by rightly representing them to the World They ought not to betray the Church wherein they live by a base and unworthy Silence Even the meanest Child of us ought to speak when you are about to kill our Mother Your long Nails wherewith you now scratch her Face must be shewn the people who see them not while they behold your hands lifted up to Heaven But besides these two there is a third sort between both who are dissatisfied only with a few things allow our Ministers to be good men and wish for Peace but yet for private respects hold fair correspondence with the Furies now named keep up the Separation hold Conventicles suffer the people without reproof to be fierce and violent against us connive at a great many of their false and absurd Opinions let them alone in their rude and insolent behaviour take not sufficient care to instruct them in the Truth to bring them to a modest and peaceable temper In short to qualifie them for Compliance with us Do not smile at the word for I can demonstrate it might soon be brought about if they pleased N. C. How I Pray Can you do more than all the men in the Kingdom C. Let them perswade their people but to be of their mind and the business is done N. C. Do you think they do not C. No I warrant you If they did the people would conform though they cannot For that which keeps this sort of Ministers from Conforming is not any thing to which the people are bound but something particularly required of them N. C. You have revealed a Secret to me C. It is easy for any body to find out that hath a mind to it There being nothing plainer than this that they would have read those prayers which I would have you hear if something else had not been in the way which you are not concerned in and that is renouncing the Covenant Let them then but perswade you to do all that they can do themselves and in order to that give you Reasons why it should be done and then I may hope to see you and I go to the same Church together And for them that do not stand upon the Covenant for there are some such they haâ—… the greater reason to exhort you to come nay to come themselves and bring you along with them But lest they should not do their duty give me leave to speak to you in those very words which they have writ to others and if you think they have now any weight in them as I believe you once thought they had we shall not be long separated N. C. What have they writ C. In a Book call'd A Vindication of the Presbyterial Government c. You will find a speech of your Ministers and Elders in the Province of London to those that had left their Communion and stood in divided Congregations from them Which if it had any force then in your opinion ought to prevail with you now to come and joyn your self again to us whom you have forsaken I will cite you some Passages of it in their own words And let me begin with those which you find pag. 130. in a distinct Character as the strength I suppose of what they had to say If we be a Church of Christ and Christ hold Communion with us why do you separate from us If we be the Body of Christ do not they that separate from the Body separate from the Head also We are loath to speak any thing that may offend you yet we intreat you to consider that if the Apostle call those Divisions of the Church of Corinth wherein Christians did 〈◊〉 separate into divers formed Congregations of several Communion in the Sacrament of the Lords Supper Schisms 1 Cor. 1.10 may not your Secession from us and professing you cannot joyn with us as Members and setting up Congregations of another Communion be more properly called Schism Thus they plead for Unity and Uniformity in those dayes 1649. And we say the very same now Be just I beseech you and either pronounce that they had no reason on their side when they wrote those words or that we have reason too who use the same to you Hear also what they say a little after and think one of us speaks it to you You gather Churches out of our Churches and you set up Churches in an opposite way to our Churches and all this you do voluntarily and unwarrantably not having any sufficient cause for it For you acknowledge us to be the true Churches of Jesus Christ and Churches with which Christ holds Communion This I dare say is the Judgment of every true Fresbyterian that the Church of England is a true Member of Christ's Body and that Christ holds Communion with her and hath not cut her off because of any Ceremonies she uses from him the Head of the Church If so consider I beseech you as they intreat their Brethren of the Separation How dare you refuse to hold Communion with those whom Christ Jesus holds Communion withall How can you with a safe Conscience thus separate your selves from those who are not separated from Christ Is it nothing to make a Schism in his Body Do you not rend your selves from him when you thus rend your selves from it Think seriously on it before you sleep that you may at least in purpose and resolution presently unite your self to us from whom you have departed N. C. But I am told that every Separation is not a Schism C. To this they answer in that Book and pray mind it The godly Learned say that every unjust and rash Separation from a true Church that is when there is no just or at least no sufficient cause of the Separation is a Schism And that there is a negative and a positive Schism The former is when men do peaceably and quietly draw from Communion with a Church not making a head against that Church from which they are departed The other is when persons