expectants yet are they bound up by the Laws of Christ what Profession to accept and what to refuse and if by breaking these Laws they shall dangerously or grosly wrong the Church it belongeth to the Magistrate to correct them and to the people to admonish them and disown their sin yea and in desperate cases to disown them The Positive Title-condition to be produced is The Profession of true Christianity The Minister that refuseth this Profession must prove it not credible Of tolerable ignorance PROP. IX It is evident that Magistrates Ministers and people have each a power of Judging but different as they have different works How far Ministers are Judges Proved by ten Reasons against the popular claim c. How far the people must Judge How far the Magistrate must Judge Ministers for these Matters and Ministers obey them PROP. X. To this Ministerial Approbation of the Profession and Qualifications of the Expectant there is to be adjoyned a Ministerial Investiture or Delivery of the Benefit expected How many Sacraments there are 1. More than seaven in the largest sense 2. Five in a large sense not intollerable 3. Two only in the strictest sense as we define them PROP. XI The solemn Ministerial Investiture of Professours into the right of the Church-Priviledges of the Adult is either 1. Of the Unbaptized who are now first entred 2. Or of the Baptized in Infancy that never proved ungodly nor violated that first Covenant 3. Or of those Baptized whether in Infancy or at Age that have since proved wicked and broke the Covenant The first of these Investitures is to be by Baptism the second by Confirmation and the third by Absolution So that the solemn Investiture that now I am pleading for is by Confirmation to one sort that never proved ungodly since their Baptism and by Absolution to the other sort that broke their Covenant which yet hath a certain Confirmation in or with it PROP. XII This solemn Investiture on personal Profession being thus proved the Ordinance of God for the solemn renewing the Covenant of Grace between God and the Adult-Covenanter it must needs follow that it is a Corroborating Ordinance and that Corroborating Grace is to be expepected in it from God by all that come to it in sincerity of heart And so it hath the name of Confirmation upon that account also PROP. XIII Ministerial Imposition of hands in Confirmation and the foredescribed sort of Absolution is a Lawfull and Convenient action or Ceremony and ordinarily to be used as it hath been of old by the Universal Church But yet it is not of such Necessity but that we must dispence in this Ceremony with scrupulous Consciences that cannot be satisfied to submit to it Imposition of hands is allowed in Scripture to be used Generally by Spiritual Superiours to signifie their Desire that the Blessing Guift or Power may be conferred on the Inferiour for which they have a call to mediate Proved Particllarly 1. We find in Scripture a Blessing of Church-members with laying on of hands 2. And that the Holy Ghost is in a special manner promised to Believers over and above that measure of the Spirit which caused them to Believe 3. And that Praier with laying on of hands was the outward means to be used by Christs Ministers for procuring this or investing them of it 4. And that this was not a temporary but fixed Ordinance All proved How the Holy Ghost is given before Faith and after Faith and how sealed in Baptism and how not What Hope of the success of Imposition with Praier for the spirit Scripture and Antiquity for it Reasons for the non-necessity of it to the the scrupulous PROP. XIV Though in receiving Adult-persons out of Infidelity by Baptism into the Church a sudden Profession without any stay to see their Reformation may serve turne yet in receiving these that were Baptized heretofore into the number of Adult-members or to the Priviledges of such their lives must be enquired after which must be such as do not confute their Profession PROP. XV. It is not of flat Necessity that the Profession of the Expectant be made in the open Congregation or before many in order to his Confirmation or admittance PROP. XVI When a person is admitted an Adult-member of a particular Church as well as of the Universal his Profession and Admission must be either before the Church or satisfactorily made known to the Church at least who must approve of it by a Judgment of discretion in order to their Communion with him and this among us is the ordinary case because it is the duty of all that have opportunity to joyne themselves to some particu-Church and it is in such Churches that Communion in publique Worship and order must be had either statedly or transiently and temporarily Reasons to prove this Interest of the People Cases of difference between Pastours and people resolved PROP. XVII It is convenient though not of necessity that every Church do keep a Register of all that are thus Invested or admitted into the number of Adult-members PROP. XVIII Those that were never thus Ministerially and Explicitly Approved Confirmed or Absolved after an ungodly life but have been permitted without it to joyne usually with the Church in prayer and praises and the Lords Supper are Approved and Confirmed eminently though not formally though in so doing both the Pastours and themselves might sinne against God by the violation of his holy order Such therefore may be a true Church and are not to be called back to solemn Confirmation though in many cases they may be called to Tryall by their Overseers PROP. XIX So exceeding great and many are the Mischiefs that have befallen us by the neglect of a solemn meet Transition from an Infant into the Adult Church-state and which undoubtedly will continue till this be remedied that all the Magistrates Ministers people that dissemble not in professing themselves to be Christians should with speed and diligence attempt the cure The state of our Parishes anatomized Twenty intollerable mischiefs that follow the taking all into our Church-communion and neglecting this Confirmation such as all Christians should lay to heart PROP. XX. So many and great are the Benefits that would follow the generall practice of this duty of trying approving and confirming or Absolving all those that enter into the number of Adult-Christians that it should mightily provoke all Christian Magistrates Ministers and people to joyne in a speedy and vigorous execution of it Twelve excellent Benefits that will come by Confirmation It 's like to be an admirable increaser of knowledg and holiness and Church-Reformation It 's a singular means of Agreeing the Episcopal Presbyterians Congregational Erâ—stians and moderating the Anabaptists proved and urged Twenty Objections against this Approved Profession and Confirmation answered How little reason have Princes and Parliaments to restraine most Ministers here from overdoing The Duties that lie upon us all for the Execution of this
Work and 1. on Ministers 1. We should Agree upon an unanimous performance 2. In those Agreements we must leave men to their Liberty in all unnecessary modes and circumstances 3. In taking mens profession we must avoid both extreams viz. Loose formality and overmuch 4. What course must be taken with all our Parishe where some have without a Personal Approved Profession already been admitted to the Lords Supper and some not particularly opened 5. We must require of all the notoriously ungodly a Penitent Confession in order to Absolution as well as a Profession of Faith and future obedience 6. Delegates to be chosen by particular Churches to meet with the Pastours for those and other Church-affaires 7. The Pastours and Churches should be all Associated and the Churches that we hold Communion with differenced from the rest that those that are Confirmed and Received by them may be capable of Communion with all 8. We must be diligent in publike and private Teaching the Catechumens and walk inoffensively condescendingly and vigilantly among them 2. The Duty of the People especially the Godly in order to this Work 3. The Magistrates Duty hereto 1. To cause those People that are unfit for Church-Communion to live quietly in the state of Expectants and to submit to publique and personal Instruction and Catechizing to prepare them 2. To compel Ministers thus to Teach and Catechize them and see that great Parishes have so many Teachers as may be able to do it Reasons for compelling us 3. To lay some penalty on all Pastors that will not guide the Church by Discipline as well as preach Not forbidding them to be Preachers but to be Pastours and administer Sacraments that will not do it as Christ hath appointed To these ends it may do well for the Magistrate to have his Agent or Church-Justice to joyne in the Church-meetings and to inform the Commissioners for Ejection who may be impowred hereunto 4. To promote and command the Associations and correspondencies of Pastours and Churches With what limitations and to what ends 5. It would much further this Work if Visitours were appointed in all parts to see it done or put on Ministers Not that any Ministers should have a Power of silencing suspending c. But to let a Civil Visitor and a Visitor of the Ministry be still joyned together and let the Minister have only a power to perswade and the other as a Magigistrate to compell or to bring the causes which are exempt from his power to the Superiour Commissioners 6. It 's the unquestionable Duty of Magistrates not to drive men to Church-Communion that are unmeet but to restraine Seducers from taking advantage of their discontents and drawing them away while they remaine Expectants Ten Reasons that deserve the serious consideration of the Magistrate that shew the great Necessity of this his Moderate assistance for keeping of deceivers especially Papists and containing the prophane and ignorant people in quietness and submission to instruction in an expectant state till they are fit for Church-Communion 7. To satisfie the Magistrate that is afraid of persecution certain Regulations of Toleration are propounded 1. Let all that pretend scruple of submitting to the personal or publique Instruction of the Teacher of the Parish where he lives be compelled to submit to some one else who may give it under his hand that he takes that care of him 2. Let Commissioners be appointed according to the Laws given them to guard the door of Toleration as now they are to guard the door of publique Allowance and Maintenance and let none be Tolerated to preach or openly perswade though for nothing that have not an Instrument of Licence sealed by these Commissioners Or else Blasphemers and Heathens may preach for all your Laws against them 3. Let those that have a sealed Toleration be as responsible to the Commissioners for their violating the Laws of their Toleration as we are for breaking the Laws that bind us and let their Toleration be forfeitable as well as our Maintenance Reasons for this To conclude if as before the daies of William the Conquerour Magistrates and Ministers might sit together the Ministers having no power but to perswade and the Magistrate the sole power of Compulsion and so 1. Approvers keep the door of Toleration 2. A Church Justice or Agent of the Magistrates keep the peace of every Church or Parish 3. And the Civil and Ministerial Visiters aforesaid shall be appointed to take Cognisance of the state of Parishes 4. And the Commissioners for Ejection of scandalous Ministers be equally enabled to eject the scandalous and blasphemous from their Toleration the Magistrate might assist us without danger of persecution CONFIRMATION AND RESTAURATION The necessary means of REFORMATION And RECONCILIATION Quest Whether those that were Baptized in Infancy should be admitted to the Priviledges proper to Adult Church-members without Confirmation or Restauration by an Approved Profession of Personal Faith and Repentance Neg. THough the distempers of the Churches of Christ in England are not so great as the Popish adversaries or some discontented Brethren do pretend nor as some inconsiderate lamenters of our condition do imagine who observe less our enjoyments then our wants and that have not the faculty of discerning our true Agreements where there is any difference but think that many things are wanting that are not because they cannot find them Yet is our discomposure such as the wisest have cause to mourn for and all of us should contribute our endeavours to redress And for the accomplishment of this blessed Work two things must be done The first is to Discover the Principles that must Reform and heal us if ever we be healed and to acquaint the world with the necessary means The second is to concur for the execution in the application and use of the Remedie when it is discovered The first is a work that is usually done best by a few at first Though the more Receive and Approve of the discovery the better it will be brought into use But it 's here saith Pemble as in discerning a thing a farre off where one clear eye will see further then many that are dimme and the greatest conjunction of unfurnished intellects affords not so much assistance for the Discovery as the greater sight of a few may do But in the executive part there must be many hands to the work If the Pastours and people do not consent it cannot be accomplished and if they barely consent and be not up and doing Discoveries will lie dead and nothing will go on And if the Christian Magistrate afford not his assistance his Guilt will be great and the work will go the more heavily on Though all the body be not an Eye and therefore be not as good at Discovering as the Eye is yet must each member perform its own office and none be idle or withdraw its helpe because it is not an Eye but all must execute by the Guidance of the
us to a dangerour separation from us and to fly from our Churches as if they would fall on their heads and we too much harden those that are already separated and all because we will not yield to the healing of our own diseases or will do little or nothing to procure it I know these men have no just ground for their hard conclusions and censures of us but we have little reason to give them this occasion and cast a stumbling-block in the way of so many precious Souls To what is here briefly thrust together if the Reader will adde the twelve Reasons in my Christian Concord pag. 11 12 13 14. and what 's said in my book of Right to Sacraments where these matters or those that sustaine them are handled more at large I suppose he may easily be convinced that the former Church-Governours in England have been lamentably negligent and our Churches by their means are much disordered and that the present Ministers should be more forward and diligent and unanimous for the cure and that the Magistrate if he love the Church of Christ and the Souls of men should speedily afford his help and all too little to remedy these great and many evils which we have let in by suffering such a loose unobserved transition from the state of Infant Church members or from Apostacy into the number of Adult-members without Approved Profession and Confirmation Prop. 20. So many and great are the Benefits that would follow the general practice of this duty of Trying Approving and Confirming or Absolving all those that enter into the number of Adult Christians that it should mightily provoke all Christian Magistrates Ministers and People to joyne in a speedy and vigorous execution of it 1. ONe excellent fruit of this Practice will be the great increase of Knowledge and godliness and the destruction of ignorance and notorious impiety This is an effect most apparent in the Causes When men are made to understand that by the Law of God seconded by the common consent of the Church and the most Learned Godly Pastours and if it may be by the Law of the Land no man is to be accounted or numbered with Adult-Christians but those that make a sober serious understanding Profession of Christianity renouncing the flesh the world and the Devil and not contradicting and nullifying this Profession by a wicked life this will engage Parents to teach their Children and Children themselves to learn what Christianity is when they cannot have the Name or the honour and the Priviledges of Christians without some Credible Appearance of the thing For doubtles while Christianity is in credit the same motives that now prevaile with the multitude to seeme Christians and to desire the Baptism of their Children will continue then to make them desire to be numbred with Christians when they are at age and so will provoke them to do that without which they know they connot be esteemed Christians And as it 's now a common thing to be baptized in Infancy so will it be then a common thing for our young people to learn the Principles of Christianity yea and to reform their lives I hope with the most when they understand that else they must be taken to be no Christians And if it were but the making of the understanding Profession and outside of Christianity to be commoner among us it would be a most precious fruit of our endeavours But much more when true Christianity it selfe in the life and power of it would also be more common As no doubt but it would For the Knowledg of the Letter is the way to the receiving of the Spirit among multitudes that have the outside of true Religion there will be far more that have the life and soule of it then among those that have not so much as the outside Any man in reason may foresee that if we be openly agreed and it be publikely enacted or declared that none be taken into the number of Adult Christians nor admitted to their Priviledges till they have made an Approved Profession of Christianity and so be received by Jesus Christ himself acting by his Ministers it will set all that care for the Name or hopes or Privilidges of Christians to learn and be and do that which they know will be so required of them Whereas as things go now in most places they may bring their Children to Baptism without understanding what Baptism is and those Children may slide into the state of the Adult-Christians and possess the Name and place and outward Communion and other honours and Priviledges of such without knowing whether Christ were a man or a woman or who he is or what business he came about into the world And when no outward Necessity is laid upon them by the Church to know more or to seem better no wonder if so many Heathens do sit among Christians and if the multitude looke not much after knowledg or Godliness 2. And moreover it will be a very great helpe to their Consciences in order to the convincing them of their sinne and misery and of the insufficiency of that Condition which multitudes do now rest in and so to waken them to look after a safer state and to be what they must seem to be if they will be taken to be Christians It is a great help to the deceiving of the multitude of the ungodly to be currantly esteemed Christians when they are not And self-love is such a blinding thing that a little help will go farre with it in the promoting of such deceits Naturally men are very easily brought to think well of them selves and hardly brought to confess their misery Every man almost will easily confess himself a sinner and a very great sinner so you will but allow him to be a Christian and a pardoned sinner For this is a common confession and brings no very terrible Conclusion and message to the Soul But when a man must confess himself no true Christian but unsanctified unpardoned and a slave of Satan this is as much as to confess himself in a state of damnation in which if he die he is lost for ever and men are hardly drawn to believe so terrible a Conclusion when yet it is so necessary where it is true that we can scarce imagine how a man can be saved without it He that knoweth not himselfe to be out of his way will hardly be perswaded to turne back And he that knows not himself to be unpardoned will hardly value or seek a pardon And he that thinks he is sanctified and a true Christian already will seek to be made what he takes himself already to be And how much Reputation doth to help or hinder men even in self-judging is easily perceived Now here is a threefold Reputation of very great moment to concurre either for mens Deception or Conversion 1. The Reputation of Prince and Parliament and so of Law-givers and Rulers of the Nation who by their Laws
