The great success and late prospering on both sides of dividing Love-destroying Opinions which I foretold in my Moral Prognostication calleth loud for remedying attempts And when is the Medicine seasonable but when the Disease is most dangerous and common They that go to Sea carry Medicines against the Scurvy and Flux and they that go where the Plague reingeth carry Antidotes against it c. 3. The Ministerial calling layeth strong Obligations on us to fidelity sowing Pillows and saying peace to sin and daubing with untempered morter are oft concluded with that Thunder-clap Their blood will I require at thy hands And I have been loath to desert the worst Malignants by despair as Dogs and Swine And shall I forsake the Children as such because they cry and are angry with the Mother because she hinders them from calling one another Bastards or beating one another or forsaking the house because of one anothers Presence or is She the make-bate because they cry for being parted in their frays 4. Thousands that hear the great Precepts of Love and Pray to be forgiven as they forgive are by such mistakes engaged in sinful despising censuring backbiting yea and rendering odious one another and so live in ordinary sin 5. Charity to such Souls is more necessary than to the Body and how dwelleth the Love of God in him that neglecteth it 6. He that doth not what he can to save others yea multitudes from sin becometh a partaker in the guilt and danger 7. He that openeth a Pit must fill it and he that seeth it covered with Leaves and telleth not men of the danger is guilty of the hurt 8. I must not cease Preaching because men will misconstrue it Therefore not Preaching by the Press when I have a call 9. I have long found that multitudes of our conscionable hearers are setled in belief that their Teachers take Parish-Communion for Sin because they practice it not even when they are commanded and threatned and punished By which they are silently misled till necessity force us to tell them otherwise And then they Censure them as unconscinable Temporizers and so they do all godly men that communicate in publick 10. I see how hard it is after to undeceive all these 11. Most of the Epistles of Paul Iames and Iude Peter and Iohn speak much and sharply against Church-dividers and separaters 12. The Scots Covenant swore all that took it against Schism and prophaness and all that 's against sound Doctrine and Godliness 13. Christ told us A Kingdom divided against it self cannot stand 14. I saw that it is a dreadful dishonouring God and Religion to father on him our love-killing mistakes and sins And that he will vindicate his honour on us if we do it not our selves by open and penitent confession of such faults 15. We have long smarted under his Judgments already and shew no publick Repentance and are threatned with much more which if God may judge it 's repentance that must prevent 16. The common Convulsions Silencing and Calamities which we have long felt are notoriously the fruits of this same Spirit and Error and both the parties which I here gainsay And shall we lie four and twenty years in the Flames and be afraid to cry Fire or call for Water lest the Incendiaries on both sides be displeased 17. God's dissolving their Power and conquering Armies without a drop of Blood by their own Divisions did so notoriously shew the Sin by the punishment and shew Gods hand against it as was a kind of Miracle of Providence and maketh their Sin that be not moved by it too like to Pharoah's 18. The main thing that moveth me is That thousands being too young to know those days and deeds blind and malicious Enemies without any shame charge all the Crimes and Confusions of a party of men in Arms upon all the Religious People of the Land that be not in all other things of the Slanderers opinions and have made multitudes believe that it was all such that did the very thing which they opposed and suffered for opposing Yea they would interpret some late Laws as if they had such an accusing Sence And shall we by silence leave so many thousands under the guilt of such false Accusations to their own sin and to others wrong lest we blame the guilty 19. I find that this Error possesseth the minds of so many young Scholars and some Ministers as that they think of all Dissenters with so much scorn as that it is the very thing which hath tempted them into the contrary extream 20. I read and hear so many on this very Supposition calling out for our destruction and not to bear with us or spare us that our Rulers have great need of Gods Mercy to save them from the damning guilt of Persecution to which such temptations would induce them lest they take the Innocent for Guilty and think that it's Service to God to ruin them 21. I see that it is a most dangerous Scandal not to remove such a stumbling-block which tempteth thousands to hate their Brethren if not Piety it self as if all the stir that we have