so withdrawing do consociate and withdraw themselves into a distinct and opposite Body setting up a Church against a Church which let me tell you by the way is your Case my good Neighbour which Camero calls a Schism by way of eminency and farther tells us there are four Causes that make a separation from a Church lawful First when they that separate are grievously and intolerably persecuted Secondly when the Church they separate from is Heretical Thirdly when it is Idolatrous Fourthly when it is the Seat of Antichrist And where none of these four are found there the Separation is insufficient and Schism Now we are fully assured that none of these four Causes can be justly charged upon our Congregations therefore you must not be displeased with us but with your selves if we blame you as guilty of positive Schism What say you now my Neighbour Was this good Doctrine then or no If it was it is so still and I beseech you make good
enough in their Descants upon as plain words as those And therefore why they should forbear to say any thing there I cannot imagine unless it were a fear of displeasing the Parliament and many of their partakers For as for themselves I believe many of them would not have had the Lands sold but imployed to their use and benefit N. C. Well is this all C. No there is another remarkable place in the Book of Joshua Chap. 6.19 where God commands all the Gold and Silver c. which should be taken in Jericho to be consecrated to him and put into the Treasury Notwithstanding which we read that Achan purloined 200 shekels of Silver and a wedge of Gold to his own private use and was therefore severely punished nay all the Congregation troubled for his offence till he suffered for it Josh 7.21 And yet these men say not a syllable of this Sin in their Notes on either of those verses though all other Divines are wont from thence to shew how dangerous it was then to rob God and take a way what was separated to his uses In other places I am sure they oft make large Declamations against some Sins and in a manner preach against them and therfore why they should not have a syllable to say here about this matter is a great Mystery unless I have discovered the cause of it As for that place Gen. 47.22 I know you will say they were Idolatrous Priests whose Land Joseph sold not But methinks they needed not have made an excuse as they there do for Joseph's not selling them as if it had been an act of greater Virtue if he had And methinks they should have told the world pretty smartly that if Pharaoh had such a respect to the Aegyptian Priesthood as not to sell their Land Christian Princes Governours should not be more unkind if not unjust in these days nor expose to sale those Lands which have been sertled upon the Priests of the most High God But above all I wonder at their profound silence in their Notes upon Ezek. 48.14 where one would think at last they would have broken it especially since they might have done it pretty securely in such an obscure place which few read There the Lands of the Levites are again forbidden to be sold And by Levites according to their own Principles we are to understand the Ministers of the Gospel whose Lands therefore ought not to be sold I prove it clearly thus In the beginning of their Explication of this Vision they lay down this for a Foundation of their Exposition Chap. 40.2 that herein was represented the ample and flourishing estate of Christ's Church under the Types of the Re-building of the Temple Restauration of the Levitical Worship and Service nad the Repossession and Inhabitation of the whole Land Which they repeat again Chap. 43.1 and in sundry other places If this be true as they believed it to be then according to their own Rules the assigning of Land for the Levites must signifie the care that ought to be taken to settle a Maintenance for the support of the Gospel-Ministery and Service and the prohibition against selling the Levites Lands must denote the pleasure of God that the portion of Land or other things settled upon the Evangelical Priesthood or Ministery should never be alienated from them Now I pray you tell me why would they not open their mouths at last in so plain a case as this What should be the cause that they do not so much as name this Sin much less bid the World beware of it and still much less pass any sentence upon it Do you think they did not know what is wont to be said on these places Did they not understand well enough that if they would write consequently to their own principles before laid down they must either tax that Sin in this place of Ezekiel or else say just nothing Why did they chuse the later and pass it over with a word but only referring us to two or three places of Scripture nothing to the purpose N. C. Truly I know not what to say C. I 'll tell you then The most probable conjecture is that which I have made already That they were afraid in the least to displease their masters who set them on work The Parliament would have taken it very ill and all the good people too who to save their own purses were content the Churches Lands should be sold to carry on the War which they had illegally begun N. C. I hope better and that you will not now take occasion from the mention you make of the War to fall into a Declamation against the other Sin of Rebellion C. Since you love not to hear any thing of it I am content to be as silent as your Minsters were wont to be only let me tell you I have observed several other things which they forbear not because they think