how little the endeavours of others have had which have been of somewhat a like nature But this diffidence proceeds not at all from any suspicion I have touching the sufficiency of the reason and argument which is offered to perswade you by but from the rootedness and strength of your prejudice by which the strongest reasoning is many times resisted Elihu saith Job 34. that the ear tryeth words as the mouth tasteth meat Now we know that that meat which is good and savoury in it self and pleasant to the tast of those who are in a healthful habit of body is unsavoury and perhaps nauseous to those of a vitiated palate And there is just a like difference between the tast which men have of the same argumentation upon the account of the corruption and uncorruptness of their Judgments And therefore it will be your wisdom in order to your making a right Judgment to divest your mind as much as possible you can of all prejudice when you come to peruse discourses of this nature Some I understand have taken up a prejudice against somewhat I have done formerly of this Nature from a mistake and misinformation as if the turn of times had caused that alteration which hath been made in my mind about the things discussed in this Address But to the end that none may be taken off from perusing and considering this discourse upon any such pretence they may certainly know the untruth of such suggestions by this to wit that I published my Retractation of separation in the year 1659. when separation was in greatest repute and the turn of times they speak of then out of prospect to such as my self Saint Paul counted it but a small thing with him to be judged by men or of mans Judgment because he was to stand or fall not by their Judgment but by Gods And considering that every one of us may say as he did in this it very much concerns us in our enquiry what is and what is not to be done and practised by us not much to mind what this or the other party will think or say of us or whether this or that way will best accommodate us in our Worldly interest but with uprightness to do all as unto God in the sight of God to whom every one of us must give an account for himself And because we must do so therefore we should take as little as may be upon trust no not from those we have the best esteem of but every one to try his own work that so he may have rejoycing in himself and not in another as the Apostle speaks And because there are not many that are willing to be at the pains to put themselves into a capacity of doing so in things controverted among us Therefore it greatly concerns you who are Leaders of the people to be very diligent and very faithful in trying the grounds on which you now go in ways so much differing as they do from all in a manner that have gone before you yea even from the old Non-Conformists themselves And if you have any convictions or misgivings touching the unsafeness or unaccountableness of the way in which you conduct the people let no Worldly interest or fear of displeasing or of losing them prevail upon you to conceal it from them but trust God in dealing faithfully which will both bring inward peace and satisfaction and interest you in his special care I Will add one thing more and that is to put you upon considering whether by this Dividing way in which you are you either have or are ever like to promote the Power of Religion among us in this Nation as you might have done if you had continued Communion in the Parochial way as heretofore For I freely confess to you that I vehemently suspect that you neither have nor are like to do it so well in the way you take as you might in that The power of Religion I conceive does very much consist not in external modes of worship or in a zealous crying up one and crying down another but in the operation of the mind and inward and profound devotion of Soul to God in reference to the spiritual substance of his worship whether in this form or that and in our being like to our Lord Jesus Christ in humility meekness gentleness peaceableness universal Charity in seeking the good of all men by word and deed in a patient bearing of unkind usage from men without expressing any bitterness of spirit towards them for it by word or deed but rather returning them good for evil and the like But now division in Churches making of parties rending and tearing and separating hath quite another tendency than to promote these things It tends to discompose the spirits of men in their reverend and awful approaches to God in the duties of his worship to imbitter their spirits one against another so that it becomes far more difficult than otherwise it would be to lift up holy hands without wrath and doubting It tends to fill the minds of men with uncharitable opinions of and uncharitable affections to one another and to exasperate their spirits one against another It tends to the despising and contemning one another and to a proud and disdainful magnifying of one party against another to a swelling and grudging one against another It tends to whispering backbiting and slandering and to minister provocation and evil speaking one against another And these things are the opposites to the power of Religion and if you will believe St. James tend to overthrow it and to introduce an ill spirited Religion in the room