neighbours hate them and revile them and to live as Owles in the places where they live and to put themselves on a great deal of trouble Surely it is a very self-displeasing thing to the very Nature of man unless he be a monster to displease his neighbours and be hated and baited by them And it will provoke them not only to forbeare all acts of kindness or bounty but to deny them their due maintenance as far as ever they can And many if not most Ministers have no great mind to be so used nay had rather lose it then go to Law for all their dues the trouble and cost and odium of it is so great So that our Parliaments have been too much afraid lest Ministers should cease to be men or to be sinners and to be manpleasers and to indulge their flesh and lest we should runne into the fire and lie down among the thorns and choose a life of trouble and sufferings 3. And me thinks experience should satisfie men of this Do you not see how backward Ministers are to Church-Reformation and Discipline in the exercise when they have been most forward for the Power How little is yet done in it for all our liberty after all our Prayers and petitions and writing for it Do you find in most Parishes that Ministers are prone to overdo certainly you do not 4. Do you not know that all the Work of God is so much against Nature and hath such abundance of enemies and difficulties in the way that few men are like to be guilty of over-doing Why be you not as carefull to hinder men from overdoing in sanctifying the Lords day in teaching and praying with their families c. but because you see that few need your curb I am confident should Parliaments do their best to drive on Ministers to such works as these and make Laws upon Laws to spur them to the practice they would not be able to bring one half of us nor the tenth man to reach so farre as Christ hath bound us no nor one man of us in all respects And yet I againe say that if any rash men are overrigid and abuse their trust which is likest to be those whose maintenance no whit cometh from the people for in the rest there is more danger of the contrary we desire not that they should be exempted from the Magistrates Ministers or peoples due means for their amendment But let the spurre be most used seeing there is most need and let us see some severe Laws to drive us on to those duties that flesh and blood and all the world is so much against I Come now to the last part of mâ—â—aske which is to give some brief Directions for the most effectual Practice of this excellent needfull work And I shall first speake of the Duty of Ministers in order to it and 2. Of the peoples Duty and lastly of the Magistrates The Duty of the Pastours I judge to consist in these particulars Direct 1. Let the Pastours in each Country meet together and agree as one man in faithfulness and self-denial to do their duty that the most conscionable may not be liable to the reproach of singularity because the rest betray them and the Church and Cause of Christ by withdrawing and leaving the work undone so long hath the Church already suffered the neglect even of godly Ministers that in such a time of leave and helpe we still hold off and dare not venture on a little displeasure of the people when our Ancestours ventered on the flames I grieve to think what a shame it will be to our names and to the Reformed Churches and what a confusion it may bring upon our faces before our Righteous Judge And it is a griefe to me if I were sure of Magistrates assistance that all our Enemies shall say and that the Histories of this age shall tell posterity that the Ministers of England after fasting prayers warres and vowes pretended for Reformation would yet do little or nothing toward it but preach even in times of Liberty and encouragement till the Magistrate did it And that it must be the work of the Magistrate after our unworthy lazy or treacherous desertion of it Had we no more help then we have we might do much were we willing and unanimous Direct 2. Let us take heed of extending these Agreements to any unnecessary Circumstances so as to lay the stress of the business on them or to make that necessary which is unnecessary But let us Agree on the Generall certain points and leave particular men to their Liberty in modes and circumstances not judging each other if we differ herein or if one be more or less strict then another in the execution Direct 3. Let us yet all be very carefull that in point of tryall and judging mens Profession we avoid extreames On one side let us not be Righteous overmuch by keeping out any that make the most broken intelligible Profession of Faith and Repentance and a Godly life that may be taken for credible and remember that we are not searchers of the heart and that charity judgeth not evil of any that are capable of a better Judgment And certainly a humble Soul that 's conscious of its own infirmities and unworthiness will be very tender of condemning another without very satisfying Evidence Of this I referre you to my first Dispute of Right to Sacraments On the other side let us take heed of turning this duty into a meer formality and making nothing of it but mocking the Church and God Let us not take up with a Profession of any other kind of Faith but the true Christian saving Faith nor with any Profession of this Faith which we are able to prove to be Incredible Direct 4. None of the Aged that have already been admitted to the Communion of the Church in the Lords Supper may be brought under Confirmation by Imposition of hands as we have before shewed But all that were yet never admitted to this special part of Communion nor have made any solemne Approved Profession should yet be called to it be they young or ould when they demand Church-Communion If you ask me what shall be done with the rest seeing they were admitted irregularly without any Profession of the Faith I Answer 1. Acquaint them plainly with the Nature of Christianity and what a Church is and what is the Office of a Pastour and what the duty of the flock to God to him and themselves and one another 2. Then tell them that you resolve to proceed according to these Rules in the Government of your flock and to exercise this Discipline Tell them plainly that they be not deceived both what are the benefits of a Church-state and Discipline and what are the difficulties that unprepared men are like to grudg at and how hardly they will take it to be followed and not suffered to rest in sinne and openly reproved and cast out with shame if they
family by which you may the better know them and prepare them for Church-Communion and have opportunity to quiet them and answer their Objections and they may see that you cast them not off as Heathens but only prepare them for the state and Priviledges which they are yet unfit for And especially let us by all possible condescension meekness loving carriage blameless lives and charitable contribution to the utmost of our abilities endeavour to win them and take off that Offence or at least abate it or hinder the success of the reproaches of those that will undoubtedly be offended by our Reformation and Discipline And let us have a vigilant eye upon any Seducers especially Infidels and Papists that may creep in among them to take advantage of their discontents that we may prudently and effectually counterwork them This much faithfully done by Ministers might be an admirable mercy to the Church 2. THe Peoples duty in order to this Reformation before mentioned is 1. Of the godly and such as are fit for Church-Communion 2. Of the grosly ignorant and ungodly that are unfit 1. The duty of the first sort lyeth in these Particulars 1. They must highly value the benefit of Pastorall oversight and Church-Communion and therefore be ready to promote any work of Reformation that is necessary to their more fruitfull and comfortable enjoyment of them 2. They must so behave themselves as may honour and further the work and take heed of that by which it may be hindered least they weaken our hands and be a stumbling block to others For what can a Minister do himself if the Church assist him not much less if they hinder him Especially 1. They must take heed of scandalous sinnes which may be a shame to their Profession and open the mouthes of the enemies of the Church 2. They must take heed of Sects and Divâ—sions and quarrellings among themselves which will break them in pieces or hinder their Edification and make them a stumbling block to the weak and a laughing stock to the wicked 3. They must take heed of surâ—yness and pride and domineering carriage towards those that are yet without And must be as eminent in meekness and humility and patience and forbearance and self-denyal as they are in the Profession of Religion For a proud domineering spirit or strangeness and unnecessary distance doth lose the ungodly whom you should be means to win 4. They must study to do all the good they can to those without be as little as may be in executing penalties on them and as much as may be possibly in speaking kindly and familiarly to them and relieving them in wants and visiting them in sickness and think it not much to purchase their love in order to their Salvation with the loss of your right or with the price of much of your worldly goods For all men love those or at least will less dislike them that do no hurt to any but do good to all or as many as they can To be the servants of all is the highest Christian dignity and the way to winne them 5. Take heed of falling out or contending with any of them or of giving them any harsh provoking words to their faces or behind their backs But put up any wrong that is meerly your own and is in your power to forgive for the sake of Peace and your own neighbours good 6. Be not men of common spirits or common speech or a common conversation but as we must make a difference between you and others in our communion and Church-administrations so let the rest see that it is not without cause For if you be but like other men we shall seeme to be partial in making a difference between you and other men Let your Light therefore shine before men to the Glory of your Heavenly Father Let them see that you despise the world and live above it and can easily part with it that you can forgive and bear a wrong that your heart is in Heaven and your treasure there and that you are the heires of another world Let all men heare and see by you that you have a higher designe in your eye then the ungodly and that you are driving on another trade then the men that have their portion in this life Heaven is your Reall Glory and to be Heavenly is your true Reputative Glory not only in the eies of the wiâ—e but of the common earth-worms of the world 7. Set your selves in the most diligent and faithfull improvement of all your parts and Interests to help on the Work of God on mens Souls Though you preach not you have work enough in your own places to do to further the Preachers work Speake to poore people prudently seasonably and seriously about the state of their Souls and Everlasting Life and consult with the Ministers how to deale with them Tell them in what state you find the people and take their advice in further dealing with them O if our neighbours would but helpe us in private and do their parts and not cast all the burden on the Minister there would much more be done then is Nay alas to our grief and hindrance some of our Professing people are so hot and self-conceited and proud that unless we will outrunne our own understandings and be ruled by them and shut out abundance that the Word of God allows us not to shut out and be Righteous overmuch and shut up the Church of Christ as in a nut-shell they presently murmure and rebell and separate and must betake themselvel to a stricter Congregation And others of them must have us cast off Discipline and cut up the hedge and admit all to the Communion and Priviledges of the Church and all under a blind pretense of Charity and some Learned Gentlemen by words and writings do enrage our ignorant and ungodly neighbours against us and make them believe that we do them some grievous wrong because we will not indeed deceive them and undo them and set up new Church-orders or disorders now in the end of the world so contrary to all the ancient Canons and Orders of the Church I honour and deerly love the names of many of these studious pious Gentlemen But seriously I must tell them that they want humility and in their good meanings do the Church a world of wrong And though they may be more learned even in Theology then we yet it is a great matter to have or to want experience They have not been so much in Church-administrations as we nor had so much to do with ignorant Souls And verily I must say againe that the bare Theory maketh but a bungler in this work I must much suspect the Judgment of that man in matters of Church-government or dealing with poor Souls that wants experience Let these Gentlemen but turn Ministers be it known to their faces there 's none of them too good for it nor too great and let them but try our life
penalties they will beare it at their hands and take it the better when we deale with them as the Word of God requireth I heare it with my eares to the grief of my heart how some of my neighbour Ministers are spoken against with bitterness by their people because they give not the Lords Supper to all even to the most ignorant and ungodly that refuse to be instructed or so much as to take themselves for any members of the Ministers charge And that which they say is that though Bishops and Common Prayer be taken down yet the giving of the Sacrament to all the Parish is not taken down And they that now submit so quietly to the disusing of many other things because Ministers are punishable if they use them would also do the like in this case And yet if you are jealous that Ministers will go as far on the other hand in refusing the people that are not to be refused though with one of an hundred there 's little feare of that we are contented that you looke to us also in this To which end these two things will be sufficient 1. Let the Magistrate joyne with the Pastours and Delegates of the Church in their meetings where Church-affaires are transacted that he may see what we do If there be no Justice of Peace in the Parish let every Church have a Church-Magistrate purposely chosen by the chief Magistrate or some Agent on his behalf deputed hereunto 2. And let the Magistrates Agent acquaint the Commissioners how things are transacted in cases of Complaint and let them by the advise of the Assistant Ministers correct us as we deserve if you should imagine this to be necessary Direct 4. The Magistrate should promote encourage countenance yea command the Pastours to Associations and Brotherly correspondencies for the more cautelous and vigorous and effectual management of these works and for the concatenation and Communion of Churches and the right understanding of each others affaires that he that hath Communion in one Church may by Communicatory Letters have Communion in any of the rest and he that is cast or kept out of one may not be received by the rest till it be proved that he is excluded unjustly And those that joyne not so fully as the rest may yet be provoked to owne one another as farre as they can that so we may maintaine brotherly Love with all that differ from us by tollerable defferences and may own them as Churches though we cannot own their different opinions or waies and may have such Communion with them as we may and upon their Letters may admit their members to our Communion This the Magistrate should at least openly provoke and encourage the Churches and Pastours to seeing no man can doubt whether it be for the edification of the Church Direct 5. For the better promoting of this Necessary work I conceive it would be a very ready and unquestionable way for the Magistrate to appoint an able Godly moderate Minister to be a Visiter in each County or rather in each half or quarter of a County to see the Churches thus Reformed and prvoke the several Pastours to their duty and assist them in it where there is need But not to have any Episcopal power to punish or cast out any Minister or excommunicate them suspend them or the like But let every Visitor have an Agent of the Magistrate joyned with him armed with authority to convent the Ministers and examine witnesses and do what more the chief Magistrate shall see meet so that still these two Visitors go together but have not the same Authority or work but let the Minister only enquire direct exhort and give account and advice to the civil Visiter and let the civil Visiter have all the Coercive Power And let both of them transmit such causes as are exempt from their determination to the Commissioners for ejecting scandalous Mininisters who by the advise of the Assistant Ministers may determin them These Visiters did very much to the first and great Reformation of Scotland when Popery had overrun all Nor did they Scruple the using of them for all that they were against Prelacy Direct 6. It is one of the chief and unquestionable parts of the Magistrats duty in order to the Reformation and Peace of the Churches and the saving of mens Souls to see that dangerous Seducers be restrained from infecting and carrying away the ignorant ungodly discontented people that are kept under Ministerial Teaching as Expectants I do not move to have men driven into our Churches Nor do I move to have an unnecessary restraint laid upon mens tongues or pens in case of tollerable differences among the Servants of Christ In this case I only desire now that the Dissenting Godly Brethren would agree together to meddle with their differences no more then needs and to manage their Disagreements with such Cautions and in such manner and season and measure as may least hinder their success in the common work viz. the promoting of the common Fundamental Verities and the converting and saving of the Ignorant and ungodly and getting down the reigning sinnes of the world And then they will find 1. That if there by any truth in the private Opinions which they would propagate it will farre easier be received when the minds of their brethren are sedate and peaceable then when they are allarmed to the conflict by unseasonable preaching for the said Opinions 2. And that the Errours of this lower nature among Brethren which some feare a tolleration of will sooner die of themselves for want of fewel in such Peaceable deportment then when the bellowes of opposition contradiction reproach and violence are blowing them up and putting life continually into them For most Dividers are proud and selfish and must needs be noted for somewhat extraordinary And you take the principal way to animate them when you make so much ado with them Whereas a few yeares neglect and not observing them as if there were no such men in the world unless when they impose a Necessity on us would more happily extinguish them I speak but what I have seen and tryed This therefore is not the matter of my present request that Magistrates would use rigor and violence with godly men about tollerable differences which the Power of greater Light and Love in the contrary minded is the principal means to reconcile But the thing requested now of Magistrates is that they would keep out the Wolves while we are feeding the Sheep or help us in it That they suffer not damnable deceivers or any that plainly go about to subvert mens Souls or the state of the Church to fall in with our Ignorant ungodly people in the time of their Learning and Expectancy And as I shall be ready against any Libertine Infidel or Papist in the world to prove this to be in the Magistrates Power and his flat duty of which I hope no sober Christian doubteth so I shall
