time to Mr Calamy and pretends some reasons to borrow it for awhile but after he had it he carries it away into Yorkshire that so upon occasion of complaints of the breach of the agreement when we would have consulted with that paper it was gone and Mr Nye keeps it to this day and having been moved to restore it His answer is it is at Hull amongst other papers b Apollonius Letter to the 5 Apologists the 3 of May 1644. Hasce quaestiones ad vos reverendi viri transmitto de iisdem sententias vestras quaerens ob mutuam nostram fidem charitatem serio vos oro ut non detrectetis sincere dilucide accurate absque Rhetorici apparatus diverticulis declarare quid vos fratres illi quibuscum societatem vestram Ecclesiasticam colitis de hisce sentiant quoniam meae fidei ab Ecclesiis Christi id commissum est Spero vos ex timore dei charitate erga nos fratres vestros absque ullo pretextu sententias vestras hac de re declaraturos idque quam cito fieri potest urgent enim Ecclesiae nostrae ut opus hoc maturem This zealous adjuration hath not to this day drawn from any of them any declaration c Apol. Nar. p 30. A relation of our judgments in the points of difference about Church-Government we reserve unto the more proper season d Keyes Preface p. 6. Only we crave leave of the reverend Author to declare that we assent not to all expressions scattered up and down or to all and every assertion interwoven in it yea nor to all the grounds or allegations of Scriptures nor should we in all things perhaps have used the same termes to expresse the same materialls by e Apol. Nar. p. 10. A second principle we carried along with us in all our resolution was not to make our present judgement and practice a binding law unto our selves for the future and therefore in a jealousie of our selves wee kept this reseâ—ve to alâ—er and retract though not lightly what ever should be discovered to be taken up out of a misunderstanding of the rule which principle we wish were next to that most supreame enacted as the most sacred Law of all others f Cottons Keyes published by Goodwin and Nye p. 49. In what sence the Church of a particular Congregation is the first subject of the power of the Keyes in the same sence it is Independent and none other we taking the first subject and the Independent subject to be all one Answer to the 32 questions p. 46. For the matter of Independency we confesse the Church is not so Independent but it ought to depend upon â—hrist But for Dependency upon men or other Churches or other Subordination unto them in regard of Church-Government and power we know not of any such appointed by Christ and his Word The Churches were not Dependent and Subordinate to others but all of them absolutely free and Independent Burtons Vindication p. 42. We are not so ashamed of the Title of Independency as utterly to disclame it and that for two reasons first for distinction sake between us and that which you call Presbyteriall Government The second is because this word Independent is to signifie that wee hold all particular Churches of Christ to be of equall authority and none to have Iurisdiction over another but each Church is under Christs Goverments as the sole head King Lord Law-Giver thereof g Apol. Nar. p. 22. We doe professedly judge the Calvinian Reformed Churches of the first Reformation from out of Popery to stand in need of a further Reformation themselves h Ibid. p. 19. Wee think we give more to the Magistrate then the principles of the Presbyteriall Government will suffer them to yeeld i Ibid. p. 24. Wee doe here publikely professe we believe the truth to lie and consist in a middle way betwixt that which is falsely charged on us Brownisme and that which is the contention of these times the Authoritative Presbyteriall Government Preface to the Keyes p. 5. We are yet neither afraid nor ashamed to make profession that the substance of this briefe extract is that very middle way betwixt that which is called Brownisme and the Presbyteriall Government k Vide supra Chap. 2. B and R 2. l Prynnes Discovery p. 29. Iohn Lilbourn in his Answer to 9 Arguments p. 4. writes the Church of England is a true whoorish mother and you are one of her base begotten and bastardly children I say the Church of England neither is nor never was truly married to Christ in that espousall band which his true Churches are and ought to be but is one of Anti-christs Nationall whâ—orish Churches your Church is false and Anti-christian the Ministers of the Church of England are not true Ministers of Christ but false Ministers of Anti-christ ibid. p. 31. This language and opinion of his concerning our English Church and Ministry is seconded by most Independents in their late Pamphlâ—ts m Mr Robinson hath written a whole Treatise upon this subject n Answer to the 32 questions p. 27. If we were in England we should willingly joyne in some parts of Gods true worship and namely in hearing the Word where it is truly preached yea though wee doe not know them to be true Churches For some worship as prayer and preaching and hearing the Word is not peculiar to Church-Assemblies but may bee performed in other meetings Cottons letter examined p. 43. The second thing which Mr Cotton himselfe hath professed concerning English Preachers is that although the Word yet not the Seales may be received from them because saith he there is no Communion in hearing and the Word is to be preached to all but the Seales c. o Vide supra Chap. 3. G. p Cottons Letter examined p. 37. Cotton here confesseth these two things first if any reproach the Church of Salem for Separation it is a sin meet to be censured secondly the Churches themselves may be separated from who tolerate their members in such causlesse reproachings which I leave to himselfe to reconcile with his former profession against Separation q Vide supra Chap. 4. R r Vide supra Chap. 5. E 1 s Burtons Vindication p. 45. We esteeme the Government of Christs Church so holy as we cannot think them fit to be admitted be they never so good that think so slightly of the way and of them that walk in it that they refuse to agree to walk in this way with the people of God Ibid. p. 62. Doe you not know that no Infants have any title to Baptisme but by vertue of their Parents faith outwardly professed and what outward profession of faith in the Parents that refuse Christ for their only King If therefore the Parents refuse thus to be in visible Covenant can the children be said to be in visible Covenant and so to have a right to baptisme If then the Parents by refusing Christ as their King doe hereby cut
can breed at most but a fallible opinion or a charitable hope which is farre from any certainty either of sense or science much more of faith or immediate revelation Thirdly it layeth a burthen unsupportable to the strongest upon the conscience of every weak one they must ever be in perplexity and doubt what to do whether to stay in the Church or under the pain of sin to separate from it till they have accurately examined and after all needfull triall attained to a full satisfaction and assurance of minde of the regeneration of every member were they never so many of that Church whereunto he belongeth The burden of such a task might break the back of the strongest Pastor much more of a silly Lamb. Fourthly this presupposeth that all Congregations must of new be gathered and all their members admitted of new which none may grant who minds not for the Independents pleasure at once to dissolve all the Reformed Churches and to avow that every person though born in the true Church within the Covenant of grace sealed in Baptism with the seale of God religiously educated in the feare and knowledge of God is notwithstanding without the Church and no member of the body of Christ till he be admitted to the Lords Supper Ordinarily in all Chistendom persons are actuall members of the Church wherein they were borne of faithfull parents baptised and Christianly educated before they be admitted to the holy Table The case and question of admitting members by a Congregation after all are convinced of the true grace of him who craveth membership among them is but a new rash unjust case of the Independents which will inferre the gathering of new Churches the dissolution of all our old ones and lay a high royall street for Anabaptism excluding all our baptised children from Church-membership till they give personall satisfaction of their true grace and enter into a formall expresse Covenant I adde but one other reason No reall absurdity doth follow upon any divine truth but divers reall absurdities follow necessarily upon the ground of Separation in hand Ergo the ground of Separation in hand is no divine truth but an evill errour The major no man controverts for every true consequent is a stream that flowes out of the antecedent as its fountaine as the fountain is bitter or sweet so are the streams from a true antecedent a false consequent by no force can be extorted if the consequent be rotten it is a sure sign the antecedent is not sound The absurd consequents I name for the proofe of the minor are First That then it shall be necessary to separate from all the Churches that are this day in the world except alone from these of the Independent way for no other Church doth so much as intend or assay to give assurance to every one of their members of the true grace of all the rest but on the contrary they teach such an endeavour to be both impossible and unreasonable The absurdity of the consequent is so cleare that I pursue it no farther then to this Dilemma If it be necessary to separate from all the Churches of the world but the Independents Then all other Churches but theirs are false or else it is lawfull to separate from Churches that are true but neither of these will sound well in a Protestant eare The second absurd consequent That then it was necessary to separate from all other Churches that have been in any former time for not one of them ever no not the greatest Schismaticks the Novatians the Donatists themselves did ever minde that every one of their members should so narrowly examine all their fellows as to come to a certain perswasion of their reall regeneration The third consequent That then to the worlds end no Church anywhere can have any solid foundation for this principle is a mountain of quick-silver that rests not till all the Churches builded upon it be quite overthrown The conviction of every members conscience of the true faith and grace of all their fellow-members is so sandy a foundation that nothing builded upon it can stand What else hath broken in halfes and quarters and demi-quarters these separate Societies What made them of Amsterdam first break off from England then from Holland and all the Reformed then among themselves once and the second time What made Smith at Leyden after he had fallen off from England next to leave the Brownists and after the Anabaptists till at last he broke off from all Christians to the Arrian heresie What else doth drive many of Old and of New-England when they have run about the whole circle of the Sects at last to break out into the newest way of the Seekers and once for all to leap out of all Churches betaking themselves to their devotions apart here indeed it is and no where else where they come to a possibility of satisfaction of the inward estate of these in their way that is of themselves alone This is the reward of presumptuous errour it cannot rest when it hath led the seduced soule about the whole round of the fancies of the time till at last it throw it out of all that is called or so much as pretended to be a Church The reasons alledged for the opposite Tenet may be seen in the Brownists Apology also in Robinsons Iustification in Cans necessity of Separation in Barrows Discovery but for shortnesse we will only consider what is brought by Mr Cotton in his Way of the Churches for there the best of the Brownists arguments are brought in the greatest lustre and strength which Mr Cotton thought meet to put upon them Also what there is brought by Mr Cotton is acknowledged by our Brethren as their judgement without the haesitation of any marginall asterisk which when they dissent or doubt they professe to affix to some other passages of that book The best form I can set on his first argument is this If every member of each Church is not only in profession but in sincerity and truth to be a Saint and faithfull then the Officers and body of each Church must take triall and be satisfied of the true faith and sanctification of every person before they receive him into the Church but every member of each Church is not only in profession but in sincerity and truth to be a Saint and faithfull Ergo the Officers and body of each Church must take triall and be satisfied of the true faith and sanctification of every person before they receive him into the Church All the proofe is bestowed upon the minor from these Scriptures which make all the members of the Church to bee Saints by calling and faithfull Brethren the Church it selfe to be the body of Christ the Temple of the holy Ghost the spouse of Christ the sons and daughters and children of God We answer that no part of this argument is sound The major
Ghost the sonnes and daughters of the Father must be understood as many such priviledges of the universall and invisible Church or when any of them are to be applyed to a particular visible Church they must be understood of that Church not according to every one but only the living and gracious members thereof That such priviledges of the Catholicke invisible Church when they are applyed to a particular visible Congregation are to be understood according to this distinction of members Robinson him selfe while yet in his rigid separation grants it expresly The places thus expounded prove not the point for grant to every Congregation so high priviledges as you will yet if they must be verified of that Congregation only according to some members and not according to all if they be to be understood only of the Elect in that Congregation who have the sanctifying Spirit of Christ not of many others who are dead in nature and yet are such members who have right from God according to our Brethrens own Tenet to perform Church acts such as are the preaching of the Gospel the celebration of the Sacraments the admission of members the execution of censures with such authority from Christ as makes all these acts truly valid for the comfort and salvation of the Elect they prove not the true grace of every person whom we must acknowledge to be a true member of a Church If you will extend these places to every singular member of particular visible Churches as indeed the Argument if it have any strength doth import the absurdity will be great for so it will carry to the Pelagianisme of Arminius in the extent of the true grace of God beyond the Elect to all the members of a visible Church also to the totall and finall Apostacy of many who are the Temples of the holy Ghost the members of Christ the faithfull and sanctified children of God For the Argument maketh every member of any visible Church to be such daily experience proves that many members of every visible Church are castawayes Yea the Argument drives further then any of the Arminians will follow for however they extend the true and saving grace of God beyond the Elect members of a Church yet none of them ever said that this sanctifying and saving grace must be in every person before they can bee admitted members of any Church For this is that grosse errour which the Independents have learned not so much from Arminius as Socinus to put all men unconverted without the Church that in this condition they may be converted by the preaching of private men and if by Pastors yet by their Preaching not as Pastors but as private men dealing with these who are none of their Flock but without the Church Neither doe the Socinians so farre as I know extend their Tenet thus farre as to require all before they be members of the Church to be truly regenerate as if the only instrument of regeneration and conversion were the preaching of private men without the Church and the preaching of Pastors within the Church did serve only for the continuing of the sence of justification and the encrease of sanctification as being performed of purpose only unto these persons who at their first entrance into the Church while yet they were without and but comming in have demonstrate the certainty of their enjoying these graces The second Argument God receives none to be members of the visible Church but those who shall be saved but the Stewards of Gods house may receive none but whom God doth receive Ergo the Stewards of Gods house may receive none to bee members of a visible Church but those who shall be saved Answer The Conclusion is subject to the most of the faults observed upon the conclusion of the former Argument which I doe not repeat only consider that this conclusion beareth expresly that none may be members of a visible Church but these who shall be saved and so who are truly Elect. We would not be deceived with their distinctions of inward and outward holinesse of seeming and reall grace of charitable and veritable discerning for this and the other Argument inferres flatly that no other must be received as members in a visible Church but such as first are tryed and found to bee really holy and who shall be saved We Answer therefore to the Minor That it is evidently false for the Reasons which we brought upon the Minor of the former Argument The place of the Acts brought for the proofe of it is detorted such as were to be saved were added to the Church is this indefinite proposition to be understood universally that all who were to be saved were added to the Church the former Argument maketh this no necessary truth for if men must be justified sanctified and put in the way of salvation before they be added to the Church then though they were never added to the Church they may well bee saved They would doe well here to remember their own ordinary practice contrary to that which here they professe to be the way of God Why doe they not adde to their Church all that are to be saved why exclude they many whom they grant to be truly gracious and Elect upon this ground alone that they cannot approve of their Independency or Covenant Or suppose the proposition to be universall yet must it be reciprocall and convertible Be it so that all who were to be saved were added to the Church yet must all who are added to the Church be saved This is an evident untruth Will they that all the members of their Church must be saved or doe they think that all the persons of their Churches who shall not be saved were never true members of their visible Church Iudas was made a member of the Apostolick society by Christ and many men were brought into the visible Church by the Prophets and Apostles who shall not be saved Shall damnation and want of true grace cast them all out of the true Church and take from them their power and right to do the actions of a Church-member The third Argument If it be put in any forme will readily fall under the exceptions of the first but since the Author puts no forme upon it I shall only consider its matter It consists of the misapplication of three Scriptures first of Peters Confession Matâ—h 8. they alledge that such a profession of Faith as the Father reveales to particular persons is the ground of a visible Church and so who ever is a member of that Church must both professe Faith and have the Spirit to indite that profession Answer This is a strange Argument For first we may not admit that the Church founded upon the Rock is every particular visible Church The priviledges of the Catholike and visible Church which the Iesuites by all their wrestlings have never been able to extort from us for their Idoll
shall propound matters as they come to hand Concerning the Constitution of the Church consider their judgement first what they think of others then what of themselves All other Churches they condemn so far as to professe and practise a Separation from them The edge of their Arguments is usually directed against the Church of England alone but when their Doctrine or Practise is looked upon a little more neer it appears they shoot their Bolts at all other Churches in the world which refuse their Way For the Church of England they say it ought not to be called a Church or at best that it is a false and Antichristian Church out of the which every one though not persecuted must flee as they would avoid damnation A Sometimes in their calm mood they will give better words and acknowledge it to be a true Church That the Doctrine and Sacraments thereof are true That many thousands of its members are gracious and elect people B But their ordinary language is of another strain to wit That the Church of England is a meer Harlot divorced from Christ C That the Worship thereof is grosse Idolatry and the Service of the devil D That all the members thereof are unclean beasts and the limbs of Antichrist E That her best Preachers that preach most for Reformation are but Pharisees and Deceivers F That the Faith Grace and Comfort which by their Ministery they seem to bring to the hearts of the hearers is but meer delusion G That their Sacraments are Seals not of Grace but of the wrath of God H That all Communion with her even in the Word and Prayer is to be forsaken I The Unconformists did always zealously plead against the Corruptions of that Church but never against the truth of her being or the comfort of her Communion When by the force of persecution they were driven out then they did flee Of their own accord they did never separate but were ever most glad to live and die in her bosome willing to partake of her Worship and Sacraments whenever they were permitted to dissent in Doctrine and to abstain in practice from those things which they conceived to be corruptions K Concerning other Reformed Churches though free both of Liturgies and Bishops and many other of the English stumbling-blocks notwithstanding all their Reformation yet they pronounce their Worship to be idolatrous L their Government tyrannous and Antichristian M yea their very Constitution both in matter and form to be so vitious N that with a good conscience they cannot communicate with any of them O that the reformed Presbyteries and Synods are no better then the English Episcopacy P yea to Episcopacy they are so favourable that they professe their willingnesse to acknowledge all their Civil Power and much of their Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction Q 1. that the Presbyterian Divines have ever been as evil as Episcopal Q 2. that the vitious constitution and government of the most reformed Churches in Europe hath flowed from the ignorance and obstinacy of unhappie Calvin R 1. We must not be deceived with their pleasant words when they make fair professions of their hearty agreement in so many things with the other Reformed Churches and of their willingnesse to communicate with them both in Word and Sacraments R 2. These flatteries are contradictory both to their Doctrine and Practice for when they had left England they were so far from joyning with any of the Reformed that they ever erected new Churches after their own way and made it an open and avowed cause of Excommunication for any of their Members to communicate with the Churches of Holland among whom they did live R 3 also the crimes of the Church of Holland which they cry out upon are such which none of the Reformed Divines do condemn S On the other side the Nonconformists whom the Episcopal persecution did banish out of England were ever well content without erecting of a new Church to joyn themselves as Members to any of the forrain Churches Scottish Dutch or French according as they understood their Language or had occasion of abode among them Thus they do judge of others As for the form of that Tabernacle which they professe to build for themselves thus we may conceive it The matter or members of that Church they avow to be Saints but the Members of other Churches they pronounce them for the most part to be wicked and flagitious T The Nonconformists with all the reformed are willing to admit of no others to the Lords Table but these who are Saints by calling in whom they require three qualifications First That they have a good measure of knowledge and professe to beleeve the truth Secondly That in their life and conversation they be without scandal Thirdly That they be submissive to the Discipline of the Church But the Brownists presse a fourth qualification Were a mans profession never so fair and his knowledge never so great In all parts of Doctrine let him be most Orthodox and in his Conversation most harmlesse and inoffensive were he never so willing to joyn in all the Ordinances of God and to be governed according to the strictest Discipline of Christ notwithstanding all this they count him not qualified to be a Church Member except he declare publikely in the face of the Congregation such clear and certain signes of his real Sanctification and true Regeneration as gives full satisfaction not onely to the Minister and Elders and many of the people but to all and every one or at least the major part of the Church V If any prophane person should be admitted he should quickly so far pollute the whole Church that every Member thereof must needs become partaker of his sins X And if upon admonition they did not excommunicate him they themselves ought to be separated from as an infected and leprous Society Y They tell us yet more that not onely the profanenesse of one person doth pollute the whole Church but any one sin or errour of any one Member though godly and regenerate if after admonition he continue therein and be not excommunicate doth so defile the whole that it must be separated from Z To distinguish here betwixt sins greater and lesser to make some errours Fundamental and some preter-Fundamental it is to them a following of the Papists in their absurd distinction of mortal and venial sins the least Errour joyned with obstinacie to them is an Heresie and a just cause of Separation AA They acknowledge it is the fancy of the Anabaptists to separate for every fault and errour but that which alone displeaseth them in this fancy is a fault whereof the Anabaptists seem not to be guilty the not advertising of the Church of the fault and errour of the Member they complain of before they separate If this neglect be helped the rest of the fancy they seem to approve BB Thus much for the matter of their Church the
advice to reject all Books but the Bible alone SSSSS As for Divinity-Disputations they make large Invectives against them as Paganish and very sinful Exercises TTTTT notwithstanding all this they proclaim themselves great Patrons of all true Learning VVVVV albeit as yet they have not been pleased to let the world know what kinde of Letters and Books they will be pleased with when all that hitherto have been known are laid aside by their perswasion The Testimonies A. Barrows Discovery p. 26. In this estate what communion is to be held with the Church of England What fellowship may the children of God have with such Rebels and Apostates Can the name of a Church without blasphemy unto Christ be given unto them in these sins They then not being under Christs protection nor in the state of Grace while they continue in their sin I have often wondred how any man of sound judgement could give them the name of a Church Ibidem in the Preface Let the rest no longer tempt God or be held under the dint of this dreadful Milstone by any perswasion but let them save their souls out of this accursed false Church and joyn themselves to the faithful servants of Christ with all speed The Confession Art 31. These Assemblies standing thus in confusion cannot be said truely to have Christ their King Priest and Prophet neither in this estate can be esteemed the true visible orderly constitute Church of Christ whereof the faithful may become or stand members or have any spiritual Communion with them in their spiritual Worship and Administrations Therefore are all that would be saved bound by Gods Commandment with speed to come forth out of this Antichristian estate leaving the suppression of it to the Magistrate to whom it belongs A light for the ignorant p. 8 9. This Whorish Citie hath a Body of false Prophets whosoever heareth these or any of these breaks the first Commandment for in hearing and obeying these they hear and obey the Dragon Beast and Whore that sent them and gave them their Authority and Office they use some Divine Truths to help to set a glosse on their Inventions but both divine and invented are consecrated and dedicated by the Beast and administred by his Office B Robinsons Apologie pag. 78. Convenit nobis quatenus reformatis Ecclesiis Belgicis aliis cum Ecclesia Anglicana in Articulis fidei hujus Ecclesiae nomine scriptis idem in his Book of the lawfulnesse of the hearing of the Ministers of the Church of England Barrows Refutation of Giffard p. 21. We never doubted but the foundation of God stood firm the Lord having many thousands of his elect among you known to himself Idem in his Discovery p. 119. The errours and fauls of Baptism being purged by Repentance it pleases God in pardoning the faults to reserve and not to have repeated the outward action Their Apologie p. 93. We gladly embrace the common faith professed in this Land as most holy and sound We have a reverend estimation of sundry and good hope of many hundred thousands in the Land Their Confession p. 8. We testifie by these presents to all men That we have not forsaken any one point of the true ancient Apostolike Faith professed in our Land but hold the same grounds of Christian Religion with them C Barrows Discovery p. 26 There is no cause to doubt but any of Gods servants may avoid that Congregation which rejecteth Gods Word presumptuously as a wicked Assembly and an adulterous Church Ibid. p. 29. I deny these assemblies to be true Churches of Christ seeing they have broken the Covenant and cast off the Yoke of Christ D Barrows Refutation p 33. We further conclude from the second Commandment That whatsoever Worship is devised by man and whatsoever device of man is put in the Worship of God it is Idolatry But a great part if not the whole Worship of God in your Church is devised by man If God be not worshipped with this kinde of Worship Then to speak as the Prophets and Apostles do the devil is worshipped thereby E Apologie p. 54. None can submit unto or have any spiritual Communion with the Hierarchie aforesaid but they worship the Beast and his Image and so make themselves subject to the wrath of God Barrows Discovery p. 180. Here would not be forgotten the sweet Psalmodical harmony of the Vultures Cranes Owls Geese of the Leopards Boars Wolves Dogs Swine Foxes Goats Pordon me for thus the holy Ghost termeth the profane confused multitudes in false Churches F Barrows Discovery p. 52. Disguised Hypocrites ravening Wolves that come to us in sheeps clothing under the glorious titles of Pastors and Teachers Ministers of the Gospel men of great Learning holy Life sighers for Reformation these Pharisees these Sectaries are they that mislead the people in their crooked paths of death Ibid. p 112. No middle course can here be taken we must either make the Tree good or evil These Ministers of the Church of England are true or false if false then deliver they no true Sacraments then is all their Administration Sacraments and Sermons accursed how holy soever or neer the Truth in outward shew then are they the Ministers of Satan of Antichrist sent by God in his wrath to deceive and destroy such as are ordained to death then ought not the Prince to repair to their Sermons for comfort then is all the comfort she taketh there but delusion even the deceit of Satan then are they seducers who perswade her to go to them as whereby they draw her to the wrath of God and imminent danger and inevitable destruction except she forsake them G Vide f. also Barrows Discovery p. 154. The comfort received from their Preaching their whole Ministery being accursed is a fearful signe of the effectual working of their delusions From their Ministery in this estate no comfort is to be looked for but assured destruction they being of God in his wrath sent to deceive the children of death the Reprobates H Barrows Discovery p. 29. I deny their Sacraments to be the Ordinances of God seeing to them in this estate belong not the Sacraments and Ministery of Christ but the curse and judgement of God Ibid. p. 31. Such Sacraments can no ways be called the Ordinances of Christ but rather sure Seals of his wrath to as many as profane his holy Ordinances and joyn together in that ungodly and accursed action until they repent I Vide f. also Barrows Dis p. 43. There can be no greater allowance of joyning to them then to make them our mouth or Ministers unto God or together with such to joyn in any action concerning the Worship of God K See Master Balls Confutation of the Brownists L Barr. Dis p. 66. This Book being a publike prescript Liturgie were it the best that ever was devised by mortal man yet being brought into the Church yea into any private house would be an abominable sacrifice in the sight of
