will bee loath to loose his place aboue many others hecause hee hath stood so much heretofore vpon deniall of this which I affirme thereof yet hath hee nowe to thinke that neither the auncientie of his error nor the inconuenience hee dreameth of can yeelde him strength inough to keepe it The inconuenience shall bee met withall afterward Here I will shewe the reasons of my iudgement out of the place I wrote vnto you sayth Paul in an Epistle that you shoulde not company together with fornicators This verse you see is of shedding or sorting out our company Then followeth and not altogether with the fornicators of this worlde or with the couetous or with extortioners or with idolaters for then you must goe out of the world But nowe I haue written vnto you that you company not together If any that is called a brother be a fornicator or couetous or an idolater or a railer or a drunkard or an extortioner with such a one eate not In these verses wee are directed both what persons to shunne and also in what conuersation or company In appoynting the persons hee excepteth for those that were not as yet come to religion and setteth downe this rule to hold in all those that are counted brethren in the Church Of his exception hee rendreth two reasons first because the number of those that professed not Christ was then so great as they could not auoyde them and liue in the worlde Secondly because Christians are not charged with their censuring but they are reserued to Gods iudgement Why brethren are subiect to those priuate censures as I may speake he giueth this reason because we ought to looke into and iudge one of another The conuersation is set out by one kinde named for all to witte eating of meate which is alwayes a very notable marke and fruite of familiaritie I know your leader would haue you vnderstand this of eating bread at the Lordes table onely but the 10. verse deliuereth the whole text from this iniury For if the Apostle would haue had them taken his meaning in this place to be directly of their meeting companying at the Lordes Table as you take it what needed hee to haue excepted those that were out of the Church and no brethren with whō the Church neither had nor might haue company at the Lordes Table Yea how absurdly had he reasoned in saying thus for then you must go out of the world as though he should say if you altogether debar the wicked that are without the Church from your company at the Lordes table then may you as well get out of the worlde for you cannot liue in it When your leader is so grossely ouershot in such playne points it lieth you vppon carefully to consider whether the hand of God be vpon him in as heauy a iudgment as fell vpon Elymas the sorcerer for peruerting the straight wayes of the Lorde By this that is sayd I trust it is cleere ynough that the doctrine which he calleth so seditious is not mine but the Lords and therefore if it haue any such dangerous consequences as your replier reckoneth you see that his accusation must reach higher then mee But alas how doth it grieue me in your behalfe yours I meane with the rest of your company I would if it pleased God that you knewe or could discerne rightly with what sorowe I am sundry times affected for you when I consider which I doe often what numbers as I heare of you whereof many haue otherwise good partes in them are so intollerably abused and ouer caryed by that wretched man For euen in this doth it follow thinke you that if wee tye our selues to this rule of sorting our company in priuate conuersation that then the knot of marriage should bee loosed the bondes of obedience broken and outward acquaintances quite shaken of c. Is there no meane betwixt these two extremities but that we must be either vnnatural or carelesse Surely if we should take this course in all the Scriptures wee should make a strange religion by and by I meane if we receiue some generall sayings of the Scripture without their peculiar exceptions and declarations in other places As for example Thou shalt doe no manner worke on the seuenth day and thou shalt not kill what should the seruice and ceremonies doe in the Church or the Magistrate in the common wealth if these bee not limitted and declared by other special places and exceptions And if you grant me this that places are to be compared with places and generals declared vnderstood by specials why thē shal you see this knot sone vntied or rather that ther was no knot nor difficultie as your leader hath mislead you For that those places of dissorting our selues frō the wicked make nothing against obedience to Magistrates wee haue Matt. 22.21 Rom. 13.1.2 with diuers others to declare them Againe that they debarre no dueties in marriage 1. Cor. 7.3.4.5.12.13 with many other places that you knowe doe warrant vs. The like also may bee sayde of children to parents and in the rest So that then conferring these places together we see flatly that as on the one side we are bound generally to shun priuate conuersation with vngodly ones so on the other side we must necessarily obserue withall whatsoeuer speciall dueties are to bee required at our handes by any one And thus at length it will fall out being as from both sides resolued that touching Magistrates parentes maried folkes and masters the general prohibitions of not eating nor keeping company must bee