of it For where envying and strife is there is confusion and every evil work Jam. 3.16 These things which are the natural fruits of Schism are so like the fruits of those who are described to have a form of godliness without the power of it as may well drive you from the Schism which you have made only for a form sake I would we had not too much experience of the truth of what I say to need any proof from Scripture However I will give you St. Pauls Judgment in the Case I have told you before that the Schism in the Church of Corinth when St. Paul wrote to them had not proceeded to any such height as to break the Church in pieces by separation and disclaiming Communion one with another and yet upon the single account of their divisions and the effects of them they were yet but carnal and walked as men as he tells them 1 Cor. 3.3 although otherwise they were in every thing inriched in all utterance and in all knowledge coming behind in no gift Chap. 1.5.7 And upon this very account their coming together their solemn meetings for divine worship were not for the better but for the worse did not only keep them from growing but set them backward 1 Cor. 11.17 18. And then by what he says Chap. 4.6 and 2 Cor. 12.20 we may
Anabaptists more true to their principles than they and that then the baptizing of persons may be as well deferred till they have special grace as their particular Church-membership may and so upon that account among others have gone over to them Secondly hereby some who may have no saving grace are in great danger of being betrayed into self flattery and into a being confident that they have because so good and knowing a Congregation as they esteem such a Church to be hath judged that they have and so rest secure in an unsafe condition Which made several of the New-England Ministers after their long experience of the effects of this way at last in their joint answer to Mr. Davenports Apologetical Preface p. 43 44. to say thus Indeed when men confound these two and do tie visible Church-membership unto such conditions and qualifications as are enough to salvation this may tend to harden men and to make them conceit that if they be got into the Church they are sure of heaven whenas alas it may be they are far from it Thirdly A guiltiness of a great Schism in the Church and consequently of the many sad effects of it some of which I have mentioned before If the separation built upon the principle under consideration had been matter of duty by vertue of that principle they that have engaged in it would not have been accountable for the evils consequent upon it no more than they were of setting Father against Son and Son against Father Mother against Daughter and Daughter against Mother by preaching the Gospel Lu. 12.53 But whosoever hath undertaken a separation from though but part of the Church upon insufficient grounds and mistaken principles must be accountable for the ill effects and consequences of it until they repent and leave off as well as for the Schism it self which caused them But now I have already represented to you why a Judgment in the Church that persons have not saving grace cannot be the rule of non-admission of them to particular Church Communion supposing them to have been baptized into the Church Universal and I have shewed likewise how that in the account of Scripture such have been visible Church-members and externally related to God and to Christ and called by his name and denominated Saints upon another account than that of saving grace or internal holiness Which if truly represented then it cannot be matter of duty but the contrary to ground a separation from such Congregations as are constituted upon other terms and because they are so In that those of the Churches mentioned in Scripture have been stiled Saints it is no argument why none are to be admitted to Church-fellowship but such as are Saints in a saving sense though this principle of separation I now speak of is wont to be grounded on that For some in those Churches which were not Saints in that sense were yet stiled Saints from their being separated and set apart to own and profess the worshipping of the most holy God only and to be of his holy Religion as I have shewed both in this discourse and elsewhere more at large Saints then was the common appellation of those that profest the Christian Religion as Christian is now and was not then used to discriminate the sincere from the unsound Christians as it is now This was a device of a later date and is too like that of the Church of Rome which does appropriate the honour of being Saints unto such only as they esteem to have been eminently Religious The conclusion then is that if the separation of these friends with that of your own be unaccountable from the Scriptures then they and you must needs be accountable for it as an unlawful and naughty Schism and for the many evils produced by it until pardon be obtained by repentance which none can promise themselves but upon reformation THE last thing I shall observe from the foregoing discourse is that it doth afford us a substantial ground for National Churches That is it affords us ground to conclude that the whole body of a Nation who are baptized into the Universal Church and that profess Gods true Religion are in that respect subject