it is their Duty but for fear of displeasing a party N. C. What do you mean C. I mean it was for this reason that they seldom or never some of them used the Lora's Prayer because the people had been taught on a sudden to abhorr Forms without remembring them that the Lord's prayer was a Form It was not fit to tell them that for fear they should have continued to like other Forms of prayer for its sake I observe also that still they will by no means give the title of Saint to one of the Apostles or Evangelists of our Lord though I think they will call them Holy which is the same no not when they reade a Text out of their Writings For which I can conceive no other reason but their good Dames and Masters do not like it They are afraid that it is Popish And rather than these Men-servers will be at the pains of convincing them of their errour or to speak more properly rather than venture the danger of losing them for many might in a passion fly off if they heard the name of Saint given to any but themselves they will not offend their tender ears by naming that abominable word And were it not that I am loath to try you I could instance in a great many other things wherein they are meer Slaves to the humours of the people and serve the time not daring to say those things or to use those words which they know are fit to be said and to be used meerly because many people will run away from them N. C. There is no danger of that Whither should they run C. To our Ministers whom perhaps they forsook upon such little accounts and so may return to them when they see others do like them N. C. Hold you content Neighbour They will never return to one that is an Apostate and hath forsaken his Principles And that I am sure you will grant your Minister hath done though you will not have him call'd a Time-server C. You have a company of the
that among other abominable Errors and damnable Heresies as they are called pag. 4. this is condemn'd for one pag. 22. That little can be done unless Liberty of Conscience be allowed for every man and sort of men to worship God in that way and perform the Ordinances of Christ in that manner as shall appear to them most agreeable to God's Word c. This among others they call a horrid and prodigious Opinion and tell us pag. 32. and 33. that it will lay the glory of the most high God in the dust if it take place and raze the Truth of Christ to the ground and overthrow all Christ's Ordinances and together therewith Magistrates and Ministers and all Religious and comely Order c. In short they say we shall be disown'd by all Reformed Churches who will cry out Is this England who covenanted to extirpate Popery Prelacy Superstition Schism c and after so long travel hath she nom bâ—ought forth an hidious Monster of Toleration N. C. I know all this as well as you can tell me and they are of the same mind still for this was writ onely against an Vniversal Toleration of all Sects which they abhorr C. I can tell you another story They would not so much as tolerate five poor men who professed to agree with them in all matters of Doctrine Judge then what their Opinions were about Liberty when they would not allow it to so few dissenting Brethren N. C. That was a great while ago and most of those streight-lac'd men are dead C. No such matter But if they were their Principles did not die with them but survived in their followers And yet now all on a sudden they are vanish'd Now they are for Liberty of Conscience By which if they mean onely a Liberty for themselves let them speak out that all their Brethren of the Separation may hear them And withal let them acquaint us by what Title they claim this Favour more than the rest of the Sects that are sprung from them who might take the liberty to separate from them as well as they take the Liberty to seperate from us And before they prove that it is due to them let them first answer their own Argument against the Independents which I can shew them in a Letter of the London Ministers to the Assembly of Divine which was this That to grant a Toleration to them and not to other Sectaries will be counted Injustices N. C. I perceive you are of a persecuting spirit C. You rather discover your self of a turbulent spirit which cannot forbear to trouble and confound even our discourse For that is not the business whether all Restraint of mens liberty be Persecution nor whether I am for it or no but to shew you that once your Ministers were of such a spirit as you call persecuting and now are not N. C. Then they are changed for the better C. You should have said Then they are chang'd which was the thing we were speaking of whether for the better or no that 's another question And let them if you please resolve it I believe they will not confess they were of a persecuting spirit when they were against the Liberty which they now claim N. C. What do you make them of no Principles at all C. Do not mistake me so They are constant to some Principles particularly this That all is well done that they do though quite contrary to what they did before N. C. You are bitter C. Do you like this Principle better which they will not forsake I warrant you That they are in God's way and therefore ought to be tolerated whereas all others are our of his way and therefore ought not to be tolerated N. C. You much offend me by these Reflections C. I 'll tell you another then that 's more moderate and will please you better That they must by all means keep you from coming to Church for fear you should see that you may be as well