vnderstood of shunning the malice of sinne and seducing yea that our doings must be with a kind of mourning and afflictiō for their sakes but not forbidding necessary dueties which other bonds of commandements doe straitly bind vs to Touching other acquaintances and dealing with brethren those prohibitions reach not beyond their inward familiaritie delightful accompanying which is euer stained with fowle tolerations and neglect of Christian reprehensions And therefore haue we for these cases other golden rules also to guide vs by When as Saint Paul sayth If any man obey not this our saying in this letter note him haue no companie with him that hee may bee ashamed yet count him not as an enemy but admonish him as a brother Wee must so auoyde his company as hee may not finde want of loue and brotherly kindnes in vs but onely a chiefe loue of vertue that thereby he may take shame at his sinne To the same purpose sayth hee in another place Let no man deceiue you with vaine woordes for such thinges commeth the wrath of God vpon the children of disobedience Bee not therefore companions with them Likewise a litle after And haue no felowship with the vnfruitefull woorkes of darkenes but euen reproue them rather This conferring and resoluing of places together if your leader had grace to vse hauing also vngorged himselfe of
His maner is to speake loude and doe little That there was no negligence in omitting circuncision and the celebration of the Passeouer but a necessitie and commaundement he would prooue thus and first for the Passeouer because saith he It was not to be kept after their comming out of Egypt saue at some special charge of the Lorde as Numbers 9.2 till they came into the lande of Canaan Howe prooues he this First by some testimonies of Scripture full slenderly vnderstoode and secondly by a reason taken from the ende of the Passeouer which maketh cleare against him His Scriptures testifie that they were more then once remembred to keepe the Passeouer when they came into the lande of Canaan but he sheweth vs not that they were onely then to keepe it and not ordinarily before To keepe the Passeouer in the wildernesse and to keepe it also in the lande of Canaan are in no wise contrary so as to argue from the affirmation of the one to the negation of the other But although that be so beaten vpon to preuent the securitie or forgetfulnesse of them or their posteritie when they shoulde come to the lande of rest as least they should imagine that which figured their so hastie going out of Egypt to cease when they shoulde be at ease yet must the whole institution be better considered and thereby we shall see as our Sauiour answered touching the billes of diuorce that howsoeuer the Israelites practised afterwardes yet in the beginning it was not so For the Lorde saide This day shall be vnto you a remembraunce and ye shall keepe it a holy feast vnto the Lorde throughout your generations ye shall keepe it holy by an ordinance for euer This is repeated agayne and the thirde tyme before he maketh mention of the lande of Canaan and when he commeth to that he doeth not bring it in expositiuely as with I meane To wit That is to say or any such note of further opening that which he had spoken before but hauing said in the 24. verse Therefore shall you obserue this thing as an ordinance for thee and thy sonnes for euer he addeth Be it therefore when you shall come into that lande which Iehouah euen as he hath sayde shall giue vnto you and shall obserue this worshippe Be it I say that your children asking you what this worship meaneth you shall say c. al which appeareth as I sayd to be no restraint of the former generall thryse repeated commandement but partly a further enforcing of the perpetuitie of the ceremonie by so speciall enioyning euen their land of rest to be subiect vnto it and partly to teach the deriuing of the vse thereof to the generations long after Also when he setteth downe that day to all their posterity and generations it is likely that either they must obserue it in the wildernesse or else they that then liued could not keepe the commaundement in teaching their children the practise instruction thereof Againe in the 9. of Numb it is expressely noted that they celebrated it then in the first moneth of the second yere which was the next in order to the passeouer in Aegipt the Lord as it were making him-selfe a gratious remembrancer of them for that time not vpon any speciall cause as Browne would carry it but onely because the appointed time was returned for the word of God in no case is silent to giue the reasons of any speciall exceptions of generall commandements Also if it had bin commaunded in the third or fourth yere there had bene some little colour of that he saith This is yet more euident seeing that in the same place the Lord commaundeth further that it shoulde bee kept in the appointed time namely the 14. day of the first moneth and calleth that the due season thereof Which argueth plainly that the keeping of that feast was seasonable before they came to Canaan And therefore also when they came beyonde Iordan into the lande of Canaan although they were not come to their rest yet they celebrated it euen without any speciall commaundement from the Lorde because it was the proper time of the Passeouer Nowe whereas Browne reasoneth that because