the quality of their offence He that hath a Conscience to Subscribe to all the Scriptures and yet contradict them by his Heresie may do so by any Form that you can impose on him that hath any appearance of fitness to be so imposed We must not make new Laws every time the old ones are misinterpreted or broken Our great danger in England is of Popery above any thing except Impiety it self And the strength and upshot of all the Papists arguings is Where was your Religion and Church before Luther which by their Exposition is Where was your Thirty Nine Articles or your Assemblies Confession or any Church that Successively from the Apostles held them This is their all which indeed is nothing LET US OWN AS THE RULE OF OUR RELIGION BUT THE HOLY SCRIPTURES AND EXPRESS OUR BELIEF IN SCRIPTURE PHRASE without distorting it to look towards any Heretical or Erroneous Sense AND THEN WE MAY EASILY TELL A PAPIST WHERE OUR RELIGION AND CHURCH WAS BEFORE LUTHER yea the simplest Women that understand but what Christianity is may thus be able to defend their Religion against the Cavils of these Learned Adversaries Let us not therefore give away so great an advantage and withal divide the Church of God by departing from the sufficiency of the Scripture when it is the principal point wherein a Protestant differeth from a Papist and that wherein we unanimously oppose them II. If we would avoid Separations we must keep up holy Discipline and not leave the Churches so polluted by the abundance of impenitent impious Persons as may frighten tender Consciences from us Discipline that is pleaded for must be faithfully practised We must not step out of the way of God by unjâ—st rigor to please any Men nor to avoid their offence but we must cast out those that should not be in the Church the rather lest those withdraw that should be in And herein a principal part of our Care must be to set Godly people a-work upon their own Duty in a loving humble admonishing of Offenders that we may convince them how sinful a course it is to expect that Men should be cast out before they have been dealt with on the Terms and by the degrees that Christ hath appointed and to run away from the Church because they will not do their Duties III. To this end that our Churches may be capable of Discipline the Duty of Confirmation must be so far restored and faithfully practised that none may be admitted into the Number of Adult Members for the Communion proper to such till they have made a credible Profession of their Faith and Repentance and renewed their Baptismal Covenant consenting to the State and Duty of Church Members if they are stated in a particular Church and so are Approved by the Pastors of the Church Without this Discipline cannot be exercised as I have shewed in a Treatise for Confirmation IV. Lastly if we will prevent Antichurches and Separations Ministers must be studious that they may be able to confound Gainsayers and then they must be holy harmless humble self-denying charitable manifesting tender Love to all that they deal with prudent and very vigilant and industrious thinking no cost or pains too great for their so great ends Because we have neglected these four necessary things Separations have afflicted us Chap. III. Difference I. THE third part of my task is to state the Controversies that occasion our present Divisions in England There are besides intolerable Hereticks as Seekers Quakers c. but three Parties that I remember that trouble us much with unjust Separations and Antichurches The first is that new Prelatical Party that unchurch our Churches and nullifie our Ministry and Ministerial Performances and draw into private Meetings supposing that only Laymen or Schismaticks with whom they must not Communicate because they are not Ordained by English Prelates have possession of the publick Churches To these I have spoken in my Disputation of Church Government and therefore shall say nothing here The Second Sort of Separatists are those called Anabaptists that deny Communion with our Churches supposing us to be unbaptized To these I shall speak by themselves in the Offer of an Agreement The Difference is sufficiently made known The Third Sort are those that of old were peculiarly named Separatists together with some of those that are now called Congregational or Independents who withdraw upon some Differences in Points of Discipline which Differences it shall now be my work to state And because I would be brief I will annex the Accommodations to the Differences I. The first Point of Difference which I think is no Difference and yet is it that indeed makes almost all the Difference is about the necessary Qualification of Church Members That this makes almost all our Difference except what disowned neglects of Discipline and other such faults among us occasion is known to us by experience who hear the Members of the private Churches alledge this as the principal Point of Difference for our accusation and their own justification that we take those for Godly that they take not for such That Doctrinally here is no difference between the Parties but what is between the Persons in the same Parties is in their words apparent The Independents say that the Members of the Church must be visible Saints The Presbyterians deny it not The Presbyterians say that Sincerity or real Sanctity is not of Necessity to Visible Church Members The Independents say so to and no wonder for else the Visible Church would not be Visible nor could any Man be known to be a Member because we know not their Sincerity or real Holiness Master Norton Resp. ad Apollon p. 7. 