taught elsewhere as in their private Meetings N. C. I told you before there is no danger of that C. But you told me no Reason as I have shewn you that 's worth any thing N. C. We have one that will never suffer us to come to Church more as long as your Ministers are there C. What terrible Scare-crow should that that be N. C. To tell you the truth many of us do not think that they are Ministers C. Now you have revealed the Bottom of your heart Pardon me that sudden conclusion you may have more yet lurking behind which you have not told me I should rather have said Now you have revealed your Unskilfulness more than ever For what have any of yours to qualifie them for the Ministry which ours have not as well as they If you require the inward motions of the Spirit of God inclining a man to devote himself to this work which some of you think is enough this ours profess to have felt as you may see in the Form of ordering Priests If it be further necessary to be approved by Presbyters and to have their hands laid on them this is not wanting to ours as you may there also be satisfied N. C. But the Bishop layes on his hands also C. And can this unhallow them when they are so dedicated to God N. C. Yes so I am told C. Then you would sooner believe what one of your own Party says without any reason than what we say with all the reason in the world which is plainly partial affection N. C. Why so C. Is it not apparent that a Bishop is a Presbyter too though we think him more N. C. You acknowledge a distinction of persons in the Church which is Antichristian C. Nay then I have done with you You condemn all the ancient Church of Antichristianism and more than that the very Apostles themselves and the Evangelists who it is manifest had some Superiority over their brethren But observe whither you are run having once left your way You mix the very dregs of all other Sects with your own and believe any thing that makes against us even such things as the Minister you commonly hear would be asham'd to say First you onely disliked the Common Prayer then you did not love the man that read it next you would not come to hear him and now you will not allow him to be a Minister nay rather than suffer him to enjoy that name you will venture to deprive Apostolical men of their Office who exercised an Authority over their brethren N. C. Suppose they did yet they were not Lords C. No nor do we ordain any Lords when we make Bishops That 's an Honour which the King doth them to qualifie them to sit in Parliament and advise about the Affairs of the Realm in which they are as much concern'd as other men N. C. If their Lordships would preach more perhaps we might like them better C. I doubt not For those that do
commanded than it was before but onely our use of it is not so indifferent and at liberty We must needs be therefore agreed also that this Restraint comes not upon us from the things themselves because still perfectly indifferent but onely from the Law which ties us up Now we say that to this Law we are to be subject not regarding our own Liberty so much as the Prince's Authority You say No. But as the Law cannot alter the Nature of the things so it ought not to Restrain your Freedom in the use of them but leave that as indifferent as the things themselves That is that the King ought to make no such Law about those matters If he do then it is unlawfull to do what he commands to be always done because he ought to leave you at Liberty to let it alone if you please and you ought to maintain your Liberty and by no means to part with it Put the case then that you being Master of a Family will have your Children and Servants to come at a certain time and place c. to worship God It is indifferent indeed in it self and all one to God whether it be at ten eleven or twelve a clock or in what part of your House they meet or in what Cloaths they come or what Postures they use But you appoint the hour of meeting shall be twelve and that they come into your Parlour or Hall or Chappel if you have that conveniency And beside you require your Servants that they shall not come into your Parlour suppose in those Frocks wherein they just before rubb'd your Horse's Heels which you think not handsom or decent but in their Liveries or some such neater Apparel And when they come there you bid them stand some part of the time and the rest you bid them sit if they please and at Prayers kneel as you do your self Let me ask you now Do you really think that this is any such Restraint of their Liberty as they have just cause to complain of it Would you think you took too much upon you in making these Orders for your Family of which you are Governour Or would you judge that Servant to be without fault and guiltless of any Contempt who should say that he will come at ten of the clock but not at twelve because it matters not which so the thing be done and he will not be tied to any Order but to do the thing And suppose another should come and say that he will pray if you please to come into the Stable but he will not come into the Parlour for it is indifferent where it is and he must not be confined to one place more than another And a third should come and tell you that he is ready to joyn in Prayer but then it must be in his Frock otherwise he will not for God may be served as well in that as any other Garment and he must use his Christian Liberty and not be bound to your Fashions And the next should tell you that he will sit in your presence or else you shall not have his company His reason is