means to prevent and remedy it but he must also direct him what remedies to use and how to use them The directions I shall give you you cannot like the worse because most of them I confess I have though in a different method out of that excellent Sermon of Doctor Edward Reynolds of the Peace of the Church to which I have added some Heads and some inlargements better I could not find let him do it that can such wholesome Rules being therein offered as would compose the most turbulent spirits to some moderation if they would walk up to them and joyntly considered exceedingly conducing to heal the breaches of the Church of God Then by way of caution Direct 1. that you mistake me not know that though you must speak the same things and avoid divisions and labour to be of the same mind and judgment yet this Exhortation admits of a limitation it must be only if it be possible and as much as lieth in you without any shipwrack of truth and holiness For howsoever Unity Unanimity and Uniformity be well pleasing unto God yet is it not such an Unity as he desireth unless it be truth and peace together such a peace and unity as is according to truth and godliness in Christ Jesus there may be an agreement together in falso when men hold together for the maintenance of one and the same common errour Such as is an agreement as our Learned Davenant g Epist de pacificat observes 1. Of Hereticks in case of Heresies when Adversaries speak all the same things to deny or deprave the Faith of the Gospel as Hymenius and Philetus did h 2 Tim. 2.18 who sought to overthrow mens Faith in the Resurrection 2. Of Idolaters in case of Idolatry i Hos 4.15 if Israel play the Harlot let not Judah transgress for 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 what agreement hath the Temple of God with Idols k 2 Cor. 6.16 3. There may be an agreement of Usurpers in case of Tyranny when any shall usurp and exercise Domination over the Consciences of men to bring them into bondage unto Doctrines of Errours and make Articles of Faith for all Churches to submit unto as the Romish Church and especially as the Tridentine Councel have done In which case the Apostle had no patience to give place by subjection to them no not for one hour * Gal. 2.4 5 Neque enim quisquam nostrum Episcopum se esse Episcoporum constituit aut Tyrannico terrore ad obsequendi necessitatem collegas suos adegit saith S. Cyprian in the Councel of Carthage in the case of Rebaptization m Lib. de sentent Episcoo de haretic rebapt Yea 2. There may be an agreement in malo when men combine together in a Confederacy for the compassing of some mischievous design as did those forty and odd that bound themselves with a Curse to destroy Paul n Acts 23.12 13. such as is the agreement of Thieves Cheats Drunkards Whoremongers and Fornicaters and Rebels among themselves such agreements as these no Christian ought to joyn with or be of the same mind or judgment with them The wisdom of the Flesh and cunning of the Devil will bring men fast enough to those cursed agreements without which he and his knows well enough his Kingdom cannot stand Gods Servants have rather evermore bent themselves by their prayers and endeavours to dissolve the Glue and break these Confederacies of the ungodly Destroy their tongues O Lord divide them was holy David's prayer o Psa 55.9 And S. Paul when he stood before the Sanedrim at Jerusalem to take off his malicious Accusers the better perceiving both the Judges and by standers to be of two different Factions some Pharifees who believed a Resurrection and others Sadduces that denied it he did wisely to cast a bone amongst them p Acts 23.6 7 10. In this case then the Rule is certain that though we must labour for Unity yet are we 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as S. Jude speaks q Verse 3. to contend earnestly for the great things of the Law and Gospel those that are either Foundations themselves or are most visibly and immediately adjacent and contiguous to the Foundation Hence Paul and Barnabas had no small dissention and disputation with the false Brethren that taught the necessity of Judaical Rites unto Salvation r Acts 15 2 And Athanasius the Great would not have the Orthodox Brethren to receive 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 any Forms or Letters Communications or Pacificatories from George the Arrian Persecutor ſ Aust Epist 130. opt lib 2. And Basil the Great t Epist 325. ad Epiph. giveth an excellent reason of it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 If once saith he we shake the simplicity of the Faith and retain not that as a Rule and Measure of Inferiour Differences Disputes and Contentions will prove endless therefore the Unity that must be laboured after and maintained amongst Christians in the Church must be a Christian Unity that is a happy Concord in walking together in the same path of truth and godliness The Word of Christ is the Word of Truth u Col. 1.5 and the Mystery of Christ is the Mystery of Godliness w 1 Tim. 3 16. and Christ that is the King of Salem is the King of Righteousness also x Heb. 7.2 Whatsoever then is contrary to these Truth o◠Godliness or Righteousness cannot be acceptable unto Christ y Iames 3.17 The wisdom that is from above is first pure then peaceable and our Unity must be the Unity of the Spirit z Eph. 4.3 Ea enim sola Ecclesiae pax est quae Christi pax est saith Hilary Here are our bounds set us our nè plus ultra beyond which if we pass we transgress and are exorbitant usque ad aras The Altar-stone is the mear stone all Bonds of Friendship all Offices of Neighbourhood must give way when the Honour of God and his Truth lies at stake we must buy the Truth and not sell it for any temporal advantages The Church is Militant and must maintain Wars with Principalities and Powers and Spiritual Wickednesses and Christ came to send a Sword upon Earth against all dangerous Errours of mind and manners If peace will be had upon fair terms or indeed upon any terms Salvis veritate pietate without impeachment of truth and piety it ought to be imbraced but if it will not come upon harder conditions better let it go A man may
or hoped to do by his Cure of the Churches Divisions he could not have devised a more effectual course to undo all Thus hath he cherished us of the Church with one hand and smitten us with the other Thus hath he acted the part of an unfaithful Physitian who when afraid his Cure should be wrought too soon administers contrary Physick I affect not to thrust 〈…〉 into a Fray with him or any other of that perswasion nor do I pretend to Answer his Book which it is fitter others should do if it be thought needful nor do I glory to be a Discoverer of so great an Authors Errours but being requested by a Friend to add a word or two concerning those chief Pleas I before mentioned which are so much magnified and insisted upon by such as forsake our Assemblies I will attempt to discover their nakedness by Gods help The three latter I mean for the two first deserve not to be again mentioned 1. It is said by some that the Kings Indulgence and Declaration of Toleration doth evidently acquit all private Meetings from the imputation of Schism In answer It is not fit for me or any other Son of the Church who profess the strictest obedience and loyalty to make any sawcy descant upon his Majesties actions He is wise as an Angel of God and freely do we submit to his Deliberate Councels and determinature but yet to us it belongs to consider the nature and extent of his Condescensions and the grounds and reasons thereof so far as he is pleased to make them known unto us and thus doing how little cause those that will weigh all things in the ballance of the Sanctuary Scripture and sound Reason and not jurare in verba take every thing upon trust from the Guids of any perswasion I say how little cause these have to think this a sufficient plea to free the Conventiclers from Schism if they have nothing else wherein to take Sanctuary will appear if we consider 2. 1. The Extent of his Majesties Declaration and that at the utmost is a mere inindulgence or permission of that which he therein and at all times hath declared contrary to his own judgment the Author of Toleration not to be abused evidently shewes * Sect. Prov. 2◠that the scope of the Declaration is not to make such Separated congregation more lawful than they was before or to approve them as good and lawful but rather supposeth them to be sinful at least in his own judgment while he only permits them that is all just as Moses did the Bills of Divorce for the hardness of mens hearts And let the Authority of Church-Assemblies in a National Constituted Church be once clear and I conceive the unlawfulness of separate Meetings in opposition unto them naturally follows and how then can his Majesties Indulgence acquit and absolve them Vide Toleration not to be used if there be nothing else that doth it It is well known that if his Majesty should not only Approve but Command and that not only by Declaration but by Act of Parliament that which is but suspected to be unlawful nay perhaps declared by all parties to be in it self indifferent the Presbyterian is not apt to change his judgment or practise for it but is oftentimes more hardened in his opposition thereunto by its being commanded and how then can a bare permission now serve their turns His Majesty only permits and leaves men to the guidance of their own Consciences what to do whether to forsake the Publick Assemblies and set up their separate Meetings or no so that if there be no satisfactory ground for a good Conscience to do it the said Declaration must needs leave them as guilty of Schism from the Church though not as rebellious against his Majesties Laws as before 2. The Reasons which the King is pleased to acknowledge did prevail with him are evidently Politick to tolerate these Meetings not for themselves but some other ends and reasons of State even to secure his quiet at home while he is ingaged in Forreign Wars Now how can this satisfie Conscience of the lawfulness thereof or free the Actors from the guilt of separation Surely no more than those inconveniences and unlawful actions are justifiable because David winked at them and suffered them go unpunished when he cryed out the Sons of Zerviah are too hard for me 3. By the Declaration the Argument for Conformity taken from wrath only is removed only the penalty is taken off the directive part of the Law I