made were but against such things as Communion in the Liturgy with Parish Churches 22. I see multitudes like by mistakes to suffer as evil doers and be ruined for their Error and by glorying in it to disgrace the suffering of those that suffer for Truth and Duty 23. I see many Servants and Children tempted to disobey their Parents and Masters that call them to publick Worship and Families to be divided by this mistake 24. I see how Atheism is at the door if when all private Church-meetings are forcibly hindred men be taught that all Church Worship must be forsaken And in how great a part of the Land already must they have such or none 25. I know that to drive all godly people from the Parish-Churches and to cast out sound Religion thence is the way to let in you know whom And that it greatly serveth the interest of the Papists to have the Parish Churches vilified and us divided besides the discouraging many godly Conforming Ministers 26. I have said after and oft That to separate from a Liturgy as such is virtually to separate from all Christs Church on Earth that 's known by History for a thousand years and more And at this day to separate from almost all even the reform'd Churches And to make Christ no King if he had all that while no Kingdom And to censure himself and his own practice 27. I have shewed the wrong that was done the old Nonconformists by this party and their full Testimony against it Yea and that the old Separatists were for much that these now do condemn 28. I have observed That the deepest Sufferers have been readiest to run into this exream and therefore Passion to be suspected 29. I see that the foreign Protestants are scandalized by a false conceit that the Dissenters here are against Communion
judgment entangleth a man in sin whether he follow it or not And there is no possibility of avoiding the sin but by using God's helps till his judgment be set right For Conscience is not the Maker of the Law but the Discerner of it And the Law-maker changeth not his Law because men change their thoughts of it But while men are under a self-made necessity of sinning the lesser sin and the greater may be distinguished e. g. If you mis-judg it unlawful to keep a Saints day holy to eat Flesh on Fridays to use a Cross as a sign of Christianity it is a greater sin to do these than to omit them But if you judg it unlawful to pray or hear God's Word or worship him or to feed your self or children your error is the aggravation and no extenuation of the sin And if you think it a duty to keep a Fast once a week to wear a course garment or to do any indifferent thing it 's a greater sin to omit them than to do them But if you take it to be a duty to lie slander steal be drunk murder persecute it aggravateth the sin that both mind and practice are defiled with it 4. I perswade no one to own the Ministry of an uncapable Person viz. one utterly Insufficient Heretical or Malignant who doth more harm than good The Conformists own this Rule while they silence so many and tell men that those that have not Ordination by Diocesans are not to be communicated with or owned as Ministers Both sides then confess that uncapable persons are not to be owned 5. I perswade none to be indifferent in the matters which concern their souls as whom they hear or chuse to be their Pastor nor in what manner they worship God nor to prefer any person or mode which all things considered is worse before better nor to deny themselves the great help of a learned skilful godly faithful Pastor to teach them publickly and counsel them privately when they may have such meerly because it is forbidden them by men and the Patron hath chosen them another who hath no such qualifications 6. I am perswading none that are under the government of their Parents or Masters to disobey them in the choice of the Pastor whom they shall ordinarily attend as long as they perswade them to a safer choice than the Patron hath made for them 7. I perswade none by Profession or Subscription to justifie as true or good the least untruth or evil in the Doctrine or Worship or Discipline of any Church or in any extemporate performance of the Minister 8. I perswade no Minister to conform to the Act of Uniformity and all the Canons 9. I perswade none to make light of any Church-corruptions nor to forbear endeavouring by lawful means in their place and calling to reform them much less to swear or promise it were that any where required or to renounce any Oath as not obliging them to any thing which God had made their duty 10. I perswade none to the sinful fear of man or to abate Christian fortitude constancy and patience in a good Cause nor to be over-tender of the Flesh or make too great a matter of their suffering Alas what are Worms that in the way to the Grave they should be feared more than God Poverty and Prisons may be as safe and near a way to Heaven as Wealth and Liberty None of all these are the things