because it is all one to God whether he sit or stand and he is not to let you be Master of his Freedom in those matters What would you say to these people Nay what would you do with them Would you excuse them and acknowledge your own guilt in making such Injunctions Or would you not rather treat them as a company of saucy Clowns and ill-bred Fellows not fit to be kept in any orderly family If you should not all the world would hold you as ridiculous as they For every Master of a family is vested with sufficient authority to see such commands as those observed And when they that will not observe them yet acknowledge them to be indifferent things truly I think no body will think them harshly used if they be turned out of doors If they be Fools and Blocks that cannot understand common sense then I confess they are to be pitied and his good nature may work so far as to bear with their simplicity if they be otherways good Servants But yet those Knaves that abused their simplicity and instilled these filthy Principles into them deserve to be punish'd and put out of his Service till they acknowledge their fault and learn more manners Just like this is the present case before us The Church is but a larger Family a wider Society in which the King is the Father and Supreme Governour If he make some Laws for the more convenient orderly and decent Worship of God there which in themselves are Lawful and declared not to be in their own nature necessary but onely prudent Constitutions I cannot see but that those who refuse to obey them upon pretence of their Liberty and that God may as well be worshipp'd without those things do shew themselves as unmannerly rude and refractory persons as the Children or Servants in that supposed Family of which I bad you conceive your self Master And I leave you to apply this case to that and to make the parallel complete in your thoughts at your leisure I hope it will be worth your labour if you do it seriously N.C. It gives me some light into the business already But still I wonder that all our Ministers should hold your Forms and Orders unlawful Sure they have some better reason for it than I have C. Alas good man you are merely abused For though they are willing you should remain in the opinion of their Unlawfulness they do not think so themselves N.C. What would you make of them Do not I hear them constantly speak against them C. Nay do you make what Consequences you think sit from it As for the thing it self I will maintain that those Ministers you hear some indeed think otherwise are not of the mind that it is unlawful to come to Common Prayer or wear a Surplice or kneel at the Sacrament N.C. You cannot make good your confident Assertion C. Why Man I have seen them at the Prayers and many of them have professed they did not think the Ceremonies such great Bugbears that one need to be afraid of them And if this will not do I have a more convincing Argument of their Opinion in these matters N.C. And do these very men now seem to dislike the publick Prayers C. Seem you confess they speak against Forms And we see the open affronts they put upon our Service by meeting at that very time when it is performed the reason of which I expounded to you before N.C. Therefore I always thought they accounted it unlawful C. No such matter You should rather think something else and to help you a little consider whether their Integrity be so great as you imagine N.C. Your meaning Sir C. I mean they do not seem to me to deal sincerely with you in suffering you to live in this dangerous perswasion of the sinfulness of Common Prayer
and the Ceremonies when they know in their Consciences they are not sinful And then to hear you call it Bibble-babble Porridge or such like vile names without any reproof is still worse But if you hear themselves speak against the Common Prayer and the Ceremonies there is the greater reason to have a vehement suspicion of their Dishonesty because they decry that which in their Consciences they allow N.C. I am not fully satisfied of that C. Why did many of them deliberate so long whether they should accept of Dignities in the Church if they did not believe it lawful to hear the Prayers and to put even the Babylonish Garment as you will needs call the Surplice upon their backs and more than that to wear the very Rags of the Whore the Lawn sleeves If it was so plain a business that their Conscience and their Covenant would not let them conform one would think they should have professed it openly without any more ado And therefore I conclude that Pause and Deliberation was about something else not about matters of Conscience but of Interest and Policy As Whether the people would take it well and not laught at them as so many Magpies got upon a Perch whether it would not be a scandalous thing that is not for their Credit and Reputation whether they could not hold such a Party with them in Non-conformity as would balance the Episcopal and so force them at least to a Toleration In short whether they should not lose the Affections of their own party which they had already made and win very little upon the Affections of others whom they had so much disobliged in the late Troubles These were their secret Debates in their Cabals the weighty Points that were to be stated in those Consultations You Good man think perhaps that they spent their time in Fasting and Seeking God to direct their Consciences No no it was not their Conscience but their Credit which then lay at stake N.C. Why should you think so C. Because