it figured the hastie going out of Aegipt and through the wildernes therfore they were not ordinarily to keepe it before they came to the land of rest hee might much more reasonably haue concluded therfore they ought to haue kept c. because the oftener meditating and the mo helpes wee vse in the very action of perfourming our commaunded dueties the more likely and probable is our better performaunce of the same And that circumcision was omitted by negligence it is euident in Iosh 5 where the cause of their vncircumcision is rendered to be neither necessitie nor commaundement as Browne fableth but the very negligence of their parents for so the text saith They were vncircumcised because they circumcised them not by the way And therefore after the Lord calleth this their circumcising the taking away the shame of Egipt from thē plainly casting so in their teeth their vncircūcision as nothing else but a tricke of Egypt which they sauored of as they did of other their maners of worshipping their calues c. Neither is it any thing that he alleadgeth of their let of iourneying For first this generation at Gilgal might haue pretended the same being not yet come to their place of rest yea better in that they being men growne could not iourney after it should thereby be in euident danger of all their enemies about thē Secondly seeing God had cōmanded circuncision at a certaine day not limitted their iournying any certaine day they were to thinke in all equitie that the Lord would not dispose so of the remouing of the cloud or pillar as that they should be hurt in the obedience of this cōmandement Thirdly if they had circūcised their children as they ought at 8. daies old not deferred it vntil they were of age al men may know that the children caried of their mothers could not haue bene hurt by their mothers trauaile with thē Last of al we may see that euē in the iourney which God required of Moses that a iourney of great importāce he required notwithstanding his childes circumcision Which argueth that God gaue no dispensations in this matter for iournying And therefore it must be concluded as M.C. hath rightly reasoned that if this people omitting these necessary duties ceassed not to be the Church people of God it is plaine that many necessary poynts perteining to a sound comely stable being may bee found wanting yet the Church not presently ouerthrown therby Nowe I suppose Browne him selfe will not say that the politicall guiding of a Church by the censuring discipline is greater then these twaine And in this respect saith M. C. the Dutch assemblies whereof the greatest part in high Germanie which besides the mayme
him and beeing builded vppon him by faith It is certaine there may be other wants and deformities where these essentiall partes are Now those deformities and wantes may bee both in pointes of doctrine and practise as may plainely bee prooued by examples of the Churches of God established in all ages For the leauen of euill and daungerous pointes of doctrine let the Churches of the Corinthes about the resurrection also counting fornication among indifferent thinges and the Colossians aboute ceremoniall obseruation of dayes and abstinence of meates and worshipping of Angels testifie Yea let the Churches of Galatia generallye infected with daungerous doctrine bee witnesse Wantes in pointes of knowledge and doctrine appeared manifestly to be in the Apostles the Church at Ierusalem touching the vocation of the Gentiles As for practise in gouerning and ordering the Churches if we search the times we shall easily find both deformities disabilities or wantes yea euen in the holsome censures of the Church which are here in question The Corinthians vnreuerent and scandalous yea almost prophane comming to the Lordes table is an example of a foule and corrupt behauiour of a Church Of wants and disabilities in the practise of Church gouernment let vs marke whether they may not be found euen in some Church which that most painefull Apostle Saint Paule laboured so plentifully to make perfect consider I say diligently and you shall finde that same famous Church of Rome where not long after Paule died for the testimonie of Christ so weake and defectiue in duties of gouernment as that they could not separate from them such as preached Christ contentiously and with so spitefull minds against Paule as tended to the cutting off of so good and faithfull a guide from amongest them You will not say they deserued it not nor yet that the better sort woulde not doe it for then also their faulte was worse You cannot say they knewe it not or it was secrete for Paule was in prison so as the knowledge therof coulde not come to him but by the information of brethren yea it is manifest by the same Epistle that the greater number of that Church did corruptly demeane and carrie themselues in the same Againe that pestilent chaire of ambitious vsurpation ouer the assemblies was crept into the Church whereof Saint Iohn maketh mention in these wordes I wrote vnto the Church but Diotrephes who seeketh the preheminēce among them receyueth vs not wherefore if I come I wil declare his deedes which he doeth pratling against vs with ambitious wordes and not therewith content neither himselfe receyueth the brethren but forbiddeth them that would and casteth them out of the Church First here is