matter of a Church though this is indeed a thing which lies cross to your thoughts and which you are wont to oppose with some indignation The whole body of the Nation of the Jews as was shewed before were by Gods call and their profession Abrahams Spiritual Seed and as such were Church matter and a Church inorganically considered And for the same reason if the whole body of a Nation now by Gods call and their profession of the true Religion become Abrahams Spiritual Seed in a sense they must needs be as well National Church matter as the Nation of the Jews were Now that other Nations which have profest Gods true Religion have thereby become Abrahams Spiritual Seed in a large sense as well as the Nation of the Jews ever were we have good reason to believe not only from the nature of the thing it self but also from the Scriptures The Lord said unto Abraham My Covenant is with thee and thou shalt be a father of many Nations a father of many Nations have I made thee Gen. 17.4 5. Which is not to be understood in a restrained sense of his being a father of many Nations by natural generation only but also if not only of his being a spiritual father of many Nations who were to derive their being and what they should be in a spiritual or religious capacity from him from whom the true saving doctrine hath been since propagated first to the Nation of the Jews and then to Nations of the Gentiles And thus St. Paul interprets the aforesaid promise of God to Abraham Rom. 4.16 17. That the promise might be sure to all the seed not to that only which is of the law but to that also which is of the faith of Abraham who is the father of us all as it is written I have made thee a father of many Nations Now if Abraham be hath been and shall be a spiritual Father of many Nations then many Nations must needs be his spiritual Children For Father and Children are corlaretives and in what sense the one is a Father the other must be his Children And when St. Paul saith if ye be Christs then are ye Abrahams seed Gal. 3.29 is true of all that are so and in the same sense in which men are Christs in that sense they are Abrahams Seed whether it be by profession only or by a sound Faith also And in correspondence to all this the Kingdoms of this World are said to become the Kingdoms of the Lord and of his Christ Which must be understood of their becoming professors of the Gospel of Christ or the Christian Religion Revel 11.15 And this hath come to pass according as was foretold by the Prophets as well as to Abraham himself To instance in one instead
of many Zech. 2.11 Many Nations shall be joined to the Lord in that day and shall be my people As the Nation of the Jews were Nationally Gods people and God was the God of Israel so here it 's foretold that many Nations nationally should be joined to him and be his people also and consequently he must be the God of those Nations in the same sense in which they are his people Thus far the matter is so evident that one would think that nothing but an inveterate prejudice and prepossession of a contrary opinion unduly taken up and an averseness to confess your selves to have been mistaken should hinder you from accepting of a conviction in this matter and of yielding up your judgments as conquered by the truth To proceed then yet farther If Nations professing the true Religion are in a more general sense Abrahams spiritual Seed and a people joined to the Lord so as to be his people Then it is as well the duty of the people of such Nations to associate and knit together in Christian Congregations for publick worship in the places where they reside as it was for the Primitive Christians who lived in Rome in Corinth in Cenchrea by Corinth c. to associate as they did in the same places for the same end and accordingly those Churches were called by the names of the places where they did reside And our Parochial distribution is no more a cause of quarrel than that was that the Church of Corinth and the Church at Cenchrea were distinct upon the only account that the members of each lived in distinct places And as the distribution of the whole Nation of Professors of Christianity into particular Parochial Assemblies best answers the Primitive pattern so it best answers the ends of Church association such as are the watching over conferring with admonishing exhorting and comforting one another and the assembling together for publick worship And when the Christians in a Nation are thus disposed of into Congregations in the places where they live weak and strong together it is no ways agreeable to primitive practice nor to the general ends of Church association nor to the common good of particular Churches or of the whole body of Christians in a Nation for the stronger the wiser the better the more spiritual in those Parish Churches to withdraw themselves from the more ignorant weak and carnal Christians residing in the same place with them into distinct and separate Communities so long as they can hold Communion with them without sinning in so doing This the Primitive Christians did not and if no such thing had been done in our Nation the Church of God amongst us would doubtless have been in no such bad circumstances as now it is As God hath placed in the natural body members some more necessary and useful than others