conceive is still in force so that if it did at all oblige Conscience before Conscience hath no more liberty now than then though the body and purse have 4. That which in my judgment leaves them inexcuseable is that his Gracious Majesty in his said Declaration is pleased in terms to acknowledge the Church of England is established by Law and makes it the standing Rule and that in opposition and contradiction to private Meetings yea though they should be allowed of according to the Indulgence His express meaning and resolution is declared to be that the National Church of England should be preserved entire as the Basis Rule and Standard of Publick Worship among us Now this evidently supposeth all other though tolerated Meetings besides Church-Assemblies to be against the Rule and Sects and Schismes from the National Church In this is manifestly implyed that to set them up is to do that which the Ancient Fathers especially S. Cyprian and our Modern Orthodox Divines both Episcopal and Presbyterian have so earnestly declaimed against viz. Erigere Altare contra Altare to set up Altar against Altar a Church in a National Church independent from it yet consisting of such as are its Natural Members to break this Churches Unity and to divide the Members thereof which apparently tends to the destruction of the whole if the Church of England as it is settled by the Act of Uniformity be established as the standing rule for doctrine and worship then is it impossible I think to defend those that renounce Union and Communion with it and the publick assemblies thereof though under pretence of exercising purer administrations For so Mr. Baxter states the Case and for this consult Dr. Edward Stiling fleets Irenicum upon the point c. 6. Sure I am it can neither consist with the Doctrines of the old non-Conformists Ball Hildersham Dod Perkins nor of the soberest moderne dissenters So much for that Plea then from the Kings Indulgence 2. Like unto it is the second that the Preachers in these separate Meetings look upon themselves only as assistants to the parish Minister and so would they have us to look upon them Here is sheeps clothing but I fear a Wolf under it Is it not od that any that will shall have power thus to obtrude himself upon the lawfully settled Pastor how much soever he be unacquainted with his person or dissatisfied with his education or principles ablities or
in Ezra t Ezra 3.11 all Gods people shouted with a great shout when they praised the Lord because the foundation of the house was laid so David to aggravate the misery of his present estate v Psal 42.4 he speakes of the joy and comfort he formerly took in going to the house of God with a multitude of them that kept holy day And in that great joy the people of God had at the celebration of the passover in Hezekiahs time This is expressed for one cause thereof that the number of the communicants was so great w 2 Chro 30.26 for there Assembled to Jerusalem much people to keeep the passover a very great congregation On the other side the faithful and truely pious have ever grieved to hear or see that the Assemblies of the Church are unfrequented or neglected or that any false or Schismatical worship or congregations were set up in stead thereof Old Eli was much more afflicted for takeing a way of Gods arke then for the slaughter of the people or for the death of his own two Sons Hophni and Phinehas x 1 Sam. 4.17 in like manner the Holy Ghost noteth of his daughter in law that being in extremities of her pain and anguish it would never out of her mouth while breath was in her body that the glory was departed from Israel for the ark of God was taken away y 1 Sam. 4.22 So was it this that troubled that zealous man of God Elijah and made him weary of his life z The children of Israel have forsaken thy covenant 1 Kings 19.10 saith he that is they are fallen from thy holy Religion they have thrown down thy holy altars that is they have abolished and shown contempt and hatred to thy holy worship and why should I then desire to live any longer in such a time And for the Ecclipse of Church Assemblies we have a notable expression a Zeph 3 18. I will gather them saith the Lord that are sorrowful for solemne Assemblies who are of thee to whom the reproach of it was a burden in which Text we may observe five things 1. That it was one of the greatest sorrowes of Gods people in their captivite that they then wanted their solemne Assemblies doubtless they might have then some Religious meetings for Gods worship yea they had publique fasts then four times a year as appears b Zâ—â—h 8.19 yet their Assemblies was nothing so solemne or so populous as they was wont to be at Jerusalem that was their grief 2. The Caldeans their enemies was wont to reproach them for this and to say to them to this effect where are your solemne Assemblies now c Lam. 1.7 they did mock at their Sabbaths they rejoyced and reproached over them because they could have no such Assemblies as they was wont to have just as many wicked ones do now mock at our Churches and their ministers because people having the reins loosed may without fear forsake the publique Assemblies to erect private conventicles for themselves and do what they list as some can say to our very faces now 3. The Text saith this was a burden to to Gods people to have this reproach cast upon them as it is certainly to every true Protestant and godly man to hear of the separatists insolenttaunts to the congregations of the Church and the ministers thereof 4. Of these that were so sorrowful for the solemne Assemblies the Lord saith to his Church these are of thee they are natural Kindly children of the true Church that do stand thus affected 5. To them he doth make a promise I will gather them saith the Lord I will have a special respect to them and though they be scattered and dispersed not one of them shall be lost but I will bring them back again to their one Land I will gather them saith the Lord that are sorrwful for the solemn Assemblies who are of thee to whom the reproach of it was a burden Indeed it is a burden to every one that hath a true love and zeal of God in him to see Religion suffer the least ecclipse in any kind in any place to lose any thing of that lustre of purity sincerity or power that once it had Hence when the foundation of the Temple was laid under Zorobabel Gods people that had seen no better rejoyced in it but the Priests and Levites and chief of the fathers who were Ancient men that had seen the first house they wept with a loud voice while the rest shouted for joy b 〈◊〉 3.12 why O it grieved their hearts to see how far short that house which God was now to have came short in beauty and glory of that that God had had before in Jerusalem For as much then as it is every ones duty especially the ministers to consider the State of the Churches and especially that of which they are members and ministers to be affected with them and to pray for them and by all means to oppose the enemies thereof And there is none of us but stand in great need to be well grounded in these points that relate to the Church least we be seduced by the cunning and diligence of seducers that are abroad in the world and all our comfort will be augmented if by the light of reason and Gods word preached from such Texts as this I have read we can prevent the Apostacy of any from the Church and can discover the wickedness of those that are dayly forsaking the Assemblies thereof And it cannot but be matter of greatest grief to the truly godly to see the solemne Assemblies neglected or unfrequented or private congregations erected in opposition unto them All these particulars shew I have great reason to make choice of the Text and such like unto it till I have so fully discharged my duty and discovered the mind of God out of the Scriptures about it that I may leave the forsaking of our Church assemblies inexcusable so that they can never plead Ignorance of their duty and sin and that I may say liberavi animammeam I have delivered mine own soul To this end and purpose have I pitched on the Text. Not forsaking the Assembling of our selves together as the manner of some is For the coherence of the Text I shall wish you to look no further back then the 22 verse For the Apostle haveing in the former part of the Chapter shewn them that the Sacrifice of Christs body which he once offered hath for ever taken away sin He presseth thence a double exhortation The first in 22 vese let us draw near to God how even in and through Christ with a true heart and full assurance of faith c. And the Second is in the 23 verse Let us hold fast the profession of our faith without wavering that is this Doctrine of Christ sacrificed and the merits thereof The truth we have received from Christ let us avow it and not
in time of tryal upon any condition forsake it Now this exhortation he strengtheneth by giving of directions for furthering their obedience thereunto the first is Christans mutually stirring up and sharpening one another amongst themselves that is a special help to constancy in the true Religion and a preservative against Apostacy together with a godly striving one with another who shall be first in love and well-doing vers 24. Let us consider one another to provoke to love and good works And 2. Another means to this end is the frequenting Christian congregations assemblies So comes in my Text. Not forsaking c. In the words you have evidently two parts 2. A Taxation of some for the neglect of that duty 1. The duty is to keep close to and not to forsake the Assemblies of the Church 2. The fault taxed in some amongst them is that in Schism or pride or purpose of Apostacie they withdrew themselves from these Church assemblies and so fell back again or were in the way of falling back to the open denial of Christ for separation from the true Church or the Christian society of the faithful therein is a remarkable sin tending to lead men by Schism to Apostacy from the profession of the true faith 1. Of the duty of Christians in order to their proving constant in the true Religion even to keep close unto and not forsake the assemblies of the Church The word for assemblies in the Text hath a very great emphasis in it it is a tricomposite 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the preposition 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as both Calvin and Hemingius upon the place observe signifies novam accessionem an increase or addition