that I am for § 8. II. That you may know the Reasons of my own practice I shall next tell you what it is that my judgment is for which leads me to it And 1. I think all persons are visible Christians who are Baptized and profess their continued consent to the Baptismal Covenant and are not proved to have renounced or forsaken it by Word or Deed. 2. I think that the Pastor is by Office made the Church-Judge whether the persons Profession be understanding serious and credible or not and whether he be proved to forsake it And if the man dissemble or the Pastor judge falsly it 's their Sin and not mine if I contribute not to it by omitting any Monitory duty of my own nor is it lawful for me to usurp the Pastors judging power Nor am I bound to know my self the Case and Lives of all in the Church that I joyn with much less where I occasionally or seldom come 3. I think that a tollerable man though unduly chosen yet after received and consented to by the Parish Communicants is a true Pastor supposing his own Consent And that he and they are a true Church 4. I hold that Christ commanded his Apostles to endeavour to Disciple to him all Nations and Baptize and Teach them Mat. 28.19 20. And that we should pray and endeavour that the Kingdoms of the World may become the Kingdoms of the Lord and of his Christ. And that all Christian Kings are bound to do their best to make all their Subjects the Subjects of Christ more than the Jewish Kings were bound to promote the Iews Religion And that Christian Kingdoms are much more honourable and desirable than Christian Churches in an Heathen Kingdom And that the Civil State and Interest should be sanctified and made religious and more than a Shell or Body to the Religious State as the Kernel or the Soul And so they should be as far coherent and commensurable as can be procured Yet not so as to corrupt the religious state on that pretence by crookening it to any carnal interest The Body formeth not the Soul nor is it to be cut meet to the Cloathes nor the Foot fitted to the Shooe I intreat those that be not sensible of the great importance of National Christianity to read a little Book called The whole Duty of Nations written by a Conforming Minister who is much more Honourable by his Extraordinary Worth than his Great Estate and Birth which will bear down dissent by a stream of Evidence 5. In order to the promoting of this National Concord in Religion I have still resolved to conform to all the National Laws and Orders about Religion which corrupt it not nor command any sinful thing 6. Tho I renounce all Forreign Jurisdiction Monarchical or Aristocratical and usurpation of an Universal Government over all the Christian World which hath no civil or religious Universal Lawgiver or Judg but Christ neither Monarch nor Senate being capable of it yet I much more value the concord of the Universal Church than of one Nation And do more abhor doing any thing which is a sinful separation or discord from the Church Universal And I take the unchurching of the Univerâ—al Church to be a denying or deposing Christ. 7. All Christians must be known to be Christ's Disciples by loving one another as themselves And love judgeth no evil till constrained 8. Therefore I will separate from no Christian or Church without necessity no further than they separate from Christ. 9. I do not
separate from a Church meerly because I meet not with them else I should separate from all the World save the place where I am present But I avoid these several degrees of sinful separation 1. Accounting true Churches and Ministers to be none such as the Papists do by all that have not an uninterrupted succession of Diocesan Ordination 2. Accounting the Ministry and Worship and Government so bad as makes Communion with the Church unlawful if it be not so 3. Doing that needlesly which hath the scandalous appearing signification of such a judgment 10. I know many of the Parish-Ministers to be men of very laudable abilities and conversations and to have the consent of the most of the Communicants of the Parish 11. I am past doubt that so much of the Liturgie as is used every Lords Day as the common Worship is so far sound as to the matter of it that it hath no more material faultiness than is too often in extemporate Church-praying And that the disorder and faultiness in the Manner is no greater than is used also by many in free prayer with whom we all think it lawful to joyn And that prejudice maketh it seem to many much more faulty than it is The greatest dislike is of the Responses by the People and the shortness of the Prayers both which were used in the Ancient Churches when no sound Christians scrupled it much less separated for it Christ approved of the short Prayer of the Publican God be merciful to me a sinner Repetitions and the Peoples Acclamations and Responses were used in the Iewish Church as is evident in Ezra and in many Psalms c. We all allow the