I have heard some of them acknowledge they did not scruple what we do but thought it unhandsom for them to do it Sometimes they put it in a more Religious phrase and said it would give a great scandal to the world who would think the worse of the Profession of Christianity But the meaning was in plain English that they were ashamed to confess their Error and to set up those things again which they had rashly pulled down N.C. And would you not have men to consult their Credit C. Yes but not so much as the peace of the Church of God We ought to deny our selves and be content to be put to shame for God's sake which is indeed true Glory and there is little of God among them that seek not Peace though on those terms Besides there can no account be given of their Behavior since in cherishing this Fancy among you or suffering it to grow that Conformity is unlawful unless it be this that they think it will make more for their Reputation among you if you believe it was Conscience not care of their own Credit Estimation that kept them from Conforming N.C. You are the severest man that ever I knew and love to search too far into the reason of things C. Would you would do so too for then you would soon be of my mind N.C. No not as long as one Scruple remains in my mind C. What 's that N. C. I have heard some of them call yours Will-worship which the Apostle condemns Col. 2. ult C. Very likely they might and not understand what they said N.C. Do you believe they would like brute Beasts speak evill of things they know not C. I will not censure them of that but this I can tell you that one of your Ministers confessed to a sober person of my acquaintance that he had never so much as read over the Common-Prayer-book in all his life and yet he was no Youngster Perhaps there may be more such and then if they speak against it judge of them as you see Cause N. C. I believe such men dislike it without looking into it because as I told you it is Will-Worship a meer invention of man C. That 's a word of S. Paul whom no doubt they have read but I question whether they understood him N. C. Why should you doubt it C. Because if we take the sense of the Word not from Fancy but from the matter wherewith it is connected it makes nothing for your purpose but rather much against you N. C. Can you tell better than they C. I do not say so but I have heard one of our Ministers give such an Explication of the place as satisfied me that you use a Weapon which wounds your selves N. C. Let 's hear it C. If you look a little back you will find the Apostle forbids Worshipping of Angels v. 18. as a bold invention of men for which there was no Revelation And then he speaks against such superstitious people whether Jews or others the minister could not tell us as made it unlawful to Marry to eat some kind of Meats to touch or come near some things none of which God hath made sinful but they were the meer Commandments of men v. 21.22 Now those that were of this Humour he immediately after v. 23. charges with Will-Worship Which must consist therefore one would think in these two things First In giving the Worship due to God to some Creature or other Secondly in enjoyning that as a thing necessary and commanded by God as a piece of his VVorship and Service which he hath left indifferent or in other words when any thing is so enjoyned to be done or not done as if it were the Will Command of God he should be so served when it is a meer Constitution of the Will of Man then a Will-Worship is erected Now I am sure you will not make us guilty of the First fort of Will-Worship because none are more against it than we As for the Second our Church hath declared to all the World that none of the things you boggle at are imposed under the Notion of Necessary or Religious in themselves or as commanded by God but are of an indifferent Nature and only used as decent and comely in the judgment of the present Governors who can alter these things and constitute something else in the room if they see it fit which they could not pretend to did they think them necessary But then as our Church is not guilty of Will-Worship in the Apostles Sense so on the other side I know not how to excuse those from that very guilt who oppose what is ordained among us as unlawful and forbid us to use those Rites and Orders because sinful things For they make that necessary to be forborn and left undone which God hath not made so but left indifferent and so they in effect condemn those as Sinners whom God acquits from
use of it N. C. Some think it is a sufficient cause to separate in that there are such sinful mixtures tolerated among you and that your Congregations are miscellaneous Companies of all Gatherings and all sorts are admitted even to Sacramental Communion C. That 's the very Objection which your Ministers and Elders saw framed against them by the Separatists And what they answer to them we return to you First That this Charge is not true the Rule of the Church of England being as full and strict for Church-Members that shall come to Communion as that of the Assembly there cited pag. 133. which is this That they must be visible Sainst such as being of age do profess Faith in Christ and obedience to Christ according to the Rules of Faith aud Life taught by Christ and his appostles Secondly Suppose there were some sinful Mixtures say they at our Sacraments yet we conceive this is not a sufficient ground of a Negative much less of a Positive Separation The Learned Author forementioned tells us that Corruption in