of some more members to a body congregated And these were the converted Gentiles that being converted to the faith became one with the Jews one and the same body of Christ Estius observes that because the Apostle here writes to the Jewes therefore for the Christian Assemblies he useth the word Synagogue because he would not vary from their phrase or custome of Speech any more then needs But might it not be some private meetings some separate assemblies in a corner that he calls by this name and here speakes of O no Interpreters with one consent generally interpret it of the publique assemblies of the Church in such publique places as are by Christian Magistrates or by the Rulers of the Church if the Magistrates be not Christian appointed for the publique worship of God Not forsaking the Assembling of themselves that is saith the London Annotations the publique congregation of the faithful wherein the word of God is taught the sacraments administred and common prayer and publique Thanksgiving are offered up unto God for unto such publique congregations hath God promised his blessing where hath he promised it Marke the Scriptures quoted by the Assembly for it are these d Psal 27.4 one thing have I desired of the Lord that I might dwell in the house of the Lord all the dayes of my life to behold the beauty of the Lord and to inquire in his holy Temple for herein is implyed this promise that in the Temple the house of God there will God let us see his beauty Another text quoted by them is e Psal 122.1 I was glad when they said let us go into the house of the Lord our feet shall stand within thy gates O Jerusalem thither the tribes go up the tribes of the Lord unto the testimony of Israel to give thanks unto the name of the Lord. Of such assemblies therefore even of such as go into the said House of God whither the tribes the Multitude of the right worshippers of God go up to pray unto and praise him of these doth our Text speak Not forsakeing the assembling c. And to these Assemblies the Annotations quote that special promise as belonging unto them f Mat. 1 20. Where two or three are met together in my name that is for prayer and other Religious offices there am I in the midst of them Christ promiseth his gracious assistance to and presence with his Church be it great and numerous or be it small and with the publique and solemn congregation thereof Yes say the Schismaticks where ever two or three are met together there is he in the midst of them therefore the promise is to us or any of the Saints wherever or how few soever they be that thus meet together There is no Text wherein the separatist take Sanctuary more then this but very unsoundly For as the Reverend Mr. Ball expounds that place in his tryal of the grounds tending to separation pag 280 by the contextit appears Christ is there speaking of the Validity of the sentence of excommunication and certainly Christs meaning is not that every Society that consisteth of two or three believers met together to pray or preach have the power to excommunicate for no one example can be Alledged out of Scripture or Ecclesiastical History of the ancient Churches wherein any number of the Faithful did ever lawfully excommunicate or judg any Member of their Society without their Guides and lawful Officers moderateing the action There is no promise can be shewed out of Holy Writ wherein any such authority is bequeathed to two or three private Believers Disciples or Brethren O no but the very tenour of the words is to argue from the less to the greater thus If Christ be present with two or three gathered together in his name to ask things agreable to his will he will much more confirmin heaven what ever his officers and servants that have power from Christ to do this service in the Church in his name shall determine and conclude according to his will but they cannot meet together in his name for this or any other holy office that meet together in way of Schism contrary to his will Quomodo possunt duoaut tres in non mine Christi colligi quos constat à Christo ab ejus Ecclesià seperant saith S. Ciprian how can they be met together in the name of Christ that do manifestly separate themselves from Christ and his Church Cum Haereses Schismata nata sint dum conventicula sibi diversa constituunt veritatis caput originem reliquerunt when Heresies and Schismes arise the maintainers of them make separate conventicles for themselves they forsake Christ the Lord and fountain of Truth peace It is the Church and they that keep within the pale of the Chuch by unity and concord to whom this promise runs to give them what they meet together in his name to ask of him and to be in the midst of them I will be saith he in the midst of them That is of them that fear me and keep my precept of peace and truth Non homines ab eccelsia dividit qui fecit instituit ecclesiam sed exprobrans discordiam persidis fidelibus pacem suâ voce commendans ostendit
men may foolishly imagine that they can do well enough with the private use of the words though they injoy not the publick and can pray well enough by themselves though they have no society with the general and publick devotions Yet is it sure on the contrary that there is no such promise made to the private as to the publick Nay none at all to the private if the publick be neglected or contemned Such a woeful thing it is for men to do themselves the greatest injury that can be to deprive themselves of Gods presence by forsakeing the assemblies of his people upon this ground Gods people complained of the effect of the rage and fury of their enemies t Psal 47 7â— They razed the sanctuary to the ground defiled the dwelling place of Gods name and burnt up all the Synagogues of God in the land And Jeremiah in his Lamentations u Lam. 1.4 The waies of Zion lament because no man cometh to the solemn feasts all her gates are desolate And hence the sentence of excomunication hath ever by religious soules been accounted the greatest of punishments as casting them out of Gods presence and giving them up to Satan x 2 Cor. 5.5 so sottish are they that willfully excommunicate themselves by forsakeing the assemblies It is like a mans being outlawed in matters of civil Government by which he is deprived of all the benefits and protection belonging to a subject of the realm Just so doth this censure put them out of the priviledges of Christians and our of Gods protection for a time so as to be reckoned as strangers or forraâ—ners as heathens and publicans y Matt. 18.17 The sin of these men will best be discovered if we pass from this eighth proposition to the second General in the Text. 2. The Apostles taxation of some for this sin of forsaking the Assemblies and so putting themselves in a way of apostacy or falling back from or wavering in the profession of the true faith for so the Text runs not forsaking the Assembling your selves together as the manner of some is So then in the Apostles judgment those some whoever they be are blame worthy and are to be reproved and sharply rebuked what motives soever they may have for forsaking the publick Assemblies of the true Church they cannot forsake them and be innocent it is an act that cannot be acceptable unto God not forsaking the Assembling of your selves together as the manner of some is As there are diverse persons that forsake the assemblies So are their motives to forsake them different some give â—ne account thereof and some another all blame worthy Let us but consider and weigh the Apollogies and motives of some of them 1. The manner of some is to forsake the assemblies upon pretence of some corruptions in them It is holyness and purity these men pretend to in a high measure and therefore they forsake our assemblies because as they affirm they are unholy being mixt assemblies consisting of both good and bad a vide Robinsons and Cant books a miscellany Multitudes of the seed of woman and of the Serpent and much more they inveigh and rail bitterly against them and thence inferr a necessity of separation from them z Heb. 12.14 but that this is a most corrupt and unsound inference will appear if we consider 1. That the purest Church on earth is not free perfectly free from all corruptions The spouse of Christ is comly yet black It becomes Christs Church to be as true so humble far from arrogating perfection For any Church on this side heaven to say that she is absolute and neither wants nor abounds were the voice of Laodicea or Tyrus in the Prophet As there is no Element which is not through many mixtures departed from its first simplicity so is there no Church that breatheth in so pure an air but it may justly complain of some thick and unwholsome evaporations of sin and error in it Was not the Church typed by Noahs Ark wherein was unclear as well as clean beasts doth not Christ compare it to a feiled wherein grows both tares and wheat promiscuously until the harvest a Mat. 13.12 to a great house wherein are vessels of Gold and Silver and of Brass earth and clay b 2 Tim. 2.20 to a sheep fould wherin are foulded both sheep and Goats c Matt. 25 32. to a company of Virgins all invited by an external call to the Wedding whereof some were foolish some wise d Mat 25.1 to an orchard or vineyard e Esai 61.1 wherein all are not fruitful trees that bring forth their fruit in due season But on some God bestowes digging and dunging unto them and fencing them which cumber the ground and are good for nothing but to be cast into the fire To a vine in which are some branches that onely bear leaves of profession or at the best but sowre grapes Nay sometimes in a true Church even the chiefest members for eminency and Authority are corrupted sometimes the prime Governours of a Church as the chief Priests and Elders in our Saviours time may be great enemies of real goodness Nay to come closer to our selves 2. We must acknowledge that even in our Church and the Assemblies thereof there is such general decay of that first love and primitive piety which consisted chiefly in Humility Mortification Obedience and good works and such a general increase of all filthy and abominable sins and those too frequently uncensured unrereproved that there is just cause for any Godly man to fear least God be about to take away his tabernacle from amongst us and remove our candlestick and go far off from our sanctuary f Ezek. 8.6 3. It is undoubted that when a pious Christian considers these things he ought to be deeply affected with them and neither communicate with a whole Church in any corruptions that are evident corruptions in it nor yet pertake in the sins of any the particular members thereof but observing his brothers prophanness his duty is to admonish him and to bewail his sin and do what lies in him to bring him to a reformation thereof This is the right course but 4. This is no ground at all for him to separate from the Church or to forsake the Assembly there of it is of Mr. Hildershams Doctrines agreable to the ninteenth Article of the Church of England and that those Assemblies that injoy the word and Doctrine of Salvation though they may have many corruptions remaining in them yet they are to be acknowledged true Churches of God and such as none of the faithful may make separation from because 1. There was never Church on earth free from corruptions either in the whole or in its perticular assemblies and yet never did the Saints of God forsake them upon that account Never was there Church from the beginning of the world to this day from one side of the Earth to