these corruptions had been removed so farre as I have read in any of their writings they would no more have Separated But the Independents having no such stumbling blocks in their way Bishops and Books being abolished and a barre set up in every Congregation to keep off from the Sacrament every scandalous and ignorant person notwithstanding they will yet Separate The more unjust and lesse cause they have so to doe their separation must bee so much the worse the grosser and more inexcusable Schisme What they say for the avoyding of this challenge will not hold water while they tell us that they are not Separatists because they avow the Church of England to be a true and gracious Church That the Ministry of it is true and saving They should consider that the Brownists when the fit of charity commeth upon them say large as much as all this as before from their own words we have shown k also that some of the Independent Party have gone as farre as that which they confesse makes the Brownists to be justly called Schismaticks l but however suppose their allegation were true it doth not excuse and diminish but much encrease the fault of their separation For it is a greater sinne to depart from a Church which I professe to bee true and whose Ministry I acknowledge to be saving then from a Church which I conceive to be false and whose Ministers I take to have no calling from God nor any blessing from his hand Neither are they cleared from the blot of Schisme by their countenancing the English Assemblies by their preaching and praying therein for beside that they doe no more in this then Mr Robinson hath taught them m They should remember they teach their Schollars that Preaching Prayer Psalmes and all things they doe in the English Congregation are no acts of Church Fellowship n that none of them doth import any Church Membership nor any Ecclesiastick Communion but are such which without scruple they can dispence to very Pagans But we would intreat them to declare if they would be willing to receive any Sacrament in the English Congregations or if they will be content to bee under any part of their Discipline if they will be either Members or Officers in any of our Churches I see indeed the Apologists professe their participation of Baptisme in our Congregations but besides that the Brownists will professe so much of themselves o yet how this is consistent with the constant practice and Doctrine of the Independents I confesse my understanding is too blunt to conceive For however in New-England they give the right hand of Fellowship to the Brownists Congregations p and at London they are said to goe to the Brownists Sacraments q and we did never heare that either in England or Holland they refused any to be a Member for their beliefe of rigid separation or Anabaptisme nor censured any of their Members for falling into these errours yet in formall termes they doe deny the most gracious of their Brethren to live beside them in New-England in the Presbyteriall way of the old Non-conformists r yea in Print they avow that whoever refuseth their Tenet of Independency were they otherwise never so Orthodox and pious they ought not to be admitted to the Sacraments nor enjoy any Church Priviledge s as people who cannot be wholly but at most are in part only converted Yea as such who must be taken for Anti-christian spirits for enemies to Christ and his Kingdome t Neither have I heard that any of them now for many yeares have either celebrated to others or received themselves the Sacraments in any English Church And when it was propounded that they might take charge in some of the best Reformed Congregations of England with a full assurance of a personall dispensation to them for their whole life if they would leave but that one intollerable Tenet of Separation to this day they have disregarded that kind and brotherly Accommodation shewing expresly that in this point of separate Congregations they would be tolerated or nothing else would satisfie their consciences beyond this their best friends were not able by their long and earnest endeavours for divers weeks together to draw them one haires-breadth w if this be not a more cleare and a more inexcusable Separation then was ever yet laid to the charge of any Brownists I professe my utter mistake of the nature of Schisme and desire to be rectified The next singularity of the Brownists their Doctrine of the constitution of the Church in matter and forme the Independents have borrowed to the full and not only enlarged it but when all other grounds faile upon this alone they build the necessity of their separation Concerning the matter of the Church the Independents have learned all their unjust scrupulosity from the other as the Brownists require every Church member to be a Saint really regenerate and justified who at their admission have publikely satisfied the whole Congregation by convincing signes of their true holinesse the other requires the same x. What ever indulgence here the Independents professe to give either to weak ones in whom they finde the least of Christ or to women whom they remit from the Congregation to speak more privately in the Eldership y â— this is no other then the present practise of the Brownists at Amsterdam Only we observe that the Independents here go farther from the Reformed Churches both in the strictnesse and in the loosnesse of their satisfactions The Brownists are satisfied with the signes of personall grace but the Independents require more they proceed to a triall by a long conversation of the sociable and complying disposition of the person to be admitted with the spirits of the whole Church whereof he is to be a member z without this sutablenesse of spirit they will reject them whom otherwise they finde to be Saints aa But their chiefe excesse here is in loosnesse The Brownists will not dispence with known errours and sinnes in the members they will not admit of Anabaptists of proud luxurious contentious people If they finde any such to have crept in among them they professe their judgement is for their casting out by censures But the Independents will here be more wise for the encrease of their party and however they will have nothing to do with Presbyterians bb nor with such people who can live in their confused Congregations yet they make it their rule to hold out none for any errour that is not fundamentall nor for any sinne that is not continued in against conscience cc walking according to this rule they swallow down without trouble the small gnats of Anabaptism and all other Sects who erre not fundamentally and obstinately and against conscience how many Sectaries are thus farre guilty who can determine The little spot of luxury in apparell in diet and many fleshly delights of strife of disdainfull railing and such other faults as are too
themselves off from the Covenant they doe therewith cut off their children to z Ibid. p. 63. We dare not baptise the children of these Parents that refuse to professe the faith of Christ as their onely King as well as their only Priest and Prophet for Christ divided becomes no Christ to the divider this is to dissolve Christ that is to receive him onely in part and not in whole which is the spirit of Antichrist ibid. p. 55. Such a conversion as you speak of comes not home to whole Christ and such with their Converters doe deny Christs Kingly Government what kind of Converters call you these at best they are converted but in part and that maine thing is wanting to wit Christs Kingly Office which they come not up to by the preaching thereof w Paper of Accommodation after the ninth proposition We having weighed our Brethrens principles doe find no probability of an Accommodation for them ordinarily to enjoy Congregations unlesse it shall happen in a Parish that the Minister cannot administer the Sacraments to all of the Parish whom possibly the neighbour Ministers or the Classis may judge fit to be admitted such persons shall have power to procure to themselves the Sacraments by the help of a neighbour Minister ibid. Whereunto our brethren adde as followeth or otherwise if in a Parish it happen that there be a considerable number of such as cannot partake in the Ordinances with the Minister and people there they shall have liberty to dispose of themselves as a distinct Church and to choose a Minister or Ministers at their own charge to be maintained to be their Pastor x Thomas Goodwin to I. G. p. 1. Indeed we that are to admit doe it upon a conviction and perswasion of the parties true grace some way made forth visible to us Welds answer to chap. 3. Hee tells us that they must be reall Saints and syncere Believers and that the Church in admitting of them doth make exact tryall by examination of their knowledge and the work of grace first in private then in publike and that they be such as can cleave together in opinion and affection and that they be such as know what belongs to Church-Covenant approve it and seek it is there any thing in all this that you can blame y Ibid. In the Churches where we have lived many years we have seen such a tender respect had to the weaker sex that we commit their tryall to the Elders and some few others in private who upon their Testimony are admitted into the Church without any more adoe z Rathbones Narration p. 11. Beside true and reall Saintship they require that the members to be admitted be such as can cleave together both in opinion and in affection and that there be sutablenesse and sweetnesse of spirit in them apt to close one with another aa Vide supra Z also Cotons Way p. 7. bb Vide supra fifth Chap. E 1. cc Apol. Nar. p. 9. Excommunication should be put in execution for no other kind of sinnes then may be evidently presumed to be perpetrated against the parties known light as whether it be a sinne in manners and conversation such as is committed against the light of nature or the common received practises of Christianity professed in all the Churches of Christ or if in opinion then such as are likewise contrary to the received principles of Christianity and the power of godlinesse professed by the party himselfe and universally acknowledged in all the rest of the Churches and no other sinnes to be the subject of that dreadfull sentence dd Bastwicks Postscript p. 58. also his Iust defence p. 39. ee An Apologie of the Churches in New-England for a Church-Covenant ff T.G. to I.G. p. First it is no more with us then this an assent and resolution professed by them that are to be admitted by us with promise to walk in all these wayes pertaining to this Fellowship so farre as they shall be revealed to them in the Gospel thus briefly indefinitly and implicitly in such like words and no more or otherwise do we apply our answers to mens consciences Church-covenant p. 36. We deny not but the Covenant in many of the English Congregations is more implicite and not so plaine as were to bee desired yet there wants not that reall and substantiall comming together or agreeing in Covenant and that substantiall profession of faith which thanks be to God hath preserved the essence of visible Churches in England unto this day gg Plaine dealing p. 2. A Church is gathered after this manner a competent number of Christians come together in some fit place in a publike manner and there confesse their sins and professe their faith and enter into Church-covenant after this they doe at this same time or some other all being together elect their own Officers as Pastor Teacher Elders Deacons if they have fit men enough to supply these places else as many of them as they can bee provided of then they set another day for the Ordination of their said Officers hh Answer to the 32 questions p. 36. If Church-communion and the exercise of such Ordinances as Christ hath appointed for his Church was lawfull and needfull when Magistrates were enemies to the Gospel and be not so when Magistrates professe the Gospel we doe not see but Christians may sometime be losers by having Christian Magistrates and in worse condition then if they had none but professed enemies ibid. p. 41. It is our practise in Ordination of Ministers as also in removing of them to have the assistance of Ministers of other Churches but for authority and power we know none that Ministers have properly so called in any Congregation save that one over which the holy Ghost hath made them Over-seers and therefore we think it not lawfull when a Church is to Ordaine Officers to call in by way of authority or power the Ministers of other Churches ii Cottons Way p. 1. The Church to which Christ hath committed the censures is a combination of faithfull godly men meeting by common consent into one Congregation ibid. 7. Then such whose hearts God teacheth often meet together about the things of God and performe some duties of prayer and spirituall conference together till a sufficient company of them be well satisfied in the spirituall good estate one of another and so have approved themselves to one anothers consciences in the sight of God as living stones fit to be laid in the Lords spiritull Temple ibid. p. 10. The Church being thus gathered as hath beene described Our next care is that it may be supplyed with all these Officers which Christ hath ordained kk Answer to the 32 Questions p. 43. We doe not finde that God doth anywhere say they must be above forty or else they cannot be a Church nay rather that speech of Christs of two or three gathered together in his name doth plainly imply that if there be a greater number then two or three
whom they being not satisfied in the answer of an offender may appeale unto and in so doing tell the Church such a small number may be a Church and may have the blessing of his presence to be among them ll Ibid. p. 8 9. When a visible Church is to be erected it is necessary that in respect of quantity it be no more in number in the dayes of the New Testament but so many as may meet in one Congregation mm Ibid. p. 15. The Church is before the Ministers seeing the power of chusing Ministers is given to the Church by Christ nn Ibid. p. 68. The Church that hath no Officers may elect Officers unto themselves therefore it may also ordaine them if it hath power from Christ for the one and that the greater it hath also for the other which is the lesser now Ordination is lesse then Election oo Ibid. p. 42. Vnto the 13 question whether you think it convenient that a company of private and illiterate persons should ordinarily examine elect ordaine and depose their Ministers a part of the answer to this question is if there were none among them who had humane learning we doe not see how this could hinder them of their Liberty to chuse Ministers purchased to them by Christs precious blood for they that are fit matter to be combined into a Church body have learned the Doctrine of the holy Scriptures in the fundamentall points thereof they have learned to know the Lord in their owne hearts therefore they may not bee reproached as illiterate or unworthy to chuse their owne Ministers nay they have the best learning without which all other learning is but madnesse and folly pp Plaine Dealing p. 3. They set a day for the Ordination of their Officers and appoint some of themselves to impose hands upon them where there are Ministers or Elders before they impose their hands upon the new Officers but where there is none there some of their chiefest men two or three of good report amongst them though not of the Ministry doe by appointment of the same Church lay hands upon them Cottons way p. 40 41. Towards the end of the day one of the Elders of the Church if they have any if not one of the graver Brethren of the Church appointed by themselves to order the work of the day standeth up and enquireth in the Church c. he advertiseth him who is chosen what duties the Lord requireth of him in that place towards the Church then with the Presbytery of that Church if they have any or if not with two or three others of the gravest Christians among the Brethren of that Church being deputed by the body he doth in the name of the Lord Jesus ordaine him to that Office with imposition of hands calling upon the Lord and so turning the speech to the person on whom their hands are imposed he as the mouth of the Presbytery expresses their Ordination of him and puts a solemne charge upon him to look well to himselfe and the flock After this the Elders of other Churches present observing the presence of God in the orderly proceeding of the Church to the Officers Election and Ordination one of them in the name of all the rest doth give unto him the right hand of Fellowship in the sight of all the Assembly qq Answer to the 32 questions p. 48. If the Church hath power by election to chuse a Minister and so power of instituting him then of destituting also Instituere destituere ejusdem est potestatis rr Ibid. p. 44. We conceive that every Church properly so called though they bee not above ten persons or the least number that you mention have right and power from Christ to transact all their owne Ecclesiasticall businesse if so be they be able and carry matters justly for the power of the Keyes Matth. 16.19 is committed by Christ unto the Church ss Cottons Catechism p. 10. It is committed to the Presbytery to prepare matters for the Churches hearing tt Answer to the 32 quest p. 60. In this sense matters with us are carried according to the vote of the major part that is with the joynt consent of the whole Church but yet because it is the mind of Christ ww The propositions to which almost all our Elders did agree when they were assembled together the first the Fraternity is the first subject of all Presbyteriall power radicaliter id est causatim per modum collationis non habitualiter non actualiter non formaliter xx Anatom p. 26. I heare of no ruling Elders that ever Mr Simpson had in his Church Anatomist anatomised p. 12. It is true de facto wee had none but were resolved to have them Notwithstanding this answer of Mr Simpsons that Church of Rotterdam to this day hath never had a Presbytery after more then seven yeares delay yy Antap. p. 52. Pastors are necessary Officers in your Churches and yet according to your practises your Churches are many yeares without them zz Keyes p. 10. Authority is a morall power and a superiour Order or State binding or releasing an inferiour in point of subjection Christ hath given no Iurisdiction but to whom he hath given office The Key of power in a large sense or Liberty is in the Church but the Key of authority or rule in a more strict sense is in the Elders of the Church aaa Excommunication is one of the highest acts of Rule and therfore cannot bee performed but by some Rulers now where all the Elders are culpable there be no Rulers left in that Church to censure them as therefore the Presbytery cannot excommunicate the whole Church though apostate for they must tell the Church and joyne with the Church in that censure so neither can the Church excommunicate the whole Presbytery because they have not received from Christ an Office of Rule without their Officers Ib. preface p. 4. He gives unto the Elders or Presbytery a binding power of Rule and Authority peculiar unto them and to the Brethren distinct and apart an interest of power and priviledge to concurre with them and that such affaires should not be transacted but with the joynt agreement of both though out of a different Right so that as a Church of Brethren only could not proceed to any publike censures without they have Elders over them so neither in the Church have the Elders power to censure without the concurrence of the people so as each alone have not power of excommunicating the whole of either though together they have power over any particular person or persons in each bbb Ibid. also Keyes p. 13. Else the Brethren have a power of order and the priviledge to expostulate with their brethren in case of private scandals so in case of publike scandall the whole Church of brethren have power and priviledge to joyne with the Elders in inquiring hearing judging of publike scandals so as to bind notorius offenders and impenitents under censure and
of the Churches infancy they were Idolatry false doctrine open profanenesse were then most abominable and more terribly punished then now by the totall destruction of whole Cities and Countries wherein they were entertained also the duty of mutuall inspection and admonition the contempt whereof is made the grand cause of separation was most clearly enjoyned in the Old Testament What here is replyed that all separation from the Iewish Church was simply impossible because then there was no other Church in the whole earth to goe to We answer that the Replyers themselves will say that a separation must be where there is just cause and where a person cannot abide without pollution and sin although there be no other Church for him to go to for they make it better for men to live alone separate from all then to abide in any Church where they cannot live without the participation of their neighbours sinnes We answer further That it was easie for the godly under the Law to have joyned together in the service of God and to have excluded the wicked thence and whereas it is said that this could not bee done because the Censure of Excommunication was not then in being We answer the Gospel makes it cleare That casting out of the Synagogue which was reall Excommunication was frequent in the Old Testament as also the keeping off from the service with a great deale of circumspection all who were unfit by any legall pollution much more by any known morall uncleannesse Kings themselves when polluted were removed from the Altar and put out of the Sanctuary Again I reason thus That which moved not Christ and his Apostles to separate from the Church of their time is no cause to us of separation but want of satisfaction by convincing signes of the true grace of every member of the Church was to them no cause of separation from the Churches of their times Ergo. The major is cleare except we desire a better pattern for our practices then Christ and his Apostles what ever carrieth us beyond their line must be high presumption and deep hypocrisie The minor is cleare by many Scriptures the Scribes and Pharisees were a generation of vipers Ierusalem worse then Sodom and Gomorrah Corasin and Bethsaida was worse then Tyrus and Sidon and to be cast lower in Hell then these yet the Lord did not give over to preach to pray to go to the Temple with them Iudas when a declared Traytor did not scarre him nor any of his company from the Sacrament After he went from the Table when his wickednesse was revealed that a Devill was in him yet none of the Apostles offered to cast themselves out of the body because this wicked member was not cut off Many members of the Apostolick Churches were so farre from convincing signes of true grace that the works of the flesh were most evident in their life In the Corinthians fundamentall errours open Idolaty grievous scandall bitter contentions profanation of the Lords Table In the Galatians such errours as destroyed grace and made Christ of none effect In the Church of Ephesus of Laodicea and the other golden Candlesticks divers members were so evidently faulty that the Candlestick is threatned to be removed yet from none of these Churches did any of the Apostles ever separate nor gave they the least warrant to any of their Disciples to make a separation from any of them A third Argument The want of that which never was to bee found in any Church is no just cause of separation But satisfaction by convincing Arguments of the true grace of every member was never to be found in any Church The major is unquestionable for what is not cannot have any operation non entis nulla sunt accidentia The minor is demonstrable from the nature of a visible Church it is such a body whose members are never all gracious if we believe Scripture It is not like the Church invisible the Church of the Elect. It is an heterogeneous body the parts of it are very dissimilar some chaffe some corne some wheat some tares a net of fishes good and bad a house wherein are vessels of honour and dishonour a fold of sheep and goats a tree of green and withered branches a table of guests some with some without a wedding garment in a word every visible Church is a society wherein many are called few chosen except therefore we will alter the nature of all visible Churches whereof Scripture speaks we must grant that in every Church there are some members which have no true grace and if so how can they give convincing and satisfactory signes of that which is not to be found Hypocrites may make a shew without of that which is not within but shall we lay an obligation upon every hypocriticall member of a Church to be so eminently skilfull in the art of counterfeiting as to produce in the midst of his gracelesnesse so cleare so evident and satisfactory signes of his true grace as may convince the hearts of every one of the Church that the thing is within the mans breast which certainly is not there The fourth Argument The want of that which cannot reasonably be supposed of every member of a Congregation is no just cause of separation from any Church but satisfaction c. Ergo. The major is cleare for if the want of such satisfaction be a just cause of separation from the Church Then the presence of such a satisfaction is very requisite to be in every member as a necessary meane to keep it in union with that Church The minor that such a satisfaction may not justly be supposed in every member of a Congregation for this would import these foure things all which are unreasonable First that every member of a Congregation is to have power to try all its fellow-members to let them in or hold them out according as in this triall he is satisfied This is a large limb of the Brownistick Anarchy putting the key of Authority and Iurisdiction into the hand of every Church-member if all the Independents will defend this let them speak it out plainly Secondly it requires a great deale of more ability in every member of every Church then can be found in any mortall man for not to speak of the impossibility of a grounded and certaine perswasion of true grace in the heart of an Hypocrite who hath no grace at all how is it possible to attaine unto any grounded certainty of true grace in the heart of any other man for the hid man of the heart and the new name are not certainly known to any but to such as have them The grounds of a mans own certain perswasion the act of his faith either direct or reflex the witnesse of his conscience or the seale of the spirit cannot go without his own breast all the demonstrations which can be made to another are so oft found false that in understanding men they
of Rome shall we throw them away upon every Independent Congregation how unstable Rocks these Congregations are and how easily by small tentations shaken in pieces themselves may remember Secondly the Rock whereupon the Church is builded is Christ whom Peter did confesse we may not make any mans profession were it never so cleere and never so zealous the foundation of the Church in such a fashion that the ignorance or hypocrisie of any man may remove the foundation of any Church Thirdly shall no man be a member of a Church till the holy Ghost dictate unto him such a confession of Faith as he did unto Peter if none but the Elect and those who are filled with the holy Ghost may be members of Churches the Anabaptists have won the field However what here is alledged is not true of Peter himselfe who long before that confession was a member of the Church The second place mis-applied is the reproofe of the guest for his comming to the Lords Feast without the wedding-garment whereupon is inferrd the duty of the Church to hold out all who want the wedding-garment of true grace Answ This conclusion is not only beside but against the Text vers 9.10 the servants are commanded to invite as many as they could finde both good and bad they had no commission to hold out any for want of the wedding-garment for that garment was within upon the soule unperceptible by any but his eye who searches the heart and the reynes The Apostles in their search went not beyond a blamelesse profession and experience may teach our Brethren that themselves are able to reach no farther finding after all their triall so many in their purest Congregations whom time declares to want that garment The third place mis-applyed is the parable of the Tares as if the Tares came into the Church by the sleepinesse of the servants Answ This also is a bold addition to Scripture it is not said while the servants sleeped but while men sleeped noting no negligence in men who did sleep when it was seasonable and necessary for them to sleep but only the secret and dark time of the night or the secret dark and imperceptible way of Satan his working in hypocrites and corrupting the Church However this part of the parable is no wayes argumentative for Christ in his full application toucheth not at all upon this circumstance but the maine scope of the parable declareth to us the nature of the visible Church upon earth contrary to the argument in hand That Christ doth not intend to have upon earth any Church wherein the Tares shall not be mixed with the wheat for if he did not finde in his wisedome the expediency of this administration hee could in his power easily alter or prevent it Their fourth argument is drawn from the second to Timothy 3.5 who have a form of Godlinesse but deny the power of it from such we must turne away Ergo who are not found to have positive and satisfactory signes of regeneration ought not to be admitted members of any Church Answ The consequent is naught for the strength of it will lie in this proposition Every professor who bringeth not demonstrative signes of his regeneration and true grace is a man who hath the forme of godlinesse and denyeth the power thereof How false this is both the Text and our Brethrens practice will evidence The Text puts it out of doubt that the men whom the Apostle calls the denyers of the power of godlinesse are persons openly scandalous and flagitious as the verses both before and after doe demonstrate even such whom the Apostle describes Tit. 1. abominable disobedient and to every good work reprobate Now it is cleare that many professors who are not able to bring out any convincing signes of their regeneration are notwithstanding free from all scandall and however many hypocrites can goe beyond them in making faire and satisfactory shewes to men yet sundry of them may be the elect children of God and really most gracious in his eyes how unable or unwilling soever they be to make this much appeare to the world Secondly the men whom the Apostle speaks of are to be cast out of the Church after their admission but our Brethren will not cast out all of whose regeneration they are not convinced after once they are admitted for if so Excommunication in every Church would become too frequent Their fifth argument is this No hypocrite none who at last will leave their first Love are to be admitted in the Church for all such will ruine the Church and procure the removing of the Candlestick but all that cannot prove their regeneration convincingly are such Answ This is a bold and rash argument laying a necessity to exclude all hypocrites from the Church and all such as may fall away from any degree of their first love We answer then that the minor is very false for many gracious persons farre from hypocrisie and free from all decay of their first love may be unable to satisfie themselves or others in the certaine truth of their regeneration But the major is more false against the practise of Christ and the Apostles who did alwayes receive divers hypocrites and our Brethren dare not deny that they do so also for their Churches consist not all of reall Saints However the very Text alledged proveth our Tenet for Ephesus to Christ there is a most true Church notwithstanding their fall from their first Love and his threatning of them with the removall of their Candlestick if they did not repent Unto this fifth they subjoyne as appendices two other arguments taken from the ancient types under the Law The first The stones in Solomons Temple were not laid rough in the building Ergo men irregenerate must not bee admitted members of a Christian Church Answ This is a wanton argument though the Temple might be a type of every Congregation and the stones of Temple of the members of a particular visible Church yet that the roughnesse of the stones should be a type of irregeneration and above all that the place of hewing these stones should be a type and that argumentative to inferre that the place of our vocation regeneration justification and sanctification must be without the Church and that it is necessary we be like a stone perfectly hewen before wee be laid in the Church building this is a kinde of Ratiocination which solid divinity will not admit The other typicall argument is this The porters excluded uncleane persons from the Temple therefore the Officers ought to keep the irregenerate from the Church Answ There is no argumenting from symbolick types except where the spirit of God in Scripture applies a type to such a signification and use Where did our Brethren learne to make the porters of the Temple types of the Church-officers Their people will not bee content to be cheated of the Keyes by such symbolizing If they will