are to rest in Obedience to their Pastours for that 's undoubtedly their duty the work being the Pastours and not theirs 2. But if the case be plainly contrary to the Scripture as if he would admit an Impenitent Drunkard Fornicatour c. they must disown his sinne that it lie not upon them and refuse private familiarity with that person but not withdraw from publick Ordinances because of his presence For when they have done their duty and rid themselves of the guilt by a dissent the person is to them as Morrally absent though Locally and Physically present and the Ordinance is not defiled to them by his Corporal presence but the guilt will lie on the Rulers of the Church otherwise all Churches should be broken in pieces if the people must seperate when every one that they are confident is unworthy is Introduced and the Governed will become the Governours 3. But if it be not a few that the Pastours thus introduce against the certain Word of God but so many and such as will corrupt the substance of the Church and make it an uncapable matter for the form and so to become another thing and destroy the very Ends of Church-association so that it is no longer a Communion of Saints then the people fearing God are bound to stop this before it have quite corrupted the Church by admonishing the Pastours and advising with neighbour Churches to admonish them and if that prevail not by rejecting them and if they cannot do so by reason of a Major Vote of uncapable persons they ought to withdraw themselves and worship God in such a Church as is truly capable of the Name and Ends And this is a Lawfull and Necessary separation of which as it is a duty God is the Cause and as it is a forsaking of the rest the culpable cause is only in themselves I can easily prove all this but that I think it needless tediousness 4. And indeed it would be very hard measure if at the corrupt administration of a carnal or carless or erroneous Pastour all the Church must be under an Obligation to give their estates by way of relief to every one that he will put the name of a Christian and Church member upon unworthily Then may he force them to maintaine all the beggars and rogues about them though they were Infidels and impious men I speak not of the common relief of the needy for that I know they owe to an Infidel but of the special Community which Charity must make among the Disciples of Christ It 's against all Reason that an erring or careless Pastour shall thus Command all the Peoples estates by introducing such without their consent whom they are bound thus to maintaine 5. Yea indeed the Spirit of God is in the Saints a Spirit of discerning so that it is not Possible that all the Church should in their Affections obey such a corrupt Administratour by Loving all the notorious ungodly men as Saints with the special Love of brethren whom he will carelesly or erroneously put in the place of Saints I cannot possibly Love that man as a Saint or Disciple of Christ that I am certain is his enemy and none such I conclude therefore that though the people be not Church-governours by a Vote that 's a great errour yet they have a Judgment of Discerning according to which they must obey or reject their Pastours administrations And he that denyeth this and would have them yield an Absolute obedience without trying choosing and refusing would not only make the Pastours to be of a Papal streine but would give them a Jesuitical Obedience above what the moderate Papists give the Pope And therefore seeing that ad finem there is a Necessity that the People consent or else they cannot Obey nor hold communion with the person therefore there is also the same Necesity ad finem that they have satisfaction offered them and have either the cognisance of the Profession and admission of the person or that they be satisfied in the fidelity of their Pastours in Administration and that he seek their consent or which is best that some chosen persons do Represent them and be present at such Professions with the Pastours and the Pastours and their own Delegates together do acquaint the Congregation of all that are Admitted and of their Satisfactory Prfession that they may hold Communion with them This I speak of those which are very many that are fit for Church-communion and yet through bashfullness or want of utterance are unable to make a Publike Profession before all The choisest Christians that I have known have been such But those that are able should rather in Publike make their own Profession Object But what if one part of the Congregation approve of the Person and Profession and the other disallow it Answ 1. They are to be governed by the Pastours 2. And consult with the Pastours of Neighbour Churchâ—â— in rules of great weight aed danger 3. And the lesser part of the Church in doubtfull cases and tollerable differences is to yield to the greater part Not as if a Major Vote had the Government of the rest much less of their Governours but in Order to Vnity the fewer must submit Quest But what if the people would have the Pastour Baptize Confirm or introduce an open hereticke or wicked person in his impenitency Answ The Pastour must obey God and refuse to obey them Quest And what if the People think a man unfit whom the Pastour would Approve and Introduce Answ 1. He may admit him into the Universal Church notwithstanding their unjust refusall 2. He hath power to Admit him into that particular Church against their unjust dissent as he is the Ruler of the Church and the Administratour of the Ordinances 3. He hath Authority to perswade and command them from Christ to hold communion with the person and do their duty to him which if they do not they commit a double sinne one of unjustice and uncharitableness in a causless rejecting of a member of Christ and another of disobedience against the fifth Commandement 4. But yet the Pastours cannot force the people to obey their advice and command nor effectually procure it perhaps 5. And therefore their forementioned Power is not alwaies to be exercised For it is in vaine to use a means that will rather hinder the End then attain to it and so is at that time no means Sometimes the Pastour may see just cause to exercise all this Power and execute his part of Church communion with the person in administring the Ordinances to him and leave the people answerable to God for refusing their part But this is not an usual case Usually if he see the People resolve against Communion with that person how fit soever he is publickly to cleare himself by disallowing them in their sinne and reproving them for it and leaving the blame on them and then in Prudence to forbear the Intruding
Profess their own Faith and promise to be obedient to the Will of God This with what was before cited shews that in this main Point we are agreed with the Brethren of the Episcopal Judgment and therefore may expect their concurrence and to that end we desire them to promote the Practice of their own Principles and let us not leave the Work of God undone while we strive who shall do it or rather who shall not do it If the Canons allow the Bishops suffragane to do it you may beare with others of the same order to do it rather then leave it undone 2. And for the Presbyterians I intreat them to Consider 1. Hâ—w much the faithfull practise of this duty will put by all the offence and mistaking-reasons of the Erastians who ask them so earnestly how they can prove that people must be examined by the Minister in order to the Lords Supper any more then in order to a day of thanksgiving I know it is an easy matter to prove that a Pastour may call his People to private personal Instruction at any fit season and therefore before a Sacrament when he sees just cause and they are bound to obey him ordinarily by virtue of the general precept Heb. 13. 17. Obey them that Rule over you c. But if you make this the season and use of your Examination to admit men out of a state either of Catechumens or Infant-members into the number of Adult-members and never trouble them afterward with Examinations unless upon some special occasion or in your ordinary course of personal Instruction this would put by the opposition of gainlayers and I think satisfie all of them that have any sober considerations and love to the prosperity of the Church 2. And consider also how much this way would facilitate your course of Discipline you would be much more clearly satisfied who are your Church-members and of your special charge and on whom you are specially bound to exercise Discipline and to whom you owe your special care and labour and your people will be better satisfied then now they are both of the quality and regular reception of members and who they be to whom they owe the special Duty of members and whom they are more specially bound to communicate their worldly goods in their necessity How much uncertainty confusion dissatisfiedness and neglect of duty remaineth in those Congregations where this work is quite ommitted is obvious to common observations 3. And if any should have a jealousie of this designe as seeming to set up the Congregational way of Covenanting I intreat such to remember 1. What an enemy to the Unity of the Church and how unbeseeming a charitable Christian a spirit of causeless jealousie is 2. That it should be the more gratefull to you because it is acceptable to your Brethren If you are Lovers of Unity and Peace you will be far from avoiding a Practice because those hold it with whom you would be united that is because it tends to Unity but rather you will be glad of such a healing means 3. Consider that it is no more the Congregational mens Principle then the Episcopal Presbyterians and the Erastians It is our common Principle let us therefore make it our common Practice an easy a reasonable way of Agreement The not Practising of this hath cast us into confusions and the Practise of it must be it that must restore our Church Order and heale most of our Divisions I know it is agreeable to your Judgments I move you not to forsake your Principles but to Practice them Do but enrol those only for your Adult Church-members that are Confirmed or Approve upon a personal credible Profession of true Christianity and consent to live under your Ministerial Discipline and it will do more then you can easily now apprehend for an Union with your Brethren and for the closing of the sad and long-continued divisions of the Churches 3. And to the Congregational Brethren I may boldly say it is a Practice so suitable to your own Practice already though I think it is a more Regular performance of it that I propound then most have used that in reason we may expect your approbation and concurrence Perhaps you 'l feare that some of your Brethren may slubber over the work and make but a Ceremony of it But so may some of your Own mind if they be personally remiss and negligent as well as others And perhaps others will feare lest you shonld use it over rigorously and make it a pretence for excluding many that are not to be excluded But this will be according to the Prudence and Charity of particular Pastours and is nothing to those Principles in which we are all agreed Only I beseech you in the feare of God take heed of giving just occasion of this offence Be not Righteous overmuch Remember how tender Christ is of his litle ones and how he is displeased with those that keep them from him and will not break the bruised Reed If he carry the Lambs in his armes and gently drive those that are with-young it beseemes not us to turn them out of the fold or to disowne them We are commanded to Receive him that is weak in the Faith though not to doubtfull disputations Rom. 15. 1. It 's a conjunction of impiety injustice and uncharitableness to thrust back those that Christ would have admitted It 's Impiety to rob Christ of his Church-members and diminish his Visible Flock and wrong those whom he values as his Jewels and is tender of as the apple of his eye It is great Injustice to defraud men of their Due in so great a matter as his Church-priviledges and helps to Heaven It 's greater Injustice then to turn them out of their houses and lands for the Benefits are greater It 's Vncharitableness to deale so cruelly with us in matters of such Consequence And it 's the greater 1. Because it is none of our own but our Masters treasure which we deny them 2. And because we are Conscious if we are Christians indeed of so much sinne and unworthyness our selves as should provoke us to deale the more tenderly and compassionately with others I would not have you blind under pretence of Charity nor to let in known swine for feare of keeping out the sheep But remember that when the case is but so doubtfull and difficult that you cannot know certainly the tares from the wheat or cannot make a separation without a danger of pulling up the wheate with the tares it 's better let both alone till harvest We will not be wilfully guilty of mens Lying or Hypocritical Professions but if they be guilty of them we may yet believe that God hath much service for Hypocrites in his Church And the number shall be some honour to him and some encouragement to some that are yet without to draw neerer us Though it be the Intention of Christ in Instituting his Ordinances and the Intention
honour it is to Christ and the Church to have the number made up by such as we would disallow I have shewed you before and also what a mischief that is to themselves which some would give them as a benefit 3. If Magistrates and Ministers do their duty yea or but Ministers alone they will better be kept from Heathenism or other evils in the state of Expectants and Catechumens then in the state of Church-members where Discipline will make them mad Object 14. But at least your designe lookes as if you would keep the Children of all such unchristened and what work would that make Answ I medle not with that Question but leave every man to his own Judgment And if I did my self keep off such children I think it would prove but very few For 1. I would refuse none of the Parents that had aliquid Christi that made but a Credible Profession of Christianity 2. I am perswaded that this Practise would bring almost all the people to a tollerable Profession when they know it is expected and what lieth on it 3. Upon experience now I find that both the Parents are seldom so bad as to be uncapable of offering their child to God in the Judgment of the Church Nay commonly here the more one of the persons is in scandalous sinne the more the other hates it And they are seldom both grosly ignorant And those that were delayed on these terms would receive no wrong by it Gods way is the best The Children of unbelievers must not be inchurched in waies of our devising nor respected before the honour of Christ and the common good of the Church of God But of this I say againe I interpose not my Judgment but leave each man to his own Object 15. But though Confirmation be a duty yet none but Bishops have power to do it and therefore it is not a lawfull thing for Presbyters to attempt it Answ 1. What mean you by Bishops It is a word that hath by mens application got so many significations that we may well expect that you give us the Definition of a Bishop before you make him the matter of your Dispute And yet I have read so many Bookes that Dispute for Episcopy and so few that tels us what they mean by it that I must needs say that most of them lose their labour with such as I. If by a Bishop you mean such as our English Bishops were or any fixed Pastour of many particular Churches I deny that such were ever Instituted by Christ much less have they the sole Power of such administrations 2. Do you meane that it is by Gods Law or the Laws of men that Diocesan Bishops only may Confirm If by Gods Laws prove it and we shall quickly yield But that it 's very unlikely you should do If you say that only the Apostles had this Power I Answer 1. That then fixed Diocesan Bishops had none of it For the Apostles were none such 2. Then Timothy Titus â—paphroditus c. when they pretend to have been Bishops had it not 3. Ananias was no Apostle that laid hands on Paul that he might receive the Holy Ghost of this more anon But if you say that this Power is given to the Bishops meerly by the Laws of men then either by the Laws of Magistrates or of Bishops For the former we know of none in force with us to that purpose and if they were it is a work without their line which Christ hath done before them and not left to them to describe the Offices of his Church And for Bishops Canons we know no Power that any Bishops ever had to make standing Laws for the Universal Church nor of any such Laws that are obligatory to us And the Opponents themselves do violate the Canons of General Councils without scruple as the 20th of 1. Con. Nic. and abundance more and how can they oblige us more then them 3. Presbyters have the Keys of the Kingdom Therefore they may takein and Confirm thereby 4. Presbyters may by Baptism take in members into the Vniversal Church and judge of their fitness in order thereto therefore much more may they Confirm them and judge of their fitness in order thereto 5. It s granted that Presbyters may Absolve which was ordinarily by Imposition of hands yea saith Bishop Vsher the Deacons were sometime allowed it therefore Presbyters may Confirm Or if you yielded but Absolution you would yield much of what we contend for seeing so many violate their Baptismal Covenant that Absolution for Restoring of them will be as necessary as Confirmation 6. Hierome that makes Presbyters and Bishops by Gods Law to be the same doth yet according to the custom of the Church say that What doth the Bishop except Ordination which the Presbyter doth not therefore he supposed that Presbyters might Confirm 7. The same Hierome expresly saith that Imposition of hands was reserved to the Bishop for the honour of Priesthood rather then by Divine Ordinatlon Therefore it is but a humane institution 8. The Episcopal Divines and other Writers of their side do commonly maintaine the validity of Presbyters Ordination viz. that in case of Necessity it is lawfull and where there is no flat Necessity it is not a nullity where it is irregular I cited Christian Concord pag. 53 54 c. many Bishops and their defenders that thus justifie the Protestant Churches that have no Bishops as Dr. Field Bishop Dâ—wname Bishop Jewel Saravia Bishop Alley Bishop Pilkington Bishop Bridges Bishop Bilson Grotius Lord Digby Mr. Chisenhal Bishop Davenant Bishop Prideaux Nowel Bishop Andrews Mr. Chillingworth to whom I adde to make up twenty 17. Bishop Bramhal of Schism 18. And Dr. Steward in his Answer to Fountaines Letter 19. Dr. Ferne 20. And Bishop Vsher in his Judgment lately published Abundance more might easily be added but Mr. Mason's Book in vindicacation of the Ordination of the forraigne Reformed Churches may serve instead of more 9 We have no Bishop to do it and therefore it must be done by Presbyters Or we have none that we know of and non esse non apparere are to us all one 10. Presbyters may Impose hands in Ordination and ever did here in England Therefore much more in Absolution and Confirmation 11. King Charles by the advice of his Doctours in the Isle of Wight reserved only Ordination and not Confirmation and Absolution to the Bishops 12. Presbyters are Governours of the Churches which are their Pastoral charge and are called Rectors see Bishop Vshers Reduction of Episcopacy c. proving it Therefore they may do this which is an act of Government or Guidance of the particular Church 13. Presbyters must teach and oversee the people as their charge and deliver them the Sacrament Therefore they must judge to whom they must do it 14. A Diocesane Bishop is uncapable of doing it faithfully Could one man Try Approve and Confirm faithfully all