another pure in all her members Adams house that as the first Church on earth yet did it contain Cain a bloody murder as well as Abel a devout worshiper in it Presently after did God raise up Seth instead of Abel to be a holy seed unto him and even then did not the Church continue long free from prophane mixtures but the sons of God became enamoured with the beatuy and matched with the daughters of men And so the deluge came upon them Now from the deluge God preserved Noah in the Ark there was the Church again and behold in that ark there was accursed Cham as well as a blessed Shem. As also in Abrahams family a scoffing Ismael as well as a devout Isaac And in Isaacs a prophane Esau as well as an holy Jacob And O what Scandals brook out among the Patriarchs Ruben became incestuous Simeon and Levi brethren in evil After this when the Church was inlarged into great congregations and assemblies O what impatient murmuring do we read of among the children of Israel what foul Idolatries committed in the Wilderness what serveing of Baalim time after time in the Land of Canaan what horrible and scandalous sins were committed amongst them under the Judges how was polygamy and unreasonable devorces and setting up high places in the daies of the best Kings and what a deludge of prophaneness and Idollatry must you needs think there brake out in the worst when men did not onely sin secretly but openly they shewed their sin as Sodom when the Priests that should have restrained them led them on by evil examples when the more holy were as signes and proverbs of reproach and yet in all these successive generations we do not read of any seperations from or forsaking the Church assemblies as the manner of some now is It s true in Idolatrous times the Saints did refuse to joyne with the ungodly in Idolatrous worship So in Ahabs time there were seven thousand that had not bowed their knee to Baal but yet never was the wicked until convicted and censured debarred from joyning with the Godly in the true worship nor was the Godly ever enjoyned to separate from them for fear of defilement by them Nay on the contrary we shall find that when our Saviour was born then was the Church so corrupted that the Temple was become a den of thieves and yet then Joseph and Mary the parents of Christ did joyn themselves to the congregation in Gods publick worship Nay they went a long Journey with their child Jesus to satisfie the law to offer their turtle Doves and a pair of young Pigeons and to take part with the Priests and Gods people in that which was good and for the rest they meddled no further then their places required an Example Saith Calvin and Marlorat express against our Brownists and all our Separatists and Recusants and that which may justly and finally stop their mouths for ever might be this if they would but consider how corrupt was the State of the Church in our Saviour's time and yet how far forth our Saviour did communicate with them in the service of God not forsakeing the assemblies of the Church though then so corrupt 1. For the Priests and Teachers they were ignorant and unlearned g Matt. 23.16 verse 3. Nay wicked and ungodly h John 11.44 even the High priest himself did enter unlawfully into his calling for whereas by Gods ordi nance be was to hold that once during his life it was bought and sold and made annual which is imply'd in that expression i Luke 4.28 29. Caiaphas was high priest for that year 2. Most of the people in most of the places where our Saviour conversed were notoriously and obstinately wicked He lived most in Nazareth and see what they were there k Matt. 11.20 21. All that were in the Synagogue were fill'd with wrath and resâ— up and thrust him out of the City and led him to the edge of a hill to thrust him down headlong yea and all the Cities where most of his great works had been done he upbraided wo to thee Corazin wo to thee Bethsaida l nor were the people of Jerusalem better For when Pilat a Gentile offered to release him all the multitude crying out at once not him but Barabas now Barabas was a robber m Luk. 23.18 And when Pilat washed his hands protesting for Christs innocency they all said desperately his blood be upon us and our children n Mat. 27.25 And for the worship it self that was used in our Saviours time it was very corrupt 1. They then urged the use of many superstitious ceremonies more strictly then the commandement and ordinances of God o Mark 7.9 2. They prophaned the Temple and made it a den of thieves 3. They abused the Discipline and censures of the Church shamefully p Joh. 9.22 the Jewes decreed that if any one confessed that Jesus was the Christ he should be excommunicated ipso facto 4. Their doctrine was corrupted in many points as these of divorce of thest Murder adultry q Mat 5.21.28 Socorrupt was the Church then and yet mark out Saviour did not separate from it but communicated with the publick assemblies in the worship of God 1. When an infant he was circumcised and by that Sacrament incorporated into that Church r Luk. 2.21 2. When his mother was purified he was brought to the Temple and presented to the Lord with his offering as the custome was Å¿ Luk. 2.22 3. He often heard such teachers as taught in the Church t Luk. 2.46 4. He was wont every Sabbath to joyn in publick prayer with the Congregation that were at Nazareth u Luk. 4.16 5. He received the Sacrament of Baptism in a congregation of that people x Luk. 3.2 When all the people were Baptized he was baptized also 6 He communicated in the passeover with the people and the Priest y Joh. 2.13 7. He allowed his Disciples to hear those teachers z Mat. 23.12 Nay he commanded the Leper whom he cleansed to go and shew himself to the Priest and offer his gift in the Temple a Mat. 8. Neither did any of the Saints in any Age nor Christ himself nor his Disciples separate from nor forsake the publick assemblies of the true Church that enjoyed the word and doctrine of Salvation for any corruptions in them Then these instances what can be said more convincing if men had ears to hear what the spirit hath recorded of the Churches The fore quoted Mr. Hildersham upon this point hath two other reasons why we may not forsake them for their corruptions who because he is of much authority with many dissenters and I wish they were all of his sober spirit therefore I will offer them to your consideration Valeant quantum valeer possent Indeed there is no cause to forsake them for their corruptions because 2. Notwithstanding such
corruptions yet so long as God continues his word and doctrine of Salvation to a people and in their assemblies it is evident he dwells among them and hath not forsaken them should men make themselves wiser or purer then God himself to forsake those assemblies which God hath not forsaken till God hath forsaken a Church sure no man may forsake it So shall any man pretend to be holier and to hate corruptions more than the Lord the holy one of Israel Now you may see Gods promise to dwell among and not forsake his Church where the word and true worship of God continues c Leu 26.11.12 I will set my tabernacle among you that is my Solemn worship whereof the tabernacle was a principal part and my Soul shall not abhor you and I will walk among you and I will be your God and you shall be my people In Judah is God known his Name is great in Israel a Psal 76. in Salem is his Tabernable and his dwelling place in Sion Object Put may not this Church may some say be guilty of such sins and corruptions as deserve that God should forsake it and for which God in his word hath threatned that he will forsake it although he hath hitherto dwelt therein True Ans but that is no sufficient warrant for any to separate from it till it undoubtedly appear that God hath indeed forsaken it and put in execution what he hath justly threatned against it Though adultery either in Man or Wife give just cause of separation he bond of wedlock being broken by it yet till a Bill of divorcement do pass between them they remain still Man and Wife notwithstanding that sin So that the woman whom her Husband had wronged is called his Wife b Mat. 2.15 Esau had justly deserved to lose the prerogative of his birth right and superiority over his Brother when he had despised and sold it c Gen. 25.34 and God had by his decree said of them the elder shall serve the younger d Gen. 25.23 And Saul deserved to be deprived of his Kingdome yea God had said that he had rejected him e 1 Sam. 13.14 and 15 23 26 28. yet till God saw it good to put his decree and oracle in execution and actually to depose the one from his birth right and the other from his Kingdome Jacob acknowledged Esau his Lord and Superior f Gen. 32.4 5. and David Saul g 1 Sam. 24.7 9. So though a Church may be unworthy before God of the name of Christs Church for the many corruptions that are in it and the Lords threatnings are gone out against it yet till God put this threat in execution and actually take away his Tabernacle and worship from iâ— it is still to be acknowledged and reverenced as the Church of Christ and not to be forsaken by the members thereof 3. Who is it that dare forsake and separate from these assemblies where men may be assured to find and attain to salvation Lord to whom shall we go thou hast the words of eternal life Accounting this a sufficient reason why they might not leave him h Joh 6.68 but men may be sure to find and attain to