to separate from a Church wherein wee get no satisfaction of the true grace of every Member at their first admission For the Negative we reason first from the practice of Moses the Prophets who did never offer to separate for any such reason The causes of a just separation were smaller under the Law nor under the Gospel The weaknesse of their Reply Our second reason is from the example of Christ and his Apostles who did not separate for any such causes The third reason it is impossible to find true grace in every member of any visible Church that ever was or shall be in the world The fourth this satisfaction in the true grace of all to be admitted is builded on foure errours first that the power of Ecclesiastick Iurisdiction is in the hand of every one of the people Secondly that one man may attaine to the certain knowledge of the true grace in the heart of another Thirdly that it is a duty of every member of a Church to seek and finde satisfaction in the true grace of all his fellow-members Fourthly that all the Reformed Churches must once bee dissolved and unchurched that they may bee reformed according to the new mould of the Independents The fifth argument Their Tenet is followed with divers absurdities As first it is necessary to separate from all Churches that are this day in the world except it be from these of the Independents Secondly it was necessary to separate from all Churches that ever have been Thirdly there can be no rest for any till they turne seekers and leave all societies that are called Churches Cottons reasons to the contrary are answered His first reason put in form All the parts of it are vitious the conclusion proves not the question It stands upon a chief ground of Anabaptism and presupposes the nullity of all the Reformed Churches The major is many wayes vitious But the minor is the most faulty part of the Argument The proofes of the minor are answered The first The second The third and maine proof of the minor This driveth to universall grace and Apostacy of the Saints Yea to Socinianisme and further His second Argument The Conclusion is faulty The minor is false It s proofe is unsufficient His third Argument Pâ—eters Confession much mis-applyed The guest without the wedding-garment more mis-applâ—ed The parable of the Tares is thrown against its principall scope His fourth argument that all who cannot demonstrate the truth of their regeneration deny the power of godlinesse is not true His fifth that no hypocrite is to be admitted a member of a Church is a very rash argument His sixth from the roughnesse of the stones of Solomons Temple is a wanton reason His seventh from the porters exclusion of uncleane persons from the Temple has no strength His eight that Iohn the Baptâ—st excluded the Pharisees and people from his Baptism is expresly against the Text. His ninth that Philip required the Eunuchs confession before baptisme infers not the conclusion All his nine or twelve reasons pâ—t in one will be too weak to beare up the weight of his most heavy conclusion The state of the question The first authors of this question The Independents difference among themselves here anent That none but Ministers may ordinarily prophecy wee prove it first by Christs joyning together the power of baptism and the power of preaching Secondly these that preach must be sent to that work Thirdly every ordinary preacher laboâ—rs in the Word and Doctrine Fourthly none out of office have the gift of preaching for all who have that giâ—t are either Apostlâ—s Evangelâ—sts Prophets Pastors or Doctors and all these are officers Fifthly no man out of office might sacrifice Sixthly all who have from God the gift of preaching are obliged to lay aside all other occupations and attend that work alone Seventhly the Apostles appointed none to preach but Elders Eighthly the preaching of men out of office is a means of confusion and errour The contrary Arguments which Mr Cotton in his Catechism and Answer to the 32 Questions borrows from Robinson are First in the Church of Corinth men out of office did Prophecie Ans these men were officers or their preaching was extraordinary Secondly Iehoshaphat and his Princes did preach Answ The Kings exhorting of the Levites to doe their duty and the Princes câ—untenancing of them therein was not properly preaching Thirdly wâ—e must not despise prophecy Ans The Apostle speaks of the preaching of men in office Fourthly the sons of the Prophets did preach Answ Their designation to be Prophets gave them right to initiall and preparatory exercises towards that office Fifthly Moses wished all the people to bee Prophets Ans But not without Gods calling to that offiâ—e Sixthly the Apostles before the Resurrection did preach Ans At that time they were true Apostles and did baptise Seventhly Paul and Barnabas were invited to exhort Ans they were men in office Eighthly the Scribes and Pharisees did preach Answ They were officers and sate in Moses chaire What is meant by Ecclesiastick Jurisdiction The state of the Question wont to be cleare the Reformed Churches putting the power and exercise of Jurisdiction in the hand of the Presbytery alone the Brownists Independents in the hand of the people onely but Mr. Cotton his followers the other yeare have perplexed the Question with their many Schole distinctions If they put the power of Jurisdiction onely in a Church organized and Presbyterated they fall from much of the Brownists and their own both doctrine and practise Their last and best beloved invention of the power of Authority and power of Liberty is for no purpose but to involve the Authors in new difficulties As they wont to make their smallest Congregations Independent uncensurable for any crime so now by this distinction they divide all their Congregations in two parts and make every one of these parts Independent also and uncensurable for any imaginable sinne For the negative that the people have no power of Jurisdiction we reason First the Officers alone are Governors and the people are to be governed 2. The people have not the Keys of Heaven to bind and loose 3. The people are not the eyes eares in in Christs Body for so all the body should be eyes and eares 4. The people have not any promise of gifts sufficient for government 5. The popular government bringeth in confusion making the feete above the head 6. The people have not the power of Ordination They have no Commission to send Pastours to themselves to impose hands to examine their Pastours to pray publickly and exhort 7. This power in the people would disable them in their callings 8. This power of the people would bring in Morellius democracy and anarchy in the Church 9. This power of the people will draw upon them the power of the word and Sacrament Mr Cottons contrary arguments answered First Christ gave to Peter the Keys of Hâ—aven as
to a beleever Ans not so but as to an Apostle and Elder of the Church 2. Till the Church replies that the people have power of Excommunication Anser The Church here to be told is the Presbytery and not the people according to our Brethrens own grounds 3. The people of Corinth did Judge and Excommunicate the incestuous man Answer Tbe Text will prove no such matter 4. The people of Colosse might censure Archippus their Minister Answer there is no Word in this Text of the peoples censure 5. The whole Church of Pergamus is rebuked for not censuring the Hereticks Answer The power of Censure was in the Angells but the whole Church might be faulty in not incouraging the Angels to doe their duty 6. The twenty foure Elders sit on Thrones with Crownes on their heads Answer This will not prove a regall power of judging in every one of the people 7. The Galatians must stand fast to their Liberty Anser By Liberty hereinothing lesse is understood then a power of presence and concurrence in judgement without all power of Authority 8. The whole Congregation of Israel had power to punish malefactors Answer What the people under the Law did in the State is not a warrant for the people under the Gospell to doe the same in the Church 9. The people elects their Officers Ergo. they may depose and Excommunicate them Answer Election is no act of power or of Jurisdiction 10. The people must be present and consent to every act of Judgement Answer It is not so and if it were yet it inferres not their power of Jurisdiction God is the Author of the union and dependencie of particular Churches From them Morellius and Grotius learned the Tenet Laying aside all prejudice we will reason the matter The state of the Question cleared That single Congregations are not Independent is proved first from the 1 Tim 4.14 because they have not the right of Ordination Ordination belongs to the Presbytery No Congregation is a Presbytery No Congretion hath within it selfe necessarily a Presbytery No single Congregation ought to have within it selfe Pauls Presbytery Onely Pastors lay hands on Pastors The second Argument from the Apostolicke Churches which exercised full jurisdiction the chiefe whereof if not all were Presbyteriall and not Parochiall Such was the Church at Jerusalem How the Church commeth together The Church of Samaria also was Presbyteriall So that of Rome And of Corinth And of Ephesus Also of Antioch and the rest Our third argument from the subordination of the Church of Antioch to the Synod at Jerusalem Act. 15. Answer to the Replies The meeting of Jerusalem was a true Synod It doth not onely advise but command The Decrees of that Synod at their first making had onely Ecclesiastick authority Our fourth argument from the subordination of fewer to moe appointed by Christ Matth. 18. Christs subordination is to be extended to the utmost bounds of the Church universall Our fifth argument from the evill consequents which reason and experience demonstrate to follow Independency necessarily and naturally Neither the duties of charity nor the authority of the Magistrate can remedy these evills Our last Argument Independency is contrary to all the discipline that ever was knowne in Christendome before the Anabapâ—ists The first Objection or Argument for Independency from Matth. 18. The second Objection is taken from the practise of the Corinthians excommunicating the incestuous man The third Objection from the example of the seven Churches of Asia Their fourth Objection from the practise of the Church of Thessalonica and Colosse Their fifth objection from the Episcopall tyranny of the Presbyterie Their sixt Objection from the Congregations right to elect their Pastor Their seventh Objection from pluralitie of cures cast upon one Pastor Their eight Objection from Christs immediate government of his Church The Originall and progresse of Chiliasme The minde of the Independent Chiliasts Our first reason against the Chiliasts is that Christ from his ascention to the last judgement abides in the heaven Our second reason is builded on Christs sitting at the right hand of God till the day of judgement Our third reason is grounded on the resurrection of the dead the godly and ungodly doe all rise together at the last day Our fourth reason is builded on Christs Kingdome which is Spirituall and not earthly Our fift reason is taken from the nature of the Church Which ever on earth is mixt of good and evill And subject to crosses Having neede of Ordinances Because of her sinfull infirmities A Sixt reason from the secresie of the time of Christs comming A Seventh from the heavenly and eternall reward of the Martyrs An eight reason the restoration of an earthly Jerusalem brings backe the abolisht figures of the Lgw. A ninth Antichrist is not abolisht till the day of Judgement The Chiliasts first reason is from Reâ—â—l 20.4 Answer Our new Chiliasts are inventors of a new heaven and of a new hâ—ll Their second reason from Daniel 12. We Answer Their third argument Answer Their fourth place Answer Their fifth place Answer Their sixth place Answer Their seventh place Answer Their eight place Answer The ninth place Answer Their tenth place Answer Their eleventh place Answer The twelfth place Answer Their last place Answer
Tenet wherein they will be constant ibid. The chiefe Tenets which hitherto they have given out and not yet recalled p. 102 They reject the name of Independents unreasonably and for their owne disadvantage ibid. When it is laid aside the more infamous name of Brownists and Separatists will inevitably fall upon them ibid. They avow a Semi-Separation but a Sesqui-Separation will bee proven upon them p. 103 The Independents doe separate from all the reformed Churches upon far worse grounds then the Brownists were wont to separate of old ibid. Their acknowledgement of the reformed for true Churches doth not diminish but increase their Schisme ibid. They refuse all Church Communion and Membership in all the reformed Churches ibid. They preach and pray in them as they would doe among Pagans only as gifted men to gather materials for their new Churches p. 104. About the matter of the Church and qualification of Members they are large as strict as the Brownists admitting none but who convinces the whole Congregation of their reall regeneration p. 105 Beside true grace they require in the person to be admitted a sutablenesse of Spirit with every other Member p. 106 But in this they are laxer then the Brownists that they can take in without scruple Anabaptists Antinomians and others who both in life and Doctrine have evident blots if so they be zealous and serviceable for their way ibid. About the forme of the Church a Church-Covenant they are more punctuall then the Brownists ibid. They take the power of gathering and erecting of Churches both from Magistrates and Ministers placing it onely in the hands of a few private Christians who are willing to make among themselves a Church-Covenant p. 107 This power of erecting themselves into a compleat and perfit Church they give to any seven persons yea to any three neither admitt they more into a Church then can altogether in one place commodiously administer the Sacraments and Discipline ibid. The Independents will have all the standing Churches in England except them of the Sectaries dissolved and all their Ministers to become meerely private men and any three persons of their way to be a full Church p. 108 Vnto this Church of seven persons they give all and the whole Church power and that independently ibid. Vnto this Congregationall Church alone they give the full power of Election and Ordination of Deposition and Excommunication even of all their Officers and of the finall determination of all Ecclesiasticall causes p. 109 The difference of Iohnson and Ainsworth about the power of the people and Presbyterie distinct one from the other is not yet composed among the Independents ibid. The common Doctrine of New-England is Ainsworths Tenet that the people alone have all the power and may excommunicate when there is cause all their Officers ibid. Mr. Cotton the other yeare did fall much from them and himselfe towards Iohnson teaching that the whole power of Authority is onely in the Officers and the people have nothing but the power of Liberty to concurre That the Officers can doe nothing without the people nor the people any thing but by the Officers p. 110 Yet that both Officers and people or any of them have power to separate themselves from all the rest when they finde cause ibid. The London Independants give more power of Ecclesiasticall Iurisdiction then the Brownists unto woemen p. 111 Some of them permit private men to celebrate the Sacraments ibid Brownists and Independents doe perfectly agree iâ— the point of Independency ibid If a corrupt or negligent Congregation doe not censure theâ— owne Members all the Assemblies in the world may not attempt to censure any of them though most apparently they did corrupt a whole Nation with the grosseth Heresies or most scandalous vices p. 112 The point of Independency is either the root or the fruit of many Errours ibid. To temper the crudity thereof they adde to it three moderating Positions but for little purpose ibid. They grant the being of Synods but not of Classicall Presbyteries p. 113 Their Synods are meerely Brownisticall without all Iurisdiction wherein every one of the people may voyce also they are meerely Elective and only occasionall ibid. The Sentence of non-Communion is Mr. Cottons invention to supply that defect which themselves make in the Ordinances of God ibid. It puts in the hand of every man a power to sentence all the Churches of the World p. 114 It carries to the highest degree of Separation ibid. Their supply of the defects of Independency by the power of the Magistrate was a remedy which they learned from the Brownists but now they have cast it aside denying to the Magistrate all power in matterâ— of Religion p. 115 The Independents doe advance their fancies to as high a pitch of glory as the Brownists ibid. They are the Brownists Schollers in many more things beside the constitution and government of the Church ibid. They give to the Magistrate the celebration of Marriage ibid. Mr. Milton permits any man to put away his wife upon his meere pleasure without any fault and without the cognisance of any Iudge p. 116 Mr Gorting teaches the wife to put away her Husband if he will not follow her in any new Church-way which she is pleased to embrace ibid. They are against all determinations of the circumstances of Worship and therefore all Church Directories are against their stomacks ibid. The common names of the dayes of the week of the Months of the yeare of the yeare of God of many Churches and Cities of the Land are as unlawfull to them as to the Brownists ibid. All Tythes and set-mayntenance of Ministers they cry downe but a voluntary contribution for the maintenance of all their Officers they presse to a high proportion with the evident prejudice of the poore p. 117 In their solemne Worship oft times they make one to pray another to preach a third to Prophesie a fourth to direct the Psalme and another to blesse the people ibid. They make it a divine Institution without any word of preface to begin the publick Worship with solemn prayer for the King and Church p. 118 After the Pastors Prayer the Doctor reads and expounds ibid. In preaching they will be free to take a Text or not as they find it expedient ibid. After the Sermon any of the people whom they thinke able are permitted to prophesie ibid. All are permitted to propound in the face of the Congregation what questions upon the Sermon they thinke meet ibid. About the Psalmes they have divers strange conceits but the speciall is their new Ordinance of a singing Prophet who is place of the Psalmes singeth Hymmes of his owne making in the midst of the silent Congregation ibid. They grant the lawfulnesse of read Prayers in diverse cases p. 119 They will have none to be baptised but the children of their owne Members so at one dash they put all England except a very few of their way into the
state of Pagans turning them all out of the Christian Church denying to them Sacraments Discipline Church-Officers and all that they would deny to the Pagans of America ibid. They open a doore to Anabaptisme by three farther Positions First they require in all to be baptised a reall holinesse above a foederall which in no Infant with any certainty can be found ibid. Secondly they esteeme none for their Baptisme and Christian education a Member of their Church till they have entred themselves in their Church Covenant p. 120 Thirdly they call none of their Members to any accompt before their Presbytery for obstinate rejecting of Paedo-baptisme although the Brownists doe excommunicate for that sinne ibid. They participate with none of the reformed Churches in the Lords Supper yet they scruple not to communicate with Brownists and Anabaptists ibid. Their way of celebrating the Lords Supper is more dead and comfortlesse then anywhere else p. 121 They have no catechising no preparation nor thanks-giving-Sermons ordinarily they speake no word of the Sacrament in their Sermons and prayers either before or after ibid. They have onely a little discourse and short prayer in the consecration of both the Elements thereafter in the action nothing but dumb silence no exhortation no reading no Psalme ibid. They require none of their Members to come out of their Pewes to the Table and they acknowledge no more use of a Table then the Brownists at Amsterdam which have none at all ibid. They teach the expediency of covering the head at the Lords Table p. 122 They are as much for the popular Government as the Brownists ibid. All Discipline must be executed in the presence and with the consent of the whole people and all must passe by the expresse suffrage of every one p. 123 Dissenters not onely loose their right of Suffrage for the time but are subjected to censure if they continue in their dissent ibid. They are much for private meetings for it is in them that they usually frame the Members of other mens Congregations into their new mould but the Brownists and they of New-England having felt the bitter fruits of such meetings have relinquished if not discarged them ibid. They flatter the Magistrate and slander the reformed Churches without cause p. 124 Some of them are for the abolishing of all Magistracy ibid. All of them are for the casting out and keeping out of the Christian Church all Princes all Members of Parliament all Magistrates of the Counties and Burrowes that now are and that ever have been and are ever like to be hereafter except a very few p. 125 These few Magistrates which they would admit have no security but by the errour or malice of a few to be quickly cast out of the Church without any possibility of remedy ibid. When they have put all who are not of their mind out of the places of Magistracy yea out of all Civill Courts the greatest Magistrates they admitt of be they Kings or Parliaments they subject them all to the free will of the promiscuous multitude ibid. When Magistrates will not follow their new errours they have been very ready to make Insurrections to the great hazard of the whole State p. 126 Many of them deny to the Magistrate any power at all in the matters of Religion ibid. Their principles doe spoile Princes and Parliaments of their whole Legislative power they abolish all humane Lawes that are made and hinder any more to be made p. 127 The Civill Lawes which Mr Cotton permits men to make binde no man any further then his owne mind is led by the reason of the Law to Obedience p. 128 They put the yoke of the Iudiciall Law of Moses on the neck of the Magistrate ibid. They give to their Ministers a power to sit in Civill Courts and to voyce in the election of the Magistrates and to draw from Scripture civill Lawes for the Government of the State ibid. They offer to perswade the Magistrate contradictory Principles according to their owne interest in New-England they perswade the Magistrate to kill Idolaters and Hereticks even whole Cities men women and children p. 129 But here they deny the Magistrate all power to lay the lost restraint upon the grossest Idolaters Apostates blasphemers Seducers or the greatest Enemies of Religion ibid. No great appearance of their respect to secular Learning and Scholes ibid. Independency much more dangerous then Brownisme ibid. Chap. 7. It is unjust scrupulosity to require satisfaction of the true grace of every Church Member The Independents prime Principles p. 154 It s unjust scrupulosity to require satisfactorie assurance of the true grace of every Church-Member p. 154 Their Tenet about the qualification of Members is the great cause of their separating from all the reformed Churches though they doe dissemble it p. 155 In this they goe beyond the Brownists p. 156 The true state of the question is whether it be necessary to separate from a Church wherein we get no satisfaction of the true grace of every Member at their first admission ibid. For the negative we reason first from the practice of Moses and the Prophets who did never offer to separate for any such reason p. 157 The causes of a just separation were smaller under the Law nor under the Gospell ibid. Our second reason is from the example of Christ and his Apostles who did not separate for any such causes p. 158 The third reason It is impossible to finde true grace in every member of any visible Church that ever was or shall be in the world p. 159 The fourth This satisfaction in the true grace of all to be admitted is builded on foure errours p. 160 The fifth Argument Their Tenet is followed with diverse absurdities p. 161 Cottons reasons to the contrary answered p. 163 The first reason put in forme ibid. All the parts of it are vitious ibid His second Argument p. 168 His third Argument p. 169 His fourth Argument p. 170 His fifth p. 171 His sixth p. 172 His seventh ibid. His eigth p. 173 His ninth all his nine or twelve Reasons put in one will be too weak to beare up the weight of his most heavy conclusion Chap. 8. Concerning the right of Prophesying The state of the Question 174 The first Authors of this Question ib. The Independents difference among themselves hereabout ib. That none but Ministers may ordinarily prophesye we prove it first by Christs joyning together the power of Baptisme and the power of preaching 175 Secondly These that preach must be sent to that worke ib. Thirdly every ordinary Preacher labours in the word and Doctrine 176 Fourthly none out of Office have the gift of preaching for all that have that gift are either Apostles Evangelists Prophets Pastors or Doctors and all these are Officers ib. Fifthly no man out of Office might sacrifice ib. Sixthly all who have from God the gift of preaching are obliged to lay aside all other occupations and attend that work
alone 177 Seventhly the Apostles appointed none to preach but â—ders ibid. Eigthly the preaching of men out of office is a meanes of confusion and errour ibid. The contrary arguments which Mr Cotton in his Catechism and Answer to the 32 Questions borrowes from Robinson answered 178 Chap. 9. Whether the power of Ecclesiastick Iurisdiction belongs to the people or to the Presbytery What is meant by Ecclesiastick Iurisdiction 181 The state of the Question ibid. For the Negative that the people have no power of Iurisdiction we reason First The Officers alone are Governours and the people are to be governed p. 183 Secondly the people have not the Keyes of heaven to binde and loose p. 184 Thirdly the people are not the eyes and eares in Christs body for so all the body should be eyes and eares ibid. Fourthly the people have not any promise of gifts sufficient for government ibid. Fifthly the popular government brings in confusion making the feet above the head p. 185 Sixthly the people have not the power of Ordination p. 186 Seventhly this power in the people would disable them in their Callings p. 187 Eigthly this power of the people would bring in Morellius Democracy and Anarchy in the Church ibid. Ninthly this power of the people will draw upon them the power of the Word and Sacraments p. 188 Mr Cottons ten contrary arguments answered p. 189 Chap. 10. Independency is contrary to Gods Word God is the Authour of the union and dependency of particular Churches p. 196 Separation and Independency were the Anabaptists inventions ibid. From them Morellius and Grotius learned the Tenet p. 197 The state of the Question cleared ibid. That single Congregations are not independent is proved First from 1 Tim. 4.14 p. 199 The second argument from the Apostolick Churches which exercised full Iurisdiction the chiefe whereof if not all were Presbyteriall and not Parochiall p. 202 Our third argument from the subordination of the Church of Antioch to the Synod at Ierusalem Acts 15. p. 205 Our fourth argument from the subordination of fewer to more appointed by Christ Matth. 8. p. 209 Our fifth argument from the evill consequents which reason and experience demonstrate to follow Independency necessarily and naturally p. 212 Our last argument Independency is contrary to all the Discipline that ever was knowne in Christendome before the Anabaptists p. 215 The first objection or argument for Independency from Matth. 18. p. 216 The second objection is taken from the practise of the Corinthians excommunicating the incestuous man p. 218 The third objection from the example of the seven Churches of Asia p. 220 Their fourth objection from the practise of the Churchâ—s Thessalonica and Colosse ibid. The fifth sixth seventh and eigth objection p. 223 Chap. 11. The thousand yeares of Christ his visible Raigne upon Earth is against Scripture The Originall and progresse of Chiliasme ibid. The mind of the Indepâ—ndent Chiliasts ibid. Our first reason against the Chiliasts is that Christ from his Ascention to the last Iudgement abides in Heaven p. 225 Our second reason is built on Christs sitting at the right hand of God till the day of Iudgement p. 227 Our third reason is grounded on the Resurrection of the dead the Godly and ungodly doe all rise together at the last day p. 228 Our fourth reason is builded on Christs Kingdome which is spirituall and not earthly p. 229 Our fifth reason is taken from the nature of the Church p. 230 A sixth reason from the secrecy of the time of Christs comming p. 231 A seventh reason from the Heavenly and eternall reward of the Martyrs p. 232 An eigth reason the restoration of an Earthly Ierusalem brings backe the abolished figures of the Law p. 233 A ninth Antichrist is not abolisht till the day of Iudgement ibid. The Chiliasts first reason is from Revel 20. 4. p. 234 Our new Chiâ—iasts are Inventors of a new Heaven and of a new Hell p. 236 Twelve other reasons of the Chiliasts answered p. 237 The PREFACE WHile the fire of War continues to scorch every one of these miserable Dominions it is the duty of all compassionate Countrey-men to contribute the uttermost of their best endeavours for the extinguishing of these unhappie Flames before the remainder of all our Churches and States be burnt down to ashes Too much Oil already hath dropped from many unhallowed Pens the times now do passionately call for Waters and them the more cold and clear the better for quenching the thirst of this devouring Beast Vinegar and Gall though in the largest measures whole rivers of Blood will not allay but augment the heat of a Civil War The most hopeful Peace-makers from whose intermedling the greatest successe is to be expected are they whose vessels are filled most plentifully with tears to be poured out before the Throne of God The fire which this day prevails against us which burns up not the flesh onely but the very bones of our Kingdoms is from above it is the Lord who burns against Iacob like a flaming fire which devours round about When the scorching heat of the Sun dries up the moisture from the grasse and corn there is no remedy for the languishing fields till the vapours ascend from below and thicken in a cloud then incontinent the burning beams are intercepted the showres descend from above to refresh and renew the withered face of the parched ground The most seasonable exercise of al who love the peace of Ierusalem is to fill the air with the exhalations of their Spirits with the perfumes arising from the kindled Incense of their Prayers much of these holy vapours will hardly make up one cloud wherefore many hearts would daily be breathing up together some store of that heavenly smoke However for a time all our endeavours may seem to be quite evanished and when we have gone out to behold much ofter then seven times there may appear to our eye not so much as the smallest beginning of the least cloud yet when the period of Gods appointed season is come when the three yeers and six moneths are past over and gone there will certainly arise a cloud which however at first very small and no broader then a hand yet will quickly become so big as to fill the heavens with voices and send down to the wearied earth such plenty of rain as could be wished But to the end the waters of our Prayers may be the more acceptable in the sight of our Prince of Peace who alone dispenses at his pleasure to persons and Nations that very desirable and much longed-for blessing of quietnesse we must cleanse our hands of those crimes which have drawn down from the Throne of Justice that plague of War which so much this day doth vex and well-neer undo us If once our ways did please the Lord he would quickly make our enemies to be at peace with us If Israel did walk in his ways their enemies should soon