as much deprauation of discipline as Browne can tell vs of Secondly it is plaine that the same Church remained then vnable to remedie it which the Apostle signifieth by purposing a time to come rebuke him which needed not if the Church according to his demerite could haue chastened him Thirdly hee yet intituleth them the Church whereby all men may see the Apostle was farre frō Brownes mind For he neither insinuateth that the Church was now disanulled by such corruption nor giueth any caueat for men to withdraw or withhold themselues from ioyning with the same which certainly had bene necessarie both for that time present and all posterities ensuing Consider likewise what I haue before obserued vpon the 11. to the Cor. in the 11. sect So that turne you which way you will this shall bee sufficiently proued alwayes that a Church that is to say an assembly consisting of the essentiall partes of a Church of God may bee chargeable of diuerse other wantes and deformities both in doctrine gouernment which being so the other bulwarke also which your leader had builded for you to perswade you boldly to go from vs is beaten downe to the ground namely that the failing of any necessarie point in the publique practise of gouernement breaketh the couenant of a Church Yeld your selfe therfore for here must you needes be taken 22 But nowe let vs come to applie this same generall question to our particular congregation which if it bee tried in the essentiall parts aforsaid shall vndoubtedly be found a Church of God howsoeuer in some other things impure and defectiue He excepteth but against his owne knowledge cōscience that we haue no power nor order in vse to separate the vnworthy First this is no way of the essence of a Church as I shall proue Also I haue saide before that we both may and doe discerne of the Communicants and debarre the vnworthie And I brought places of his owne writings that testifie the same If hee doubt whether wee doe it let him inquire If the reader woulde see where the lawe doeth warrant it let him reade at the beginning of the ministration of the Communion in the Church bookes there shall he see it His sophisticall fetch in making this discipline all one with Christs power gouernment is bowlted out in another place To holde the church of Englande to bee without Christs discipline is they vnaduisednes of him that putteth all vpon the spurre and neuer looketh at his way To discerne the worthy and vnworthy in the assemblies to admonish the inordinate to suspend finally excommunicate the vnruly ones which is the discipline wherof our question is all men know the church of England by law professeth and dayly practiseth therefore it cannot bee said to be without the very discipline of Christ this very discipline I say as touching all the parts and duties of censuring although not ordered administred by such a course as the worde appointeth Which if he consider better hee may more truely hereafter affirme that the church of England administreth the discipline corruptly then that it wanteth the same that the outward forme and ordering of the discipline is popish but not the substāce so How much we labor according to our places to recouer that libertie the word giueth to euery cōgregation for executing the discipline as it is vnpossible for you to report of it that come not among vs so it is a shame for him to define of it that otherwise knoweth vs not 30 But then he woulde haue vs crie out by name against those that restraine vs yea though it cost vs our liues I answer All men in this cannot be tied to one rule for the maner of proceeding neither in any other case of suffering for the truth but euery one is to be left brotherly stirrings vp excepted to the particular preparations and thrusting forth of the spirit Your leader therefore hauing such a particular feeling of so great a charge and bond of duty to venture his liuing life in this case and specially holding the discipline so deare aboue vs as he pretendeth cannot keepe backe himselfe in this case but with ranke cowardlinesse and being guiltie of
betraying the good cause yea who ought to go before all others in suffering for this reformation but hee onely that pretendeth to holde the same at a higher price and to seeke for it with a more feruent zeale than all others But we haue experience sufficient of him what great things he hath suffred and how And this we know whatsoeuer he discourseth otherwhere of his fugitiue life that although some others haue bene hanged for his heresies he hath not only bene contented to let them go without his companie but comming also to some triall of his courage before authoritie there was not onely no shew of that Heroical spirit which he woulde haue you see in his writings but contrariwise shifting answeres with subtill reseruations shamefull and disorder like giuing backe from the trueth it selfe and finally a most hypocriticall subscription least hee shoulde haue felt affliction in the least of his fingers Of any of these if you doubt I will bee readie to shewe you prooues 31 In my first answere I shewed you the right vnderstanding of that comparison of the leauen which S. Paule vseth in the 1. to the Cor. 5. cap. that you might see if that place so commonly obiected of your leader to warrant your separating from our assemblies be but rightly vnderstoode it