salvation in such assemblies where the ministry of the word and the Doctrine of Salvation is continued and purely delivered For the word and Doctrine of Christ is called Salvation i Heb. 2.3 It is the ordinary means appointed by God to bring men to Salvation k Rom. 1.16 It is the incorruptable seed at one time or other effectual in all Gods Elect that do injoy it l 1 Cor. 1.21 it is the ingrafted word m James 1.21 which is able to save our souls Thus far Mr. Hildersham All the enemies of our Church cannot deny but that both many have been and are still saved in the bosome thereof Nor can the malice of those Chams that desire to espy the nakedness of their Mother and glories to discover them shew one foundamental error with us not one Heresie whatsoever how dare they then forsake our assemblies as their manner is What though some others of your fellow members be guilty of sins and errors is that any prejudice to your salvation if you partake not with them but rather reprove them and preserve the true Faith and religion inviolate in your selves although they by walking unworthy of their callings and neglecting the conditions of the promises do forfeit their part in the blessed priviledges thereof and the things promised Yet shall the promises be made good to you if you be sound members of the Church Nor shall it prove any prejudice to your salvation that you are mixed with the wicked in it if you be not partakers of their sins n Mat. 3.12 The wheat shall be gathered into the Lords Garner and the Chaff shall be cast into the fire Hence the Apostle o Rom. 3 3. What if some did not believe shall their unbeleif make the Faith of God of no effect sure it cannot and therefore being there is no Church on earth free from all corruptions no not in its Chiefest members being that Saints in their several ages did not forsake the Church because of corruptions in them being our Saviour hath left us his own practice for an incomparable example being God himself forsakes not such Churches and Salvation may be had in them and the prophaneness of the ungodly is no prejudice to the Salvation of the godly members of the Church Then surely it is a sin in separating from our Church assemblies upon the pretence of some Corruptions in them Who however they usurp the Title of Saints and Godly and Puritanes and Christ Kingdome and Spiritual and the like yet S. Jude p markes them with a black coal Thâ—se be they who separate themselves saith hâ— sensual having not the Spirit Our Christian duty is to mourn for and shew out dislike unto what evil we see in the Church or in our fellow members So did the Faithful before the captivity q Ezek. 9.4 so did Christ r Luke 19.41 We must wait upon God who will in his due time cast his gold into the furnace and purifie it seven times will file off the rust and come with his fan in his hand and separate the wheat from the tares at the day of particular and general judgment * Aug. contra parmon lib. 3. Admonendi sunt pii ut arripiant quod possunt quod non possunt patientèr ferant ut cum dilectione gemant lugeant donec aut emendet Deus corrigat aut in messe eradicet zizanio paleam ventilis But we may not separate our selves from or forsake the assemblies thereof on this pretence as the manner of some is 2. The manner of some is to forsake our assemblies upon pretence they dislike the Pastors and Ministers thereof Some this or other is a miss in their own minister and therefore
Samuel l 1 Sam 1. Balaam by his very Ass It is true the liquor often tastes of the Cask and the preachers personal loosness may much weaken his strongest perswasions Yet 3. Consider by our Saviours parable it appears the ineffectualness of Gods word most what proceeds from the hearers own corruptions his unpreparedness negligence or obstinate wickedness the fault is not so much in the seed or sower as in the soil the ground that is either rocky or thorny or high way side if it be Gods word it is good seed ever and the Minister is but an Instrument God is the principal Agent to make it fruitful Paul plants and Apollo waters but God by his Spirit gives the increase Now 4. Gods Spirit which breatheth where it listeth accompanies sometimes not his holiest ministers with his saving operations and sometimes he worketh by the lewdest of them Thence our Saviours admonition a Mat. 23.3 the Scribes and Pharisees those wicked hypocrites they sit in Moses chair all therefore what ever they bid you observe that observe and do but do not after their works for they say and do not If there had been no good to be reaped by them because of their personal wickedness Christ would never have injoyned them to hear them Had Saint Paul supposed that the Spirit of love would by no means concur with those envious ones that preached Christ to increase his bonds he would not have rejoyced that they preached him b Phil. 1.15 16. Nay he supposeth that it were possible for a very cast away to be an instrument of others salvation when he said I keep under my body lest when I have preached unto others I my self should be a cast away c 1 Cor. 9.27 5. Consider gifts may be where grace is not edifying gifts for others benefits in him who hath no sanctifying grace for his own Judas had gifts fit for the Apostolical function those that came to Christ could say Lord we have prophesied in thy name and in thy name have cast out divels the Scribes and Pharises were learned men As a lame man may with his crutch point out the right way to others which he is not able to walk himself and a crooked Taylor may make a suit fit for a strait body which cannot fit himself And as wicked Balaam could make a clear prophecy of Christ d Num. 24.17 so may many edifie others that are themselves unsanctified many have gone loaden with gifts to hell God may use his talents to convert others that is himself a stranger to the works of grace and conversion if man have a competency of edifying gifts approved by the Church and so be lawfuly called to the ministry it concerns not us that he want an effectual calling as a Christian we are to look to his call as a minister not to his call as a Christian for should the people stand upon their Pastors inward calling to grace they could never near any in Faith for how could they be ever certain of his effectual inward call which is known to God alone the fairest shew may be but Hypocrisy but the Lord alone knows them that are his e 2 Tim. 2.19 if then thy minister be lawfully called sent and ordained thou must receive him receive a Prophet in the name of a Prophet yea thou may warrantably hope for a blessing from him though a wicked man Why 6. Because Gods ordinance and his promised blessing upon it depends not on mans the instruments nolyness or wickedness The promise is suspended upon no such condition and will you bind God where he hath not bound himself May not waters make a Garden fruitful lighting upon a fit soile though conveyed by a Pipe of lead or wood which gets no good it self by all the waters it conveyes may not good seed cast into a good soil yield a good increase though sown by unwashen hands had Elias refused meat from the Ravens mouth might not he have justly Starved will a noble man refusehis pardon because a mean peasant brings it from the King the Papists may as well suspend the benefits of the Sacrament on the worthyness or intention of the minister as we suspend the benefit of the word on the same yet this we hold ridiculous and impious in the one and why not in the other if then the purest Church cannot be wholly free from wicked Ministers and if thy Pastor be such yet hast thou reason to hear him and not refuse truth from his mouth and the fault of the words ineffectualness is most what in the soil and the Spirit being a free agent often accompanies the lewdist Ministers and edifying gifts may be where sanctifying grace is not and the ordinance is not suspended on the worth of the instrument but only on the power and goodness of God whose it is then is this prejudice no sufficient ground for men to forsake the publick assemblies for the Pastors sake though he be loose or wicked in his life In this case indeed it becomes Christians to to be modest and not to be apt to speak evil of him as the manner is should our tryal be at the peoples tribunal I doubt very few Ministers would escape condemnation but some or other fault would be found as who is free and that so aggravated our moats made beams our molâ—hils mountains that every one of us would find a censure severe enough for either Lewd or debaucht or covetuous or contentious or Idle there is not a Pastor in all Gods Church but he would have somewhat found a miss in him and he must with the Apostle expect to pass through evil as well as good reportâ— through hard censures and bitter revilings in this divided and corrupted age but you brethren I hope you 'l otherwise learn Christ do not like cursed Cham uncover your fathers nakedness do not make your Pastors fault your cup talke or his infirmities your pastime to rip them up or blazen them rather pity them as being inclined to the same corruptions with others and exposed to a thousand more temptations and pray for him and by no means shut your ears against Gods word in his mouth Look upon him as an instrument only by whom the Spirit may work si bene vixerit proprium luerum si bene dixerit tuum tolle quod tuum saith St. Austin If he live well it is Gods work and his gain if he speak well it is thy advantage take what is thine and be thankful As for his wicked actions those happen through the divels malice and his frailty curse the dive I but pity the sinner and pray for him who is like to answer for it to his Judge to stand or fall to his Master but for his holy doctrine that is thy portion refuse not to hear it consider it meditate of it and practice it So shall God bless it to thee though it come from the lewdest Minister whatsoever Else rejecting of it