crown'd with some shameful conclusion When the infamous practices of Master Smith are objected to his party they have no leaf of excuse wherwith to cover them H The other supporter of languishing Brownisme in its dying dayes was Master Robinson the most learned polished and modest spirit that ever that Sect enjoyed it had been truely a marvel if such a man had gone on to the end a rigid Separatist This man having gone over from England to Leyden with a separate Congregation did write for a time very handsome Apologies and justifications of that evil way but Doctor Ames and Master Parker compassionating the man and pitying that so excellent parts should be so ill employed laboured him so by Conferences and Letters that there was great appearance if his days had continued he might have proved a happie instrument for the extinguishing and total abolition of that Schism but God in his wisedom intending some farther use of that great evil was pleased to take him away in the beginning of his good Work He came back indeed the one half of the way he ruined the rigid Separation and was the Author of a Semi-separatism printing in his later times against his former Books the lawfulnesse of communicating with the Church of England in the Word and Prayer albeit not in the Sacraments and Discipline This was a fair Bridge at least a fair Arch of a Bridge for union but the man being removed by death before he could perfect what he had begun his new Doctrine though it was destructive to his old Sect yet it became an occasion of a new one not very good It was the womb and seed of that lamentable Independency which in Old and New-England hath been the fountain of many evils already though no more should ensue as anon shall be declared Onely here we observe that the last two best-gifted Leaders of the Brownists have been the reall Overthrowers of that Way for ever since the time of their conduct these of England whose humour carried them out of the bosome of their Mother-Church have turned either to Smiths Anabaptism or to Robinsons Semi-separating Independency These kindes are multiplied exceedingly but for the old Brownists their number either at London or Amsterdam is but very small and their way is become contemptible not onely to all the rest of the world but to their own children also even they begin to heap coles of contumelies upon their parents heads as may be seen in the Elogies which both Master Cotton I and the five Apologists are pleased to give them in Print K Yea so much are these children ashamed of their fathers that they usually take it for a contumely to be called after their name No Independent will take it well at any mans hand to be called a Brownist either in whole or in the smallest part The Testimonies A Robinsons Justification p. 50. It is true that Bolton was though not the first in this way an Elder of a separate Church in the beginning of Queen Elizabeths days and falling away from his holy profession recanted the same at Pauls Crosse and afterwards hanged himself as Judas did B Giffard against the Donatists about the beginning Whosoever shall read Brown his Books and peruse all his Scholars writings shall see that they have no sharp arrow but which is drawn out of his Quiver C Robinsons Justif p. 50. Now touching Brown it is true as he forsook the Lord so the Lord forsook him else he had never so returned back into Egypt as he did And for the wicked things which Master B. affirmeth he did in this way it may well be as he saith and the more wicked things he committed in this course the lesse like he was to continue long in it D Johnsons Enquiry p. 63. About Thirteen yeers since this Church through persecution in England was driven to come into these Countreys A while after divers of them fell into the Heresies of the Anabaptists and so persisting were excommunicated by the rest Then a while after many others yea too many though not the half fell into a Schism from the rest and so many as continued therein were cast out Also Robinsons Justification p. 51. True it is that George Johnson together with his father taking his part were excommunicated by the Church for contention arising at the first upon no great occasion whereupon many bitter and reproachfull terms were uttered both in word and writing It is to us a just cause of Humiliation all the days of our lives that we have given and do give by our differences such advantages E Smiths Differences p. 4. The reading out of a Book is no part of Spiritual Worship but the invention of the Man of Sin Books and Writings are in the nature of Pictures or Images and therefore in the nature of Ceremonies and so by consequent the reading of a Book is Ceremonial The holy Scriptures are not to be retained as helps before the eyes in the time of Spiritual Worship It is unlawful to have the Book before the eyes in singing of Psalms The Presbytery of the Church is uniform the treeformed Presbytery consisting of three kindes Pastors Teachers and Elders is not Gods Ordinance but Antichristian and the image of the Beast F Bernards plain Evidences p. 19. Smith in his Epistle before his Differences because he is found so unconstant to wipe away the shame thereof and to cut off offence for afterward he without shame professeth to be unconstant and desireth that ever his last writing should be taken as his present judgement G Ibid. He hath founded a new Church he hath if ye will believe him recovered the true Baptism and the true matter and form of a true Church which now onely is to be found pure among a company of Sebaptists Master Smith will hold ever this word Se to himself for going into Brownism he was a Separatist he held differing opinions from them and now that he is in Anabaptism he is a Sebaptist he wholly goeth not with that heretical Sect. H Robinsons Justif p. 53. Master Smith his instability and wantonnesse of wit is his sin and our crosse I Vide caput tertium O. K Ibidem CHAP. II. The Doctrine of the BROWNISTS THe peculiar Tenents of the Brownists wherein they differ from other Protestants are many Those that occur to my minde from some slight and cursory reading of some of their Books shall briefly and plainly be set down but with this premonition That every thing mentioned be not taken for an Article of Brownism for it is needful at some times to interlace Tenents which are common to them with others for the clearing of those which they have peculiar Their differences run most upon the Constitution and Government of the Church They have also divers Singularities about the Circumstances and Parts of the Service of God also concerning the Magistrate and Schools and divers other things Without affectation or curious search of Method we
God even as a dead dog Truely I am ashamed to write of so grosse and filthy abominations so generally received even of all States of these parts of the world who of a Popish Custom and Tradition have received it one of another without any warrant from the Word Ibid. p. 75. Other more smoothe hypocrites yet as grosse idolaters use the Lords Prayer as a close of their own M Canns Necessity of Separation p. 66. It is all one whether turning on the left hand we embrace the Idolatry of Bishops or turning on the other hand we follow the new devices of mens foolish brains for utter destruction certainly follows both N Robinsons Apologie p. 89. Quae nos ad Separationem solicitant ipsam Ecclesiae materialem formalem constitutionem ejusdemque politeiae administrationem essentialem spectant O Johns Enquiry p. 25. Seeing by the mercy of God we have seen and forsaken the corruptions which remain in the French and Dutch Churches we cannot partake with them in such case without apostacie from the Truth P Johns Plea p. 231. Every particular Church with their Pastors stand immediately under Christ the Arch-Pastor without any other strange Ecclesiastical power intervening whether it be of Prelates or other unlawful usurping Synods or of any such like invented by man and brought into the Church Barrows Dis p. 261. If we would but lightly examine these secret Classes these ordinary set Synods which the Reformists would openly set up they shall no doubt be found as new strange Antichristian and prejudicial to the Rights of the Church as contrary to the Gospel of Christ as the other what shew soever of former antiquity or present necessity they can pretend Idem Refut of Giffâ—rd p. 137. These are the antient Sects of the Pharisees and Sadduces the one in precisenesse outward shew of holinesse hypocrisie vain-glory and covetousnesse resembling or rather exceeding the Pharisees the other in their whole Religion and dissolute conversation like to the Sadduces looking for no Resurrection Judgement or life to come the one removing from place to place for their advantage and best entertainment in the errour of Ba'aam for wages seduce and distract the people of the Lord from their own Churches and Pastors Sions Royal Prerogative in the Preface Whereas the Papists place the power of Christ given to the Church in the Pope the Protestants in the Bishops the Reformed Churches as they are called in the Presbytery Neither of them hath right in this thing but contrarywise Christ hath given the said power of his to all his Saints and placed it in the Body of every particular Congregation Q 1. Robinsons Apol. p 83. Personas Episcoporum vel autoritatem qua potiuntur civilem in rebus vel civilibus vel etiam Ecclesiasticis non aversamur Q 2. Vide supra F. R 1. Bar. Dis p. 33. Such like detestable stuff hath Master Calvin in his ignorance brought to defend his own rash and disorderly proceedings at Geneva whiles he at the first dash made no scruple to receive the whole State into the bosome of the Church yea that which is worse and more to be lamented it became a miserable precedent and pernicious example to all Europe to fall in the like transgression as in the confused estate of all those Regions where the Gospel is thus orderly taught is more then plain R 2. Robins Apol. p. 7. Profitemur coram Deo hominibus adeo nobis convenire cum Ecclesus reformatis Belgicis in re Religionis ut omnibus singulis earundem Ecclesiarum fidei Articulis prout habentur in harmonia Confessionum fidei paratisimus subscribere Ibid. p. 11. Ecclesias reformatas pro veris genuinis habemus cum iisdem in sacris Dei Communionem profitemur quantum in nobis est colimus conciones publicas ab illarum pastoribus habitas ex nostris qui norunt Linguam Belgicam frequentant Sacram coenam earum membris si qua forte nostris coetibus intersint nobis cognita participamus Malis illarum serio ingemiscimus Apol. for the Brownists pag. 35. We are willing and ready to subscribe those Grounds of Religion published in the Confession of Faith made by the Church of Scotland hoping in the unity of the same Faith to be saved by Jesus Christ being also like minded in points of greatest moment with all other Reformed Churches and on the contrary for Anabaptists Familists and all other Heretikes new and old we utterly reject them and all their Errours and Heresies Johns plea. p. 245. I acknowledge the Reformed Churches to be the true Churches of Christ with whom I agree both in the Faith of Christ and in many things concerning the Order and Government of the Church R 3. Johns Inquiry p. 57. Having declined to divers Errors of the Dutch the Church did excommunicate him and so still he remains Ibid. p. 59. Yet it is false that we have excommunicate any for the hearing onely the Word preached among the Dutch or French for these that yet we have cast out here it hath been partly for revolting from the truth which they professed with us to the corruptions of those Churches and partly for other sins S The Confession p. 26. The state of the Dutch Church at Amsterdam is so confused that the whole Church can never come together in one they read out of a Book certain Prayers invented and imposed by man the command of Christ Matth. 18. they neither observe nor suffer to be observed rightly they worship God in the Idoll-Temples of Antichrist their Ministers have their set maintenance their Elders change yeerly they celebrate marriage in the Church they use a new censure of Suspension T Robins apol p. 81. Ecclesiae Anglicanae constitutio materialis est ex hominum flagitiosorum colluvie paucis si cum reliquis piis admistis conferantur V Canns necessity p. 167. He is to come himself into the publike Assembly all looking on him with love and joy as one that comes to be married and there he is to make publike Confession of his Faith to answer divers questions being found worthy by the consent of the whole he is to be taken into the Communion X Bar. dis p. 34. I have shewed that the known and suffered sin of any Member is contagious to all that communicate with them in that estate and maketh them which communicate in Prayers or Sacraments with such an obstinate offender as guilty in Gods sight as he himself is Y Bar. dis p. 34. I have shewed that the whole Church hath no power to dispence with the breach of the least Commandment and that such obstinate sin in the whole Church breaketh the Covenant with God and maketh it cease to be a Church or in Gods favour till it repent Z Vide supra X Y. AA Bar. dis p. 157. They make this part of Gods Word substantial that of Form this Fundamental that Accidental this necessary to Salvation that needlesse
but if the whole Word of God be holy pure and true then is this deep learning of theirs devillish and blasphemous Ibid. They thus to colour their wickednesse make some part of Gods Word Fundamental Substantial necessary other Accidental Superficial needlesse which makes some sins openly and manifestly convinced yet obstinately persisted in without any repentance in this life not to be mortal as the Papists do Barrows refut p. 24. We have learned to put difference betwixt Errour and Heresie Obstinacy joyned to Errour after it is duely convinced maketh Heresie And further we say that any Errour being obstinately holden and taught after it is duely convinced and reproved maketh an Heretike and Heresie in that party and in that Congregation that so holdeth and teacheth doth separate from the Faith and Communion of Christ Ibid. p. 27. It is his Scholastical or rather Sophistical distinction of Errours Fundamental c. They who obstinately hold any Errour or Transgression and will not by repentance be purged there from lose Christ and so hold not the Foundation BB Bar. dis p. 33. Such like detestable stuff hath Master Calvin in his ignorance partly to confute that damnable sect of Anabaptists which fantastically dream to themselves of a Church in this life without spot and for every Transgression that ariseth are ready to forsake the fellowship of the Church without due and orderly reproof CC Rob. Apol. p. 81. Formalis ecclesiae constitutio est ex fidei resipiscentiae confessione orali per adultos facta consociatio in particulares coetus DD Confession of faith p. 34. Being come forth of this Antichristian estate to the true profession of Christ beside the instructing of their own Families they are willingly to come together in Christian communion and orderly to Covenant and unite themselves in visible Congregations A light for the ignorant p. 12. This voluntary uniting is the form and being of the politick and visible Vnion and Communion EE Robins Just p. 107. This we hold and affirm that a company consisting though but of two or three gathered by a covenant made to walk in all the ways of God known unto them is a Church and so hath the whole power of Christ Ibid. p. 111. Two or three thus gathered together have the same right with two or three thousand neither the smallnesse of the number nor meanesse of the persons can prejudice their rights FF Johns plea. p. 250. The constitution of every particular Church should be such that each of them may ordinarily come together in one place for the worship of God and all other duties belonging to them by the Word of God Rob. Apol. p. 12. Statuâ—mus non debere ecclesias particulares ambitu suo plura membra complecti quam quae in unum locum simul coire possunt GG Vide supra X Y. HH Bar. dis p. 190. They suite to bring Christ in by the Arm of Flesh by suiting and supplicating to his vassals and servants If so be they can imagine them Christians that will not suffer Christ to reign over them by his Laws and Ordinances If they judge them no Christians then they suite and stay on his enemies till they will suffer Christ to reign and rule over his own Church II Confession p. 34. Beside the instruction of their Families they are willingly to come together and unite themselves in visible Congregations Then such to whom God hath given gifts to interpret the Scriptures may and ought by the appointment of the Congregation to prophecy and so to teach publikely the Word of God untill such time as God manifest men with able gifts to such Offices as Christ hath appointed for the publike Ministery of the Church but no Sacrament to be administred untill the Pastors or Teachers be chosen and ordained to their Office KK Barr. dis pag. 34. Which people thus gathered are to be esteemed an holy Church and hath power to receive into and cast out of their fellowship although they have attained to have yet among them neither a Ministery nor Sacraments providing it be not by any default in them that they be wanting Ibid. It is manifest that all the Members of the Church have alike interest in Christ in his Word in the Faith That all the affairs of the Church belong to the Body together That all the actions of the Church Prayers Sacraments Censures Faith be the action of them all joyntly and of every one severally although the Body to divers actions uses divers Members which it knows most fit for the same all the charged to watch admonish reprove and hereunto have the power of the Lord the Keyes of the Kingdom even the Word of the most High whereby to binde the Rulers in chains and their Nobles in fetters to admonish the greatest even Archippus to look to his Ministery and if need be to plead with their Mother LL Canns Necessity of Sep p. 29. None may hear or joyn in spiritual Communion with that Ministery which hath not a true Vocation and Calling by Election Approbation and Ordination of that faithful People whereto he is a Minister Ibid. p. 46. So necessary is a right election and calling to every Ecclesiastike Office that without the same it cannot possibly be true or lawful Barr. Refut p. 30. The Minister must not onely be called to a true Office but must have a lawful calling to that Office otherwise he is but an intruder a theef and a murderer Every particular Congregation ought to make choice of their own Pastors MM A Light for p. 17. In the false Church the particular Congregations have no Authority to produce or raise Officers out of themselves for the Clergy is a distinct Body and sent by their Ecclesiastical Heads and bring their Office and Authority with them NN Bar. Refut p. 19. This power of Ordination is not as the unruly Clergy of these dayes suppose derived from the Apostles and Evangelists under the permanent ministery of Pastors and Elders Ibid. p. 130. Ordination is but a publishing of that former contract and agreement betwixt the whole Church and these elected Officers the Church giving and the Elect receiving their Offices as by the Commandment of God with mutual vow to each other in all duties Canns Necessity of Separ p. 29. None may joyn with that Ministery which hath not a true calling by Election and Ordination of that faithful people to whom he is to administer OO Johns Plea p. 316. It is to be understood according to Ainsworth Robinson and Smith of men women and children in their own persons who are boâ—â—d in their own persons to be present to hear and judge controversies PP Rob. Justifi p. 9. also p. 111. QQ Light for the ignorant p. 17. These Officers have not onely their Authority from particular Congregations but do arise originally and naturally out of the same RR Vide supra KK Also Bar. Dis p. 125. The least of the Church hath as much power by the
Word of God to binde the Sin of the Pastor and upon his Repentance to pronounce comfort and peace to him as he hath to binde or loose the sins of the least SS Confess p. 23. As every Congregation hath power to elect and ordain their own Ministery so also have they power when any such default in Life Doctrine or Administration breaks out as by the rule of the Word deprives them of their Ministery by due order to depose them yea if the case so require if they remain obstinate orderly to cut them off by Excommunication Canns Necessity p. 155. If they shall sin scandalously the Congregation that chose them freely hath free power to depose them and put another in their room TT Johns Inquir p. 7. We have in our Church the use of the exercise of Prophecy spoken of 1 Cor. 14. In which some of the Brethren such as for Gifts are best able though not in Office of the Ministery deliver from some portion of Scripture Doctrine Exhortation Comfort sometimes two at a time sometimes more VV Bar. Disc p. 26. Their is no cause to doubt but any of Gods servants may censure judge and avoid that Congregation which rejecteth Gods Word breaketh Gods Law despiseth his Reproof and Mercy as a wicked Assembly and an Adulterous Church Ibid. p. 38. Who can deny but that every particular Member hath power yea and ought to examine the manner of administrating the Sacraments as also the Estate Disorder and Transgressions of the whole Church and to call them all to Repentance and if he finde them obstinate in their Sin rather to leave their Fellowship then to partake with them in wickednesse XX Vide supra MM. YY Vide supra ll ZZ Smiths Differences p. 56. It may be a question whether the Church may not administer the Sacraments before there be any Officers among them AAA Bar. Disc p. 121. I have alwayes found it the Parents office to provide marriage for their children and that the parties themselves should affiance and betroath one another in the fear of God and in the presence of such witnesses as are present and that in their Parents or other private houses without turning to the Church or to the Priest Confess pag. 45. The Dutch Church at Amsterdam celebrates marriage in the Church as if it were a part of the Ecclesiastick Administration while as it is in the nature of it meerly Civil BBB Vide supra AAA CCC Vide supra AAA DDD Johns Inqui. p. 33. These of our Members that you censure they avow that they accused themselves of adultery not for that end to be quit of their wives but being perswaded in their minde that they ought not to continue with their wives having by their adultery broken the bond of marriage Ibid. This indeed we held the most of us heretofore and some of us are so perswaded still and while we were generally so minded we thought it our duty to walk accordingly he means to excommunicate even the innocent party who was pleased to dwel with her Husband after he had sinned taking the innocent party that retained such offenders though upon repentance yet to be defiled and live in sin EEE Johns Plea p. 231. Every particular Church with the Pastor doth stand immediately under Jesus Christ the Arch-Pastor without any other strange Ecclesiastical power intervening c. Vide supra P. Also Robinsons Apol. p. 17. Non magis erat Petrus Paulus homo integer perfectus ex partibus suis essentialibus integralibus constans sine relatione ad alios homines quà m est â—oetus particularis recte institutus ordinatus tota integra perfecta ecclesia ex suis partibus constans immediate independenter quòad alias ecclesias sub solo Christo non itaque movendi sub humanae prudentiae antiquitatis unitatis aut alio ullo colore ecclesiae visibilis seu Ministerialis termini antiqui quos posuerunt Apostoli FFF Canns guide to Sion about the midst It is sure that Christ hath not subjected any Congregation of his to any superiour Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction then to that which is within it self So that if the whole Church shall erre in a matter of Faith or Religion no other Church or Church-Officer hath any warrant from the Word of God or power to censure punish or controle the same but are onely to advise them and so to leave their souls to the immediate judgement of Christ Robins Apol. p. 18. Licet imò incumbit Pastori unjus ecclesiae ut reliquis membris quod donum accepit sive spirituale sive temporale prout datur occasio id aliis ecclesiis earum membris impertiri ex charitatis vinculo quo illis adunatur non autem exequi in iis munus publicum ex authoritatis prerogativa quam in suos solos habet GGG Johns Plea pag. 251. To this end and in this manner may be had a profitable use of Synods Classes and Assemblies for mutual help and advice in cases of question controversie and difficulty about Religion so that they do not challenge or usurpe any unlawful jurisdiction or power over the particular Churches and their Governours HHH Bar. Disc p. 261. These secret Classes these ordinary set Synods which the Reformists would set up III Bar. Refut p. 81. In a Christian Synod no Christian ought to be shut out but all have equal power to speak assent or dissent without disturbing the Order of the Holy Church by presuming to speak before the Ancients or against any thing said by them without just cause who so doth is reproved of all judged of all as a disturber KKK Vide supra III. LLL Bar. Disc p. 261. In their Synods the matters being debated the greatest part prevaileth and carrieth the judgement Ibid. p. 78. This balloting by suffrage or pluralty of voices might well be a custom among the Heathen in their popular Government but it is unheard of and unsufferable in the Church of Christ MMM Ibid. p. 261. The order and manner of these Counselâ— is first to chuse a Prolocutor Moderator or Judge to govern and order the action who and when they shall speak and when cease Ibid. p. 191. Not here to speak of their solemn Order observed in these Counsels and Synods as their choice by suffrages among themselves of their Archisynagogos or Rectorchori their President as they call him NNN Vide supra FFF OOO Bar. Disc p. 38. Every Member of his Church is to pronounce upon them the judgements that are written and to throw upon them the Stone of his judgement and consent Therefore hath the Lord raised up the Thrones of David in his Church and set his Saints in seats round about his Throne A Light for the Ignorant pag. 10. The true power which Christ our King hath received of the Father and communicated to his Saints and these onely is that dominion which the Ancient of days hath given to his Saints Dan. 7.19 PPP Johns
esteem in the hearts of the people they would be sure still to father their opinions upon them and say I hold nothing but what I had from such and such a man Ibid. p. 65. She pretended she was of Master Cottons judgement in all things M Williams Examination p. 12. Some few yeers since he was upon the point to separate from the Churches there as legal Ibidem p. 33. How could I possibly be ignorant as he seems to charge me of their estate when being from first to last in Fellowship with them an Officer amongst them had private and publike agitations concerning their estate with all or most of their Ministers N Short story Preface p. 7. By this time they had to patronise them some of the Magistrates and some men eminent for Religion Parts and Wit Ibidem p. 25. Master Wheelwright had taught them that the former Governour and some of the Magistrates then were friends of Christ and Free-grace but the present were enemies The former Governour never stirred out but attended by the Serjeants with Halberts or Carrabines but the present Governour was neglected Ibid. p. 35. After that she had drawn some of eminent place and parts to her party whereof some profited so well as in a few moneths they out-went their Teacher Ibidem p. 33. Vpon the countenance which it took from some eminent persons her opinions began to hold up their heads in the Court of Justice N 2. Ibidem p. 32. It was a wonder upon what a sudden the whole Church of Boston some few excepted were become her new converts and infected with her opinions Ibid. Preface p. 7. In the Church of Boston most of these Seducers lived Ibid. p. 36. The Court laid to her charge the reproach she had cast upon the Ministery in this Countrey saying That none of them did preach the Covenant of Free-grace but Master Cotton She told them that there was a wide difference between Master Cottons Ministery and theirs and that they could not hold forth a Covenant of Free-grace because they had not the Seal of the Spirit Ibidem p. 50. All the Ministers consented to this except their Brother the Teacher of Boston Ibid. p. 52. Master Wheelwright being present spoke nothing though he well discerned that the judgement of the most of the Magistrates and near all the Ministers closed with the affirmative Ibidem p. 21. Albeit the Assembly of the Churches had confuted and condemned most of these new opinions and Master Cotton had in publike view consented with the rest yet the Leaders in these Erroneous wayes stood still to maintain their new Light Master Wheelwright also continued his preaching after his former manner and Mistresse Hutchinson her wonted meetings and exercises and much offence was still given by her and others in going out of the ordinary Assemblies When Mr. Wilson the Pastor of Boston began any exercise it was conceived by the Magistrate that the case was now desperate and it was determined to suppresse them by Civil Authority O Apologetical Narration p. 5. We had likewise the fatal miscarriages and shipwracks of the Separation whom you call Brownists as Land-marks to forewarn us of these Rocks and Shelves they run upon Cottons Letter to Williams pag. 12. I said that God had not prospered the way of Separation because he hath not blessed it either with peace among themselves or with growth of grace The Lord Jesus never delivered that way of Separation to which they bear witnesse nor any of his Apostles after him nor of his Prophets before him We do not come forth to help them against Jehovah this were not to help Jehovah but Satan against him We cannot pray in Faith for a blessing upon their Separation which we see not to be of God nor to lead to him It is little comfort to the true Servants of Christ that such inventions of men are multiplied P Answer to the thirty two Questions p. 7. Whether is the greater number these that are admitted to Church-Communion or these that are not we cannot certainly tell Q 1. Plain dealing p. 73. Here such confessions and professions are required both in private and publike both by men and women before they be admitted that three parts of the people of the Countrey remain out of the Church so that in short time most of the people will remain unbaptised Q 2. Williams of the name Heathen p. 6. Nations protesting against the Beast no Papists but Protestants may we say of them that they or any of them may be called in true Scripture sence Heathens that is the Nations or Gentiles in opposition to the people of God which is the onely Holy Nation Such a departure from the Beast in a false constitution of National Churches if the bodies of Protestant Nations remain in an unregenerate estate Christ hath said they are but as Heathens and Publicans Q 3. Plain dealing p. 21. There hath not been any sent forth by any Church to learn the Natives language or to instruct them in our Religion first because they say they have not to do with them being without except they come to hear and learn English R Williams of the name Heathen p. 10. For our New-England parts I can speak it confidently I know it to have been easie for my self long ere this to have brought many thousands of these Natives yea the whole Countrey to a far greater Antichristian conversion then ever was heard of in America I could have brought the whole Countrey to have observed one day in seven I adde to have received Baptism to have come to a stated Church meeting to have maintained Priests and Forms of Prayer and a whole form of Antichristian worship in life and death S Ibid. p. 11. Wo be to me if I call that conversion to God which is indeed the subversion of the souls of millons in Christendom from one false worship to another Williams Key unto the language of America p. 9. To which I could easily have brought the Countrey but that I was perswaded and am that Gods way is first to turn a soul from its idols both of heart worship and conversation before it is capable of worship to the true God T Short story p. 32. Many good souls were brought to waite for this immediate revelation then sprung up also that opinion of the indwelling of the person of the Holy Ghost Ibidem Preface p. 13. That their own revelations of particular events were as infallible as the Scripture V Short story Preface pag. 2. Sin in a childe of God must never trouble him Trouble in conscience for sins of Commission or for neglect of duties sheweth a man to be under a Covenant of Works X Short story Preface p. 2. A Christian is not bound to the Law as the rule of his conversation Y Ibid. p. 3. No Christian must be pressed to duties of Holinesse Z Short story Preface p. 13. Their Leaders fell into more hideous delusions as that the souls of