11 12. thus fully openeth their mind that All and only those Competentes that are Ecclesiastically 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Believers and walk orderly are the next matter of a Visible Church and to be admitted By Ecclesiastically Believers he tells us that he meaneth such as are faithful in the judgment of the Church or such as towards whom whether they are positively faithful or not we are bound to carry our selves in common Church Duties as if they were faithful To this he takes these four things necessary 1. A Confession of the Fundamentals and other points of Religion which are of necessity to avoid a scandalous Life 2. Such a declaration of the Experimental work of Faith which contains the substance of Conversion though it may be counterfeit 3. A Conversation not scandalous 4. A testified Subjection to the Gospel of Christ and his Government There is nothing in all this but what the Presbyterians consent to with these Explications which we doubt not but will be allowed 1. That this excludeth not the Infants of Believers from being Infant Members of the Church without these Qualifications in their Persons 2. That if Infant Members grow up and claim a place among the Adult it will then be meet that
all this be done by them 3. But yet that it 's one thing to admit them into the number of the Adult Members of the Church Universal as the Eunuch Acts 8. and others were by Baptism and another thing to admit them into a particular Church also And that the consent to Christianity is it that is necessary to the first and the consent to the Duty of a particular Member in that Church is necessary only to the Second which supposeth also the First 4. That there is great difference between a Baptized Person that needs but Confirmation or Repentance and a Converted â—nfidel that 's to be Baptized It is meet to have some Testimony of the Life of the former because he is in Covenant already But the Life of the latter is not to be supposed to be upright but ungodly and therefore we may not require of him a Testimony of his upright Life but a Confession and Lamentation of his ungodly Life with a Consent and Resolution for new Obedience Upon this much the Apostles Baptized their Converts without delay to try their Lives 5. And there 's difference to be put between what is necessary ad esse ad bene esse Necessitate medii praecepti And the Profession of Christianity that is of present Faith and Repentance and this by any tolerable intimation or signification is all that is necessary to the Being of such Adult Members And that the Testimony of his good life is only necessary when it may be sought to the performance of our Duty and the purity of the Church If we admit a Man of another Countrey without Testimony or Tryal upon his meer profession or if we do so through haste or negligence or multitude of Persons that we have to deal with in populous places this doth not nullifie his Membership Nor yet if we admit him upon a dark and less express Confession And 6. It is a Mans Profession that is his Title condition to Visible Membership and his Life is but a Confirmation of that and where there is not opportunity of enquiring after Mens Lives it is sufficient even in point of Duty that we receive his Profession if no Man will bring witness of a Life so vicious as may invalidate that Profession 7. And I think we may take it for granted that Mr. Norton's Second demand of a Declaration of the Experimental work of Faith or substance of Conversion is satisfied in the Profession of Faith and Repentance or in our renewing our Baptismal Covenant For doubtless all the substance of Conversion is contained in these He that professeth that he believeth in God the Father Son and Holy Ghost renouncing the Flesh the World and the Devil or that he believeth and repenteth and is willing to live a holy Life doth profess Conversion The Sum of all is this which we are agreed in A Credible Profession of Christianity that is of Faith and Repentance or of Holiness is that which is the Title-condition to our Membership in the Church Universal and its Priviledges And A Credible profession of Consent to be a Member of this particular Church added to the former is the condition of our Right to admittance into such a Church And a careful Pastor will and should consider how Mens lives do answer their profession But if nothing be brought from the Life to invalidate it the profession it self must be accepted And therefore if no such Omissions or Commissions are proved against the person that desireth our