an Infidel or one that Professeth not to be a Christian Baptism is said to save us 1 Pet. 3. 21. And therefore they that will be Baptized must profess the qualifications necessary to the Saved The Key 's of the Kingdom of Heaven are put into the Churches hands and they that are loosed on Earth shall be loosed in Heaven if the Key do not erre And therefore Pastours of the Church must absolve none by Baptism that do not by Profession seem to be Absolvable in Heaven They must Profess to have the old man Crucified with Christ that the Body of sinne might be destroyed that henceforth they might not serve sinne Rom. 6. 5 6 7 8. As many as have been Baptized into Christ have put on Christ and are all one in Christ Jesus and are Abrahams Seed and Heirs according to promise Gal. 3. 27 28 29. This speaks the Apostle of the Probability grounded on a credible Profession And thereforeit is clear that the Profession was presupposed that might support this charitable judgment Our Baptism is the Solemnizing of our Marriage with Christ And it s a new and strang kind of Marriage where there is no Profession of Consent The Baptized are in Scripture called men Washed Sanctified Justified c. 1 Cor. 6. 11. 1 Cor. 14. 33. They are all called Saints and Churches of Saints 1 Cor. 1. 2. All Christians are called Sanctified ones or Saints therefore it s certaine that they professed themselves such But why should I go any further in this when the main substance of my Dispute of Right to the Sacraments proves it I intreat the Reader that would have more to prove not only the Necessity of a Profession but also of the Profession of a Saving Faith to peruse that Book or at least the second Disputation where are Twenty Arguments for it and the sence of all the Ancient Churches there cited out of Mr Gatakers Collections See also Dr Hammonds many testimonies to prove the use of the Abrenuntiation Paraenes pag. 18 19 20. I love not needlesly to recite whath others have already cited But he that knows not that the Universal Church from the daies of the Apostles hath baptized the Adult upon a personal Profession of Faith and Repentance and Vow or Promise or Covenant for obedience knows little of what the Church hath Practised And I hope few sober men will be found that will be so singular and self-conceited as to contradict the Practise of the Universal Church in such a case as this and set up their own private judgment against it and go about to perswade us to a new way of Church enterance and admission now in the end of the world Blame me not to be confident with you where I have so good ground as Scripture and so good company as the Primitive Universal Church To this let me adde that most or too many that we are to receive to the Priviledges of Adult members have violated their Baptism-Covenant and proved ungodly after Baptism and that by open notorious Scandals Now Scripture and the Practice of the Universal Ancient Church direct us to require of these an open Confession of sinne For they need an Absolution and not a meer Confirmation It is past all controversie that such have both an open Confession and Profession to make Yea how scrupulous the Ancient Church was of Receiving and Absolving such violators of the Baptismal Covenant and on how severe terms they did it is known to all that know any thing of those times I pray amongst others see what Grotius Discus Apol. Rivet pag. 221 222. citeth from Irenaeus Tertullian Pacimus Hierom c. ad pag. 235. n. And as to the last Objection that our Churches were true Churches when we made no particular Professions I Answer 1. Without some Profession of true Christianity our Churches could not have been true Churches And therefore against those that would prove them no Churches we plead and justly that a Profession was made by them 2. But I pray you mark that that will prove a Church to be a true Church which will not prove every person in the Parish to be a true Member of that Church 3. And he that thinks it enough that our Churches have a meer Metaphysical Verity such as Bishop Hall and multitudes of Learned Protestants allow the Church of Rome it self is as good a friend to it as he is to his wife or child that will let them go naked yea and be contented that they catch the plague or leaprosie yea and plead for it too and all because they have still the Truth of Humane Nature I know that any thing that may truly be called a Profession will in that point seem to prove the Being of the Church But as it will not seem to prove the well-being so an obscure Profession doth but obscurely prove the Being of it which an open plain Profession doth more clearly prove Let us not befriend either the Kingdom of darkness or the Seperatists so much as to leave our Churches so open to their exceptions and so apt to cherish and befriend their ignorance and infidelity of the world If coming to Church and sitting there be somewhat a probable argument that men do implicitly believe as that Church believes yet it 's a very dark proof that they understand what the Church believes especially when experience hath acquainted us with the Contray of many of them But now I have said this much for a personal and plain Profession I would faine know what any man hath against it The Church through the great mercy of God hath yet liberty to use it And we see how many thousands make a blind kind of shew of Christianity going from one publike duty to another and knowing not what they do And is there not need that they should be brought out into the open light and see their way If Covenanting with God the Father Son and Holy Ghost be the Essence of our Christianity in the Name of God I desire you to consider whether it be a thing to be hudled up in the dark Unless it be mens design to hide the Nature of Christianity and keep people in destructive ignorance and delude their Souls with a name and shew of a Religion which they understand not they will surely be willing that men should know the Covenant that they make and understand what they do before they enter into a Marriage bond with Christ if at Age or own it if they have been entered in infancy Why should we choose Darkness rather then Light Why should an Implicit Covenant and Profession be pleaded for when the being of a Profession is palam fateri openly to make known and when we know by sad experience that when we have all done the best we can to make our ignorant people understand we shall find enough ado to accomplish it Ignorance hath no need of frendship especially from Ministers it deserveth none especially in so great
and he that despiseth you despiseth me 3. Because they all engage themselves to take Christ for their King who ruleth them by his Laws and Officers and his Ministers are his Ruling Officers 1 Tim. 5. 17. Heb. 12. 7. 17. 24. 1 Thes 5. 12. 4. Because they are all engaged to take Christ for the great High Priest of the Church who hath appointed his Ministers to officiate under him in leading them in publike Worship of the Church and in offering up the Praises of God and blessing the people and praying for them and celeberating the Commemoration and Representation of Christs Sacrifice on the Cross 5. Because they that enter into a particular Church where only the constant stated use of holy Ordinances and Priviledges are to be had though occasionally elswhere do enter into a Relation to the Pastours of that particular Church as members of their flock and Church whom they must oversee and watch over all this is past controversie And then for the Consequent of the major Proposition that therefore Ministers must approve of their Profession I prove it thus Ministers are naturally free-men as well as others and therefore no man can become a member of their charge and put them upon so great duty as the Relation doth require against their wils without their consent and contrary to their Judgment and Consciences It is an exceeding great burden that lieth on us and a great deal of work that is required of us to each particular Soul in our charge we must exhort instruct admonish in season and out of season publikly and privately and watch over and govern them visit them in sickness comfort strengthen them c. O what a mountain lieth on me and how should I bear it if God did not support me And if every man that will shall make me more work and put himself under my Care without my Consent then I am so far from being a free-man as all other are that I am enslaved and undone in slavery For 1. They may oppress me when they will with Number and so many may flock in to my charge in despight of me as shall nullifie the particular Church and by the magnitude make it another thing by making it uncapable of its ends 2. And hereby they may force me to leave undone my duty both to them and others by oppressing me with work For when I have ten times more then I can teach and oversee I must needs neglect them all or most 3. And they may abuse the Church and me with the evil qualities as well as the excessive quantity of members and we shall be obliged to give that which is holy to dogs and to use those as Church members that are enemies to the Church and to administrate Sacraments to any that will have them how unfit soever and to prophane all Gods Ordinances and turn them to a lie 4. And by this means the Church will be utterly ruined and made a den of thieves and a stie of swine For besides that all the worst may at pleasure be members of it all men that are faithfull or most at least will runne away from the Ministry and sooner turn Chimny sweepers then Pastours For what man dare venture his Soul on so great a charge for which he knows he must give an account when he is certain to leave undone the work of his Office in so great a measure and when he knows he may be thus opprest in soul and body and so undone by wicked men when ever they please yea if they purposely do it to despight him Arg. 7. That which belongeth to all other Superiors in voluntary Relations is not to be denied to Ministers in theirs but a free consent and Approbation of them that they are related to belongs to all other Superior voluntary Relations Therefore to us A Schoolmaster is to Approve the capacity of his Schollars and a Physician is to judge of the fitness of a person to be his patient and his fitness for this or that medicine in particular Not only a Master would take it ill if he may not have the approbation of his own servants but have as many and as bad thrust on him as shall please but a husband would think it hard if he might not have the approbation and choice of his own wife but that any might force him to take them that they please And are the Pastour of Christs Church the only slaves on earth How improbable a thing is this Arg. 8. That Relation which must be rationally regularly and faithfully managed must be rationally regularly and freely entered for otherwise we cannot so manage it But the Relation of a Minister to each member of his charge must be thus managed Therefore Arg. 9. It is plainly exprest in the Ministers Commission that he is to approve of the Profession of Disciples therefore it belongeth to his Office Matth. 28. 19. Go Disciple all Nations baptizing them teaching them to observe all things Which plainly manifesteth that it 's they that must judge when a man is made a Disciple and when not or else how can they either Baptize them as such or teach them the Precepts of Christ as such So when he giveth to his servants the Key 's of the Kingdom Matth. 18 c. it sheweth that they are to judge who is to be admitted and who not as is aforesaid or else he would never have set them at the door and made them the Porters and Key-bearers of his Church to let men in Arg. 10. No man in the Administration of holy Ordinances is ordinarily to renounce his own Reason and Conscience and to act against them But thus it would be if we have not the approving of the Profession or Qualification of those that we must administer them to Therefore He that is to Execute here is to judge For 1. Else you will force Ministers to go against their Reason and Conscience in all administrations 2. You will deny them so much as Judicium Discretionis which you allow to every Christian much more Judicium Directionis which belongeth to their Office Every man must judge and understand what he doth and why he doth it you will not force the people to participate of Sacraments against their Consciences Why then should Ministers be forced to Give them against their Consciences Administring is their work and therefore they must know why they do it and on what grounds Else you will make them but like hangmen or worse if they must do Execution against their judgments because it is anothers judgment And whose judgment is it that we must follow when we go against our own Arg. 11. If it belong to Christ to pass an open Approbation of the Qualification of such as are to be admitted into his Church or to his special Ordinances or Church Priviledges then doth it belong to the Ministers of Christ as his instruments But it doth belong to Christ 1. For all that enter either
where all the Body is a Head and an Eye 10. If People or Magistrates will oblige the Ministers by their Power whom they shall Baptize Confirm or Absolve and what Profession they shall accept then must the People and Magistrates undertake to Answer it before God and to bear all the blam and punishment if we miscarry in obedience to them And truly if they dare undertake this we should gladly accept of the condition with a thousand thankes if we could but be sure that God would give us leave and thus acquit us and accept of our service on these terms O then how easy a thing were it to obey rather then to Rule So much for the Power of the Ministers in this and other such like worke 2. When the Question is Whether such a Professor be fit for our own Communion or not and whether it be our duty to avoid him or not then the People have a Judgment of Discretion Not a Governing Judgment as the Pastours have but a Judgment that must be the Immediate Guide of their Actions Yet this is to be thus exercised They are to look to Gods Word as the Rule and to trust that with a Divine Faith They are also to look at the Judgment and Directions of the Pastours that are their authorized Guides and to trust them as the Officers of Christ For the Word is their Regulating Guide the Pastours are their authorized Directing Guides and their own Understandings are their Immediate Discerning Guides So that they must not be wise in their own conceits nor leane to their own Understanding without the use of Scripture and Ministery but use their Understandings for the improvement of these So that if they know not that the Postours of the Church do mislead them contrary to the Word of God they cannot deny them obedience For the command to obey them is unquestionable Or if they have not a grounded strong presumption or probability of it they may not suspend their obedience but must leave the Pastours to the work of their Office and trust them in it and avoid those whom they reject and hold communion with those whom they accept and introduce confirm or restore But in case they know that a Pastour leadeth them into sinne they are not to follow him and if they have just ground for a strong suspicion of it they must suspend and consult with other Pastours and get full information For Christian People are not to be Ruled as beasts but as the Children of God and must understand what they are required to do and why as being free Subjects though Subjects in the Kingdom of Christ and to be governed accordingly 3. When the Question is Whether Ministers are to be punished for abusing their Power Receiving or Rejecting men to the injurie of the Church and contrary to the Word of God here the Magistrate is the Judge For as forcing or punishing corporally is his work so he must be the Judge where he is the executioner or else he should be forced to go against his own Judgment and to be a meer servile executioner which were to him an insufferable injury But here 1. The Magistrate must not give the Minister a Law to Govern the Church by unless the determination of circumstantial appendants but must see that we Govern it according to the Word of God our only and sufficient Rule 2. And he must not be over busy nor unnecessarily intermeddle in the works of another Office nor be too confident of his own Understanding in the matters of the Pastours work as if he knew better then they 3. But he must correct or cast out those Ministers that will not obey the Word of God Punishing us for breaking the old Rule and not making new Rules for us is their work so be it he can procure a better supply 4. In this case if the Magistrates Judgment be right he doth his duty and Ministers must obey him If he erre he may be guilty of persecution in hindering good under pretence of punishing evil If his errour tend not to the destruction or great and certain hurt of the Church the Ministers whom he casteth out are bound to obey him and give place to others and bestow their labours in some other Country or in some other kind at home But if his errour lead him to destructive persecution we must Passively submit but not Actively or Negatively obey him but must preach as long as we are able and do our duty till by prison or death he stop us in the exercise Prop. 10. To this Ministerial Approbation of the Profession and Qualification of the expectant there is to be adjoyned a Ministerial Investiture or Delivery of the Benefit expected THis is the proper work of the Ministers of Christ He that is Himself in the Heavenly Glory hath left his Spirit within to draw men to him and his Ministers without to Deliver up the Counter-covenant on his part in his Name and to espouse them to Christ and to Accept them in his Name and stead And this Investiture is one of the principal parts of the Nature and use of Sacraments which all have not fully Considered of The Papists tell us of seven Sacraments Baptism Confirmation Pennance Orders the Eucharist Matrimony and Extream Unction Calvin sticks not to yield them three The name Sacrament being not in Scripture but of meer Ecclesiastik use and being a word that will stretch I distinguish between three sorts of Sacraments 1. For any Divine Institution which notably signifieth Spiritual Grace And so though I think Extream Unction none as being now no duty yet I doubt not but there 's more then seaven 2. For any solemn Investiture of a person by Ministerial Delivery in a state of Church-priviledges or some special Gospel-mercy And so I grant that there are five Sacraments Baptism Confirmation Absolution the Lords Supper and Odination As a man that delivereth Possession of a house doth deliver the Key to him that enters and as we are Invested in the Possession of land by the delivery of a twig and turfe and as Ministers were wont to be invested or have Induction into the Churches by giving them the Books and the Bell-ropes and as women were wont to be married with a ring and as a Prince doth Knight a man by a sword so Christ by his Ministers doth first by Baptism Invest us in our Church-state and Infant-priviledges and by Confirmation confirm us in our Church-state and Invest us with a Right to the Priviledges of the Adult and by Absolution reinvest us in the Priviledges that we had forfeited and by the Lords Supper Deliver to us Christ and his Benefits for our ordinary nourishment and growth in Grace and by Ordination he Investeth the pardon ordained with Ministerial Power 3. But taking the word Sacrament in that strictest sence as our Divines define a Sacrament as it is an outward signe of Christs Institution for the obsignation of the full Covenant of