well as the best and the word be to be esteemed for it own worth and his sake whose it is who ever be the minister publishing it If thou may profit by the meanest if the fault be not thy own and the profit depends not on his gifts but Gods blessing Then though thou may rightly covet the best gifts and bless God for them when thou injoyest them yet mayest thou not despise the meanest of Gods Ministers nor despair of profit by him Nor is this then a sufficient plea for forsaking the publick assemblies the Pastors defects in gifts 4. The last prejudice is from his carriage supposed to be indiscreet perhaps intollerable It s true will some say our Ministers life is good his opinions Orthodox and his gifts excellent but he behaves himself strangely in his place Either he is alwayes chiding and reproving us A meer Boanerges a son of thunder telling us oft of Hell and Damnation as Ahab said of Micaiah prophecying concerning him ever evil no good This made Faelix distaste St. Paul when he preached of temperance before him and Drusilla who was most unchast and of judgment before him an unjust judge or perhaps he is ridged in keeping us to Church orders he will not bear with us in what he dislikes though it were his prudence to pass by To this Ioppose several considerations I confess there may be indiscretion in the best Pastors It s a difficult thing both to please men in wisdome and yet to save and not betray their soules in faithfulness Yet on the other hand it is ordinary for people to blame them that are faithful for their faithfulness under the notion of indiscretion Remember Gods strict injunction to those watch men of Israel to cry aloud and not to spare to warn men from the Lord in every evil course and that under pain of being guilty of the blood of their souls that miscarry by their negligence And if you consider this how can you wonder if they be very tender of suffering any sin to lie upon you they observe unreproved unreformed if they fear Gods displeasure more then mans and take heed least that you call discretion be not nicknamed so being in truth Laodicean Lukewarmness or want of Zeal Do but in the next place survey the generality of people in these dayes how dull of hearing are some how froward and untoward others how nicely Hipocritical and tickle others and how secure others and it will seem almost impossible for a faithful Pastor to work on you to reformation unless they speak more then discretion and modesty would almost permit Consider also if it be not better the people be not reproved and kept awake and at last saved through the Pastors reproofs and corrections however deemed indiscreet then muzzled in their sins Is it not better a wholsome though smarting plaister be laid on where need is than that corruption should fester doth not more souls perish by the Ministers luke-warme coldness then indiscretion better are the faithful words of a friend than the deceitful kisses of an enemy It is blessed thunder if it do but awake men out of their sins you are much more beholdto your Pastor for his plain dealing and honest hearted reproofs in faithfulness to God and your souls than if he should flatter you in your sins with placentia speaking pleasant things All which particulers duely considered do shew how groundless mens forsakeing the assemblies is also because of the prejudice they too often cherish against his carriages and indiscretion Truth is what ever men pretend the root of all is secret malice against the Church ministry bread and nourished in their hearts or at least want of love malice cannot judge well of any thing that comes from him a man loves not perverts his meaning construes wrong all his words and actions suckes poyson from that from which a diligent Bee would draw the sweetest honey in these dayes malice between Pastors and People flames out hot or at least love is cold and we know Christ bad his Apostles look for this entertainment in the world and so we need not think it strange concerning this fiery tryal He bad them expect to be reviled and persecuted and have all manner of evil spoken of them telling them the Prophets of old had been so used before them a Mat. 5 10 12. And Saint Paul saith of himself and his fellows that they found their Masters words true by experience for they were reviled persecuted defamed accounted the filth of the world and the off-scouring of all things b Cor. 4 12-13 And when God opened to him at Ephesus a large and effectual door That is blessed his ministry mightily and gave it enterance into the hearts of men Yet were there many adversaries raised up against him c 1 Cor. 6 9. Nay it is made a kinde of marke of an unfaithful Minister not to be thus used d Luke 6. 26. Wo to you when all men speak well of you for so did your father of the false Prophets e Gal. 1.10 If I yet pleased men I should not be the servant of Christ the reason is what ever men pretend it is a Ministers fidelity and plainness and boldness in reproving mens sins that 's the prime cause of their hatred and malice against them when Jeremy complained every one did curse him though he had neither lent nor borrowed upon usury he hints the cause in the next words that he was a man of strife and contention with the whole earth f Jer. 15.10 Ahab hated Michaiah because he prophecyed not good concerning him but evil g 1 Kings 22.8 The two witnesses did vex and torment men by their ministry h Re. 11.10 Indeed this evil made Moses Jeremy and Jonah to find out so many excuses as fearing to enter upon this so hateful and thankless a calling and it tempts many good Ministers either to give over the calling if they can live without it or at least to be unfaithful in performing it as breeding them so much hatred and displeasure with men I said saith Jeremy i Jer. 20 9. I will not make mention of him nor speak any more of his name but his word was in my heart as burning fire shut up in my bones and I was weary with forbearing I could not stay Now for a remedy of this disease oh that people would consider that near relation they stand in and that dear affection they owe to their Minister they are their fathers spiritual fathers begetting them to Christ Pastors Shepheards Watch-men such as must give an account That they would consider the strict command of God for love hence under the Law the Priest was to carry in his garments the names of the twelve Tribes on his â—oulders to signifie the weighty burden he undertook and in his breast plate to shew his entire affection unto them and this affection it is that maketh Ministers faithful in
their office to watch over their souls unwearyedly to spend and to be spent to win them to Christ And so in spiritual regeneration as in natural regeneration it is love that begets Children unto Christ And on the other hand the people should be as careful of love to their Ministers Saint Paul records of the Galatians k Gal. 4.15 That they would have pluckt out their very eyes to have given them unto him far short of the Galatians are those that muzzle the mouths of the oxen that should tread out the corne That abridge the hire of the labourer and withhold the Churches right The Galatians was willing to forsake the dearest things they had in the world their very eyes if not their life for the Gospels sake and its ministry l Gal. 6.6 Let him that is taught in the word communicate to him that teacheth in all good things So I say consider what love is commanded by God from Ministers to their people and people to their Ministers But on the other hand see from whence all variance betwiâ—â— them comes even from the Devils craft and malice for no way hath he more effectual to hinder the efficacy of the word then this His five thousand years experience hath taught him that it is to little purpose to mutter a syllable directly against Gods word he sees no likelyhood to beget in Christians especially in Protestants adirect hatred of the word as such His policy then directs him to work obliquely to distil into mens hearts a hatred of their Ministers so to make them set at naught the word they preach This is the devils craft Now consider lastly how unreasonable this is what is the matter Is there some petty quarrel betwixt you wipe it of are there some occasions of disaffections look it be not causless as for the most part they are Do they reprove your sins drunkenness or sacriledge or perjury or rebellions or prophanations of Gods day or the like Alass they would not do it but in love to your souls they would have your good will and gladly be beloved of you if they durst forbear to please you but necessity lies upon them to cry a loud and not to spare to tell Judah of her sins and Israel of her abominations should you not then rather love then hate them for this and say let the righteous smite me and it shall be a kindness for faithful are the wounds of a friend but the kisses of an enemy are deceitful m Prov. 27.6 All these considerations do bid you shake off anger envy and despight by all means not to entertain the least seed thereof No evil reports no Idle accusations against your Pastor n 1 Tim. 5 19 But rather to pray for them to God to deliver them from unreasonable men o 2 Thes 3.1 And as St. Paul speakes of Epaphroditus to receive them in the Lord with all gladness and hold such in reputation p Phil. 2.29 Laying a side all malice and guile and evil speaking as new born babes desire the sincere milk of the word that you may grow thereby and then I dare say you will find no cause of forsaking the publick assemblies of the Church for your Pastors sake which was the second grand motive we propounded to consider why men are willful to forsake our Church assemblies as the manner of some is Besides these two grand occasions of forsaking the assemblies there be others we need not speak so largely of because being but named they cannot but be abhorred and being seen they discover their own nakedness such are these following 1. Some forsake the assemblies and separate themselves from us out of mear Ignorance takeing offence at many things in our assemblies causelesly or without any weighty reason they do not and are not able to distinguish between the essentials and circumstantials in Religion and so look upon any supposed mistake in the latter with detestation proper only to the perversion of the former and thence violate charity and break communion with those that hold the same faith with them These eager Spirits having a zeal without knowledg blow up minute differences with lasting contentions They raise disputes about a pin or a nail of the Temple that even endangers the whole fabrick they set the same value upon the leaves and bark of the tree as upon the fruit it self they make ado a bout a nail or tile of the house as if it were of the same concernment with a pillar or a beam they look upon that as simply evil which is onely so in some respects as it is wrong circumstantiated or which is onely not perfect in all degrees whereas did but men deliberately prize that which they oppose and proportion their displeasure to