a do these two divided Churches are brought together it may be much doubted if their Union shall long continue Certainly it seems not to be so cordial as that of the two lately divided and now reunited Churches aâ— Amsterdam For among these of Roterdam not onely the grounds of the old division do evidently remain but also the Seeds of a new breach do appear above the ground The liberty of Prophecying which Master Simpsons now Master Simons Congregation did require is not obtained in the way they desired it for they are not permitted to Prophecy in the Congregation nor upon the Sabbath day nor in the place of publike meeting Onely in a private place on a week day where some of the Church who please do meet they have liberty to exercise their gifts On the other part what Master Bridges now Mr. Parks Church did require I mean a Presbytery for Government in the Congregation cannot be obtained For however they professe the lawfulnesse and conveniency of Ruling Elders and of a Consistory for Discipline yet it hath so faln out that for many yeers they have had none neither are like in haste to have unlesse the grumbling of Master Parks and his friends threatning a new breach do force them at last to the use of that Ordinance But that which threatneth not a Schisme alone but a total dissolution of that Congregation is the Pest of Anabaptism which begins of late much to infect them P It is true the Pastors do their best to reclaim all their members from that Errour and when they finde themselves not able to prevail give good words and assurances of a full and Brotherly Toleration for as they scruple not to give the hand of Fellowship to the Brownists of Amsterdam Q so will they not cast out any from their Church for denying of Pedobaptism if the dissenting and erring party be pleased to remain peaceably amongst them But here is the pitty when the Independents have declared their greatest readinesse to tolerate and entertain in their Churches both the rigid Separatists and the Anabaptists R yet the most of those are unwilling to stay but are peremptory to separate from the Independent Churches as more corrupt then that they with a good conscience can abide in them though never so much tolerated and cherished As for their Church at Arnhem howsoever their small intercourse with others during their abode in that remote corner and their taciturnity of their own affairs makes their proceedings to lie under a Cover yet so much of their wayes is come to light upon divers occasions as will not be very inductive and alluring of indifferent spirits to tred in their footsteps First We finde them greater admirers of themselves and proclaimers of their own excellency then is the custome of modest and wise though the best and greatest men They think it not enough to anoint their Masters and Friends of New-England with excessive praises as men who have not been matched by any of the Saints since the dayes of Abraham S but they are also bold to sound out to themselves in Print in the ears of both Houses of Parliament a commendation much above the possible merit of any so small a number of men in the whole world The Synod of Roterdam they equal to the most solemn National Assemblies of either or both Kingdoms T This exceeding great worth upon whose head must it fall but either alone or far most principally upon the Members of the Church of Arnhem For that Synod did consist of no other but the two Doctors of that Church and the two Elders thereof together with Master Bridge and the Members of his Church These last were present in that Synod as persons challenged and guilty of a grievous scandal so to them in that action but a small praise can be due Wherefore the supereminent Excellency of that meeting must fall upon the Commissioners of Arnhem the onely persons which in that meeting were void of offence and free from challenges To themselves therefore it is alone or at least above all others that they ascribe the superlative praises of that Synod In that same place they stick not to take to themselves the honour of so great sincerity as any flesh in the world not onely hath at this present but possibly can attain in any following Age V We wonder the lesse to hear them canonize their Colleague Master Archer after his death among the most precious persons who ever trod upon the earth X This self-overvaluing seems to be the ground why they cry out of their very moderate afflictions as of great calamities they ingeminate to the Parliament over and over their persecution their poverty their miserable exile Y when they who understand the case give assurance that not one of Ten of the most prosperous Ministers of the whole world in the time of their greatest Sunshine do live in more wealth ease honour and all worldly accommodations then these poor miserable exiles did enjoy all the time of that which they call their banishment Z My next observation upon that Church is that an humour of innovating at least if not a spirit of errour did much predomine among them To passe by that wantonnesse of wit which in their Books and Discourses doth much appear whereby they attribute without fear to a number of Scriptures such new and strange senses as before them were never heard of We finde them pleasing themselves in divers Doctrines which no Reformed Church doth assert for truth yea their own Brethren both of New-England and of Roterdam and of Amsterdam do reject as Errours They are not content with some few little touches of Chiliasm which yet Master Cotton tells us are but fleshly imaginations AA But they run themselves over head and ears in the deepest gulph of that old Heresie The glimpse of Sions glory Preached at a Fast in Holland by T. G. which common report without any contradiction that I have heard declares to be Thomas Goodwin averrs That Independency is a beginning or at least a neer antecedent of Christs Kingdom upon Earth BB That within five yeers Christ is to come in the flesh CC and by a Sword of Iron to kill with his own hand the most of his enemies DD and thereafter to passe over a thousand yeers EE as a worldly Monarch FF with his Saints Who shall live with him all that time in all sorts of fleshly delights GG Master Archer the onely Pastor that ever they had whose praises they sound forth so loud in their Apologetick would perswade us of the same and more grosse stories HH Master Burrows in his late Sermons upon Hosea runs in the same way II. Neither is this all the new Light that did shine forth in the Candlestick of Arnhem but there also Master Archer giveth forth for the comfort of his hearers without the reproof so far as yet we have heard of any of his Colleagues
common in their members are of easy disgestion dd Concerning the other part of the Church essence its forme their Covenant in this the Disciples go much above their Master Mr Cotton hath perfected by an expresse Treatise this part of Brownism ee as many others The Covenants of New â—ngland are much straiter then any that ever we heard of at Amsterdam It is true that of late both in Old and New England the Independents seem much to modify the rigour of their Covenant ff but whatever may be said of their profession I never could learne of their practice to admit any into their society who gave not full assurance of embracing their whole way and all their differences from the Reformed Churches Sure I am they did never admit any upon easier tearms then lately I my self did hear Mr Can admit a member into his Church at Amsterdam yet if Mr Prynnes information be well grounded they are become at London more rigid in their Covenant then ever he tells us that now it is their custome to make it a part of their Oath to oppugne the Government of the Reformed Churches and to defend Independency with armes and violence ff 2. Unto the constitution we may referre the efficient of a Church and the number of its members in both the Schollars follow punctually their Masters As for the efficient it is not only the Brownists but the Independents also who put the power of gathering Churches and joyning together by Covenant in a Church way in the hand of private Christians alone without any Officer or the authority of any Magistrate It is presumption in any Minister if he assay to make up a Church only people must associate themselves into a Church and then create their Ministers and other Officers gg In New England at the erection of a new Church they are content with the presence both of the Magistrate and Ministers of the neighbour Churches but they declare that neither is necessary and that the presence of either gives no authority to the action and the absence of both detracts no authority from it hh That the whole power to gather a Congregation and to erect a Church is alone in the covenanting persons ii As for the number of the members the Independents go as low as the Brownists avowing that seven persons make a full ministeriall and compleatly organized Church kk nor do they extend the number any farther then the Brownists avowing that no Church except the universall may have any more members then conveniently can meet and be accommodated in one place for the exercise of all holy duties ll not only preaching of the Word whereat thousands may be present but celebration of the Sacraments and administring all parts of Discipline to which acts a few hundreds cannot commodiously meet The Independents minde about the gathering and erecting of Congregations may be clearly perceived by their late practice in the Sommer Islands wherein they are applauded by the Churches of New England and defended by Master White against Master Prynnes Fresh Discovery with a great deale of confidence and high language there hee justifies the necessity of the dissolution of all the Churches in the Barmudaes which yet he professes were among the best of all the English Plantations there were above 3000 people in the Isle who had lived without all controversie with any of their Ministers from their first planting till the yeare 1641 when their Ministers perswaded by some writs of the Brethren of New England found it necessary to lay down their charges and become meere private men denying to administer to their old flocks any Ordinance till three of them entring in a Covenant and thereby becomming a new Church did perswade of the 3000 Islanders some thirty or forty at most to joyn with them in their new Church Covenant these covenanted persons did chuse one of their old Ministers for their Pastor and two others of them for Ruling Elders who as gifted men were content to joyne with the Pastor in preaching not only to the Church members but to the whole Isle to fit them to be Church members but all the three refused absolutely to celebrate any Sacrament or administer any Discipline or do any act of a Pastor to any but to the forty named only All this Mr White maintains as just and necessary and petitions the Parliament in print for their countenance and approbation whereby it seems it is the Independents avowed and cleare intention when they have power to dissolve and annull all the Churches of England yea of the world to spoile all Ministers living of their pastorall charge and all people of all Church priviledges and to erect new Churches of their own framing into which they are to admit at most not one of an hundred of those who now do count themselves Christians all this you may see at length in Mr Whites very peremptory Reply to Mr Prynnes Fresh Discovery Leaving the constitution their chiefe Tenets concerne the power of the Congregation so constitute as is said in this they come up fully to their Masters side for they give unto their Church that is their seven covenanted persons the whole Ecclesiastick power and that independently upon any person under heaven First they put it in their hands to create all the Officers they not only give them suffrages in their election mm but the whole power of Ordination also nn the examination of their Pastor in all the abilities requisite for his charge oo the laying all the parts of his Office upon him publique prayer imposition of hands and what other acts are requisite for a regular Ordination are all performed by one of the people whom the rest have appointed for that end pp As they have power to make all their Officers so they have power to unmake them to depose and excommunicate all their Ministers qq to cognosce and finally to determine without any appeal in all cases both in life and doctrine of all Heresies and Scismes of all Truths and Errours to order all things belonging to the worship of God and to do all things else rr which other Churches ascribe to the most Generall Assemblies of the most learned Divines Upon this passage of Power come in the differences which divided the Brownists among themselves whilst Iohnson would give all these acts of power to the Eldership and Ainsworth would keep them for the Congregation these same questions vex the Independents to this day and are likely to divide the Children as they did the Fathers The most of the New English Divines with Ainsworth attribute the whole Ecclesiastick power to the body of the people unto the Eldership they give the preparation of affaires ss but the judgement and determination of all doth passe by the plurality of the peoples voices tt the power of the keyes they put in the hand not of the Presbytery but of the fraternity ww as they speak And in some
places upon the peoples sense of the Presbyteries encroaching and feare of their farther usurpation they have thought it expedient to have no Eldership at all as in Amsterdam the Brownists so in Rotterdam the Independents for these many yeares have had no ruling Elders and so no Presbytery xx but have governed all their affaires by the voices of the people and why might they not as well live without ruling Elders as their Brethren at Arnem for divers yeares did live without a Pastor yy the more necessary Officer Mr Cotton and some others feeling to their small contentment the great and intolerable power of the people over the Eldership have begun to fall from Ainsworth to Iohnson and to plead the Authority of the Eldership above the Brotherhood and the necessity of their subjection by divine right to the Elders as to their Superiours zz yet to salve all and to please both parties he maketh the concurrence of the Eldership and Brotherhood to be both necessary to be both sine quo non aaa whatever Authority he gives to the Eldership he maketh it all vaine and frustaneous without the consent of the people bbb and notwithstanding all the obedience and subjection he putteth upon the people yet he giveth to them such a power of Liberty that their concurrence with the Eldership in every act of power is not only necessary but authoritative ccc He goeth yet one step further in case of the obstinate and incorrigible aberration of the Presbytery he gives power to the people albeit not to execute any act of power yet to separate from the obstinate Eldership ddd and out of their own number to make new Elders who will be willing to administer cenâ—ures and do all else that they conceive to be right For all this so farre as we can learne there is yet no full agreement among them either in New or Old England in setting the merch-stones of power betwixt the Eldership and Brotherhood many Schoole distinctions they use yet by them all they cannot come to concord The Independents here confesse their agreement with Mr Cotton in the chiefe things wherein he differs from his Brethren in New England and from his owne selfe in his late Book of the way of the Churches they applaud much his new invented distinction of the power of Authority and the power of Liberty eee Yet in other things they avow their dissent from him fff what these other things may be they yet have not had leisure to informe us I hope it be not the extent of Church power unto women and the giving of a power to celebrate Sacraments unto private men which yet are said to be the Tenets of some of their friends It is true the Synod of New England maketh not only the fraternity but as they speak the sorority also to be the subject of the private power of the Keyes of the Kingdom of heaven ggg also we have shewen how they have permitted women to be Leaders to their whole Churches and chiefe Pastors in Church actions of the highest nature we have good witnesses that a woman was the founder of Mr Simpsons Church at Rotterdam hhh that a woman and that none of the best led away Mr Cotton and with him great numbers of the best note in New England towards the vilest errours and to the brink of a new separation from all the Churches there iii Notwithstanding all this none of the Independents either in New England or Holland neither the Brownists of Amsterdam did ever give unto any women any publike Ecclesiastick power In this our London Independents exceed all their Brethren who of late begin to give unto women power of debating in the face of the Congregation and of determining Ecclesiastick causes by their suffrages if Doctor Bastwick be rightly informed kkk Concerning the power of the Sacraments Mistris Chidley is permitted to print in defence of the Independent cause without the reproofe of any of that party so farre as I have heard that not only Pastors but private men out of all office may lawfully celebrate both the Sacraments lll However in these and other things there may be great difference among them in the point of Church power yet that which is the principall point in this head of power the matter of Independency in it there is a full and perfect agreement among them all Whatever power whether of Liberty or Authority be in the Congregation organicall or homogeneous radically or habitually in the Brothehood or Eldership conjunctly or severally whatever power it be or wheresover it be all of them place it in the Congregation without any subjection to any other Superiour mmm The word of Independency some of them do much abominate and yet but some for there are of their chiefe Leaders this day who do not mislike it nnn but what ever wee speak of the word the matter which every man did understand by it is stifly maintayned by them all In nothing there is greater concord among them then that in the smallest Congregations even of seven persons the whole Ecclesiastick power doth reside absolutely without any dependence upon or subjection to any or all the creatures on earth ooo Whatever may be sayd of a charitable advice or friendly counsell or brotherly rebuke yet if you speak of any authoritative power to censure all of them avow that the offer of this from all assemblies of a nation or of the world is Antichristian Tyranny ppp and for any person in the smallest Congregation to receive or submit themselves to any such censure were to betray and cast away the liberty wherewith Christ hath made them free qqq So that it is utterly unlawfull for all the Churches of the World to inflict the least censure or to give the smallest admonition in order to any censure not only to any Congregation but to any one man therein suppose he were never so erroneous never so scandalous although he did infect and destroy not only all the soules of that Congregation but as a common pest did corrupt the Churches of a whole Nation or if it were possible of the whole World rrr This strange Tenet seemeth to be either the root or the fruit either the mother or the daughter of all the rest of their errors the mother and root because a few persons having locked themselves up within the narrow walls of one Congregation with an Independent power having made themselves uncontroulable by any or all upon earth they open a wide doore to any erroneous spirit to mislead them towards what ever fancy can enter into any cracked braine without all possibility of any effectuall remedy the daughter and fruit because men who are conscious to themselves of singularities which they feare will not be liked nor tolerated by others upon their fond love towards these errours doe affect such a liberty which may exempt them from all danger to bee ordained by any censure to
to forgive the repentant ccc The propositions 3. prop. The fraternity having authoritative concurrence with the Presbytery in Iudiciall acts ddd Keyes p. 16. Though the Church want authority to Excommunicate their Presbytery yet they want not liberty to withdraw from them eee Keyes Preface p. 5. When we first read this of this learned Author knowing what hath been the more generall current both of the practice and judgement of our brethren for the Congregationall way wee confesse we were filled with wonderment at that Divine hand that had thus led the judgements without the least mutuall interchange or intimation of thoughts or notions in these particticular of our brethren there and our selves here fff Ibid. Onely wee crave leave of the reverend Author to declare that wee assent not to all expressions c. Vide supra ggg Tabula Potestas charitativa merè est primo fratâ—um Presbyterorum charitativè non politicè ambulantium secundo sororum hhh Vide supra Chap. 4. F iii Vide supra Chap. 3. M kkk Bastwicks Independency p. 99. The fifth Quaere is whether the women and people as well as the Ministers have the Keyes and whether the women have all their votes in the Church both for election and reprobation of Members and Officers as well as the men and whether the consent of all the women and the greatest part of them be requisite for the making of any one a member or officer so that if they gain-say it being the greater number or allow of it the most voyces carry the businesse the practice of this the brethren in some of their Congregations hold for Orthodox Mr Prynnes Fresh Discovery in his Dedicatory Epistle to the Parliament p. 5. And to interest the femall Sex and draw them to their party they allow them not only decisive votes but liberty of preaching prophesying speaking in their Congregatitions lll Keyes p. 6. We be farre from allowing that sacrilegious usurpation of the Ministers Office which we heare of to our griefe to be practised in some places that private Christians ordinarily take upon them to preach the Gospel publikely and to Minister the Sacraments Katharine Chidleys Iustification of the Independent Churches p. 28. Yet that the Church must want the Word preached or the Sacraments administred till they have Pastors and Teachers in Office is yet to be proved but that which hath been alledged is sufficient to prove that the family must not be unprovided for either for the absence or the negligence of a Steward mmm Keyes p. 53. A particular Congregation being the first subject of the Church power is unavoidably Independent upon any other Church or body for the exercise thereof for the first subject of any accident or adjunct is Independent upon any other either for the enjoying or for the imploying the having or using of the same nnn Vide supra mmm ooo Answer to the 32 Questions p. 36. For Dependency upon men or other Churches or other Subordination unto them in regard of Church-Government or power we know not of any such appointed by Christ in his Word ppp Welds Answer to Rathband 14. chap. Our Churches are tender to perswade men to act without light much more to command or to compell both which very words though the thing required were lawfull are odious in the Churches of Christ most fitly becomming the Synagogues of Anti-christ qqq Vide Cottons Keyes p. 8. infra zzz rrr Cottons Catechisme p. 13. All the Churches thereabout may meet together and by the Word of God may confute and condemn such errours in doctrine or practice as are offensive to prevent the spreading either of the gangrene of heresie or of the leprosie of sin and if the Church offending shall not yet hearken unto their brethren though the rest of the Churches have not power to deliver them to Satan yet they have power to draw from them the right hand of Fellowship Vide infra sss sss Keyes p. 57. In the Election and Ordination of Officers and censure of offenders let it suffice the Churches consociate to assist one another with their counsel but let them not put forth the power of their Community to take such Church Censures out of their hands let Synods have their just authority in all Churches how pure so ever in determining such diataxeis as are requisite for the edification of all Churches Keyes Preface p. 4. Hee acknowledgeth that Synods or Classes are an Ordinance of Christ unto whom Christ hath committed a due and just measure of power furnishing them not onely with ability to give counsell but also a Ministeriall power and Authority to determine declare and enjoyne such things as may tend to the reducing of Congregations to right order and peace but not arming them with power of Excommunicating either Congregations or their members they are to leave the former act of this censure to that Authority which can only execute it placed by Christ in these Churches themselves which if they deny to doe or persist in their miscarriage then the Synod may determine to withdraw communion from them ttt Ibid. www Keyes p. 50.51 The Magistates addresse themselves to the establishment of Religion and Reformation of corruptions by civill punishments upon the wilfull opposers Iosiah put to death Idolatrous Priests nor was that a peculiar duty of the Kings of Iuda for of the times of the New-Testament it is Prophesied that in some cases capitall punishment shall proceed against false prophets xxx Keyes Preface p. 4. Hee asserteth an association of Churches sending their Elders and Messengers into a Synod so hee purposely chuseth to stile these Assemblies of Elders which the Reformed Churches doe call Classes or Presbyteries yyy Cottons Catechisme p. 3. The office or work of the ruling Elders is to moderate the carriage of all matters of the Church Assembled as to propound matters to the Church and to order the season of speech and silence in the Church zzz Keyes p. 48. The pattern of Synods is set before us Acts 15. There the Apostles assembled together with the Elders and a multitude of brethren together with them the whole Synod being satisfied determine of a Iudiciall sentence and of a way to publish it by Letters and Messengers so the matter is at last judged in a Congregation of Churches in a Church of Churches for what is a Synod else but a Church of Churches ibid. p 57. All the liberties of Churches were purchased to them by the precius blood of the Lord Iesus and therefore neither may the Churches give them away nor many Churches take them out of the hands of one aaaa Keyes Preface p. 6. In all humility wee yet see not that assembly of Apostles Elders and brethren Acts 15 to have been a formall Synod bbbb 1 Ibid. 4. He aâ—knowledgeth a Synod to be an Ordinance of God in relation to the rectifying of male administrations and healing dissentions in particular Congregations and the like cases in such cases
unlawfull it is a prerogative proper to God to require obedience of the sons of men because of his Authority and Will It is an evill speech in some that in some things the will of the Law not the reason of it must be the rule of Conscience to walk by and that Princes may forbid men to seek any other reason but their authority yea when they command men frivola dura and therefore it is the duty of the Magistrate in all Lawes about indifferent things to shew the reasons not only the will to shew the expediency as well as the indifferency of things of that nature and because the judgement of expedient and inexpedient things is often difficult and diverse it is meet that such Lawes should not proceed without due consideration of the rules of expediency set downe in the Word which are these three First the rule of Piety that they may make for the glory of God 1 Cor. 10.31 Secondly the rule of charity that no scandall come thereby to any weak Brother 1 Cor. 8.13 Thirdly the rule of Charity that no man be forced to submit against his Conscience Rom. 14 14 23. nnnnnn 1 Vide supra Chap. 2. KKKKK nnnnnn 2 Cottons Modell in the Bloody Tenet p. 140. The Magistrate hath power to publish and apply such civill Lawes in a State as either are exprest in the Word of God in Moses Judicials to wit so farre as they are of generall and morall equity and so binding all Nations in all ages or else to be deducted by way of generall consequence and proportion from the Word of God nnnnnn 3 Ibid. p. 118. A strange modell of a Church and Common-wealth after the Mosaicall and Jewish patterne framed by many able learned and Godly hands which wakens Moses from his unknown grave and denies Iesus yet to have seen the earth oooooo Plaine Dealing p. 23. The Ministers give their votes in all elections of Magistrates pppppp Ibid. p. 25. The Ministers advise in making of Laws especially Ecclesiastick and are present in Courts and advise in some cases criminall and in framing of fundamentall Lawes Ibid. p. 27. A draught of a body of fundamentall Lawes according to the Iudiciall lawes of the Iewes hath been contrived by the Ministers and Magistrates and offered to the Generall Court to be established and published to the people qqqqqq Cottons third viall p. 8. In old time if a man playd the false Prophet the Lord judged him to death and so in the New Testament as in the Old he condemnes all such to death it is a Law Deut. 13. That false Prophets who did fundamentally pervert Religion should not live if high Treason against Princes on earth justly be punished by death verily this is as dishonourable to the Prince of all Princes that whole 13 of Deut. is spent about the seducing of false Prophets and he puts a threefold gradation if he be a Prophet Therfore never so seemingly holy by his place and gifts he shall surely be put to death if there be never so many that shall joyne if a whole City shall joyne together in such a course thou shalt rise against it and destroy the City and burne it with fire and leave not a stone upon a stone Ibid. p. 12. The third reason is taken from the just desert of soule-murther there is none of all these Priests or Iesuites or Hereticks but they worry and devoure the soules of Gods people and this murther of souls is justly a capitall crime as Moses said before if they thrust thee from thy God let not thine eye spare such kind of corrupters Ibid. p. 16. Are not Moses morall Lawes of perpetuall equity and therfore to be observed in all ages Is not murther of soules as damnable now as then a wonder that such fâ—ivolous interpretations should come in the hearts of men to hinder the free passage of the Justice of God on such notorious offenders Cottons third viall p. 8. on the 22 of Joshua when the two Tribes and an half set up an Altar by Iordan although they thought not to bring in an other object of worship but another manner of worship yet the other Tribes would have cut them off if they had found another Altar for worship he is the same God and hâ—s zeale is as deeply provoked against the like kinde of vitiousnesse now as ever he was then Ibid. p. 17. A soule that sinneth of ignorance may be pardoned but if he shall continue obstinate were it a City or a Tribe they shall not suffer such in a Countrey but you will say that the tares and wheat may grow together grant but it is not said that briers and thornes should grow up with them Ibid. p. 19. You see the first use is to justifie the equity of such capitall punishments upon Priests and Iesuites and consequently on such who bring in other Gods or another way of worshiping the true God then that wherein we may enjoy fellowship with the true God Cottons third Viall p. 19.20 For a second use it may serve to reprove the carnall and sinfull foolish pity that is found in any estate that shall bee sparing to spill such blood of the Priests and Iesuites the Lord loatheth this kind of lenity and indulgency cursed is he that doth the work of the Lord negligently and cursed is he that keepeth back his sword from blood when the Lord calls us to sheath the sword of Authority on such kinde of Delinquents a State shall be separate from God for these tolerations rrrrrr Vide supra Chap. 6. s ssssss Goodwins Theomachy also Chap. 5 G H and Chap. 6. kkkkkk 2 also Chap. 6. bbbb hhhh CHAP. VII It is unjust scrupulosity to require satisfaction of the true grace of every Church-Member HAving set down the Proceedings and Tenets of the Brownists and Independents so farre as my slender reading of some of their writings and observation of their wayes have brought to my memory at this time Before I leave them it will not bee unfit to examine the truth of their chiefe principles whereby they have disturb'd the Church and will continue so to doe untill they have changed their minde For shortnesse I will pitch but upon foure grounds which the Independents have learned in the Brownists schoole The first concerning the members of a Congregation The next three concerning their power We will first consider whither the members of every particular Church bee obliged at their first admission to shew to the whole Congregation convincing signs of their Regeneration and true grace Secondly whether the people of a Congregation have a power of voycing in every Ecclesiastick affaire Thirdly whether the power of the Congregation be absolute and Independent Fourthly whither every man who hath a gift though not an office hath power to preach and prophesie publickly The first question is of the grearest importance The Independents would gladly dissemble their minde therein to this day they have declined all