of the means now And 1. When I have proved it once Appointed it lyeth on the contrary minded to prove it changed or ceased That 's the task of them that affirm it ceased If I shew them an obligation once laid they must prove it taken off Their only Argument is that the persons and occasion were only extraordinary and are ceased and therefore so is the signe or means To which I Answer 1. By denying the Antecedent both as to persons and occasion They were not Only extraordinary 2. By the denying the Consequence as it is inferred from the persons For extraordinary persons were our patterns for ordinary durable works But I prove the Negative 1. The Use and Ends of the Ancient Imposition of hands do still continue Therefore we are to judge that the signe and means is not to cease For the proofe of the Antecedent remember that I have before proved that it was not only though very eminently the gift of Tongues and Miracles that was then meant by the Holy Ghost that was given but also Corroborating Grace And the necessity and actual collation and use of this doth still continue 2. There is still a discernable Aptitude in the means to these necessary Ends. The Baptized believer may yet want the Joy of the Holy Ghost and boldness of Access to God and the shedding abroad of fuller Love in the heart Rom. 5. 5 And that Consolation which is much of the work of the promised Spirit which therefore is called the Comforter and that Corroboration and Stability which he needeth Now to have a Messenger of Christ that hath received a binding and loosing power in the Name of Christ to Encourage us in our Profession and to put up Solemn Prayers for us and as it were take us by the hand and place us in the higher form at least to place us at our first personal Profession among Adult believers and make particular application of the Promise to us and Bless us in the Name of Christ by virtue of their Ministerial Office this must needs tend much to confirm and comfort and encourage the weak Though still further Ministerial Confirmation by Praying and Exhortation will be necessary to the end Acts 14. 22. 15. 31 32. 3. The Scripture signifieth to us that Imposition of hands was of standing use in the Church and therefore not to cease with Miracles In Heb. 6. 2. We find it named among the parts of the Foundation Laying on of hands Now all the doubt is what Impositon of hands is there mentioned 1. For them that think the Apostle meaneth Jewish Imposition when he mentioneth the Christian Foundation Points I think their Opinion saveth me the labour of Confuting it 2. Either then it is Imposition of hands in case of Ordination or in case of Confirmation or in case of Absolution or for working Miraculous cures The last alone it cannot be because we find it among Foundation Points and find it a continued thing and because there is no evidence to lead us to such a restrained exposition And if it be in the case of Absolution or Ordination that Imposition is to continue it will by consequence be proved that it no more ceaseth here then there And usually they that question the use of it in one case question it in the rest 3. For my part I think that it is no one of these cases alone that the Scripture here speaketh of but of the Power and use of it in General for the Ministers of Christ to be his Instruments in conferring Evangelical Gifts and Power by imposition of hands We must not limit and restrain the sence of Scripture without Evident cause It is as if the Apostle had said You are long agoe taught the Necessity of Repenting and forsaking the works of Death and of Believing in the true God and of being Dedicated and Engaged to Father Sonne and Holy Ghost in the Baptismal Covenant in which you your selves have been consecrated unto God and received the remission of sinne and you have seen the Power that is given to the Ministers of Christ that by their Prayers and Imposition of hands Miracles have been wrought to confirm their Doctrine and Grace is given to confirm the Soul and Absolution and Peace is given to the Penitent and Ministeriall Power delivered to others c. But however you understand this Imposition of hands without apparent violence you must confess either Imposition in the case that we are speaking of or that which will warrant it and stands on the same ground to be here meant So 1 Tim. 5. 22. Lay hands suddenly on no man neither be partaker of other mens sinnes Some think that here is meant Imposition of hands in Ordination and some that it 's meant only of Confirmation and some of Absolution but however it will help us in the following Argument 4. Scripture fully proveth that Laying on of hands is a thing to be continued to other Vses where the reason of continuance is the same Therefore we are not to judge it ceased as to this use This Text last named shews that it is a standing or continued thing and if for Absolution then for Confirmation and if for Ordination then for both the other So 1 Tim. 4. 14. sheweth that the Presbytery did lay hands on Timothy in Ordination And if it cease not to this it ceaseth not to other continuing uses This much from Scripture for Imposition of hands is more then Nothing though it may not be so full as you expected But on the contrary Nothing is brought to prove it unlawfull that 's worth the mentioning The last thing that I have to do is to argue from the Practice of the Church as the Exposition of these texts of Scripture If the Universal Church of Christ have used Confirmation by Prayer and Laying on of hands as a Practice received from the Apostles and no other beginning of it can be found then have we no reason to think the Ceremony to be ceased or to interpret the forementioned Scripture contrary to this Practice of the Universal Church But the Antecedent is true as I now come briefly to prove supposing what Mr Hanmer hath said It is commonly known that the Ancientest Canons of the Church do speak of this as the unquestioned Practice and duty of the Church So that to recite Canons were loss of time in so known a case And if any say that Anointing and Crossing were Ancient I Answer 1. That they were as ancient in the Popish use as the Matter of a Sacrament or as necessary signes is not true nor proved but disproved by our Writers against the Popish Confirmation frequently 2. Nor can it be proved that they were as Ancient as Indifferent things 3. We prove the contrary because they were never used in Scripture times their being no mention of them 4. So that we bring Antiquity but to prove the continuance of a Scripture Practice and so to clear the sence
of it But the Papists plead the Fathers for that which Scripture is a stranger to If Ignatius ad Heronem Diaconum be genuine there 's this testimony Nihil sine Episcopis operare Sacerdotes enim sunt tu autem Diaconus Sacerdotum Illi baptizant sacrificant manus imponunt tu autem ipsis ministra I recite it out of Vshers ' Latin copy as supposed the most pure Tertullian lib. de Proscript cap. 36. appealing to the practice of the Apostle John in the Africane Churches mentioneth as his Faith that he taught one God the Creatour and Jesus Christ the Sonne of God and the Resurrection of the body and that he joyned the Law and Prophets with the Evangelical and Apostolik Writings and thence drunk this Faith And of his Practice he saith Aquâ signat Sancto Spiritu vestit Euchristiâ pascit as three distinct Ordinances Lib. de Baptismo cap. 8. Having mentioned Baptism and the Unction joyned to that and not then to Confirmation he addeth De hinc manus imponitur per benedictionem advocans invitans Spiritum Sanctum Idem de Resur Carn cap. 8. Sed caro abluitur ut anima emaculetur Caro unguitur ut anima consecretur Caro signatur ut anima muaiatur Caro manus Impositione adumbratur ut anima Spiritu illuminetur Cyprian ad Stephan Epist 72. Et ad Jubaian is too much for it I will not trouble you in citing any Writers since General Councels were in use because their testimony is enough He that would see such may read Barronius ad An. 35. at large So much for the proof of the fitness of Imposition of hands in Confirmation I come now to the second Part of my Proposition viz. That this Ceremony is not of such Necessity as that such as scruple it should be denied liberty of forbearing the reception of it if they submit to the Ministerial tryal and Approbation of their Profession and admission and reception to Church priviledges For proof of this consider 1. That we do not find that God any where Instituted this signe as a matter of Necessity still without interruption to be used but only that by holy men it was applyed as a convenient signe or gesture to the works in which they used it Even as Lifting up of hands in Prayer was ordinarily used as a fit gesture not wilfully to be neglected without cause and yet not of flat necessity or as kneeling in Prayer is ordinarily meet but not alway necessary We find no more Scripture for the one then for the other Which indeed sheweth on one side how causeless it is to question the Lawfullness of it any more then of Listing up the the hands or Kneeling and yet how little reason there is on the other side to make it a matter of flat necessity 2. As we find that Kneeling in Prayer and Lifting up the hands were oft omitted so we find that sometime the Holy Ghost is given before Baptism or Imposition of hands Acts 10. And we find not that the Apostles used it to all though I confess the Negative arguing is infirm yet it seems not probable that this was alwaies done 3. It is somewhat suspicious to find in Martyr's description of the Christian Churches Practices no mention of this nor any Sacrament but Baptism and the Lords Supper nor any of the Roman Ceremonies And Irenaeus and some other are silent in it 4. God maketh no Ceremonies under the Gospel so necessary except the two Sacraments not layeth so great a stress on them as under the Law And therefore we are not to interpret the Gospel as laying mens Salvation or the Peace of the Church on any Cerimonies unless we find it clearly expressed 5. For all that I have said from Scripture for Imposition of hands in Confirmation though the lawfulness of it is proved past doubt yet the proofe of the duty of using it is lyable to so many Objections as that I must needs conclude that the Gospel tenderness the sense of our mutual infirmities and our care of tender Consciences and of the Churches Peace should restrain all the Sons of Piety and Peace from making it a matter of flat Necessity and forcing them that scruple it to submit to it And now having said thus much of Imposition of hands and Confirmation as grounded on the Apostles example I must againe and againe remember you that this is in a manner but ex aebundanti and that the cause that I am pleading doth not at all need it but that I did before most clearly manifest the Truth of my position upon other grounds upon which I shall proceed and having shewed the Necessity of Ministerial judging of mens Profession and the personal Covenanting of the Adult and the Lawfullness of imposing hands therein I go on as to the manner Prop. 14. Though in Receiving Adult persons out of Infidelity by Baptism into the Church a sudden Profession without any stay to see their Reformation may serve tuâ—n yet in the receiving those that were Baptized heretofore into the Number of Adult-members or to the Priviledges of such their lives must be enquired after which must be such as do not confute their Profession VVE find in Scripture that the Converted were suddenly Baptized and they stayed not for any Reformation of life to go before Indeed the Ancient Chrches aferwards kept their Catechumens long in expectation but that was not to see their lives first reformed but that they might have time to teach them the Doctrine of Christ which they must know before they could be Converts indeed The Apostles did suddenly Baptize converted Jews and Proselites because they had so much preparatory knowledg as that a shorter teaching might acquaint them with the Christian doctrine But the Heathens must belong in learning so much as the Jews knew before Conversion Yet if the Catechumens did fall into gross sinne in time of their expectation and learning they were so much the longer delayed because it signifyed that their first professed desires of entering into the Church upon Christs terms were not right But the Baptized stand upon other terms For 1. They are already in Covenant with God the Father Sonne and Holy Ghost and have renounced the flesh the world and the Devil and promised obedience to God and to live according to their Covenant And this the Church hath still required of them as I shewed out of Justin Martyr and others before Dionysius or whoever else in lib de Hierarch Eccles saith Ipse autem se omnino ea quae tradentur sequuturum esse pollicetur And Ex eo praeterea quaerit num ita instituat vivere cum promisit asseverationibus c. upon which saith Albaspinaeus Quia scilicet fidem Christianam Christianumque vivendi genus mores sese complexos persequnturisque jucabant antequam baptizarentur in Tertul. de Paenit pag. 289. Postea Non accedebant ad Baptismum nisi de rebus
fidei plane instructi id est de Dei magnitudine potestate rebusque quae in Evangeliis continentur uno excepto Eucharistiae mysterio neque baptizabantur nisi post quam ea omnia se credere jurassent quorum fides a fide poenitentiae incipiebat c. Et in sequ Jucabant in Baptismo solennibus verbis se nunquam peccaturos deinde renunciabant Diabolo pompis ejus Denique Censurâ si peccarent post baptismum coercebantur So that men that are engaged in covenant with God must keep Covenant or manifest themselves Penitent for the violation of it before they are admitted to further Priviledges There is a long time in which they grow up from an Infant-state to an Adult and how they live in that time must be enquired after 2. Otherwise the Apostate would have equal Acceptance and Priviledges with the Faithfull 3. And so Penitence and Absolution would be excluded and confounded with meer Confirmation 4. Moreover the Baptized are obliged to be responsible for their lives being under the Government of Christs Ministers and among his Saints 5. For the sake of their own Souls and of the Church and Ordinances we must endeavour to preserve them from Corruption which lying Professions would introduce and therefore must not overlook or neglect such Evidence as is within our reach 6. Else Ministers that are by office to judg of their Profession would be unfaithfull Judges and forfeit their trust if they shall wilfully neglect any Evidence within their cognisance by which they may be enabled to judge But yet it is not the certainty of inward saving Grace that we must find out by mens lives for no man can have such certainty of another but only that their lives be not such as Null and Invalidate and confute their Profession and they live not in the perfidious violation of their Baptismal Covenant Prop. 15. It is not of flat Necessity that the Profession of the Expectant be made in the open Congregation or before many in order to his Confirmation and Admittance PRoved 1. It is not of Necessity that Converted Infidels be admitted by Baptism into the state of Adult-members upon a Publique Profession in a Congregation therefore it is not of Necessity that others be so admitted in Confirmation The Antecedent is proved by the instance of the Eunuch Acts 8. whom Philip Baptized in their way and the Jaylour and his houshold Acts 16. Baptzed in the night at home The Consequence is proved by the propriety of reason and case 2. If a man may by Confirmation be admitted into the Number of Adult Christians in the Church Universal without being admitted into a particular Church then his Profession and Admission need not in that case to be before the Congregation But the Antecedent is true as I prove thus A man may by Adult Baptism be admitted first into the Universal Church only As was the Eunuch the Jaylour Lydia Sergius Paulus and every first Convert in any City where the Apostles came Therefore a man may by Confirmation be admitted into the Number of the Adult in the Catholick Church only For the reason is the same and the former admitteth them into the same number The Consequence of the Major is plain For no one Congregation more then another can claim the cognisance of the Admission of a member into the Universal Church or Confirming them in it 3. Scripture hath no where made such Publique Admission to be of constant Necessity therefore it is not so 4. Else none could be Admitted or Confirmed when persecution hindereth Church Assemblies 5. The Church is to believe and trust the Pastours to whom it doth by office belong to try and admit them 6. General unfixed Ministers may thus try approve and confirm who are not Pastours of any particular Church such as Apostles Evangelists and others were therefore they are not alwaies to do it before a particular Church Nor indeed did they alway do so Prop. 16. When a Person is admitted among the Adult-members af a Particular Church as well as the Vniversal his Profession and Admission must be either before the Church or Satisfactorily made Known to the Church at least who must Approve of it by a Judgment of Discretion in order to their Communion with him and this among us is the ordinary case because it is the duty of all that have opportunity to joyn themselves to some particular Church and it is in such Churches that Communion in publique Worship and Order must be had either statedly or transiently and temporarily 1. THe solemnity it self of our Transition into the number of Adult-members and their Communion is of very great advantage as I shall manifest more anon 2. We that are commonly against the private Admission of Infants at least except in some urgent case have less reason to be for the private Transition and Admission of men among the Adult and that into a particular Governed Church 3. The whole Society among whom such a person is entered do owe him much duty and brotherly assistance They must Love him with a special Love They must live though not in a Levelling yet in a Charitable Community with him not shutting up the bowels of Compassion from him when they see him in want but relieving him as if they sufferd with him They are not only to Love him and Relieve him as a man but as one of Christ's little ones or friends yea as his brethren yea as loving and relieving Christ in them Matth. 25. 35. to the end They must receive and relieve a Disciple in the name of a Disciple Besides this they must have Church-Union and Communion with him as one Body and must pray for him and rejoice with him in Gods Praises and the Lords Supper and watch over him and admonish and reprove him in sinne for his recovery and avoid him if he walk disorderly and be impenitent in scandalous sinne c. Now 1. No man can perform all this duty to a man that he knoweth not to be thus related to him If he know not that he owes him this duty any more then to any one else in the world how shall he pay it him To say that we are bound to take all men that converse with us to be such is to say that Christians must renounce their witts and turn the Church into Bedlam 2. And as this proves that the Church-members must be made known to one another so it proves that they must have a Judgment of Discretion in receiving them though the Pastours have the Judgment of Governing Direction For 1. God hath not left the Pastours at liberty to take in whom they Please but hath described what Profession they shall accept or what persons they shall admit and whom they shall reject If therefore the Pastours go against the Word of God then this following is the peoples duty 1. If they know not the errour or the case be doubtfull they