the just weight thereof their contentions would soon be calmed and never become quarrells with the Church of God Nay indeed in many it is meer sottish Ignorance that is the cause of their forsakeing the assemblies of the Church of God they was never grounded in the first principles of the Oracles of God and especially they would never learn their obligation to the Church they was baptized in to hold communion with it Perhaps these men will say they would fain do right and go the right way but they would never hearken to their right guides but gave their ears first to seducers being a little too much affected with that shew of piety they saw in them they put themselves wholy upon their directions and examples and so are carried hoodwinckt or blindfold into Schisms and damnable errors Thousands there be that have separated themselves that are meer Ignorants silly women especially that was alwaies learning but never came to the knowledg of the truth having better affections than principles whom because they would not receive the truth in the love thereof God hath given up to strong delusions to believe lies and so in some that 's one cause of their forsakeing the assemblies meer Ignorance 2. This Ignorance is oftentimes proud or conceited So that 's another cause damnable pride The wisest of men arraignes this vice as the ring-leader of divisions q Prov. 13.10 Onely by pride cometh contention Indeed there are few sins unto which pride is not either a parent or nurse but above all Schism and Heresie hath its immediate discent from it having so many lineaments and features of this deformed mother See some of these heads very largely and learnedly discoursed of by the author of the whole duty of Man in the causes of the Decayes of Christianity to whom I here acknowledg my self much indebted as sufficiently attests its extraction It is pride that makes some men dislike whatsoever is not of their own invention or whatever is imposed by their superiours or whatever others have a hand in whom they contemn or hate be it never so good or true or what is contrary to that they have formerly maintained and they are
not only loved the wayes of covetousness but ensnared the people in uncleannesses and upon those in the Gospel that made Gods house a house of Merchandize and so a den of thieves So that another ground and reason of mens forsaking and propagating separations from our publick assemblies Covetousness selfe interest I 'le name a 5. Even Idleness and this both spiritual and natural spiritual for because many men will take no paines in the practise of the duties of godliness which might well imploy mens whole lives therefore they fall into nice and new opin ions to imploy their active mindes So spiritual Idleness in things in which they should be imployed makes men curious and curiosity contentious The zeal of practise of humility and patience and self denyal and mortifying the flesh with the affections and lusts and renouncing the world and the other parts of real goodness this zeal grows cold and so that of disputes gets and gathers heat and vigor A lass our good works in this age fall short of the first Christians and then no wonder that our controversies exceeds theirs because we spend not our time in the one which is irksome to flesh and blood and therefore we imploy it in hammering and forging the other Pharaoh understood this well though he applyed it ill when he thought the Israelites proposals of travelling into the wilderness to their divotions was the effect of their idleness and so increast their taskes as the properest way to divert their design and as spiritual Idleness so also natural is often the cause of division For as experience sheweth such men as desert or neglect their secular callings are most apt to run after new teachers and with the widowes that neglected their office of Ministration to be busibodies and in many families the she-zealots neglecting their proper business the guiding of the house have therefore run into conventicles and upon them have seducers acted their designs most leading captive silly women to become duck coyes to whole families besides these there are another sort of Idle persons to that can sit at home lurke by their fire sides when they should be in Gods house and though they have little or nothing to hinder them from attending his ordinance yet any pretence a showr of rain a sore finger an Aking head a thin blast of weather will serve the turn to divert them O that such would remember Hezekiahs example who with in three dayes after he had been sick of a most painful and mortal disease went into the Temple a Esa 38.22 And the woman that on the sabbath resorted to the Synagogue though she had a spirit of infirmity eighteen yeares b Luk. 13.10 â—1 Alass the cause is mens hearts are dead and void of grace and the love of God and his word and so they find little comfort they take no delight in his publick worship and therefore are glad of an excuse David loved Gods tabernacle well For his heart and his flesh rejoyced for the living God c Psa 84.12 Those that tast how sweet the Lord is will desire the sincere milk of this word d 1 Pet. 2.2 3 O thou that art so careless whether ever thou appear in the assemblies of Gods Church in this life thou hast cause to fear thou shall never stand in the congregation of the righteous in the life to come e Psa 1.5 That 's a fifth cause of mens forsakeing or absenting from the assemblies as the manner of many is 6. There is a sixth which I will name because I will miss none and but name it because I have spoken in effect to it before The manner of some is to forsake them upon pretence they can spend their time and serve God as well pray and read good books at home as in the Church of God But God loves the gates of Sion more then all the dwellings of Jacob f Psal 87.2 David sure being both a prophet and a King could serve God as well in private as any pretenders and he had both a prophet and a Priest with him in his Banishment yet did he for all that long for the publick worship of God bewailed the want of it exceedingly g Psal 84.3 But I have fully shown you before the excellency and acceptableness of publick worship perfoâ—rmed by Godly ministers together with his people in a publick place above any private whatsoever that 's a sufficient consideration to convince them of sin that forsake the assemblies upon this account as the manner of some is Thus have I now both discovered the evident duty of all Christians and their obligation to frequent the publick assemblies in order to the publick worship of God and the sin of those men that either upon pretence of corruptions in the Church though they acknowledg it Orthodox and right in the substantials of religion or of some faults in the ministers life or opinion or gifts or carriage but in truth out of malice or hatred against him or out of pride or curiosity or Idleness or upon pretence they can as well serve God at home do neglect or forsake the publique assemblies Now what remaines but a word of exhortation to all that have an ear to hear what Gods Spirit saith unto the Churches and members of them 1. I beseech you Beloved in the Lord to learn to lay to heart your obligation to attend upon Church Assemblies and beware of those that endeavour the divisions of the Church or to divide and separate you from it It 's the Apostles own earnest exhortation g Rom. 16 17. now I beseech you brethren mark them which cause divisions and offences contrary to the Doctrine which you have learned and avoid them They are no lovers of your souls as they pretend they are no servants of God for your good they are no fit guides for salvation that for things meerly external adiaphorous indifferent matters of meer order or decency separate themselves from the society of a true Church and would have you so to do As if a furious brainsick sailor should upon every occasion of anger or discontent cast himself overboard presuming to be safe enough out of the ship the ordinary road way of Gods saving any soul is in the unity of the Church And that is in a conjunction of them to some visible ordinary congregation according to that h Act. 2.47 the Lord added to the Church such as should be saved but exceruntè nobis they who go out from amongst us because they was never of us as to their hearts I will not presume to judge them as to their final state yet this I 'le say that the Church being the Spouse of Christ and Schism and Heresie being a work of the Flesh an effect of so bad causes as I have shown you fully ranked by the Apostle with fornication and drunkenness and adultery and the like I would not dye in their state for all the
world take heed hereof then I beseech you 2. But for Church Assemblies I beseech you labour to love them and delight in them and be more thankful to God for the liberty you have to frequent and enjoy them than hitherto you have been Consider the cloud of witnesses that is gone before you i Prov. 2.20 Walk in the way of good men and keep the way of the righteous They have ever highly esteemed and diligently frequented the Assemblies of the Church Christs Parents being poor dwelt far off Jerusalem yet did they go up every year to the passeover which was the most solemn Church Assembly that Gods people in those dayes had Behold a witness against them that pretend poverty for their excuse The Apostles after Christs ascention were continually in the the Temple k Luke 24.53 And Anna the Prophetest departed not from the Temple but served God with prayers and fasting night and day l Luk. 2 37. And the Primitive Christians continued dayly with one accord in Temple m Acts 2.46 Yea our blessed Saviours custome was to the Synagogue every Sabbath day n Luke 4.16 And did constantly go to every passeover at Jerusalem o Joh. 2.1 3. behold what witnesses you have against those that pretend they have knowledge and grace enough they have no need to go to Church they canno profit by it but can as well serve God at home Hezekiah the King you see resolved so soon as ever he recovered to go up to the House of God p Esai 38.32 David loved the habitation of Gods house and the place were his honour dwelt q Psal 26.8 He counted Gods Tabernacles amiable his soul longed nay fainted for them r Psal 84.12 He made it his choice to be a constant companion of them that feared God Å¿ Psal 19.63 He was glad when they said unto him let us go up to the House of God Behold what witnesses you have also against those that