solemn debate upon it they speak as if they were either fully or very neere accorded with us professing their utter dislike of the Brownists unreasonablenesse herein but I professe this hath alwayes seemed to me their capitall and fundamentall difference the only cause of their separation from us and wherein if wee could either agree or accommodate there would be a faire possibility of accord in all things else at least so farre as to be united in one and the same Church but this difference is the great partition wall which so long as it stands will force them to continue their intolerable practice of separating from all the Reformed Churches in the world and that for fewer and more unjust causes then any who ever did carry the name of a Separatist to this day did pretend This seemes to bee the reason why both Apollonius and Spanheim very excellent Divines have begun their dispute with this question For the stating of the controversie consider how it stands betwixt us and the Independents at this time the Brownists for their separation were wont to alledge the impurity of our worship the corruption of our Government the open prophanesse of the most in our Congregations By the mercy of God the first is fully Reformed at least so farre according to the minde of our brethren that they have entred no dissenting vote to any one passage of the Directory for worship The Government also is so farre cleared in the Assemblie that they have entered their dissent from no part of it except that alone which concerns the Iurisdiction of Presbyteries and Synods and their dissent herein might and still may well be so carried as not to occasion any breach But the third is the great cause of division wherein they much out-runne the Brownists for they did never offer to separate upon this ground alone and the matter whereupon here they stumbled was only open profanenesse and that incorrigible either through want of power or want of care to remedy it If the profanenesse was not open and visible or if the Church had her full power to execute discipline and according to her power made conscience really to censure scandalls These things as I conceive would have abundantly satisfied the Brownists and cured their separation But the Independents now doe draw them up much higher then they were wont to stand They teach them to stumble not only at open profanenesse but at the want of true grace yea at the want of convincing signes of Regeneration They teach them to require not only a power and care in the Church to censure such profanenesse but also a power in every member of the Church to keep out all others with whom they are not satisfied in the truth of their grace So the question is not as usually it is made of the quality of the members of the Church but of the necessity to separate from that Church wherein we are not satisfied by convincing signs of the true faith and grace of every member at their first admission Wee grant it is earnestly to be wished and all lawfull meanes would diligently bee used both by Pastors and people to have all the members of a Church most holy and gratious and what ever lawfull overture our Brethren can invent for this end we with all our heart will embrace it or else be content to beare much blame We grant also that it is the duty of Church-Governours to keep off every scandalous person from profaning to their own damnation the holy things of the Lord and that it is the duty of these Governours not only to suspend from the holy Table all scandalous persons but farther to cast all such out of the Church without respect of persons in the case of obstinacy when by no meanes they can bee brought to satisfactory repentance we grant also that Church-Governours deficient in these duties ought themselves to be disciplined by the rod of Church-Censures these things were never controverted But the question is whether because of the admission of some to Church-membership who have not given satisfaction to every member of the Church in the point of their reall Regeneration a Church may lawfully be separated from as vitiously constitute for that essentiall defect in its very matter Our Brethrens constant and resolute practice albeit gilded over with many faire words maketh this to be the cleare state of the question against which I reason thus First What to Moses and the Prophets was not a sufficient cause of separation from the Churches of their time is not a sufficent cause for us to separate from the Churches in our times But want of satisfaction by convincing signes of the true grace of many members of the Church was not a sufficient cause for Moses and the Prophets to separate in their times Ergo The minor is cleare and uncontroverted for Moses and the Prophets were so farre from separating from the Churches of their dayes for want of assurance of the true grace of every person in these Churches that they remained still to their dying day in the bosome of these Churches comumnicating with them in the Word Prayer Sacraments and Sacrifices though they were assured of the evident wickednesse of the most of their fellow-members Moses knew the Body of Israel to bee a crooked and perverse generation Isaiah tells the Iewes that they were another Sodom Ieremy sheweth that Israel in his dayes was uncircumcised in heart no better then Moab Ammon or Edom Micah that the godly in his time were very rare as the summer fruits as the grapes after the Vintage of this truth all the Prophets are full yet for all this none of the Prophets did ever think of a separation All the difficulty then is in the major which thus we prove The Church in the dayes of Moses and the Prophets was one and the same with the Church of our dayes The House of God the body of Christ the Elect and redeemed people the holy Nation the peculiar treasure and spouse of the Lamb The difference of the true Church in any age is at most but in accidentall circumstances and not in any essentials so what ever morall evill doth defile the Church now and is a just cause of ejection or separation that must be so at all times especially under the old Testament where all the Ceremoniall differences that are alledged betwixt the Church then and now make for the strengthning of the Argument for then the causes of separation were stricter and smaller a little Ceremoniall pollution would then have kept out of the sanctuary much more a morall uncleannesse would have made the sacrifice abominable If therefore at that time the matter in hand was no cause of separating from the Church much lesse can it be so now when God hath given a greater liberty to the Church in her majority and when Christians are not so easily infected by their neighbours sinnes as of old in the dayes
minor and conclusion are vitious First the conclusion commeth not neare the question for were it granted it concludes no more but a duty of the Church-officers and members to try and be satisfied about the state of these who are to bee received into the Church but it hath no word of an other duty which is the point in question It speaks nothing of a necessity to separate from a Church upon the neglect of the former duty this alone is the state of the present controversie which neither is expressed nor by any consequence doth follow from any thing that is expressed in this conclusion for suppose it were a duty laid by God upon every Church-Officer and member to enquire accurately after the Faith and Sanctification of all to be received among them and to expect satisfaction in their tryall yet I hope that every neglect of duty in the Church-Officers much lesse in every Church-member and least of all the want of successe of a duty truly performed will not be found a just and necessary cause for every one to separate from a Church if all this be not expersly concluded this arrow misseth the marke Secondly That which is expressed in the conclusion pitcheth only upon one particular case which the Reformed Churches neither do nor may acknowledge for it speaks only of admission of members upon their confession of sins This fits well the practice of the Brownists who suppose a necessity to dissolve the Reformed Churches that now are as vitiously constituted from their first beginning They may seeme to have reason in their gathering of new Churches to put their members to tryall before admission but the Reformed Churches who take themselves to be so farre true that they need no dissolution or new erection are not concerned in this case of admission for their members were borne in the Church and had the Covenant sealed to them in Baptisme what tryall they take of their children when they admit them to the Lords Table is no wayes for their admission to be members for this practice is a maine pillar of Anabaptisme and our brethrens engagement therein is the ground of all their sympathy and symbolising with that Sect So then the conclusion commeth short of the question and toucheth not the Reformed Churches but is builded on the pillars of rigid Separation and Anabaptisme taking that for granted which no Reformed Church may admit but upon hard termes no milder then the nullity and dissolution of all their Churches that out of the rubbish a new building may bee erected after the Separatists patterne The major also is vitious for suppose the antecedent of it were true yet there is no force therein to inferre the consequent be it so that every Church-member ought to be so holy as you will yet can this inferre the peoples power to try that holinesse which is the one halfe of the consequent Such a power in the people would make every one of them a Church-Governour which none of the Reformed Churches nor the halfe of the Separatists themselves will admit and they who doe plead for it set it upon other pillars but no man I know deduceth it from any thing in the antecedent now in hand For the rest of the consequent the Officers satisfaction in the true and sincere grace of the members at their first admission if it have any truth yet it commeth too short of reason and runnes also farre beyond the most rigid Separatists If a tryall must be made of Church-members why at their first admission alone and never after Is it not an ordinary case in all Churches and as much among the Brownists and Independents as any other that many who at first have been taken for truly regenerate have thereafter fallen to such errours in judgement and such practices in life as have given just ground to conclude the irregeneration of some and to doubt the regeneration of others Now if the uncertainty of regeneration be a just cause to hold a man out of all Churches is it not as just a cause to cast a man out of a Church when by doctrine or life this uncertainty appears which at first was covered yet none of our Brethren affirm that the uncertainty of regeneration nor the certainty of irregeneration is a just ground to cast any man out of the Church who once is come in The consequent also runs wide of the rigid Separatists for the holinesse they require is expresly externall which may stand with the internall wickednesse of hypocrites but the consequent speaks of inward sincerity contradistinguished from all outward professions The Minor is the part of the Argument which they labour to fortifie knowing the greatest weight to lie upon it We do deny it as a very dangerous errour every member of a visible Church is not in truth and sincerity a Believer and Saint This is against Scripture and all experience in every visible Church all who are called are not chosen In the field of God there are tares among the wheat in his fold goats amongst the sheep in his net bad fishes among the good in his house vessels for dishonour not for honour only In the best Churches of the Scripture we have too many bad members Iudas Ananias and Saphira Simon Magus Hymeneus and Philetus Demas and the like They dare not deny but some gracelesse hypocrites are in their best Congregations and if they should deny it the frequent out-breaking of their enormities to the eyes of the world would extort their confession The proofes they bring come not up to the Question that in the first of the Corinthians first and second sanctified in Christ and called to bee Saints if yee understand it of an outward calling alone it is not pertinent if of an inward efficacious call it is true not of every member but of some onely and is attributed to the whole Church of Corinth indefinitely because of these some who truly were elected justified and sanctified but that this was not true of all and every one of that Church is cleare by the Apostles complaint of many among them of some for Incest of others for injurious defrauding of their neighbours of some for carnall Schismes of others for prophane drunkennesse at the Lords Table it selfe of others for fundamentall errours The first of the Gal. 2 v hath nothing sounding toward the present question but the fourth verse is brought by the Brownists to something neare it that Christ had dyed for the Galatians sinnes and separated them from this present evill world if this import any true grace yet it may not bee applyed to every member of that Church for in the words following the Apostle beareth witnesse that sundry of them were removed to another Gospel that they were foolish and bewitched to rebell against the truth The relation of the Church to the persons of the Trinity that it is the body and Spouse of Christ the Temple of the holy
make the Temple a type not only of Christs body and the Church universall but of every Congregation yet by what Scripture will they make legall uncleannesse typifie the estate of irregeneration And above all how will they make the exclusion from the Temple for legall uncleanesse a type of rejection from Church-membership for irregeneration Nothing more common then legall cleanesse in a person irregenerate and legall uncleanesse in a person regenerate Legall uncleanesse did never hinder any from Church-membership under the old Testament albeit for a time it might impede their fellowship in some services but irregeneration did never hinder communion in any service It is a question whether very scandalous sins did keep men ceremonially clean from the Temple and Sacrifices but out of all doubt irregeneration alone was never a bar to keep any from the most holy and most solemn services whether of the Tabernacle or Temple There are two other arguments couched in the conclusion of the debate First from the 3 of Matth. Iohn the Baptist excluded the Scribes and Pharisees and the profane people from his Baptism Ergo the officers and body of the people should not admit irregenerate people to be members of the Church Ans The consequence is not good from Iohn the Baptist to all the officers and body of the people nor from Baptism or any Sacrament to Church-membership nor from the Scribes Pharisees and profane people to every irregenerate person what loosnesse is in such reasoning But the worst is that the antecedent is clearly against the places of Scripture alledged Iohn the Baptist did not exclude either the Scribes or the Pharisees or the common people from his baptism but received all that came both the Scribes and Pharisees and Ierusalem and all Iudea and all the region about Iordan requiring no other condition for their admission to his Sacrament then the confession of sinne and promising of new obedience acts very feasable to irregenerate people His last argument is from Acts 8. Philip admitted none to his baptism but upon profession of Faith Ergo none should be admitted members of a Church without an evidence of their regeneration For shortnesse I mark but one fault in the consequence yet a very grosse one That profession of faith is made a certain argument of true grace and sanctification Will any of our Brethren be content to admit their members upon so slender tearms as Philip or any of the Apostles did require of their new converts Will the profession that Iesus is the Christ or such a confession of faith as Simon Magus and all the people of Samaria men and women after a little labour of Philip among them could make be an evident and convincing signe of regeneration Thus we have considered all Mr Cottons arguments let any man according to his conscience pronounce what strength he findes in any of them whether or not in them all together there be such firmnesse as to sustaine the unspeakable weight that is in the conclusion builded upon them I mean a necessity of separation from all the Reformed Churches except these of the Indepent way I may adde from them also and all else that ever have been in the world from the beginning to this houre for in none of them these hard conditions of satisfactory evidences of regeneration before persons can be admitted members were ever so much as required and among the Independents where these conditions have been required they were never found nor possibly can be found as they doe require them CHAP. VIII Concerning the right of Prophecying THe second question I propounded concerneth the dogmatick power so to call it of their Church-members They teach that the power of prophesie or publike preaching both within and without the Congregation belongeth to every man in their Church who hath ability to speak in publike to edification The Reformed Churches give this power only to Pastors and Doctors who are called by God and the Church to labour in the Word They do not deny to every Christian all true liberty in private as God gives them occasion in an orderly way to edifie one another nor do they deny to the sons of the Prophets who are fitting themselves for the pastorall charge to exercise their gifts in publike for their preparation and triall but publike preaching they do not permit to any who are not either actually in the Ministry or in the way unto it The Socinians and Arminians the better to advance their design of everting the publike Ministry do put it in the hand of any able man to preach the Word and celebrate the Sacraments The Brownists upon the mistake of some Scriptures give liberty to any of their members whom their Church thinks able to preach Mr Cotton and his Brethren in New-England did follow for a long time the Brownists in this practise yet of late feeling as it would seem the great inconveniency of this liberty of prophecying they are either gone or going from it for in their two last books The way of their Churches and the Keyes they not only passe this popular Prophesying in silence but also do evert the chiefe grounds whereupon before they did build it our Brethren here of Holland and London seem not yet to be accorded about it these of Arnhem did to the last day of their Churches standing maintaine it their gentlemen preaching ordinarily in the absence of their Ministers but at Roterdam Mr Bridge would never permit it yet Mr Simpson thought it so necessary an ordinance that the neglect of it was the cheife cause of his secession from Mr Bridge and erecting a new Church neither ever could these two Churches be united till after both Mr Bridges and Mr Simpsons removall their Successor did find a temper in this question permitting the exercise of prophesie not in the meeting place of the Congregation but in a private place on a week day our Brethren at London are for this exercise not only upon the former grounds but especially to hold a doore open for themselves to preach in the Parish-Churches where they neither are nor ever intend to be Pastors only they preach as gifted men and Prophets for the conversion of these who are to be made members of their new Congregations The reasons we bring for our tenet are these First Who ever have power to preach the word ordinarily have also power to baptise But only Ministers have power to baptise Ergo only Ministers have power to preach the Word ordinarily The Minor how ever the Arminians and some few of the late Brownists deny yet all the Independents grant it but they deny the Major which we prove by two Scripturall reasons first Christ conjoyns the power of baptism with the power of preaching Ergo who have the power of preaching have also the power of baptising which Christ hath anexed to it Matth. 28.19 Go and teach all Nations baptising them Their Reply that Christ speaks
yeelded yet how will they prove that the Scribes and Pharisees were of any other Tribe then of Levi CHAP. IX Whether the power of Ecclesiastick Iurisdiction belongs to the People or to the Presbyterie THe next Question concernes the power of Ecclesiastick Jurisdiction to whom it may be due by Ecclesiastick Jurisdiction is understood the admission of Members into a Church their casting out againe by Excomunication their reconciliation after repentance the Ordination of Officers their deposition from their charge the Determining of Questions the deciding of Controversies and such other acts of Ecclesiastick authority Till of late the state of the Question here was very cleare and plaine the Reformed Churches doe put both the power and the exercise of Jurisdiction into the hand of the Presbytery that is the company of Elders and Colledge of Church Governours The Brownists and after them the Independents did ascribe all these acts to the Church as well without as with a Presbytery but of late Master Cotton in his Booke of the Keyes and his Brethren in their Synodick meetings of New-England have so subtilized and as to me it seemes involved the Question with a multitude of new distinctions that it is very hard to apprehend with any certaintie and clearenesse their meaning and more hard to reconcile any one with himselfe much lesse one with another They would seeme to differ much from the Brownists they stand not to put them in the Category of Morellius the first Patron of Democracie and popular government in the Church they professe a midway of government well ballanced with a prudent mixture of the Officers power with the peoples giving a part to both and all to neither They bring a multitude of distinctions rather to eschew the dint of our former arguments in the darkenesse of these Thickets then to give any light to this very great Question They insist most on two distinctions whereby they thinke to answer all we bring against them First they distinguish betwixt a Church Organized or Presbyterated as they speake and a Church inorganized and unpresbyterated the one is a body Heterogeneous a covenanted people with their Officers framed in a Presbitery the other a body Homogeneous a people in a Church Covenant without Officers at least without a Presbytery They would seeme to plead or else the distinction is for no purpose for the power onely of an Organized and a Presbyterated Church If they would stand to this in earnest and firmely we should be glad for so they should openly desert not onely the whole race of the Brownists but all their owne former Writings practises and enervate the best of these very arguments they still adhere unto for if ye will consider what is written by Mr. Cotton either in his Catechisme or way or answer to the thirty two Questions or the Arguments that still he insists upon in the Keyes or their generall practise in Holland and New-England to this day you will see that they maintaine the Jurisdiction of a Church as well unpresbyterated without a Presbytery without Officers as of a Church Presbiterated for the power of Ordination of Officers and of their deposition the power of admitting and casting out of Members which are the highest acts of Jurisdiction they ascribe expressely to every Church whether it have or want Officers as its proper and undeniable priviledge Their other new distinction wherein openly they applaud so much one another as it were contending who should have the glory of its invention is of a double power one of Authority and another of Liberty ascribing unto a Presbyterated Church the whole power of Jurisdiction and every part of it both to the Officers of their Presbytery and to the people in their fraternity or brotherhood but so that the interest of the Officers in every act is a power of authority which makes that their action only is valid and binding but the interest of the people is a power of liberty to concurre in these acts of Jurisdiction by an obedientiall yet a necessary and authoritative concurrence This new distinction will not serve their turne for first it s not applicable to the chiefe acts of Jurisdiction in question their Ordination of Officers their admission of Members are done ordinarily by their people alone without the concurrence of any Officers who then are not in being Secondly their arguments for the peoples interest in Excommunication Absolution and other acts of Jurisdiction inferre either nothing at all or much more then that which they call a power of Liberty or of an authoritative concurrence Thirdly this distinction involves the Authors in new unextricable difficulties it makes the Keyes Sword of Christ altogether inserviceable in common and ordinary cases wherein they have most neede and occasion to be set on worke Not onely according to their former principles they make every Congregation uncensurable for any possible crime But by this new Doctrine they confesse that every Presbytery in a Congregation becomes uncensurable and that every people of a Congregation becometh uncapable of any censure Yea farther if the most part of the Presbytery suppose two ruling Elders joyne together in the greatest heresies and crimes the whole people with the rest of the Presbitery suppose the Pastor cannot censure these two Elders also if the greatest part of the people should joyne in the greatest wickednesse yet the whole Presbytery with the rest of the people that remaine sincere and gracious cannot censure the wicked In all these and divers such ordinary cases they have no remedy but Separation and alwayes Separation upon Separation till their Church be dissolved into so small portions that it cannot by more Separations be farther divided But let us consider the Arguments upon both sides First we reason thus The people are not the Governors of the Church But the acts of Ecclesiastick Jurisdiction belong to the Governors of the Church Ergo The acts of Ecclesiastick Jurisdiction belong not to the people The Minor is cleare from the nature of the very termes for Jurisdiction is either all one with Government or a chiefe part of it now Government is essentially relative to Governors The Major is proved by many Scriptures which make the people so farre from being Governors that they are obliged to be subject and obedient to their Officers as to them by whom God will have them governed Heb. 13.17 Obey them that have the rule over you for they watch for your soules as they who must give an account 1 Tim. 5.17 Let the Elders who rule well be counted worthy of double honour 1 Thes 5.12 Know them which are over you in the Lord and esteeme them very highly in love for their workes sake God hath made them Pastors and the people their flocke them Builders the people the stones laid by them in the building them Fathers the people children begotten by their Ministry them Stewards the people domesticks under their conduct Secondly whosoever