upon the duty of Personal instruction I should never have known the state of the people But now we have dealt with them almost all in private personally I shall truly tell you the state of this Parish by which you may conjecture at the rest of the Nation I know not a Congregation in England that hath in it Proportionably so many that fear God and yet our whole Parish consisteth of all these sorts following 1. Among eight hundred Families there are about five hundred persons such as the vulgar call precise that are rated to be serious Professours of Religion or perhaps somewhat more These live in Unity and seem to me to seek first the Kingdom of God and his Righteousness and are of as peaceable harmless humble Spirits and as unanimous without inclination to Sects or Ostentation of their parts as any people I know 2. Besides these there are some of competent Knowledg and exterior performances and lives so blameless that we can gather from them no certain Proofe or violent Presumption that they are ungodly or that their Profession is not sincere So many of these joyning with the rest as make about six hundred do own their Church-membership and consent to live under so much of Church-Order and Government as unquestionably belongeth to Presbyters to exercise and to be my Pastoral charge 3. Besides these there are some that are tractable and of willing minds that by their expressions seem to be ignorant of the very Essentials of Christanity which yet I find to have obscure conceptions of the truth when I have condescendingly better searcht them and helped them by my enquiries These also as weak in the Faith we receive 4. Some there are that are of competent understandings and of lives so blameless that we durst not reject them but they hold off themselves because they are taught to question if not to disown our Administrations for all that we give liberty to all that in tollerable things do differ 5. Some there are that are secret Heathens believing with Aristotle that the world was from Eternity making a scorn of Christ and Moses and Heaven and Hell and Scripture and Ministers and all Religion thinking that there is no Devill no Immortality of the Soul or Everlasting Life But this they reveale only in secret to those that they find capable by viciousness unsetledness or any malignity or discontent against the Godly or the Orders of the Church And yet for the hiding of their minds they will hear and urge us to baptize their children and openly make the most Orthodox Confessions and secretly deride it when they have done as I can prove And this is the only differing party among us in Judgment and designe that is in danger of leavening many that God forsaketh 6. many there are that have tollerable knowledg and live in some notorious scandalous sins some in gross Covetuousness and these will not be convinced some in common drunkenness and those will confess their faults and promise amendment a hundred times over and be drunk within a few daies againe and thus have spent the most part of their lives some in as constant â—ipling drinking as great a quantity but bearing it better away some in ordinary swearing cursing ribaldry whoredomes sometimes Many in neglect of all family-Family-duties and the Lords Day and some in hatefull bitter scorns at Prayer holy Conference Church-Order and holy living and the people that use it sometimes rising up in tumults against the Officers that endeavour to punish a drunkard or Sabboth breaker and rescuing them and seeking the ruine of the Officers 7. Some there are that are of more tractable dispositions but really know not what a Christian is that heare us from day to day yea and some few of them learn the words of the Catechism and yet know not almost any more then the veryest Heathen in America They all confess that we must mend our lives and serve God but they know not that God is Eternal or that Christ is God or that he is man but say he is a Spirit some say neither God nor man some say God and not man some say man and not God abundance say He was man on earth but now He is not Abundance know not what He came to do in the world nor that there is any satifaction made for sinne but what we must make our selves and they tell me they trust to nothing for Pardon and Salvation but Gods Mercy and their good serving him which is only saying every night and morning in bed or as they undress them the Lords Prayer and the Creed for a Prayer and comming to Church They say openly they do not know of any surety that we have or any that hath borne the punishment of our sinne or suffered for us And when I repeat the History of the Incarnation life death and resurrection of Christ to them they stand wondering and say they never heard it before what the Holy Ghost is they know not nor what Sanctification Faith or Justification is nor what Baptism is nor the Lords Supper nor to what use but in general for our Salvation What a Church is they know not nor what is the Office of Pastour or People save only to preach and hear and give and receive the Sacraments If I ask them what Christianity is the best answer is that it is a serving God as well as we can or as God will give us leave So that there is scarce an Article of the Creed or very few that they tolerably understand Nay one of about fourescore yeares of age now dead thought Christ was the Sunne that shineth in the Firmament and the Holy Ghost was the Moone 8. Many there be that joyne this Heathenish ignorance and wicked obstinacy together hating to be instructed scorning to come neer me to be taught and to be told of their sinne when they come They will raile at us bitterly behind our backs if we will not let them have their own will and way about the Sacraments and all Church-affaires but they will not submit to that Teaching that should bring them to know what Christ or Christianity is 9. Some there be that are of tollerable knowledg and no Drunkards nor Whoremongers that the world knoweth of but of more plausible lives and have some formes of Prayer in their families but yet live in idle or tipling company or spend their lives in vanity and hate more a diligent serving of God and heavenly life then the open Drunkars do These make it their work to possess people with a hatred of strict Professours and of our Churches and Administrations and to that end get all the books that are written for admitting all to the Lords Table that they can light of and contrary to the Authors meanings they make them Engines to harden others in their Impiety and hatred of Reformation The like use they make of the Writings of manâ—y Dissenting Divines about Church-governemnt or
is Excommunication to be deferred as long as there is any Hope by other meanes but only till we have used other means in vaine for such a season as is meet that the ends of Discipline be not frustrate For else there should never man be Excommunicated For there is some Hope that preaching against his sinne may do him good at last though he come drunk to the Lords Table twenty years together you cannot say that his Conversion is Impossible And yet we must not hereupon deferre the casting out of such a member But in his Expectant state or among the Catechumens we may beare with him lawfully in his wickedness without excluding him from among our hearers and if he heare us seaven years and seaven in vaine there is yet some Hope of his Conversion while he waiteth in his own place and way And yet I yield this much to the Objectours freely that when fit persons are taken into the Church yea or unfit by negligence we must wait with all patience that is consistent with the ends of Government and cutting off must be the last remedie and that when it is necessary it must be used though we see that it 's ten to one it will plunge the person occasionally into a worse condition For the Publike Ends of Discipline the credit of Christianity the preservation of the Church and abundance more are to be preferred before the good of that mans Soul and as paena debetur Reipublicae and we cut not off malefactours for their own good so much as the Common-wealths which by their hurt must be promoted so is it as to the Church But this must be done but upon a few for example and therefore but few that will need this severity are supposed to be in our Communion And I cannot believe that way to be of God that would bring such multitudes into this miserable state Object Your very keeping them from the Communion of the Church and not Approving or Confirming them would as much exasperate them Answ It 's no such matter Much it may but not neare so much as I certainly know by experience Those not Admitted heare with Hope but to the rejected I speak as almost hopeless except such as were fit to live under Discipline on whom it may have its due effect 9. And by this admitting all men without tryal and Confirmation to come unobservedly into the state of Adult-Christians we breed and feed continual heart burnings against the Ministers of Christ while we are necessitated to do our work upon such unprepared Souls And how much the hatred and contempt of Ministers doth conduce to the destruction of the people Satan is not ignorant that is the diligent promoter of it 10. By this means also we frustrate our own studies and Ministerial Labours to abundance of our people Partly by deluding them actually in the Reception of them among Christians that really are no Christians and partly by this provocation of their hatred 11. By this means also we breed and feed abundance of Controversies in the Church For when once we displace any parts of the frame we shall find almost all in pieces and one errour draweth on so many that Controversies grow numerous and will never be reconciled by meere words and writings till we actually set the Church in joynt againe 12. By this course also we lay open the Ordinances of God to a continual prophanation while abundance that know not who Christ is nor what Christianity is are admitted as Christians to our Christian Communion and so themselves are involved in more sinne and Gods own Worship turned into Provocation so that we may feare lest God should frown upon our Assemblies and withdraw the tokens of his Presence and deny his blessing to those prophaned Ordinances Though the innocent may still have their share in the blessing yet may the Pastours and the guilty majority deeply suffer by this great abuse of holy things 13. By this means also it is that so many Scruples are cast in our way about Administrations and reception of Ordinances and the comfort of Ministers and people in them is much abated 14. And I doubt it is a hinderance to the Conversion of many sects about us and of many ungodly ones among us who if they saw the primitive holiness of Churches might be drawn in 15. And it much corrupteth the Communion of Saints and turneth it to another thing when this Holy Communion is so much of our duty and our comfort and such a Representation of Heaven it self 16. And if it be not a practical denial of some of the Articles of our Faith it 's well We say there that we Believe the Catholike Church to be Holy and that it is a Communion of Saints that is by the parts of it to be exercised And shall we deny this in our works which in words we profess 17. By this means also we dishonour the work of Reformation when we hinder the fruits of it that should be visible to the world and make men believe that it lieth but in a change of bare opinions They that see no great difference between the Reformed and the Romanists in their lives will think it is no great matter which side they are joyned to It 's noted by some Protestant Writers that when Luther opposed Popery in Germany abundance of the common licentious people that were weary of Popish Confessions and Penances did joyne with those that were truly conscientious and dishonoured the Reformation by their lives though they increased the number and did the service as Erasmus his Gospeller that used to carry a bottle of wine and Erasmus New Testament with great brass bosses and when he disputed with a Papist knockt him about the pate with the Bible and so confuted him 18. And by this means we give the Papists more roome then they should have to reproach our Churches and glory comparatively of the Holiness of theirs Though I know that their glory is exceeding unreasonable and that our Impurities are no more to theirs then a few boiles to a Leprosie yet we do ill to give them so much occasion as we do who are ready to make the worst of all 19. By this means also we leave all Sects to quarrel with us and dispute against us even whether we be true Churches of Christ or not because our Adult-profession and Covenant is no more express and discernable then it is And though we have enough to prove our selves a Church yet do we leave them under their temptations and our selves under the obloquy And indeed we perversly maintain our own dishonour while we think it a condition to be rested in if we can but prove our selves true Churches when our Learned Divines do give as much to the Romanists themselves though not as Papal yet as Christian A Leper is a true man and yet his cure is a thing to be desired 20. Lastly By this means also we tempt many well meaning people among
do manifest whom they esteem good Christians and this the people very much look at 2. The Reputation of all the Pastours of the Church which is to be manifested in their Agreements Confessions or Declarations and Practices 3. The common consent of Christian people which is to be manifested by their actions according to the Laws of Christ and the Direction of their Guides If Magistrates Ministers and people do concurre to repute all the Infidels and utterly Ignorant wicked men among us to be Christians how many thousand Souls may this deceive and undo for ever Whereas If Magistrates Ministers and People that feare God would all agree accordng to the Laws of Christ to esteem none Adult-Christians but those that by a Credible Profession of Christianity do seem to be such it would abundantly help to convince them of their misery and the need of Christ and Grace and the absolute necessity of a change We see even among good men in the case of a particular sinne how much common Reputation doth help to hinder the work upon their Consciences Among the Reformed Churches beyond the Sea what Conscience is troubled for these actions or omissions on the Lords Day which in England would much trouble men of the same temper in other things Among several Sects it troubleth them not freely to revile the Servants of Christ that are against them because they finde it rather go for commendable then much condemnable by those whom they most esteem Among the Papists the believing in a Vice-Christ and the worshiping of his Image and Cross with Divine Worship and also the consecrated Host and the condemning all the Churches of Christ that do it not do goe for Virtues and Christian Practices though they are most haynous odious sinnes and what is it but common Reputation of Prince and Priests and multitudes of people that could make so many yea and such persons as some of them are to continue in such sinnes as if they were a part yea an essential part of holiness and one generation to succeed another in them Were these sinnes but commonly reputed to be as odious as indeed they are what a change would it make on millions of Souls So that it 's strange to see the power of Reputation 3. Moreover this course would be an excellent help to the Labours of the Ministers of Christ for mens Salvation They would better understand and apply our Sermons whereas now they lose the benefit by misapplying them Now we must labour all our lives and with most in vaine to make unbelievers and ungodly persons understand what they are and no means will serve to convince many people that they are not truly Christians that know not what it is to be a Christian or that hate it and fight against it When they all go together under the name of Christians what ever comforts they hear offered to Believers they take them to themselves or mistake them as offered to them and all the threatnings that are uttered against unbelievers they put by and think it is not they that they are spoken against But if once we could but get men to stand in their own places and to know themselves how easily then would our message work Me thinks the Devil should not be able to keep one man of an hundred in his power if they knew themselves to be in his power nor one of an hundred in a state of ungodliness and condemnation if they knew that they are in such a state At least I am sure men will not so numerously nor easily runne into Hell when they know they are going into it as when they are confident that they are good Christians and in the way to Heaven 4. If this foredescribed Confirmation be practised it will more powerfully oblige our people to Christ then a secret sliding into the number of Adult-Christians will do And doubtless solemn engagements and obligations have some force upon Conscience to hold men to Christ and restraine them from sinne or else Baptism it self would be much frustrate and the Jews should not have been so often called by Moses Joshua Asa and other Princes to renew their Covenant with God But with us men feel no such bonds upon them And many question whether they are bound at all by their Parents promises for them in Baptism 5. The profiting of our people will be much greater in their own place when those that are not yet fit for Adult-membership and Priviledges are kept in the place of Catechumens or Expectants Every thing doth thrive and prosper best in its own place If you teare them not out of the Churches wombe till they are ready for the birth they will prosper there that else may perish Your Corne will best prosper in the cold earth where it seems to be dead and buried till the Springing time shall come And you should not violently unhose the eares till Nature put them forth The first digestion must be wrought before the second and Nature must have time allowed it and the stomack must not too hastily let go the food if you would have good sanguification and nutrition follow Men think they do a great kindness to grosly ignorant or impious men to take them into the Church before they are capable of such a station and the work or Priviledges thereto belonging but alas they do but hurry them to perdition by thrusting them out of the state where they might have thriven in preparation to a Church-state into a state which will set them abundance of work which they are utterly unfit for and under the pretence of benefits and Priviledges will occasion abundance of aggravations of their sinnes A boy in his A B C. will learne better in his own place among his fellows then in a higher form where he hath work set him which he is uncapable of doing 6. By this means also Church-Discipline will attain its Ends It will awe and preserve the Church and terrifie and reduce offendours and help them to Repentance and preserve the order of the Church and Gospel when it is exercised upon such as are capable of it that know the nature of it and either are habitually diposed to profit by it or at least understand what it was that they were engaged to and understandingly consent to live under such a Discipline and when it is exercised upon few and we have not such multitudes to sweep out of the Church 7. By this means both Church-associations and Ordinances may attaine their Ends and people will be capable of doing the duty of Christians to one another when others are capable of receiving it Church members are bound to exhort one another daily while it is called to day lest any be hardened by the deceitfullness of sinne Heb. 3. 13. and to teach and admonish one another Col. 3. 16. But before swine we must not cast such pearls nor give that which is holy to dogs Matth. 7. 6. Therefore it necessarily followeth that dogs and