being great and rich take state upon them and think it a kind of debasement to be constant in attending Gods house and service Let us in the fear of God follow these excellent examples and of what ever degree we be poor or rich wise or learned let us never forsake the Assembles or neglect them If we do we may easily provoke God to gives up to our own hearts lusts or to hardness of Heart in sin or to the delusion of Satan to believe his lies And therefore let us prize the having oppertunities of attending Gods house Let us count it one of the greatest blessings that our candlestick is not removed nor is there a famine of the word in our daies not is it persecuted but that we may securely and openly worship God in our Churches and Temples and not as our miserable fore fathers be glad to do it in hills and holes in Dens and Caves of the earth Let us labour to walke worthy of this blessing while we enjoy it and to benefit by it lest we provoke God continually till he be weary of long sufing and so he at length destroy his Tabernacle as a garden and lay wast our congregations t Lam. 2.6 Let it be our daily prayer for the continuance of our solemn assemblies both here and in all places of our divided land u Psal 122.6 pray for the peace of Jerusalem They shall prosper that love thee Thus let us do every one our selves 3. Nay let us according to the latter part of the verse wherein our text is Let us exhort one another hereunto let every one call upon his neighbors and friends and draw them to frequent the Church assemblies when the Lord had prophecied x Esa 2.2 That in the dayes of the Gospel all nations should flow unto the house of the Lord he addeth y ver 3. that by this means it should be done Many people shall go and say come let us go up to the house of God Especially let Masters of Families and Parents be exhorted not to think it sufficient to come to Gods house themselves but see that their Children and servants come also A Godly Christian cannot be content that they should attend him in his house that will not attend and go with him to Gods house z Exod. 20.10 you see the commandement runs that we do not onely keep the Sabbath our selves but must look that our Sons and our Daughters our men servants and our maidservants and strangers do the same And Joshuahs piety runs thus a Jos 24.15 I and my house will serve the Lord. And David saith expresly b Psal 101.7 there shall no deceitful person dwell in my house no prophane contemner of religion And c Psal 42.4 he speakes of this as one of the greatest comforts he had on earth that he went with a multitude of them that kept holy day and led them into the house of the Lord This if we do not if we walke not after these excellent patterns and examples if we do not with chearfulness go into the Lords Courts and serve the Lord with gladness and come before him with joyfulness if we do not account our dayes and hours pretious that are so bestowed if we be not forward to take all holy opertunities redeeming our time from the world that we may spend them in these assemblies of Gods people if we have neither delight nor appetite to the words and Sacraments or the duties of praise and invocation if we be dull or lumpish heavy and spiritless in them if we be not much agrieved to see or hear of the congregations being unfrequented or neglected and glad to see and quick to promote the frequency and fulness thereof It is because we do not understand our own happiness in enjoying the benefit of them As Christ said to the woman of Samaria we do not know the gift of God d Joh. 4.10 We are sottish and insensible of the greatness of that priviledge we may have in waiting upon the assemblies And therefore we are so prone to forsake the assembling of our selves together as the manner of many is From which grievous sin God of his infinite mercy preserve us making us evermore to delight in his house and presence For Jesus Christ his sake to whom with the father and the Holy Ghost be ascribed all honour and glory might majesty and dominion now and for ever more Amen FINIS
Instrument tuned by a skilful Musitian make the musick more melodious So is difference of gifts an ornament to Gods Church Yea it is suitable to the peoples disposition For as in the use of ordinary â—ood all have not the same appetite nor like the same meat hence God hath provided variety of creatures to fit every one such is his Infinite goodness to us so in the Church one people may profit most by one mans gifts another by anothers God hath different works and therefore provides different workmen nay the same person may profit best in knowledge by one Minister in memory by another and in affection by another In some audiences great and eloquent schollars are fittest in others such as can speak to the capacity of babes and ideots Johns gifts was meetest for some mens disposition he was an austere man and came neither eating nor drinking our Saviours fittest for others q Mat. 11.17.19 He suited himself to publicans and sinners Nay as this diversity may suit to different dispositions So doth it serve to increase love and unity amongst the servants of God as letting you see they have need one of another and so causeth them mutually to esteem each other The eye cannot say to the hand I have no need of thee Å¿ 1 Cor. 12 21. nor the head to the feet I have no need of you Thus doth it tend both to Gods glory and exceedingly to the Churches beauty and benefit 4. Consider his ministry whom thou accountest meanest of is Gods ordinance as well as others to whom in gifts he is inferior r Maâ— 25.15 The Lord gave to one of his servants five talents and to another but two and to another but one and he that had but two talents and gained other two with them had the commendation of a good and faithful servant as well as he that received five and gained five There was a great difference between Paul and Timothy the one aged the other a youth the one profound famous for labours and success in the Gospel the other not heard of yet yet see what Paul saith of him s 2 Cor. 6.10 11. If Timothy come see he may be with you without fear take heed you wrong him not disgrace him not see that you love and reverence him for he worketh the work of God as I also do let no man therefore despise him Timothy was ordained a Minister and therefore they was not to despise but reverence him as if Paul himself was with them because he was Gods ordinance and did the work of God as well as he Suitable is that exhortation concerning other Ministers t Thes 5.13 Have them in singular love for their works sake The feet of all that bring the glad tidings of peace must be beautiful in our eyes And on the other hand the contempt done to the meanest of Gods servants reacheth to God himself u Luke 10.16 He that despiseth you despiseth me 5. Consider Gods word should be received not for his sake that brings it but for his sake whose it is Hence the Scribes and Pharisees sitting in Moses his chair and teaching Moses his doctrine were to be respected though they were wicked Hypocrites Gold and Silver is not of more value out of an imbroydered cup then a leathern purse meat is as pleasing to the palate as wholsome to the body out of a clean earthen vessel as out of a silver Platter as a candle shines as bright in a wooden as in a Golden candlestick why should Gods word then better worth than thousands of Gold and silver be less valued or the heavenly Manna be disrelished or the light of our paths be obscured by the meanness of the ministers that brings it Gods word is the same of the same intrinsick worth who ever the minister be and so should be esteemed and received by us who ever thy Pastor be if he be a true minister of Christ and have sufficient gifts to qualifie him for the ministry then mayest thou doubtless profit by him if the fault be not in thy self x 1 Cor. 12.7 The manifestation of the Spirit is given to every man to profit withal and ye may all prophecy one by one that all may learn and all may be comforted y 1 Cor. 14.31 The best Christian that is may profit by the meanest of Gods servants Even Saint Paul professed that this was one cause why he so earnestly desired to come to the Romans that he might receive some good some increase of Faith even from them z Rom. 1.12 And I am perswaded there is never a Minister that is of the most excellent gifts if he have a godly heart but he can truly say that he never heard any faithful Minister in all his life even the meanest but he could descern some gifts in him wanting in himself and received some profit by him saith Mr. Hildersham 6. The fruit and profit that is to be received by the ministry depends not only or chiefly on the gifts of the Preacher but on the blessing of God upon his own ordinance for Ministers are but Ministers by whom we believe and God for his own Glory may give that blessing to the more unworthyest he denies to the most excellent that the glory may be intirely his own and that his strength may the more appear in the Ministers weakness He sometimes causeth that which the world counts foolishness to confound the wise and the weaker to exceed the stronger in efficacy and profitableness Saint Peter did convert more at one sermon than Christ himself probably did in all his life who is Paul who is Apollo saith the Apostle but Ministers in whom ye believed even as the Lord gave to every man I have planted and Apollo watered but God gave the increase Such is the peoples duty then to depend upon God for his blessing in his ordinance rather than upon the gifts of the teacher I may allude to that b 1 Cor. 3.5 6 7 8. In the morning sow thy seed c Eccl. 11.6 and in the evening withhold not thy hand for thou knowest not whether shall prosper either this or that So do thou hear one of Gods servants as well as another at one time as well as at another for thou knowst not by whose ministry it is nor what sermon it is by which God will be pleased to work upon thy heart Indeed on the other hand it is not possible thou shouldst profit by thy Pastors ministration if thou attend not or attend with prejudice or without reverence unto or delight in it not acknowledging Gods ordinance in it or nor seeking Gods blessing upon it If then there may be a great difference in Ministers gifts without inequality if he whom thou thinkest meanest may excel in his kind if the difference be from the Lord and that in order to his own glory and the Churches beauty and benefit and the meanest be Gods ordinance as