Peoples speaking even as much as the Minister in singing Psalms And the Congregation would murmur if the People should be but Hearers while the Minister singeth alone Of old their singing was like our saying and not in Rithmes like ours Will any pretend to prove that it 's lawful for the People to sing God's Praise and not to say it But they that dislike it may be silent As to the Objection that it 's unlawful to use imposed forms I have answered it so fully in my Cuâ—e of Church-Divisions and in my Christian Directory that I will here say no more but that 1. Every Ministers Prayer is a Form to the People and imposed on them to joyn in putting it up to God 2. And that its lawful for a Child to use a Form imposed by Parents therefore not simply evil 3. And that we all allow imposed Forms of Catechizing and of singing Prayers and Praise to God And that he that said Speak to one another in Psalms and Hymns and spiritual Songs never meant that they must not be premeditated 4. And many men sin by needless impositions when the use of the thing imposed is no sin but a duty And I am satitsfied that the Number of the Christian Churches on Earth which worship God without a Form far worse than ours is so small as that the soundness of ours is almost singular The supposed great 〈◊〉 in the By-Offices about God-Fathers Crossing the form of Burial and such other the Hearers of the common Lords-day-Service have no business with For my part I profess I take the ordinary Liturgy so â—he best part of the publick Service in half the Churches in England and had rather have it without the Sermon than the Sermon without it in those Churches 12. I therefore take it to be my duty as a private Hearer 1. When I am where there is a tolerable Minister and no other Church but the Parochial to joyn in Worship and Communion with them constantly 2. As a Minister on whom the Conditions in the Laws are put to refuse some of those Conditions 3. As an Hearer where the Minister is utterly intolerable to do nothing which seemeth an owning him as a Minister 4. In a place where the Parochial Ministry is the best but a private Minister and Church is peaceable and sound I will go ordinarily to the Parish-Church but sometime to the weaker if my forbearance would seem a disowning of their Communion yea tho it were to one that is against Infant-Baptism by mistake 5. In a place where the privater Minister and Worship is most spiritual powerful and profitable I would go ordinarily thither if I may But sometimes to a tolerable Parish-Minister and Communion in case my not going seem to signifie that I separate from their Communion as utterly unlawful And if I be a Preacher in a privater Church I will sometimes get another to supply my place and go to the Parish-Church if else my forbearance would seem to signifie that I judg it unlawful 6. I therefore take the same thing here to be lawful to one and a fault in another and a duty to another Those that have far better Helps and Communion all things considered should not ordinarily prefer worse And when the case differs not much the Will of a Parent an Husband a Master or a Magistrate should sway much And where it is a duty to noted persons to go to the Parish-Church sometime because else it will signifie that they think it unlawful an hundred Children Servants Wives poor people who are not noted or mist and their absence is no scandal are not bound to go at all while they have much better Helps and Communion elsewhere Having told you my Judgment of which in my Two forementioned Books I have given a fuller account I shall next add the reason of my Practice both to satisfie those that censure me and those that crave my help for their information but not making my self a Judg of them that differ The Reasons of my Practice in Parochial-Communion § 4. III. But here I am in the same streight as when I gave an account of my Nonconformity When upon many years urgency I did but tell men what the sins were which I thought I should commit if I conformed some said that I made the Conformists a Faction of unconscionable perjured Villains And if I now tell the Reasons why I joyn in the Parish-Churches some will say that these Reasons accuse them that do not of the guilt of Schism and sinful suffering But he that will perform no duty which none will be offended at shall scarce do any in the World My Reasons then are these I. I do it much for my own Edification And who can prove my Edification unlawful There is so sound judicious preaching in my Parish-Church where I now go that I take it to be my considerable loss when sickness keepeth me away And who can bind me to my loss If a stranger give now and then a peevish ignorant flirt at such as differ from him as those called Arminians and some others use to do I am not so thin-skin'd as thereby to smart nor so foolish as to raise a stir by talking against it which by taking no notice will go out like a Squib which the