Communion as are of sufficient weight to prove that the persons profession is Incredible it is to be received because every Man is supposed to be better acquainted with his own Heart than the Church is or can be And every Man is to be supposed Credible till he can be proved Incredible by Evidences that in foro Ecclesiae are satisfactory Especially when Men have to do with a Heart-searching God and their Everlasting Life or Death lyeth at the stake and when the holy Life that they engage themselves to live is so contrary to Flesh and Blood and seldom are there times so good in which it is not reproached at least by the ungodly we have reason fide humand to believe Mens profession in such a case And as God will have Mens Salvation or Damnation lye more upon their own choice than upon any other Mans so is it his wise and gracious Order that their Church Mercies or Judgments their standing in the Church or being out of it shall lye more upon their own Chusing or Refusing than on the Churches or any others And therefore if Men dissemble in their profession the Church is blameless and it is themselves that bear the blame and suffering And so if they keep out themselves or force the Church by their Impenitency to cast them out But if the Church should keep out Men that would come in that do not wilfully refuse Gods Terms these persons would lay the blame on the Church and say Lord I would fain have entred but could not be received Let any Man read Mr. Norton and such others and he will allow me to conclude that de lege in this point we are agreed even in two words that A Credible Profession is the Condition or Qualification requisite in the Adult Yea and we are agreed also what are the Qualifications that must make a profession Credible Viz. that it be or seem to us to be tolerably Understanding Deliberate Free or Voluntary Serious and not Invalidate by contradictory words or practice sufficiently proved And for the matter of it we are agreed that it must be a profession of all the Essentials of Christianity and that it must be a Consent to present and not only to a distant future holiness Even as a promise to become a Husband or Wife to another a Month hence is not Marriage but a promise of Marriage We are agreed also that Extremes in the Execution of this Rule must be cautelously avoided As on one side that we do not take that to be a profession that is none and that we take not that for Credible that is Incredible and that we take not that for Understood that is not tolerably understood or that for deliberate voluntary or serious that is not so or appeareth not so And that we be not careless when it may be done in inquiring how Men have kept their Baptismal Covenant and what their Lives are before we Confirm them or Approve them for the Communion of the Adult And that we refuse not to hear what just exceptions can be brought against them Lest we frustrate Church Order and Ordinances and nullifie Discipline and pollute the Church And on the other side we are in the Doctrine agreed that Hypocrites will be in the Visible Church and that we must not refuse those that have the least knowledge of the Essentials though they are not able in the Congregation to express it nor privately in any but broken and unhandsom
under the general Laws of Christ. But the use of Synods is so ordinary and great that in sound and peaceable Countreys where Heresie or Church-Tyranny doth not turn them against their proper ends and where State-Iealousies cause not Rulers to forbid them the statedness and frequency of them will be of very great advantage to the Churches But in the contrary cases it may be quite contrary 7. Though no one of these Bishops or Pastors in Councils nor many conjunct be by Divine Right the proper Governour over the rest and therefore as to one another their Canons are Agreements for Union rather than the Laws of Superior Governours yet do they not by their Assembling lose their Governing Power over their Several Flocks but meet to exercise it with the greater consideration and force And therefore their lawful Determinations and Agreements may be truely obligatory to their several Flocks 8. The largeness of these Councils should be suited to the occasion and necessity As the Scandals Heresies Schisms or Contentions do require But to make proper Universal Councils to be the ordinary Supreme Governing Law-givers to a Body Politick called the Universal Church is a device of those who would do Christs work in their own mistaking way and for the preserving of the Churches Unity will desperately divide corrupt and injure it There is no necessity of it Christs Universal Laws being sufficient with the Civil Government of Princes and the Circumstantial Determinations of the particular Churches And it is pernicious if not impossible The many thousand Miles distance of the Churches the paucity of the Pastors and necessity of their presence in many Churches the many years that must be spent in Travel the opposition of Heathen and Infidel Princes whose Subjects they are or through whose Countreys they must Travel the