to be helpful and serviceable to the meaner more helpless and less useful for the good of the whole body so it is in Ecclesiastical bodies God saith St. Paul hath tempered the body together having given more abundant honour to that part which lacked that there should be no Schism in the body 1 Cor. 12.24 25. That there should be no Schism in the body as to be sure there will and needs must when that part is most neglected which lacketh most care and pains and withdrawn from as if it were no part of the body This becomes a sore temptation to those who are despised to set against those who despise them and that again tempts them on the other side to oppose their opposers and so the breach grows wider and wider and spreads it self through the whole body of a Nation And as the withdrawing live coals from those that are but a little kindled is the way to put out the fire so is the withdrawing of the better Christians from the worse not in a way of Church Discipline but into distinct bodies the direct way to ruine the Church and to extinguish the life and heat of Religion in those places where this is practised I nothing doubt but that those who have taken this course let the provocation to it be what it will might have consulted the real and true interest of Religion in the main much better in another way This way savours too much of self-satisfaction and neglect of others to be of Christ who would have the strong to bear the infirmities of the weak and not to please themselves after his own example Rom. 15. New ways many times take much for a while which do not end so well at last Enquire for the old way and stand in the good way that in which the primitive Christians walked if ye would find rest and satisfaction in your own minds rest to your Souls And if it be matter of duty in it self and according to primitive practice for all Christian Professors in a Nation thus to unite in particular Congregations in the places where they reside and not to make any Schism after by one part withdrawing from the other into separate Communities so long as they can continue their Communion without a necessity of sinning Then if the Higher Powers in such a Nation do exercise their authority in commanding them to do this which is of it self their duty though they had not commanded it and do likewise forbid and restrain their making of Schisms by separating when they have no sufficient or warrantable cause to do it this cannot make it less their duty than it was of it self before and still would be were there no such Command or restraint from the Higher Powers No man sure can imagine that if Nero had used his authority in commanding the Primitive Christian Churches to do the same things which they were obliged to do though he had not commanded it as he did not that Nero's Command in that Case would have made it any whit less their duty but the more It is not unbecoming but very laudable no doubt for the Higher Powers to concern themselves and their authority in promoting the Christian Religion in their Dominions by taking order that God be publickly and solemnly worshipped by the Christians in the use of Gospel Ordinances That places for publick worship be provided for that end That Officers competently qualified be appointed to administer those Ordinances That fitting maintenance be appointed and provided them that they may attend that work without distraction That the people be required and commanded to attend the publick worship and that care be taken that they may not be disturbed in it and finally that Discipline be duly exercised for the purging of the Churches and for the keeping them pure Supposing the Higher Powers and the people of a Nation to be Christian the very light of nature and their love to the Religion they profess will dictate such things as these in the one to Command and the other to obey and to use all due means to prevent divisions amongst them as being most destructive
fact it is true that more may and sometimes is made the condition of Communion than is necessary And when it is so it usually becomes a temptation to more or less to run into Schism and it likewise furnisheth such with some pretence to draw Disciples to themselves who are ambitions of Heading a Party In which respects it may be matter of great Prudence in order to the Churches Peace and Unity to make no more than is necessary the condition of Communion But although more should be imposed as the condition of Communion than is necessary yet if it be not so much more as makes it sinful to hold Communion on those terms Then they must needs be guilty of the sin of Schism who separate upon account of such an imposition And the reason is because such a Schism is without sufficient cause or just ground which just ground is when one cannot do otherwise than separate without a necessity of sining Things may be ill imposed as when they are inadequate to their end and yet well observed by them on whom they are imposed as when not sinful in themselves and when by that means they and the Church suffer less in point of inconvenience and enjoy a greater benefit in preserving Peace in the Church than could be obtained in a way of opposition If we should allow a liberty much more if we hold it a duty for inferiours under Government to oppose and withstand the Commands of