quickeneth our care and diligent indeuours to remoue corruptions but teacheth no man to forsake his Church I gaue you to vnderstande that the comparison is there of qualitie not of quantitie I speake not of like force and like nature without regarde of like woorking I knowe we consider of the natures of things by their effects and therefore I saide also that Paule putteth vs in minde of the effect of leauen The leauen in sowring the meale wherwith it is mingled and the vngodly in corrupting those with whom they keepe companie haue herein both a like nature yea and their effectes when they doe come to passe are both alike For it is true that when the wicked drawe others after them to become also of euill conuersation that before were not so the effect is like to the sowring of the meale which before was not so but now the measure of working of the one and of the other is not the same in both subiects Which that I may helpe you the better to vnderstand consider that the matter subiect to the sowring of the leauen is meale a thing altogether and wholy disposed to receiue the impression thereof without resistance But the matter whereon the wicked doe worke in this comparison is a company consisting of two sorts of men contrarily disposed and tempered the one apt to be infected the other hauing a supernatural power to hold out their contagion So that though the sowring that the one maketh the corrupting that the other worketh be alike yet are they not equal For of the meale all is infected but not all of such a cōpanie and so is it in the comparison that I gaue you By the salt all the liquor is seasoned but so is not alwayes a wicked company by two or three righteous men cōuerted Againe the leauen in one night so wreth the meal wherwith it is mingled you dare not say that the case is the same with a whole cōgregation and yet you say more if you hold that by warrant of this scripture you must depart frō the sacrament where you see vnworthy ones admitted for so you account the whole congregation to be leauened that is vnsanctified in a moment But I must further remēber you that as in diuers places the scripture speaketh of leauen in the ill part so our Sauiour Christ propoundeth a similitude by the same in the good part Which if you applie and vrge as farre foorth as you haue done this you must say that where faith regeneration by the gospel is once begun there do al become faithful renued euen as of 3. pecks of meale all becommeth leuened Which if you doe say all the worlde will crie shame of you If you feare so to abuse this place why feare you not also in the other Moreouer whereas your leader teacheth you to applie these woordes of Saint Paule A little leauen leaueneth the whole lumpe as though the Apostle had giuen you to vnderstande thereby that one knowne and so proued a wicked man remayning vnseparated in a Church vnsanctifieth the whole and bringeth a nullity vpon it hee doeth too grossely and shamefully abuse miscary and seduce you For by leauening Paul meant corrupting them with euill manners Like as to the Galathians hee meaneth by the same speech the corrupting of that Church with false doctrine and not the disanulling of either So that if God haue yet left you the vnderstanding to make difference betweene sicke and dead and that which is vnpure and that which is not nowe at all your leader can no longer misleade you in this poynt For if hee dare auouch it that whatsoeuer congregation is corrupt either in manners or doctrine the same is not to bee reputed or ioyned with as a Church of God we can soundly and so may safely proue and denounce him for a Donatist and not worthy to liue in any land of Christian gouernement His vnsatisfied dalyance with my comparing of salt with the righteous argueth the man either so pursued by the hande of God that whilest hee controlleth all men himselfe is vtterly spoyled of vnderstanding or else of so reprobate a mynde that hee wilfully closeth his eyes and stoppeth his eares at those thinges that haue speciall force to affect the senses to the reformation of his iudgement And after that hee hath altogether thus abused you in the scope of my comparison least hee should leaue you any light at all in it hee takes it to his owne stithie and hammers it a newe for so hee presumeth it shalbe fit for the schollers of his learning The Lorde giue you eyes to see and a heart to abhorre his most dangerous and pestilent conclusion for thus hee teacheth you euen the same doctrine which right nowe I called Donatisme that like as sweete water intermingled with poyson is poysoned and turned into the nature of poyson so the notorious wicked openly mingled in one outward Church with the righteous or the righteous with them they become one wicked crewe together euen all of them poysoned and infected together As touching the author of this sentence I haue litle hope as in all the rest to preuaile ought by my answering onely for your sakes my deare brethren that haue not as yet sounded the deepenes of Satan in him I will herein also lende my labour to weigh out this matter by the waightes of the Sanctuary And although my 11. 28. Sections do sufficiently couer him with shame and confusion for this poynt yet shall this bee further also euen as the nayle of Iahel to pearce through the temples of Sisara downe into the earth First this his bold