particular Service of the Ministery Acts. 13.1 There was in the Church certaine Prophets and Teachers and the Holy Ghost sayd Separate me Barnabas and Saul to the worke whereunto I have called them and when they had fasted and prayed and layd their hands on them they sent them away Fourthly None of the people ordinarily have the gifts requisite for this action as skill to examine the Minister in all things he must be tried in a gift of publicke prayer a faculty to instruct and exhort the Pastour and people to mutuall duties Seventhly That power belongeth not to the people which disableth them both in their Christian and Civill duties But the power of Ecclesiastick Jurisdiction doth so The Major is grounded on the nature of all power and all gifts which God doth give for all are for edification and none for the hurt of these to whom they are given The Minor may be demonstrated by this That it layes a necessity upon all the people to attend in the Sabbath day upon the exercise of discipline which by the very length will make the Sabbath-Service insupportably burdensome and also will fill the mindes of the people with these purposes which naturally occurre in the agitation of Ecclesiasticke causes and cannot but cast out of common weake mindes much of the fruite of the preceding worship Further the peoples necessary attendance on all Ecclesiasticke causes will make the processe in the most causes so prolix as cannot but robbe the people of that time which they ought to imploy in their secular callings for getting of bread For every one of the people being a Judge must be so satisfyed in every circumstance of every action as to give their Suffrage upon certaine knowledge and with a good conscience now before this can be done in a few causes of the smallest and best ordered Congregations much time will be spent as the Church of Arneim found it in one cause alone though but a light one and betwixt two onely even of their cheife and best Members Eighthly That power is not to be given to the people which brings in the popular government of Morellius into the Church but the power in question doth so The Major is the common assertion of all the Brethren that they are farre from democracy and further from Morellius anarchy and that they are ready to forsake their Tenet if it can be demonstrated to import any such thing The Minor thus we prove That which puts the highest acts of Government in the hands of the multitude brings in the popular government for in the greatest democracies that are or ever have beene there were divers acts of great power in the hand of sundry Magistrates but the highest acts of power being in the hands of the people alone such as the making of Lawes the creation of Magistrates the censure of the greatest Offendors these were the sure signes of Supremacy that gave the denomination to the government Now we assure that the Tenet in hand puts the highest acts of Ecclesiastick Authority in the hands of the people For the Ordination and Deposition of Officers the binding and loosing of Offendours are incomparably the highest acts of Ecclesiasticke Jurisdiction These they put in the hand of the people That they doe conjoyne with the people the Officers to expound the Law and declare what is right and to give out the sentence makes nothing against the peoples Supremacy for in Rome and Athens at their most democraticke times and this day in the States of Holland in all the Provinces and every City where the people are undoubted Soveraignes they have their Magistrates and Officers in all their proceedings to goe before them to declare the case to take the Suffrages and to pronounce the Sentence As for them who of late have begun to put the whole Authority in the Officers alone and to give the people onely a liberty of consenting to what the Officers doe decree of their owne Authority wee say they are but few that doe so and these contradictory to themselves Also these same men give absolute Authority to the people in divers cases further that liberty of consent they come to call an authoritative concurrence Lastly the most of the arguments even of these men doe conclude not onely a liberty to consent and to concurre but an authoritative agency in the highest acts of Jurisdiction Ninthly They who have the power of Jurisdiction have also the power of preaching the word and celebrating the Sacraments unlesse God in his word have given them a particular and expresse exemption from that imployment But none of the people have power to preach the word and celebrate the Sacraments Ergo. The Major is built on these Scriptures which conjoyne the administration of the Word Sacrament and Discipline in one and the same termes and upon these Scriptures which lay a part of these administrations upon some men with an expresse exception of another part of them Math. 16.19 under the name of the Keys of the Kingdome of Heaven is comprehended the whole Ecclesiasticke power of the Word Sacraments and Discipline what there is promised Joh. 20. it is performed in these termes as the Father hath sent me so I send you But 1 Tim. 5.17 where this power is separated and distinguished the one part of Jurisdiction is ascribed to the ruling Elders with an expresse intimation of their freedome from preaching the Word and by consequence from celebration of the Sacraments The Minor was that none of the people have power of the word and Sacraments For the power of the Sacraments it is confessed not to belong to the people That the power of preaching the Word belongeth no more to them was proved in the former Chapter None of our Brethren doe ascribe the power of preaching to all the People but onely to a few of them who are able to prophesie so the power of Jurisdiction according to the ground in hand could be ascribed to none of the people but these few Prophets alone For the other side the Separatists and Master Parker in this point as farre wrong as the other bring many arguments but I will meddle onely with these which Master Cotton doth borrow from them in his way of the Churches and answer to the 32. Questions First from Math. 16.19 he reasons thus The Power of the Keys is given unto Peter upon the confession of his faith Ergo every Beleever hath the Power of the Keys Answer I deny the consequence for however upon the occasion of his confession the Keys are promised to him yet they are not promised to him because of his confessing nor under the relation of a beleever for if so then all and onely beleevers should have the full Power of the Keys but our Brethren will be loth to avow this direct Assertion of Smith the Sebaptist for they doe not ascribe the Power of the Sacraments to any beleever out of Office nor any power of
the Keys to every beleever for some beleevers are not Members of any Church and the Keys are onely for Domesticks Neither doe they put the Keys into the hands of beleevers alone for so Judas and many Pastours for want of true fayth could not validly either preach or baptize The Keys therefore are not promised to Peter under the notion of a beleever but in the quality of an Apostle and Elder of the Church as is cleared in the paralled places of Math John where the gift here promised is actually conferred upon all the Apostles who all were Elders and whose Office of opening and closing the doores of Heaven was to remaine in the Church to the worlds end not in the hand of every beleever but of the Governours of the Church joyned in that Presbytery which other Scriptures doe mention Secondly they reason from Maâ— 18. who ever is the Church to whom scandalls must be told and which must be heard under the pain of Excommunication they have the power of Church Censures But the people are that Church Ergo. Ans we deny the Minor with the good leave of our Brethren for albeit they are wont to make the people alone without their Officers the Church in this place proving hence the peoples power of Jurisdiction before they have any Officers also their power to cast out all their Officers when they have gotten them yet now they have gone from the Separatists thus farre as to say that the people alone cannot be the Church here mentioned but the Church must be the people with their Officers whom now they will be loth as sometimes to make meere accidents and adjuncts of this Church for now they hold them for integrall Members so necessary that without them no censure at all can be performed upon any They goe here a little further telling us that the Church in this place cannot be the people though with their Officers but must be taken for the Officers with the people because both the Power and the Execution of censures belongs to the Officers alone though in the presence of the people and with their consent and concurrence They tell us that the Right and Authority of censures is given onely to the Presbytery of governours in such a manner that the Presbytery can be censured by no others neither can any other be censured not onely without their consent but not without their action We adde a third steppe whether our former arguments must draw them that the Church here meant must be the Governours alone without the peoples concurrence for if Excommunication the great act of government did belong to the people either by themselves alone or joyntly by way of concurrence with their Officers it would follow that the people were either sole governours above their Officers or joynt governours with their Officers which albeit our Brethren did hold lately with the Separatists yet now they will not assert so much the more as they declare it to be their judgement and practice that the Elders alone without the People doe meete apart in their Presbytery to heare all offences and to prepare them for publicke Judgement whence I thus argue They to whom offences are to be told immediatly after the two or three witnesses are not heard They are the Church to whom in this place the power of excommunication is given but the Elders alone without the People being set apart in their Presbytery are they to whom offences are to be told c. Ergo The Major is cleare from the Text for it speaks but of one Church which must be told and heard under the paine of censure The Minor is their own confession and practice and if that meeting of the Elders to whom they tell the offence for preparation of the processe to their peoples voice be not the Church here mentioned Then their ordinary practice of bringing scandalls first to the Presbytery before they be heard in the Congregation shall be found not onely groundlesse beside the Scripture but altogether contrary to the Scripture in hand for the method here prescribed is that the Church be told when the witnesses are not heard if therefore that company which is told after the witnesses are contemned be not the Church Christs order is not kept and the Church gets wrong Thirdly they reason from 1 Cor. chap. 5. ver 4.5.7.12.13 They who are gathered together with the Apostles Spirit and the Power of Christ to deliver the incestuous man to Sathan Who were to purge out the old Leaven and to judge them that are within and put away the wicked Person they have power to excommunicate but the People doe all these things Ergo. Answer the Minor is denyed First that gathering together might well be of the Presbytery alone which our Brethren grant most meete in divers preparatory acts to censure Secondly if it were of the whole people which can not be supposed in Corinth where the People and Officers were so many that the Congregations as in Jerusalem and else where were more then one yet suppose that all the people did meete to the excommunication of that wicked man this proves not that every one who did meete unto that censure had either the power or the execution of it more then of the Word and Sacraments to which they did more frequently meete Thirdly the purging out of the old Leaven and the putting away the man is commended indefinitely to these unto whom the Apostle wrote which our Brethren grant cannot be expounded without sundry exceptions First none doubt of women and children againe in the next chapter it is written indefinitely you are sanctifyed you are justifyed your Bodyes are the Temples of the Holy Ghost this must be restricted to the elect and regenerate except we will turne Arminians Everywhere in Scripture indefinite propositions must be expounded according as other Scriptures declare the nature of the matter in hand so here the act of purging and putting away ascribed indefinitely to the Church must be expounded not of all the Members but only of the Officers of the Church For the Brownists themselves make not every Member to be a ruler nor doe our Brethren give the formall authority and power of censures to any other but Officers ascribing to the rest of the Members onely a Liberty of concurrence so that the next word of Judging is expounded by them of a Judgement of discretion not of any judiciall and authoritative Judgement which alone is in question Fourthly from Coll. 4.17 they reason the people of Colosse had power to admonish their Minister Archippus to fullfill his Ministery Therefore the People of any Church have power if neede be to excommunicate their Minister Answer First That however our Brethren pretend to have come off from the extremity of the Brownists halfe way towards us yet their arguments drive at the utmost of their old extremities at no lesse then a power for the people to excommunicate their Ministers
Thus farre the most of their reasons doe carry if they have any force at all Secondly the Antecedent may well be denyed all that the Apostle speaks to the Collossians indefinitely must not be expounded of every one of the people This precept of speaking to Archippus could not be better performed then by the Presbytery whereof Archippus was a Member Thirdly the consequence is invalid They might admonish therefore excommunicate Every admonition is not in order to censure it is a morall duty incumbent to every one to admonish lovingly and zealously his Brother when there is cause it is a sinne and disobedience to God if we let sinne lye upon any whom we by our counsell and admonition can helpe but to conclude that we have power to Excommunicate every man whom in duty wee ought to admonish is an absurdity which none of the Separatists will well digest Fifthly From Revel 2.14.20 The whole Churches of Pergamus and Tâ—yatira are rebuked for suffering wicked Hereticks to live among them uncensured Ergo it was the duty of all the Church to censure them Answer First the conclusion is for a power to the people to censure which our Brethren now deny Secondly The Antecedent may be denied for the fault of that impious Toleration is not laid upon the whole Church but expresly upon the Angell Thirdly the consequence is not good The whole Church might be reproved for a neglect of their duty in not inciting and incouraging their Officers to censure these Hereticks but a reproofe for this neglect inferreth not that it was the peoples duty to execute these censures Thus much our Brethren will not avow Sixthly They reason from Revel 4.4 The foure and twenty Elders sate on Thrones in white Robes with Crownes on their heads Ergo Every one of the Church hath a power of judging as Kings with Crownes sitting on their Thrones Answer First the conclusion ever inferres the full Tenet of the Separatists Secondly the consequence is very weake except many things be supposed which will not be granted without strong proofes first that this Type is argumentative for the matter in hand secondly that this place is relative to the Church on earth rather then to that in heaven thirdly that these Elders doe typifie the people rather then the Officers fourthly that the Thrones and Crownes import a Kingly Office in every Christian to be exercised in Church censures upon their brethren more then the white robes doe inferre the Priestly Office of every Christian to be exercised in Preaching the Word and celebrating the Sacraments Seventhly They reason from Galatian 5.1.13 the Galatians were called unto Liberty whereto they behoved to stand fast as to a priviledge purchased by Christ his blood Ergo Every one of them had a power to cut off their Officers Answer This is the Scripture whereupon our Brethren have lately fallen and make more of it then of any other I confesse their reasoning from it seemes to me the most unreasonable throwing of the holy Scripture that I have readily seene in any Disputant The whole scope of the place carrying evidentty a liberty from the burthen and servitude of the Law Their fathering upon it a new and unheard of sense to wit a priviledge of Church censures without any authority or proper power therein is very strange they cannot produce any Scripture where the word Liberty hath any such sense and though they could yet to give the word that sense in this place where so clearely it is referred to a quite diverse matter it seemeth extremely unreasonable Eightly Thus they reason The whole Congregation of Israel had power to punish Malefactors as in the case of Gibea in the message of Israel to the two Tribes halfe also the people had power to rescue from the hands of the Magistrates as in the case of Jonathan from Saul Answer The consequence is null for the practise of the Israelites in their civill state is no sufficient rule for the proceedings of the Church of the New Testament Our Brethren would beware of such Arguments least by them they entertaine the jealousie which some professe they have of their way fearing it be builded upon such principles as will set up the common people not onely above their Officers in the Church but also above their Magistrate in the State That it draw in a popular government and Ochlocracie both in Church and State alike Ninthly They thus reason Who ever doe elect the Officers they have power to ordaine them and upon just cause to depose and excommunicate them But the people do elect their Officers Ergo. Answer The major is denied for first election is no act of power suppose it to be a priviledge yet there is no Jurisdiction in it at all but Ordination is an act of Jurisdiction it is an authoritative mission and putting of a man into a spirituall Office The people though they have the right and possession by Scripturall practise of the one yet they never had either the right or the possession of the other Secondly suppose the Maxime were true whereof yet I much doubt unlesse it be well limited Ejus est destituere cuius instituere that they who give authority have power to take it backe againe yet we deny that the people who elect give any authority or office at all their election is at most but an Antecedent Sine quo non it is the Presbytery onely who by their Ordination doe conferre the Office upon the elect person Finally They argue No act of Jurisdiction is vâ—lid without the peoples consent Ergo to every act of Jurisdiction the peoples presence and concurrence is necessary Answer The antecedent in many cases is false a gracious Orthodoxe Minister may be ordained a Pastor to a Hereticall people against their consent an Hereticall Pastor who hath seduced all his flocke may be removed from them against their passionate desires to keepe him but the Consequent is more vitious where ever consent is requisite their presence much lesse authoritative concurrence is not necessary all the souldiers are not present at the Counsell of War and yet the decrees of that Counsell of War can not be executed without the consent and action of the Souldiers every member of the Church of Antioch was not present at the Synod of Jerusalem diverse members of the Independent Congregations are absent from many Church determinations to the which upon their first knowledge they doe agree CHAP. X. Independencie is contrary to the Word of God THe Divine Wisedome which found it expedient for man before the Fall not to live alone hath made it much more needfull for man to live in Society after his weakning by sinne Woe to him that is alone for if he fall who shall raise him up The best wits of themselves are prone to errors and miscarriages and left alone are inclined to run on in any evill way they have once begunne But engagement in
fellowshippe especially with the Saints is a preservative against the beginnings of evill and a retractive therefrom when begunne Every gratious neighbour is a Counsellour and Pedagogue the greater the incorporation is of such the better is every Member directed and the more strengthened Hence the goodnesse of God hath ordained not onely the planting of particular men into a small body of one single Congregation but for the greater security both of Persons and Congregations the Lord hath increased that Communion of Churches by binding neighbour Congregations in a larger and stronger Body of a Presbytery or Classis yea a number of Presbyteryes by the same hand of God are combined in a Synode neither this onely but for the strengthening of every stone and of the whole building the Lord hath appointed the largest societies that are possible the very Church universall and the representation thereof an Oecumenick Assembly This congregative way is divine the dissolution of humane societies especially of Ecclesiasticke Assemblyes must be from another Spirit The first we know to have opposed the holy Societyes we speake of were Anabaptists who liking a Catholicke anarchy in all things and pressing an universall liberty did strive to cut in peeces all the bands as of Politicke and Oeconomick union whereby Kingdomes and States Cities and Familyes did stand so also of the Ecclesiasticke conjunction making every person at last fully free from all servitude and simply independent or uncontrolable in any of his owne opinions or desires by any mortall man Their first follower among the reformed was one John Moreau a Parisian who in the French Churches did vent the Independency of Congregations from Synods and the popular government of these Independent Congregations But his scismatick pamphlet came no sooner abroad then the French Divines did most unanimously trample upon it In their generall Assembly at Rochell most Reverend Beza Moderator for the time and in their next Assembly Learned Sadeell with others did so fully confute these Anabaptistick follies that thereafter in France this evill Spirit did never so much as whisper only in Holland in the Arminian times it began to speake by the tongue of Grotius and others of his fellowes who being conscious to themselves of Tenets whereunto they despared the assent of any Synode yea fearing to be prejudged in the propagation of their errours by a crosse Sentence of a Nationall Assembly did set themselves to call in question and at last to deny the Authority and Jurisdiction of all Church meetings But when the goodnesse of God in that happy Synode of Dort did crush the other errours of that Party this their fansie did evanish and since in these bounds hath beene buried in Oblivion By what meanes this Anabaptistick roote which neither France nor Holland could beare when Grotius and Morellius did assay to plant it doth thrive so well in England after Browne and Barrow with their followers did become its dressers I have declared at length before However the Novelty of the Tenet the Infamie of its Authours the evill successe it hath had whereever yet it hath set up the head doth burden it with so just contempt that all further audience might be denyed thereto yet in this impudent and malapertage where the greatest absurdityes will importunately ingyre themselves and require beleefe as unanswerable and most covincing truths unlesse in a full hearing their naughtinesse be demonstrate we are content without all prejudices to reason the matter it selfe from the ground and to require no man to hate this errour for its Authours or any externall consideration unlesse it be cleerely showne to be contrary to the revealed will of God The state of the Question hath no perplexitie if its termes were cleared The Brownists affirme that every Parish Church that every single Congregation is Independent from any Presbytery any Synod any Assembly This we deny affirming the true dependence and subordination of Parochiall Congregations to Presbyteries and of these to Synods to which we ascribe power authority and Jurisdisdiction Before wee fall to reasoning let us understand the words which in this debate doe frequently occurre First what is a Parochiall Church or single Congregation Secondly What is its independence Thirdly What is a Presbytery and a Presbyteriall Church Fourthly What is a Synod Fifthly What is Authoritie and Jurisdiction Ecclesiasticall We intend no definitions but such popular descriptions as may make cleare what the parties use to understand by these words A particular Church a Parish or Congregation in this Question is taken for a company of faithfull people every one whereof in the face of the whole Congregation hath given so cleare tokens of their true grace and regeneration as hath satisfied the minde of all A company I say incorporate by a particular Covenant and Oath to exercise all the parts of Christian Religion in one place under one Pastor Our Opposits affirme that in one Church there must be but one Pastor assisted indeede with a Doctor and three or foure Elders yet no more Pastors but one They will admit into a Church no more people then commodiously and at their ease may convene in one house how few they be they care not ten families or forty persons to them are a faire Church you have heard that some of their Churches have beene within the number of foure persons Independencie is the full liberty of such a Church to discharge all the parts of Religion Doctrine Sacraments Discipline and all within it selfe without all dependence all subordination to any other on earth more or fewer so that the smallest Congregation suppose of three persons though it fall into the grossest heresies may not be controlled by any Orthodoxe Synod were it Oecumenicke of all the Churches on earth A Presbytery as it is called in Scotland or a Classis as in Holland or a Collogue as in France is an ordinary meeting of the Pastors of the Churches neerly neighbouring of the ruling Elders deputed therefrom for the exercise chiefely of discipline so farre as concernes these neighbouring Churches in common A Presbyteriall Church is a company of Professors governed by one Prysbytery who for the exercise of Religion meete in diverse places or who have moe Pastors then one A Synod is a convention of Pastors and Elders sent and deputed from diverse Presbyteries meeting either ordinarily or upon occasion for the affaires that are common to those that sent them Ecclesiasticke Jurisdiction is a right and power not onely by advice to counsell and direct but by authority given of God to injoyne and to performe according to the rule of Scriptures these things which concern the Ordination of Ministers the deciding of Ecclesiasticall Causes the determination of Doctrines the inflicting of Censures c. The signification of these words being presupposed the state of the Question or minde of the parties can not be obscure The first Argumen for the truth I cast into this Forme Every Independent
of the Doctrine to try and examine false Teachers lieth principally on preachers This is alike true of the Church of Antioch The hand of the Lord was in the City and a great number beleeved Acts 11.21 Thereafter by Barnabas labour there was much people added v. 24. yea by the joyned paines of Barnabas and Paul for a yeare together there was such a multitude converted that the name of Christians was first imposed upon them Here as in the Metropolitane City not onely of Syria but all Asia beside Barnabas Paul and other Prophets v. 27. Peter also and many other Doctors had their residence Gal. 2.11 It were too long to speake of the rest of the Apostolicke Churches whose condition was not unlike the former Our third Argument No Synod hath authority to impose Decrees upon an Independent Church But some Synods have authority to impose Decrees upon particular Churches whether Presbyteriall or Congregationall Ergo Particular Churches whether Presbyteriall or Congregationall are not Independent The Maior is not controverted our adverse party acknowledgeth the lawfull use and manifold fruits of Synods They grant it is the duty of every good man and much more of every Church and most of all of a Synod consisting of the Messengers of many Churches to admonish counsell perswade and request particular Curches to doe their duty But that any company on earth even an Oecumenicke Synod should presume to injoyne with authority the smallest Congregation to leave the grossest heresies under the paine of any censure they count it absurd Upon this ground that every Congregation how small soever how corrupt soever is an Independent body and not subordinate to any society on earth how great how pure how holy soever The Minor thus is proved The Synod of Jerusalem imposed with Authority her Decrees upon the Church of Antioch Ergo Some Synod and if you please to make it universall every lawfull Synod may impose its Decrees upon particular Churches The Antecedent is to be seene Acte 15.20 It seemed good to the Holy Ghost and to us to lay no further burden on you then these things necessary The Consequence is good for Antioch was among the chiefe of the Apostolicke Churches in it Barnabas Paul and other Prophets inspired of God were Preachers If this Church was subject to the Authority of Synods what Church may plead a freedome from the like subjection Many things are here replied as usually it hapneth when no solid answer can be brought The chiefe heads of the Reply are three First that the meeting at Jerusalem was no Synod Secondly What ever it was that it did injoyne nothing authoritatively to any other Churches Thirdly That other Synods may not pretend to the priviledges of that meeting since its Decrees were indited by the Holy Ghost and stand now in the holy Canon as a part of Scripture To the first we say that the meeting at Jerusalem is either a true Synod or else there is no paterne in all Scripture for Synods even for counsell or advice or any other use But this were inconvenient for they acknowledge that Synods are lawfull meanes for many gracious ends in the Church Now to affirme that any Ecclesiasticke meeting is lawfull necessary or convenient for gracious ends whereof no patterne no example can be found in Scripture were dangerous But beside this argument towards our adverse party we reason from the nature of the thing it selfe A meeting consisting of the Deputies of many Presbyteriall Churches is a true Synod but the convention at Jerusalem Acts 15. was such a meeting The Maior is the essence of a Synod there are many accidentall differences of Synods for according to the quantity and number of the Churches who send their Commissioners the Synod is smaller or greater is Provinciall Nationall or Oecumenicke according to occasion the Churches sending Commissioners are sometime moe sometime fewer sometime neerer sometime further off also according to the commodity of place and necessity of affaires they come from one Church moe and from others fewer all these are but accidentalls which change not the nature of the thing Unto the essence of a Synod no more useth to be required then a meeting of Commissioners from moe Presbyteriall Churches The Minor is cleare That the Church of Antioch and Jerusalem were moe Churches no man doubts that both were Presbyteriall it was proved before that from both these Presbyteriall Churches Commissioners did sit at that meeting it is apparent from that oft cited Acts 15. Yea that from the other Churches of Syria and Cilicia besides Antioch Commissioners did come to Jerusalem may appeare by conference of the 2. vers of the 15. chap. with vers 23. for that with Paul and Barnabas Commissioners for the time from the Antiochians others also did come it is certaine that those others at least some of them were Deputed from the Churches of Syria and Cilicia it is like because the Synodick Epistle is directed expresly no lesse to those than to this of Antioch also those no lesse than this are said to be troubled with the Questions which occasioned that meeting But to passe this consideration it is cleare that in the Convention at Jerusalem were present not onely the Commissioners of some few Presbyteriall Churches but also they whom God had made constant Commissioners to all the Churches of the world to wit the Apostles their presence made all the Churches legally subject to the Decrees of that Synod though they had no other but their grand and constant Commissioners to Voyce for them in that meeting The second Answer is clearely refuted from the 28. vers where the Decrees are not proposed by way of meere advice but are injoyned and imposed as necessary burdens with Authority not onely of the Synod but of the holy Ghost Concerning the third we say that the meerely Divine and more than Ecclesiastick Authority of these Decrees in their first Formation is not made good from this that now they stand in holy Scripture and are become a part of the Bible for a world of Acts meerely indifferent and which without doubt in their Originall had no more then Ecclesiasticke Authority are Registred in Scripture Was the Presbytery of Lystraes laying on of hands on Timothy any other then an act of Ecclesiastick Ordination The Decree of the Church of Corinth for the incestuous mans Excommunication or relaxation after Repentance was it any more then an act of Jurisdiction meerely Ecclesiasticke Pauls circumcision of Timothy his Uow at Cenchrea the cutting off his haire at Jerusalem were free and indifferent actions The nature of these things and many moe of that kinde is not changed by their Registring in the Booke of God Neither also is the meerly Divine Authority of the Decrees at Jerusalem proved by this that in their first framing they were grounded on cleare Scripture and after proclamed in the name of the holy Ghost for that is the condition of the