their Superiours as oft as they think they Command things inconvenient though they should think right so long as they do not Command things which they know to be unlawful for them to observe we should soon bring intolerable confusion into Church and Common-wealth into Families and all Communities of men where Government is exercised Inconveniencies in such cases must be yielded to rather than greater mischiefs drawn on us and on the Community by not yielding But you at least many of you think that it is an infringing of your Christian liberty for men to determine and impose upon you where God hath not determined and imposed and that in such cases it would be a betraying of that liberty should you not withstand such impositions To which I answer that thus far 't is true that when any thing is imposed by men under the notion of being commanded of God of Divine Institution or of necessity to Salvation which is not so as this would be a teaching for Doctrines the Commandments of men so a yielding to them so imposed would be a betraying of our Christian liberty and more than so it would be a betraying of the Prerogative of our Lord unto the usurpation of men and a making to our selves other Masters than Christ and our selves servants of men in the prohibited sense and all contrary to the express Doctrine of our Saviour and his Apostles But though this be the case in the Church of Rome in many things and in some respects among your selves also yet this is not the case touching the things in dispute between you and the Church of England The things imposed at which you most stick are not at all imposed under the notion of Divine right but only upon a prudential account being things mutable in their nature and alterable at the pleasure of them who impose them and are so declared in the Preface before the Book of Common Prayer So that your Conscience is not imposed upon to take the things themselves for any other than they are in their own nature things left undetermined by God one way or other But then there is a sense in which it is not true that our Christian liberty is unduly infringed by the imposition of men although we were at liberty to do or not to do the things enjoined us before such an imposition was laid upon us Our Christian liberty does not exempt us from the duty of obedience to our Superiors in things which in their own nature are but indifferent and out of such circumstances might be done or let alone The same Divine authority which enjoins us to call no man on Earth Master nor to be servants of men enjoins Children also to obey their Parents Servants their Masters Church-members their Spiritual Guides and Governours and Subjects their Princes and that in all things in which they shall not disobey God in doing contrary to his Commands So that when things indifferent or undetermined by God are imposed by our Governours Domestick Politick or Ecclesiastick only as their Commands our Christian liberty is no bar nor plea against them And whoever pretends that it is draws too near the wicked Gnosticks who pretended exemption from being commanded and governed by men by their being Christs freemen Against which abuse of Christian liberty St. Peter cautioned the Christians then For after he had exhorted them to submit themselves to every Ordinance of man for the Lords sake 1 Pet. 2.13 14. he presently adds in ver 16. as free and not using your liberty as a cloke of maliciousness not to pretend Christian liberty to cover their disaffection to Government as the Gnosticks did Our Christian liberty is so far from being a bar to our Obedience to our Governours in all things not otherwise ordered by God as that it is a great accommodation to us in yielding obedience to them without scruple of Conscience For when circumstances in the external administration of holy things are left so much undetermined by God as they are we are at the greater liberty to yield obedience to the prudential determinations of our Governours either one way or other so long as they do not determine any thing against what God hath determined In things even of this nature we are to be subject to our Governours for Conscience sake Rom. 13.5 that is out of Conscience to God who commands our obedience to our Governours but not out of Conscience to the things commanded by them as if by any inherent holiness in them our Consciences were ingaged unto them And here lies the difference between superstition and lawful obedience to authority In the Case of Superstition the act is done out of Conscience to the thing done as if sacred though but indifferent in its own nature But in the case of lawful obedience in indifferent things the same act is done out of Conscience to God not as commanding the thing but as commanding my obedience to him in all lawful things who commands me to do it and commands it under no other notion but as a thing indifferent in its own nature and not made sacred by any command or institution of God Let me say this further to you There is more of real Religion and true Christianity in thus obeying the lawful Commands of our Governours out of Conscience to God who would have it so than I fear is well considered and more of Irreligion Profaness and Hypocrisie in slighting Gods express command in this while we seem so very fearful and scrupulous to