swine should be kept out of the Church and cast out if they be crept in Nothing hath more destroyed that Charitable Community which should be among the members of the Church and that loving and relieving Christ in Church-members then the crowding of such into the place as indeed are Satans members and appeare not capable of that special Love nor are capable of returning it to others 8. This will make easy the Ministers work and free him from abundance of hatred trouble and disadvantage when like a workmans tooles in his shop that all are in their place and so at hand when he should use them so his Hearers are in order and each one lookes but for his portion and none are snatching at our fingers for the Childrens bread that belongs not to them and men be not drawn to hate and raile at Ministers for not fullfiling their desires 9. By this means also the Ordinances will be more purely administred agreeably to their Nature and the Institution And so God will bless them more to his Church and own his people with the fuller discoveries of his presence and take pleasure in the Assemblies and services of his Saints 10. By this means also the Communion of the Saints and the holy Ordinances of God will be abundantly more sweet to his Servants when we have it in the appointed way and it is not imbittered to us by the pollutions of Infidels and notorious ungodly men Though yet I know that in a negligent polluted Church Gods Servants may have their share of comfort in his Ordinances when they have done their own duty for Reformation without success 11. By this means the Church and the Christian Religion will be more honorable in the eyes of the world who judge by the members and professours lives before they can judge of the thing as in it self And as Christ will be thus honoured and the mouths of adversaries of all sorts stopped so it will do much to further their Conversion when they have such a help to see the beauty of the Church and Christian Faith Many more such benefits I would name but that you may gather some of them from what was said of the contrary incommodities Only I adde 13. Lastly it is a way that is admirably suited both to Reformation and Reconciliation to Unity as well as Purity which removeth many of the Impediments that else would trouble us in the way For as all wicked men will agree against it as they will against any holy practice so all parties considerable among us do in their doctrine and professions owne it and it will suit the Principles or the Ends of all that fear God either wholly of very farre I shall here distinctly shew you 1. That the Episcopal 2. Presbyterians 3. Independants 4. Anabaptists 5. Yea and I may put in the Papists themselves have no reason to be against this practice but all of them have great reason to promote it supposing them to be what they are 1. That it is so far agreeable with the Doctrine of the Church of England that our Episcopal party have reason to be for it appeareth 1. By the Rubricke for Confirmation in the Common-Prayer Book which saith as followeth The Curate of every Parish or some other at his appointment shall diligently upon Sundaies and Holydaies halfe an houre before Evening Prayer openly in the Church instruct and examine so many Children of his Parish sent unto him as the time will serve and as he shall think convenient in some part of this Catechism And all Fathers Mothers Masters and Dames shall cause their Children Servants and Prentices which have not learned their Catechism come to the Church at the time appointed and obediently to hear and be ordered by the Curate until such time as they have learned all that is appointed here for them to learn And whensoever the Bishop shall give knowledg for Children to be brought before him to any convenient place for their Confirmation then shall the Curate of every Parish either bring or send in writing the names of all those Children of his Parish which can say the Articles of the Faith the Lords Prayer and the ten Commandements and also how many of them can answer to the other Questions contained in this Catechism And there shall none be admitted to the Holy Communion till such time as he can say the Catechism and be Confirmed So that you see we must not admit any but the Confirmed to the Sacrament And I suppose in common reason they will extend this to the Aged as well as unto Children seing ignorance in them is more intollerable And indeed the words themselves exclude the unconfirmed and that cannot say the Catechism from the Sacrament of what age soever 2. And I may take it for granted that it is not bare saying the Catechism that they expect but also a Profession that they owne their Baptismal Covenant to God the Father Sonne and Holy Ghost And also that it be a Profession somewhat understood and not barely to say the words which they understand not as a Parot doth And this I prove to be their meaning yea and also that they live a Christian life from the Prayer in Confirmation adjoyned which is this Almighty and Everlasting God who hast vouchsafed to regenerate these thy Servants by water and the Holy Ghost and hast given unto them forgiveness of all their sinnes strengthen them we beseech thee O Lord with the Holy Ghost the Comforter and daily increase in them the mani old gifts of Grace the Spirit of Wisdom and Vnderstanding the Spirit of Counsell and Ghostly strength the Spirit of Knowledg and true Godliness So that here you see that the Church of England supposeth all those that are to be Confirmed to have already the Holy Ghost and the Spirit of Wisdom Understanding Counsell Knowledg and true Godliness which they beg of God as to an increase only for the Confirmed And sure they do not think that every notorious ungodly man hath the Spirit of true Godliness if he can but say the Catechism or that every ignorant person or Infidel hath the Spirit of Knowledg Wisdom c. as soon as he can speak the words which he understands not And in the following Prayer they say We have laid our hands on them to certifie them by this signe of thy favour and gracious goodness towards them And sure they will not think to Certifie men that know not what Christianity is or that live not Christian lives for this favour of God towards them meerly because they say the words which they do not understand So that if they will but let men understand what they do and make good what is here expressed we are agreed with them that stand for Common-Prayer that such as are unconfirmed be not admitted to the Holy Communion And as for the person Confirming I shall speak to that anon 2. I will next speake of the Papists
accepted What is the Tongue made for but to express the mind Indeed if a man be dumb and can neither speak not write it is more tollerable to take an uncertaine signe from such a man then from another that hath the use of Tongue or pen. 5. It is a very Implicite denying of Christ which many call an Implicite Profession If a man that hath a Tongue in his mouth shall refuse to Profess the Christian Faith and quarrel with the Minister that calls him to it and say we shall have no other Profession from him then to come to Church and put the bread and wine into his mouth and not to deny Christ expresly I leave it to any reasonable man whether there be not so much of an Implicite denying Christ in this refusing to confess him when they are called to it by their Pastours whom God hath commanded them to obey and that in a case and season when all the Church hath required it or taught it to be due 6. It is contrary to the honour of Christ and the very Nature of Christianity for men to take up with Implicite uncertaine Professions when we have opportunity of more open free Professions He is not a Master to be ashamed of And he will have no servants that will not confess him before men even in the hazzard of life much more in daies of the freedom of the Gospel As with the heart men must believe to Righteousness so with the mouth Confession is made unto Salvation Rom. 10. 10. What reason have we to whisper or draw back in a cause of such a nature and weight as this 7. Shall we thus teach our people to esteem Christianity as an unobservable thing by no more observing it The Solemnity of mens Transition into the Adult-state of actual Believers doth make it more Observable in the eyes of men and they will see that there is more in it then commonly is now esteemed I find by experience that our people hate no preaching more then Differencing Preaching which leaves or shuts them out from the number of the Sanctified and sets them as one the left-hand in the face of the Congregation and judgeth them before the time but faine they would have Ministry confound and jumble all together And then you may make them as great sinners as you will so you will make them no worse then the Justified that are forgiven and shall be saved And so in Practice they love no differencing waies But shall we so far gratifie the Devil and the flesh No we must labour to make the difference between Christs Servants and the world as conspicuous as we can that the Consciences of poor sinners may rather be wakened then cheated by us And therefore we should choose the most solemn Transition and Record the names of the Confirmed and let the people be brought to a publike Observation of the Necessity of Faith and Holiness while the Covenant and Profession of it is made so Necessary 8. That is the best means that is fittest to attain the End The End of a Covenant is to Oblige and the End of a Profession to declare the mind And I pray you which is fittest for these Ends An Express Profession and Covenant or a dumbe uncertain signe by coming to Church paying Tithes c. 9. Such dumb Professions are less tolerable now because we have many in our Assemblies that we know to be no Christians I know of many that will heare that believe no life to come and secretly make a scorne of Christ and Scripture and many more that know not what Christianity is as is aforesaid Now shall we take up with such signes of Christianity as we see and know are commonly used by Infidels when we may have better 10. It is essential to a Profession to be in some measure explicit for Profiteri is but palà m vel publicè fateri It is no Profession if it be not or pretend not to be an Expression of the mind And therefore to be Implicite and not Express is so far to be against the very Nature of the Profession in that measure as your Profession is Implicite as it 's called and not Express in that measure it is no Profession at all Object 7. But when you have the most express Covenant or Profession you are not sure that it is true and that the man is a believer at the heart Answ 1. I am sure that it 's Truly a Profession that is a Pretended signe of the mind thoâ—gh I am not sure that it 's True Profession that is a True infallible signe of the mind I can know the metaphysical though not the Morall Truth of it And then I can be sure that I do my duty and take up according to the Directions of Christ It is his work to judge the heart immediatly as being his prerogative to know it but it 's my work to judge of the Credibility of the Profession 2. And what if I have no infallible Certainty Must I therefore throw up all and make the Pastoral Church-government to be void and cast open the Vineyard of Christ to the wilderness and not so much as require a Credibility because we cannot have an Infallibility This may not be Object 8. But this will encourage tbe Anabaptists and Congregational in their Express Covenantings by our coming so neer them Answ 1. I may better say you will make men Anabaptists and drive them too far by your loosness and willfully shunning plaine duty How can weake professours be drawn to think well of that party which they see do shun so needfull a Work of God 2. Love and Peace will teach all Christians to say that it 's the best for Unity and healing of our breaches to come as neare dissenting Brethren as we may and noâ— to fly the further from them At least we may not run from truth and duty that we may be unlike our dissenting Brethren 3. And I take it to be my duty to tell this alowd to the Christian world that after long contest with the Anabaptists and opposition of their waies I am grown as I confidently think to this discovery of the mind of God in suffering them among us that he had this great truth and duty to which he saw it necessary to awake us the Church having been so lamentably defiled Discipline made an impossible thing and mens Salvation grievously hindred by the common secret unobserved transition of all people into the name and number and Priviledges of Adult-Christians therefore did God permit these men to step too far on the other side that the noise might be the greater and his call the more observable so that they are his messengers calling aloud to England and all other Christian Churches in Europe to keep the doore and repaire the hedge and no more to take an Infant-baptism and Profession of our Parents as a sufficient Evidence of the Title of the Adult to the Name or Place or Priveledges of
a little while and I shall set more by their Judgments then now I do I red many a Physicians writings before I was fit to attempt a Cure It 's a raw deceitful kind of knowledg in these practical affaires that is not furthered by experience 2. And as for the duty of the ignorant ungodly people I shall say little of it because I suppose they are not like to read or regard what I say Only in general it is their first duty to become truly godly persons and so to live in communion with the Church But upon supposition that they will not yet be such their next choice should be to live in quiet submission to their Teachers and patiently stay among the Catechumens and Expectants till they are fit for a higher place and Priviledges And with the reasonableness of this motion and how it conduceth to their good we should labour to acquaint them and make them sensible of it that they may be patient in their station 3. OUr last work is to tell you what is the Magistrates part for the promoting of this work And I shall urge them here to no great matters because they shall not say that we would either drive them in the darke upon questionable things or put them upon that which any reason can call persecution or make them think that we can do nothing but by their sword And therefore whether they should force people to be Church-members or Christians or to come under Discipline are Questions that at this time I shall not meddle with But Direct 1. It is a great part of the Magistrates Duty to cause the people that are yet unfit for Church-communion to keep in their visible station and to behave themselves as Expectants and submit to that Instruction of their Teachers which is necessary to prepare them for the Priviledges of the Church and to this End the Magistrate should by Laws and Proclamations own this Ministerial Reformation Alas how little knew they what they did that have so long been jealous of us lest we would do too much and under pretence of Discipline enflame or abuse them by severity When as it is a work that casteth us on so much rage and hatred of rich and poor and calls for such abundance of Faith and Zeale and diligence and self-denial when we have so little and are commonly like other men addicted too much to man-pleasing and to save our selves that if we had all the help that Magistrates can give us it 's ten to one but we should leve the most of this work undone Preaching is a very cheap and easy work in comparison of Church-Government They have taken great pains to stop poor lazy short-winded men from runing up the steepest hill and carrying the heaviest burden and passing through the greatest sufferings that in those prosperous times we can expect And indeed I know it to be true that for all the countenance of Authority he that will faithfully execute the Pastoral Oversight and Discipline shall live a persecuted life which by meer Preaching he might avoid Therefore the chief Governours of the Nation ought to make Laws and cause them to be executed for the constraining of the grosly Ignorant and ungodly to heare the Word preached publikly and to submit to be privately Catechised and Instructed by the Ministers and to command them patiently to waite as learners in this Condition till they are fit to be Approved members of the Church These carnal people look more at the sword and will of the Magistrate in matters of Religion then others do because they understand no other argument and can favour nothing but the things of the flesh Did but the Rulers of the Nation heare how they daily enquire what Religion shall be owned and setled by them they would sure think it their duty to lend them a little more of their help We desire you not to drive them to Christianity nor to Sacraments or Church-Communion only drive them to heare and learne and be instructed that the Light of Truth may do the rest Surely none can reasonably suspect that this is against the Liberty of their Consciences unless the slavery of Satan be their Liberty and it be their Liberty to be free from Christ and Righteousness and Heaven It 's hard to believe that Governour to be a Christian that will not do this much to help his Subjects to be Christians Direct 2. And as the Magistrate should constraine such People to submit to be Instructed so should he constraine the Ministers to Instruct them both by publike preaching and by private conference and Catechizing if they be able and if through the greatness of the place one Minister is not able to perform it there should be so many maintained proportionably to the number and necessities of Souls as may be able The Reason why Ministers themselves should be compelled by Penalties are 1. First because some are so dull that they need the spur 2. Because our performances will be the less resisted by the people when they know we are forced by the Magistrate 3. Because the Magistrates Judgment puts much authority and honour on the work in the peoples eies compel us therefore as well as them Direct 3. The Magistrate should also impose a penalty upon all that undertake to be Pastours of a Church and administer the Lords Supper and yet will not make any necessary Tryal of the Knowledg Faith and Lives of those to whom they do administer it nor exercise any Church Discipline on the scandalous but utterly neglect that Oversight and Church-Government which is as much a part of the Pastoral work as publike preaching is They that will undertake to be Pastours and meddle with Sacraments must be compelled to do the work of Pastours and to dispence the Sacraments in a tollerable order Though yet we are not for compulsion in any doubtfull points of lesser moment where a difference among the Godly may be tollerated But that Pastours should act as no Pastours and Rectors of the Churches be as no Rectors and should cherish all ignorance infidelity and impiety and profane Gods Ordinances and subvert the Communion of Saints and lay the Garden of Christ open to the common wilderness and thereby make all seeme singular to the people that will not do as wickedly as these this is not to be tolerated but the Commissioners for ejecting scandalous Ministers with the advice of the Assistants should have power to correct them and in case of obstinate unreformedness to eject them Not to silence them from preaching to the Catechumens or any but to prohibite them from the actions proper to Church Rulers or Pastours till they will performe them more agreeably to the Scripture Rule And this compulsion also of the Ministers we desire especially for the peoples sake who we are content should be excused themselves from any such penal Laws to restraine them from Sacraments but when they know that Ministers are under such