erect their Congregation the successe was no better their Ship scarce well set out was quickly splitupon the Rocks was soone dissipate and vanished When Johnstoun Ainsworth would make the third assay and try if that tree which neither in England nor Zealand could take roote might thrive in Holland at Amsterdam where plants of all sorts are so cherished that few of the most maligne qualite doe miscarry yet so singular a malignity is innate in that seede of Independency that in that very ground where all weedes grow ranke it did wither within a few yeares new Schismes burst that small Church asunder Johnstoun with his halfe and Ainsworth with his made severall Congregations neither whereof did long continnue without further ruptures Behold who please with an observant Eye these Congregations which have embraced Independency they shall finde that never any Churches in so short a time have beene disgraced with so many so unreasonable and so irreconcileable Schismes Against these inconveniences they tell us of two remedies the duties of charity and the authority of the Magistrate but the one is unsufficient and the other improper The duties of charitie are but mocked by obstinate Hereticks and heady Schismaticks to what purpose are counsells rebukes intreaties imployed towards him who is blowne up with the certaine perswasion that all his errors are divine truthes that all who deale with him to the contrary are in a cleare error that all the advices given to him are but the words of Satan from the mouthes of men tempting him to sinne against God As for the Magistrate oft he is not a Christian oft though a Christian he is not Orthodoxe and though both a Christian and Orthodoxe yet oft either ignorant or carelesse of Ecclesiasticke affaires and however his helpe is never so proper and intrinsecall to the Church that absolutely and necessarily she must depend thereupon Now all our Question is about the ordinary the internall the necessary remedies which Scripture ascribes to the Church within it selfe as it is a Church even when the outward hand of the Magistrate is deficient or opposite Our sixth and last Argument That which everteth from the very foundation the most essentiall parts of discipline not only of all the reformed but of all the Churches knowne at any time in any part of the world till the birth of Anabaptisme it can not be very gracious But this doth Independency The Minor is cleare by induction That the Government of the Scottish Church by Synods Presbyteries and Sessions sworne and subscribed of old and late by that Nation in their solemne Covenant that the same discipline of the Churches of France Holland Swiiz Geneva as also the Politie of the High Dutch and English and all the rest who are called Reformed is turned upside downe by Independency no man doubts for this is our Adversaries gloriation that they will be tied by no Oathes Covenants Subscriptions they will be hindred by no authority of any man no reverence of any Churches on earth to seperate from all the reformed that so alone they may injoy their divine and beloved Independency If you speake of more ancient times either the purer which followed the Apostles at the backe or the posterior impurer ages that the Politie of these times in all Churches Greeke and Latine is trodden under foote by Independency all likewise doe grant and how well that new conceit agreeth with the discipline practised in the dayes of Christ and his Apostles or in the dayes of Moses and the Prophets the preceding arguments will shew I confesse such is the boldnesse of the men against whom we now dispute that although they glory in their contempt of the authoritie of all men dead and living yet they offer to overwhelme us with testimonies of a number as well ancient as late Divines But who desire to see all that dust blowne back in their own eyes who raised it and the detorted words against the knowne mind and constant practise of the Authors clearely vindicated and retorted let them be pleased to take a view of Mr. Pagets Posthume Apologie where they will finde abundant satisfaction in this kinde For the other side a great bundle of arguments are also brought we shall consider the principall First To whom Christ hath given the right of excommunication the greatest of all censures they in all other acts of Jurisdiction and in all acts of Ecclesiastick discipline are Independent But Christ hath given the right of excommunication to every Congregation and to these alone Ergo c. They prove the Minor Unto the Church Christ hath given the right of excommunication Mat. 18. Goe tell the Church if he heare not the Church let him be to thee as an Ethnicke But every Congregation and it onely is the Church because in the whole Scripture the word Church where ever it is not taken for the Church universall or invisible is ever understood of a single Congregation which in one place with one Pastor serveth God Answer Passing the Majors we deny the Minors and affirme that no where in Scripture the word Church may be expounded of their Independent Congregation and least of all in the alledged place If we will advise either with the old or late Interpreters or with the best and most learned of the Adversaryes themselves who affirme with us that by the Church Math. 18. no Congregation can be understood unlesse we would bring in among Christians most grosse anarchy except we would set down on the Judgment seates of the Church every member of the Congregation men women young old the meanest and weakest part of the people to decide by the number not the weight of their voyces the greatest causes of the Church to determine finally of the excommunication of Pastors of the nature of haeresie and all doctrine and that with a decree irrevocable from which there may be no appeal no not to an Oecumenicke Synod Wherfore beside the rest of the Interpreters a great part of the Adversaries by the Church in this place understand no whole Congregation nor the most part of any Congregation but a select number thereof the Senate or Officers who cognose and discerne according to the Scriptures This is enough for answer to the argument but if further it be inquired the Senate of which Church is pointed at in this place whether of a Parochiall Church or Presbyteriall or Nationall or Oecumenicke or of all these Ans It seemeth that the Senate of all the Churches must here be understood and especially of a Presbyteriall Church at least not of a Parochiall onely and independently as our Adversaries would have it By no meanes will we have the Session of a Parish prejudged and are well content that the authority of Parochiall Sessions to handle their own proper affaires should be grounded upon this place onely we deny that from this place a Church-Session hath any warrant to take the cognition of things common to it selfe
draw on such seditious practises as did well neer overturn both their Church and State Their proud obstinacy against all admonitions was marvellous In the midst of their profession of eminent piety the profanity of many of them was great Notwithstanding all this we desire from our heart to honour and imitate all and every degree of Truth or Piety which did ever appear in any New-English Christian Independency no fruitful Tree in Holland Master Peterâ— the first Planter of that Weed at Roterdam Their Ministers Master Bridge Master Simpson and Master Ward renounced their English Ordination and as meer private men took new Ordination from the people Incontinent they did fall into shameful divisions and subdivisions The people without any just cause deposed their Minister The Commissioners from Arnhem durst not come neer the bottom of the businesse The Schisms at Roterdam were more irreconcileable then those at Amsterdam Anabaptism is like to spoil that Church They of the Church of Arnhem admire and praise themselves above all measure The easinesse of their banishment and afflictions The new light at Arnhem broke out into a number of strange Errours First Grosse Chiliasm Secondly The grossest blasphemy of the Libertines that God is the Author of the very sinfulnesse of sin Thirdly the fancy of the Enthusiasts in knowing God as God abstracted from Scripture from Christ from Grace and from all his attributes Fourthly The old Popish Ceremonies of extreme Unction and the holy kisse of Peace Fifthly The discharging of the Psalms the appointing of a singing Prophet to chant the Songs made by himself in the silence of all others Sixthly The mortality of the soul Seventhly the conveniency for Ministers to Preach covered and celebrate the Sacraments discovered but for the people to hear discovered and to participate the Sacraments covered Their publike contentions were shameful The work of the prime Independents of New England Arnheim and Roterdam these five yeers at London They did hinder with all their power so long as they were able the calling of the Assembly When it was called they retarded its proceedings That the Churches of England and Ireland lie so long in confuon neither Papists nor Prelates nor Malignants have been the cause But the Independents working according to their principles The great mischief of that Anarchy wherin they have kept the Churches of England and Ireland for so long a time Independency is the mother of more Hereresies and Schisms at London then Amsterdam ever knew Independency at London doth not onely bring forth but nourish and patronize Heresies and Schisms contrary to its custom either in New-England or Amsterdam How hazardous it may prove to the State of England Why it is hard to set downe the Independents positions They have declined to declare their Tenets more then has ever been the custome of any Orthodox Divines When they shal bee pleased to declare themselves to the full their principle of change will hinder theÌ„ to assure us that any thing is their settled and firm Tenet wherein they will bee constant The chief Tenets which hitherto they have given out and not yet recalâ—ed are these following They reject the name of Independents unreasonably and for their own disadvantage When it is laid aside the more infamous name of Brownists and Separatists wil justly fall upon them They avow a Semi-Separation but a Sesqui-Separation will bee proved upon them The Independents doe separate from all the Reformed Churches upon farre worse grounds then the Brownists were wont to separate Their acknowledgment of the Reformed for true Churches doth not diminish but encrease their Shisme They refuse all Church communion and membership in all the Reformed Churches they preach and pray in them as they would doe among Pâ—gans only as gâ—ftâ—d men to gather new Churches About the matter of the Church and qualification of members they are large as strict as the Brownists admitting none but who convinces the whole Congregation of their reall regeneration Besides true grace they require a sutablenesse of spirit But in this they are laxer then the Brownists that they can take in without scruple Anabaptists Antinomians others who both in life doctrine have evident blots if so they bee zealous and serviceable for their way About the forme of the Church a Church Covenant they are more punctuall then the Brownists They take the power of gathering and erecting of Churches both from Magistrates and Ministers placing it only in the hands of a few private Christians who are willing to make among themselves a Church covenant This power of erecting themselves into a compleat and perfect church they give to any seven persons neither admit they more into a Church then can altogether in one place commodiously administer the Sacraments Discipline The Independents will have all the standing Churches in England dissolved and all their Ministers to become meerly private men and any three persons of their way to bee a full Church Vnto this Church of seven persons they give all and the whole Church power and that independently Vnto this congregationall Church alone they give the full power of election and ordination of deposition and excommunication even of all their officers and of the finall determination of all Ecclesiastick causes The difference of Iohnson and Ainsworth about the power of the people and presbytery distinct one from the other is not yet composed among the Independents The common Doctrine of New England is Ainsworths Tenet that the people aâ—one have all the power may excommunicate when there is cause all their officers Mr Cotton the other year did fall much from them and himselfe towards Iohnson that the whole power of authority is only in the Officers and the people have noâ—hing but the power of liberty to concurre that the Officers can doe nothing without the people nor the people any thing but by the Officers Yet that both officers people or any one of them have power to separate themselvs from all the rest when they find cause The London Independents give more power of Ecclesiastick Iurisdiction then the Brownists unto women Some of them permit private men to celebrate the Sacraments Brownists and Independents do perfectly agree in the point of Independency If a corrupt or negligent Presbytery doe not censure their own members all the Assemblies in the world may not attempt to censure any of them though most apparently they did corrupt a whole Nation with the grossest Heresies or most scandalous vices The point of Independency is either the root or the fruit of many errors To temper the crudity of this Tenet they adde to it three moderating positions but for little purpose They grant the being of Synods but not of Classicall Presbyteries Their Synods are meerely Brownisticall without all Iurisdiction wherein every one of the people may vote also meerely elective and only occasionall The sentence of Non-Communion is Mr Cottons invention to supply that defect which themselves make in the
Ordinances of God It puts in the hand of every man a power to sentence all the Churches of the world It carries to the highest degree of Separation Their supply of the defects of Independency by the power oâ— the Magistrate was a remedy which they learned from the Brownists but now they have cast it aside denying to the Magistrate all power in matters of Religion The Independents doe advance their fancies to as high a pitch of glory as the Brownists They are the Brownists scholars in many more things beside the Constitution and Government of the Church They give to the Magistrate the Celebration of marriage Mr Milton permits any man to put away his wife upon his meer pleasure without fault and without the cognisance of any Iudge Mr Gorting teaches the wife to put away her husband if he will not follow her in any new Church way which she is pleased to embrace They are against all determinations of the circumstances of worship and therfore all church Directories are against their stomacks The common names of the dayes of the week the months of the year of many Churches and Cities of the Land are as unlawfull to them as to the Brownists All tithes and set maintenance of Ministers they cry down but a voluntary contribution for the maintenance of all their Officers they presse to a high proportion with the evident prejudice of the poore In their solemn worship oft times they make one to pray another to preach a third to prophesie a fourth to direct the Psalm and another to bless the people They make it a divine institution without any word of preface to begin the publike worship with solemne prayer for the King and Church After the Pastors prayer the Doctor reads and expounds In preaching they will bee free to take a Text or not as they find it expedient After Sermon any of the people whom they think able are permitted to prophesie All are permitted to propound in the face of the Congregation what questions upon the Sermon they think meet About the Psalms they have divers strange conceits but the speciall is their new Ordinance of a singing Prophet who in place of the Psalms singeth Hymnes of his own making in the midst of the silent Congregation They grant the lawfulnesse of read prayer in divers cases They will have none to be baptized but the children of their owne members so at one dash they put all England except a very few of their way into the state of Pagans turning them all out of the Christian Church denying to them Sacraments Discipline Church-Officers and all that they would deny to the Pagans of America They open a door to Anabaptism by 3 farther positions 1. They require in all to bee baptised a real holiness above a foederall which in no Infant with any certainty can be found 2. They esteem none for their Baptism and Christian education a member of their Church till they have entred themselvs in their church covenant 3. They call none of their members to any account before their Presbytery for obstinate rejecting of Paedo-baptism although the Brownists doe excommunicate for that sinne They participate with none of the Reformed Churches in the Lords Supper yet they scruple not to communicate with Brownists and Anabaptists Their way of celebrating the Lords Supper is more dead and comfortlesse then any where else They have no Catechising no preparation nor thanksgiving sermoÌ„s ordinarily they speak no word of the Sacrament in their Sermons and prayers either before or after They have only a little discourse short prayer in the consecration of both the Elements there after in the action nothing but dumb silence no exhortation no reading no Psalme They require none of their members to come out of their Pewes to the Table And they acknowledge no more use of a Table then the Brownists at Amsterdam who have none at all They teach the expediency of covering the head at the Lords Table They are as much for the popular Government as the Brownists All Discipline must be executed in the presence and with the consent of the whole people all must passe by the expresse suffrage of every one Dissenters not only lose their right of suffrage for the time but are subjected to censure if they continue in their dissent They are much for private meetings for it is in them that they usually frame the members of other mens Congregations into their new mould but the Brownists and they of New-England having felt the bitter fruits of such meetings have relinquished if not discharged them They flatter the Magistrate and slander the Reformed Churches without cause Some of them are for the abolition of all Magistracy All of them are for casting out and keeping out of the Christian Church all Princes all Members of Parliament all Magistrates of the Counties Burroughes that now are and that ever have been and are ever like to be hereafter except a very few These few Magistrates whom they would admit have no security but by the errour or malice of a few to be quickly cast out of the Church without any possibility of remedy When they have put all out of the places of Magistracy yea out of all civill courts who are not of their mind the greatest Magistrates they admit of bee they Kings or Parliaments they subject them all to the free-wil of the promiscuous multitude When Magistrates wil not follow their new erroâ—â—s they have bin very ready to make insurrections to the great hazard of the whole State Many of them deny to the Magistrate any power at all in the matters of Religion Their principles do spoile Princes and Parliaments of their whole â—egislative power they abolish all humane Lawes that are made and hinder any more to be made The Civill Lawes which Mr Cotton permits men to make bind no man any further then his own minde is led by the reason of the Law to obedience They put the yoak of the judiciall Law of Moses on the neck of the Magistrate They give to their Ministers a power to sit in civill Courts to voyce in the Election of the Magistrats and to draw from Scripture Civill Lawes for the government of the State They offer â—o perswade the Magistrate contradictory principles according to their own interest In New England they perswade the Magistrats to kill all Idolaters and Hereticks even whole Cities men women and children But here they deny the Magistrate all power to lay the least restraint upon the gâ—ossest Idolaters Apostats Blasphemers Seducers or the greatest enemies of Religion No great appearance of their respect to secular learning and Schools Independency much more dangerous then Browniâ— The Independents prime principles Their Tenet about the qualification of members is the great cause of their separating from all the Reformed Churches though they doe dessemble it In this they goe beyond the Brownists The true state of the question is whether it be necessary
be subdued and the hand of God so far turned against their adversaries that they should submit themselves without further opposition But what peace can be expected so long as the Whoredom and Witchcraft the Idolatry and Oppression of Iezebel the crying Crimes of many in the Land yet unrepented for doth offend the holy eye of the great Dispenser of Peace and War A Reformation after mourning is the second step to a solid Pacification Long may we petition both God and men for peace in vain long may we article and treat for that end without any successe unlesse a reall Reformation remove from the sight of God the personal abominations the State-transgressions and the Church-impieties of our Lands The Crimes of persons are grievous but those of a State are more The corruption of a member is not so grievous as of the whole Body and the deformity of the Body Political is not so unpleasant to the eye of God as of the Church this is the Body this is the Bride of Christ nothing so much provokes the passion of a loving Husband as the polluting of his Spouse Church-grievances were the first and main causes of our present Troubles the righting of these will open the door of our first hope of deliverance Whoso will observe either the spring or progresse of our present Woes in all the three Kingdoms will finde that the open Oppression and secret Undermining of the Common-wealth by the craft and tyranny of the malignant Faction did highly provoke the wrath of God and was a great occasion of all this Dâ—scord which hath broke out among men Yet it is evident that the pâ—incipal cause which hath kindled the Jealousie of God and enflamed the spirits of men to shake off and break in pieces those Yokes of Civil Slavery which ingenuous necks were no more able to bear was the constuprating of the Church the bringing in upon her by violence and daily multiplying of Errours Superstitions Idolatries and other Spiritual Burdens The Method of our Cure if ever it prove solid must lead our Physitians to the fountain of our Disease All Treaties for accommodating State-differences will be lost if in the first place Religion be not provided for according to the minde of God If once the Temple were builded and filled with the cloud the Difficulties would be small in making up the breaches in the house of the Kingdom and filling it with Peace and Prosperity So long as the Temple lies desolate it is not possible to rear up the walls of the City It were the wisedom of our great Builders when they finde themselves over-toiled in the Fifth yeer of their Work as they desire not to have all their by-past labours vain and fruitlesse at last in good earnest to set upon the building of the Church Interests of private persons and particular Factions laid over with the colour of pretended State-reasons may procrastinate days without number setling of Religion yet if we trust either ancient or late experience these States-men provide best for the welfare of their Countrey who give to the God of heauen to his Worship and House the first and most high place in all their studies and cares If we behold either the former or the later Reformers of the State of Israel if we consider the practice of Moses of David of Hezekiah of Zerubbabel and others it is evident the Tabernacle the Ark the Temple did first and most lie at all their hearts Our Neighbours and Brethren of Scotland when this our Disease was upon them and did presse them well-neer to death and ruine by this method of Physick did in a short time regain their full health and strength in the which they had great appearence to have continued without any Recidive unlesse their pious compassion and brotherly attendance upon us in our languishing had made them partakers of these evils in our Company which they had clean escaped The lamentable neglect for so long a time of the Churches disease makes now the Cure if not desperate yet much more difficult then once it was so much the more had every good man need to bring forth the best of his wits at least of his wishes for the encouragement and assistance of our great Physitians who now blessed be God with all their care are busied above all things else about the recovery of that languishing Patient The voices of some of her more faithful servants crying aloud in the ear of all the world of their Mistris extreme danger of her approach to the doors of death this noise hath a wakened and given an Alarm to many that now they run with speed to recover the exparing breath of their dying Mother not without some disdain and â—ndâ—gnation against them by whose subtil artifices and more then ordinary industry they have been kept off all this while from so much as approaching the sick bed of the dangerously-diseased Spouse of Christ And now while so many gracious hands are about this noble Patient every one out of their rich shops bringing the choicest Medicaments they can fall upon I also out of my poor store rather from a desire to testifie affection then confidence of any skill in this Art do offer unto her as one mean of help a Looking-glasse wherein if she will be pleased but to behold the Symptomes of her Disease by this inspection alone and clear sight of her face in this Glasse without any further trouble whether of Potions within or Applications without I am hopeful through the blessing of the great Master of all lawful Arts she shall be able to shake off the principal of those evils which now do most afflict her That by the eye alone very noisome Diseases may be conveyed to the body it is the ancient credulity of some However dayly experience puts it out of all doubt that thorow the glasse of the eye the soul may be infected with the desperate Diseases of most pestilent passions But that which here is offered is much more rare and singular by looking in a Glasse to cure the worst Diseases and to remove from the soul the most dangerous passions by meer contemplation To leave Metaphors my meaning is that the greatest hazard of our Church this day comes from the evil of Errour This if the Apostle Paul may be trusted doth eat up the soul no lesse then a Gangrene the body This if we will believe the Apostle Peter is a pernicious and damnable evil which brings on sudden destruction It is a sin before God no lesse abominable then those which brought fire on Sodom the flood on the first world the chains of darknesse upon the evil Angels At this instant when the evil of Errour hath spred it self over the whole Body of this distracted Church it seems it may prove a remedy not unprofitable to draw together the chief heads of those errours which now are flying abroad their faces being cleerly
described in one short Table in their true lineaments and native colours will appear so deformed that many who now are bewitched with them upon this sight may be brought out of all further affâ—ction towards them This is the end of my present work without the least intention so far as I can understand my own meaning to create any just offence or reall hurt to any mans person For truely I know not the creature breathing to whom heartily I do not wish Grace Mercy and Peace onely the opinions which for a long time with all licence are blown by the Spirit of errour over all the Land to the dishonour of God and the indangering of many a mans salvation I wish were set out in their clear and lively shapâ—s that they may be seen as truely they are without any disguise by the eyes of all I am much deceived if their bare and unmasked face shall be found very pleasant to solid and intelligent minds And because it is a matter full of difficulty to set down the tenents especially erroneous of any men according to their own contentment that herein I may do wrong to none it shall be my care in every thing I conceive material and controverted to speak nothing without Book but alwayes to bring along my Warrant to alleadge nothing doubtfull of any man but what himself or some other whose Faith is above just exception hath published before me to the world If for all this my Testimony be refused I can but declare that knowingly I do not misreport either the words or the sence of any man for I esteem Truth so honourable and so beautifull a creature but falsehood so deformed and base that no consideration I know would so far overballance my mind as wittingly to make me entertain the one with the prejudice of the other Notwithstanding if so it should fall out which is very casuall to men much my betters that through inadvertence I should misapprehend and accordingly misreport any mans judgement upon the smallest conviction I purpose not onely to retract my misconceptions but for further satisfaction I promise to make my retractation no lesse publike then was my errour It is not my purpose to take notice of every extravagancy which hath dropped from all the distempered brains of the time the profit of such a task would not coâ—ntervaile the Labour onely I will put down as it were in one table so many of thâ—se irregular conceits which now are abroad as may demonstrate to any common eye the undeniable footsteps of the Spirit of Errour and Schism walking among us and bringing forth in great plenty the births of his darknesse to the end that such a multitude of Satans Brats appearing openly in the arms and bosoms of otherwise I suppose well-meaning people the beholders may tremble and with all carefulnesse avoid the deep deceipt of that Angel of Light and the deceived themselves seeing with their eyes what they hugg and dandle to carry in the face the cleer lineaments of a mishant Parent for grief and shame that they have been so long Nursing-Fathers to Satans brood may become the first to dash the brains of these cursed Brats against the stones or if they needs must obstinately continue fond of that bastard Generation they may enjoy what they love themselves alone all well-advised men standing aloose from the danger of so misordered and irrationall affection The principall by-paths wherein the most among us this day do tread who divert from the high open and straight way of the Reformed Churches may be reduced to ten generall Heads The Brownists or rigid Separatists are the first who break off at a side The Independents their Children go on with them for a time but wearied with the widenesse of their Parents wandring professe to come in again towards the rode way yet not so closely but still they keep a path of their own How much neerer these men professe to draw towards us then their Fathers so much the farther their other Brethren run from us for the Anabaptists go beyond the Brownists in wandring the Antinomians are beyond the Anabaptists and the Seekers beyond them all These five lead aside on our right hand towards the left there be no fewer crooked Lanes The Prelatical Faction the down-right Papists the Arminians the Socinians and who now make as much trouble as any the Erastian-Civilians Of all these we will thus far consider as first in a brief historick narration to set down their original and present condition Secondly to name their tenents in particular Thirdly to refute from Scripture some of their most prevalent errours Onely in the entry one stumbling block would be put by It is marvailed by many whence these new Monsters of Sects have arisen Some spare not from this ground liberally to blasphem the Reformation in hand and to magnifie the Bishops as if they had kept down and this did set up the Sects which now praedomin But these murmurers would do well in their calm and sober times to remember that none of the named Sects are births of one day but all of them were bred and born under the wings of no other Dame then Episcopacy the tyranny and superstition of this Step-mother was the seed and spawn of Brownisme the great root of the most of our Sects all which were many yeers ago brought forth however kept within doors so long as any Church-Disciplin was on foot Now indeed every Monster walks in the street without controlement while all Ecclesiastick Government is cast asleep this too too long inter-reign and meer Anarchy hath invited every unclean creature to creep out of its cave and shew in publike its mishapen face to all who like to behold But if once the Government of Christ were set up amongst us as it is in the rest of the Reformed Churches we know not what would impede it by the Sword of God alone without any secular violence to banish out of the Land these Spirits of Errour in all meeknesse humility and love by the force of Truth convincing and satisfying the minds of the seduced Episcopal Courts were never fitted for the reclaiming of minds their prisons their fines their pillories their nose-slittings their ear-cuttings their check-burnings did but hold down the flame to break out in season with the greater rage But the Reformed Presbytery doth proceed in a spiritual Method evidently fitted for the gaining of hearts they go on with the offending party with all respect and at so much leasure as can be wished appointing first the fittest Pastors and Elders in the bounds to confer and instruct him in private if this diligence do not prevaile then they convent him before the Consistory of his Congregation there by admonitions instructions râ—proofs and all the means appointed in the Gospel they deal with him in all gentlenesse from weeks to moneths from moneths oftentimes to yeers before they come neer to any censure and