Manners crept into a Church is not a sufficient cause of Separation from it This he proves from Math. 23.2 3. and he adds also this Reason for it Because in what Church soever there is Purity of Doctrine there God hath his Church though overwhelm'd with Scandals And therefore whosoever separates from such an Assembly separates from the place where God hath his Church which is rash and unwarrantable The Church of Corinth had such a profane Mixture at their Sacrament as we believe few if any of our Congregations can be charged withal and yet the Apostle doth not perswade the Godly party to separate much less to gather a Church out of a Church N. C. What do you tell me of the Doctrine of a Forreign Divine C. They have made it theirs by approving what he says in their Book And besides they tell you there were many Godly and Learned Non-conformists of the last Age that were perswaded in their Conscience they could not hold Communion with the Church of England in receiving the Sacrament kneeling without Sin yet did they not separate from her Indeed in that particular act they withdrew but yet so as that they held Communion with her in the rest being far from a Negative much more from a Positive Separation from her Nay some of them mind the words even then when our Churches were full of sinful Mixtures with great Zeal and Learning defended them so far as to write against those that did separate from them who these Good and Learned men were they tell you in the Margin Mr. Cartwright Mr. Dod Mr. Hildersham Mr. Bradshaw Mr. Ball. N. C. Then we shall communicate with men in their sinâ— and we must not be led to that by the greatest Examples C. To prevent that they will advise you that if any Brother offend you you are not to separate from him for this is not the way to gain but to destroy his Soul but to tell him of it privately and in an orderly way to bring it to the Church And when you have done your Duty you have freed your Soul and may safely and comfortably communicate in that Church without Sin N. C. I perceive you are read in our Writers And trely you have now told me so much from them that I shall not have so hard an opinion of you as I had before And I hope this will preserve me from being guilty of the sin of Schism because the Nature of that consists in an open breach of Christian Love C. This will not serve your turn but you must come and joyn in Communion with us again For they tell you that as he who denies a Fundamental Article of the Faith is guilty of Heresie though he add not Obstinacy thereto to make him an Heretick So he that doth unwarrantably separate from the true Church is truly guilty of Schism though he add not Uncharitableness thereunto to denominate him a compleat Schismatick You may read the words if you will pag. 137. And afterward they tell you that to make a Rupture in the Body of Christ and to divide Church from Church and to set up Church against Church and to gather Churches out of true Churches and because we differ in some things therefore to hold Church-Communion in nothing this we think hath no warrant out of the word of God and will introduce all manner of confusion in Churches and Families and not onely disturb but in a little time destroy the power of Godliness Purity of Religion Peace of Christians and set open a wide Gap to bring in Atheism Popery Heresie and all manner of wickedness Thus they And how fast all this is a doing by your means who now will have no Communion with us in any thing because we differ in some things is apparent to all the world For the love of God and of the Church nay of your own Families consider of it in time and repent that so they may not be brought to utter Confusion but the Gap may be stopt which you have opened too wide already to Atheism Irreligion and all the rest of the Wickedness which comes powring in it self upon us Do not continue that Separation any longer which you have rashly begun lest you be found guilty of that very thing your selves which you condemned so much in others and profess is by all good men to be abhorred Read what I have now said over and over again and seriously lay it to heart lest your own Books be opened at the day of Judgement and Sentence be pronounced against you out of them Nay desire your Ministers to read it and to expound the reason to you why they should ssparate now more than Mr. Dod Mr. Hildersham Mr. Ball and such like did heretofore Intreat them to let you know how they excuse thewselves from the guilt not only of withdrawing themselves from our Communion which they call Negative Schism but also of making an head against us and drawing themselves into a distinct and opposite Body and setting up a Church against a Church which they call Positive and Schism by way of Eminency Ask them which of the four Causes of Separation they alledge to make their Departures from us necessary What we have done that should make it unlawful for them to communicate with us or rather How we have separated our selves from Jesus Christ and made him disown us If they be not able to give you very good satisfaction in this and in all the rest I hope you see what you are to do according to their own Advice and Counsel N. C. I suppose they will say that they are persecuted which will justifie their separation C. I cannot imagine what they should pretend unless it be this But bid them shew you what hath befalen them that should deserve that name And likewise shew that the Persecution is grievous nay intolerable for else they have told you it will not warrant