Wars and Jealousies of Princes the probability of the death of the ablest Pastors in such a Voyage they being usually aged Men and weak their diversity of Tongues and unintelligibleness to one another their long continuance in such Councils their incapacity to meet and hear together in any one Room the probability that the numerousness of the nearest Bishops and paucity of the remote will make a Faction go for the Council the improbability that ever they will return to bring home the Decrees the unsatisfiedness of the Churches in their Decrees when a thousand or an hundred Pastors who chuse one single Delegate know not whether he will speak their sense or not with many such Reasons make it as pernicious as unnecessary Nor have the Christian Churches ever had such Councils the meetings of the Twelve Apostles being nothing to this purpose But as all Men know that the Roman Emperors had no power to Summon the Pastors who were the Subjects of other Princes so the recorded Suffrages of all the Councils certifie us that they were none such but the Subjects only of the Roman Empire or those that had been such with a very inconsiderable number of some adjacent Bishops and that but very seldom So that those Councils were Universal only as to the Empire of Rome and that but very rarely if ever but never as to the Christian World 9. If a plurality of Hereticks Schismaticks or ungodly Bishops or Pastors should by the advantage of their Councils oppress the Churches or the Truth the Sound and Faithful Pastors must hold on in the way of Duty and not forsake the Truth or the Flocks in Obedience to such Councils 10. If any Church or Pastor be accused or defamed to the Neighbour Churches of any Heresie Schism Scandal or Injury either to any Person of that Church or to any Neighbour Church or Person the general Precepts of Christian Charity Concord Humility Submission c. do oblige such accused Persons to tender to their offended Brethren especially if it be many Churches due satisfaction and to hear their Reasons and Admonitions and to acknowledge their own faults and amend if they have erred and in lawful things to yield to others for Peace and Concord and to avoid offence where greater accidents make it not then unlawful so to do 11. If any Pastors or Neighbour Churches remain impenitent under such proved Heresie Impiety or Crimes as are inconsistent with the true profession of Godliness the Synods or Neighbour Churches after due Admonition and Pationce should openly disown their sins and if they be inconsistent with the Essentials of Christian Communion should also disclaim Communion with them and should send to the innocent part to exhort them to save themselves by Separation from the rest or to forsake such Heretical and Impenitent Pastors And should motion them to better Pastors and send some to instruct them in the mean time if they be accepted But none of this must be done in case of tolerable infirmities or failings 12. A truely Ordained Minister of Christ being called or accepted by a Church for the present time to teach them and guide them in publick Worship and Sacramental Communion in the Sickness or Absence of their stated Pastors or in a vacancy ought to assist them and is to be esteemed as a Minister of Christ in those Administrations And when a Church is destitute of Pastors it is ordinarily the peoples Duty to desire the Faithful Neighbour Pastors to assist them for supply especially in the tryal of such parts of Pastoral sufficiency which they are unable to try themselves and to Ordain by Approbation and Solemn Investiture such a Person to the Ministry as they Consent to if he be not before Ordained or if he be yet by Prayer to desire God to Bless him in that special Charge Q. 4. What are the terms of Communion between the Churches of several Kingdoms A. This needs no more addition to the former Answer but this 1. That their Communion in the main must be the same in Faith and Love and Obedience to God as if they were under the same Civil Government 2. But they must not busie themselves needlesly with the distant and unknown cases and business of others Nor 3. Must they violate the lawful restraints of their civil Governours nor disturb the Peace of Kingdoms upon pretences of the Churches Privileges or Interest 4. And if they are offended at the Doctrine Worship or Practice of other Churches they should send to them for satisfaction and those Churches should send them the forementioned Confession of the Christian Religion and either purge themselves from the Crimes of which they are accused or confess them and forsake them But when the Pastors which in several Countries have drunk in differing Opinions shall expect that all others should speak as they do in all controverted Points of tolerable difference and by their odious imagined consequences shall slander other Churches or Pastors as holding that which they disclaim or as denying that which in their publick Confessions they profess as their very Religion and by their passions unskilfulness and uncharitableness shall make all differences though