may not be suffered to take the advantage of our peoples Ignorance and Discontent undoubtedly the Rulers that are friends to Christ and the Souls of men will never find in their hearts to deny this assistance Reason 8. And if they should deny it in Reason they must needs see that they will fully give up the Churches of Christ that are under their government to distraction and confusion They know well enough whâ—t would come of it if every man have but liberty to perswade their Armies into Mutinies and Rebellion or to perswade the Subjects against themselves that Rule them or to entice mens Children or servants to lewdness or their wives to unchastity And will they under pretence of Mercy or Liberty permit men to do that against Christ and the Church and the Souls of many that are bad enough already which they would not they durst not permit against mens bodies or against themselves or against the Peace of the Common-wealth And what a dishonour will it be to Christ to the Church and Reformation and Religion and what a joy to all the Enemies of these to see that our Reformation shall breed such Confusion and bring upon us such inconveniencies And all because the Magistrate shall refuse his help Reason 9. And perhaps the Magistrates will quickly find that the Distractions of the Church will breed and feed such Distractions in the Common-wealth as may make them wish they had quenched the fire while it was yet quenchable Our Unity is not only Our strength but their strength especially if they promote it Our Divisions weaken us as well as them What will the Magistrate do if he help us not in this case Ministers cannot in Conscience alwaies forbeare their Duty but will set about it Either the Rulers will suffer us to do it or not If they suffer us and assist us it will be our Peace and theirs and our peoples good If they suffer us and assist us not as is now desired we shall exasperate so many of their Sujects by our Reformation and shutting them from Church Communion that will shake the Peace of the Common-wealth and the Odium will fly on the Governours for setting up a Ministry that so provoketh them and so the people will be still in Discontents and prepared for Rebellion or any violent change And the fire that begun in the Church if it be let alone may reach the Court But if to mend this they will put down or hinder Ministers their persecution will bring Gods Judgments on them and turn the hearts of honest sober men against them They have seen what Deformation and persecution have done before their eies Reason 10. Lastly it will bring a most heavy Guilt on the Magistrates Soul which he will never be able to stand under before the King of all the world To be Guilty of the neglect of an Office so Divine received from God that it might be used for him and to be Guilty of the frustrating of much of our Ministerial work and of grieving the hearts of so many that feare God and frustrating such hopes as we lately had to say nothing of the Prayers teares hazards blood and ruine of so many thousand and the promises oaths and Covenants to God to be guilty of the sinnes of so many thousand and of their everlasting Condemnation to be guilty of the distractions and betraying of the Church and cause and people of the Lord and to be guilty of the insultings of so many Enemies all this and much more that would certainly follow the denial of this moderate necessary help would be a burden intollerable Direct 7. But because both the Magistrates and many others are afraid lest by going too far in such assistance they may be guilty of Persecution by restraining men from Preaching or private peswasion or by keeping the Ignorant and wicked from Church-Communion or by compelling them to come to heare and to be personally Instructed I humbly propound these following things for such a Regulation of their granted Liberty as may free them from all danger of persecuting without depriving us of their principall help 1. If you compel not the Ignorant and ungodly to heare and be pesonally Instructed by the Minister of the Parish where they live yet at least compel them thus to submit to some Minister and let that Minister certifie under his hand that he takes care of him as a Catechumene or Expectant by publike and private Instruction 2. Let not every man that will be tolerated either to Teach perswade or hold Assemblies but let your Toleration be Regulated as well as your Approbation is To which end 1. Let such persons as are thought meet for such a worke be appointed as Comissioners to Approve or Judge of such as shall be Tolerated through the Land as the Commissioners now Approved of such as shall have the publike maintenance For there is no Reason that the Tollerated should not go under Tryal as well as the Allowed And indeed without some such course to keep the Doore of Toleration as well as the doore of publike Allowed Teachers you cannot put any reasonable Laws for Toleration in Execution but any will come in what ever your Law say 2. Let these Commissionets for Trying the Tolerated have Rules given them by the Lawgivers whom to Licence or Tolerate and whom not 3. Let all that will gather Assemblies or administer Sacraments or Preach have an Instrument of Toleration under the hands and seale of these Commissioners and let them be hindered that have no such Instrument Otherwise if you stay till they are convict of Blasphemie they may do more mischief first for who will persecute them then ever the Magistrate can comfortably be accountable to God for suffering 7. When a man hath a sealed Toleration to Preach or hold Assemblies let him yet be as liable to any just Accusation before the Commissioners for Ejection as the Approved publike Ministers are That so if he be proved to be wicked and scandalous or to preach any thing excepted from Toleration by the Legislatours the said Commissioners may be Authorized to deprive them of their Toleration as they do others of their publique station and maintenance And this is a most Rersonable and necessary thing 1. For else the Publike Ministers will be hardlier dealt with then they It is supposed that there 's so much difference in the soundess of their Doctrine that one deserveth the publike encouragement as well as the other deserveth a Toleration Or else the Law-givers would make no difference And that being supposed if they shall not be questionable as well as we nor their Right forfeitable as well as ours they are more cherished proportionably then others 2. And if you do not this it 's as good do nothing but openly License Heathens and Papists and all Blaspheamers For they will make a faire Confession till they have got their seald Toleration and then preach contrary to that profession
man is out of it and you may next question whether the Devill be not a Member that believeth much more then he But when I say that Infidelity Impiety Heresie do cut off or cast out I meane it but Meritoriously Either these crimes are private and unknown or provable If not provable then they merit this and more Coram Deo but not Ecclesiâ judice that is though there be guilt or demerits yet we are no capable judges of it But if the crime be provable then it is either such as needs a judgment or not If it need a judgement the person is only de jurâ— cast out before the sentence which is terminus diminuens and is noâ— actuall casting out and he is actually cast out by the sentence and the execution so that his sin cast him out Meritoriously the Law Obligatorily the Paflors of the Church Sententially and the whole Church Pastors and People Executively in avoiding him But if there need no judgement then he is excommunicate actually ipso jure by the Law alone without a Judge which may be in many a casâ—â— Aâ— if he be a notorious Infidell Atheist Blaspheamer or notoriously beyond all doubt and controversie one of those that the Law commands us to avoid we must execute this Law though there be no sentence pronounced The want of a mans sentence will not excuse us from obeying Gods Laws And where there is no controversie through the notoriousness of the case there needs no Judge 6. If Birth-priviledge will serve alone for the Adult to prove their Title to the Church-state and priviledges of the Adult then no man that is born of Christian Parenâ—s can be obnoxious to excommunication or justly excommunicate For he is still a Child of Believing Parents and no sin will make them otherwise And therefore if that were enough he hath a good Title still Nay it would follow that he cannot Apostatize for he cannot fall away from this But the consequence is absurd therefore so is the Antecedent 7. If Infant Title only be sufficient to the Adult then no Parent is necessarily oblieged to professe himself a Christâ—aâ— or actuall believer in order to prove the interest of his Child to Baptism nor any that offer him in the Parents stead For it is sufficient if the Parents or susceptors say We were Infant-members and Baptized and therefore our Child must be so but whether we are actuall Believers now it is not necessary that we tell you But the Consequent is so absurd that whoever should have offered a Child to Baptism on these terms in the Aâ—cient Church or any Church that I know of till very lately would have been rejected The acceptance and Baptism of our Infants is one of the priviledges of Believers But no one hath right to this priviledg that his children be thus accepted into the Church upon a bare Infant-Title without the profession of a personall actuall â—aith Therefore c. 8. If the opposed Doctrine should hold good then all the world hath right to Church-Communion or Mâ—llions of Infidels at least But the consequent is false therefore so is the Antecedent The reason of the Consequence is plain because Noah was a Church-member and all the world came out of his Loynes And the men of Thracia Bithynia and most of Asia where Mahomet is worshipped may say Our Ancestors were Christians Therefore the Birth-priviledges still going down from generation to generation even to the Thousandth generation it must follow that the present generation of Mahometans and other Infidels are Church-memberâ— still For they lost not their naturall Relation to their Parents 9. It will not prove a Society of Adult persons to be a Christian Church if they have no more but their Infant-Condition therefore it will not prove a single person to be a Member of the Church That which is necessary to make a society a Christian society is necessary to make a person a Christian person But I hope none will deny but that some kind of Profession is necessary to make or prove a company of men to be a Christian Church therefore some profession is necessary to make or prove a man to be a Church-member 10. If Infant-conditions will suffice to the Adult for Church-membership and common priviledges then will they serve for Justification and Salvation that are speciall priviledges But the Consequent is false therefore so is the Antecedent The reason of the consequence is because though the benefits be various yet the Covenant and Conditions are the same by which we have right to one and to the other It is the Appearance of the same Faith by profession before men that give Title Coram ecclesiâ whose inward sincerity giveth right Coram Deo as was aforesaid And God giveth Title to all the blessings of the Covenant Coram Deo on the same conditions And there is also a parity of reason For if it be enough to prove our right to Adult Communion to praise God and have all his Ordinances and helps in the Church c. that we had Christian Parents then must it be enough to prove our Title in all the rest of our benefits The ancient Fathers and Churches thought that Baptism did as certainly give the Infant rightly Baptized a right to pardon of Originall sin and eternall life aâ— to outward Church-priviledges And if the same Covenant give both on the same condition then he that hath the condition of one hath of both I have proved in another Disputation that God hath not two Covenants of grace on his part one of spirituall or inward mercies and another of outward Ordinances and that he giveth not these inward benefits and the outward signes of them upon various conditions but on the same 11. Faith or the profession of it in the Adult is either necessary to Church-communion or unnecessary if unnecessary then Christians have no more to do in the Church then Heathens if necessary then either as a meer duty or as a condition or other means Not as a meer dutyâ— for then still the Infidels should be equally received though not applauded It must be therefore necessary as a meanes And the very words of the promise tells us what sort of meanes it is that makes Faith to be its condition 12. I would know of my adversary what he would do with the Son of a Believer that were unbaptized at 40. or 50. years of age would be Baptize him without a profession of actuall Faith of his own or not if he would then he would make new fashioned Christians and Churches and might Baptize all the posterity of the Apostates or the ancient Christians in the world that would consent Yea he could not indeed Baptize them for Baptism essentially containeth a profession of consent unto the Covenant which therefore others make for Infants that have the dispose of them But if he would not Baptize such without profession then it seems he takes not their Birth-priviledges to be a
be but Meritoriously cut off it is the Churches duty to do it Sententially and Executively it being of indispensable obligation to give to all their due 3. It 's granted that Heresie cuts off But how doth Heresie cut off any otherwise then Meritorioâ—sly If therefore Wickedness do as much as Heresie then thus far they are equal 4. Either Wickedness signifieth some actual crime like Davids or Peters when the Church knoweth not whether it be joyned with Habitual Impenitence or else it signifieth Habitual stated wickedness with impenitency The first sort requireth but an Exclusion from Actual Church-Communion called suspension by some as it is but Actual sinne that deserveth it The second sort must have an Exclusion from their State and Church-relation as it is a State of Impenitency that deserveth it The first sort of Excommunication leaveth a man in the Church quoad Statum Relationem but out of it quoad actum usum The The second sort leaves him out of it both in State and Act. Not that the Excomunication puts him out of the Church as Invisible For that he did first himself meritoriously and so efficiently even by the efficiency of his demerits as the Law of Christ did it by its Obligatory efficiency But when he hath put himself out of the Church invisible and plainly declared this to the Church by his impâ—nitent courses the Church further declareth it by their Sentence and puts him out of the Church Visible executively when he had before put out himself meritoriously 5. As I said before the persons wickedness is either Notorious and out of question as if a man be an open persecutour of godliness or daily blaspheame God in the open streets or Congregation and many lower cases or else it is Controvertible needing proof and not notorious In the latter case a wicked man is not Actually cast out of the Communion of the Visible Church or cut off from it by his demerits till his fault be proved and sentence be passed But in the former case he is Excommmunicate ipso jure which is more then de jure We call him excommunicate de jure who ought to be excommucatenicate de facto but we call him excommuni ipso jure which is actually excommunicated by the Law without any further sentence of a Judge the Law it self sufficing to enable men to the execution so the Law of Christ commanding us to avoid and have no company with Drunkards Adulterers Hereticks c. if any be Notoriously such past doubt every man is obliged by this Lâ—w to avoid them in their several capacities after the due admonitions given them which the Law requireth whether the Pastours censure them or no but his censure layeth on them a double obligation Object If wickedness cut off a man excommunication cannot do it because it is done already Answ If wickedness being not Notorious do only cut him off meritoriously and de jure only he be excommunicate then Actual excommunication must do that which was not actually done but ought to be done But if by the Notoriety of the crime he be cut off ipso jure the Sentence yet may do the same thing by adding a Second Obligation to the first A Traitour in actual prosecution of the Soveraigne seeking his life is condemned ipso jure and any Subject may kill him without sentence and yet he may be proclaimed or sentenced a Traitour for all that Object It is proved by some Writers that such persons as have neither grace indeed nor in shew may yet have both a real and visible Interest in the Covenant and Church and the Arguments for this are yet unanswered therefore persons baptized in Infancy are in the Church and Covenant at age though they never by Profession made so much as a shew of grace Answ It was never proved by any Writer nor ever will be that any person at age and natural capacity ought to be a member of the Church of Christ under the Gospel no nor under the Law neither without a shew of grace even of Faith by his Profession of consent to the Holy Covenant It 's the Arguments against them that remaine unanswered But that all their Arguments that I remember are sufficiently answered I shall take for granted till I see a Reply And for them that tell us of the Church membership of the Adult considered without Respect to saving Grace I shall regard them when they have proved either that Faith and Repentance are no saving Graces or that Profession of Faith hath no Respect to Faith or that men may have Title to Church-membership without respect to Profession of Faith even of their Parents if they are Infants or their own if at age All these three points are yet unproved If any think the learned Mr. Fullwood to be of another mind let them judg by his own words Of the Visible Church cap. 28. pag. 180. Saith he Church-membeâ—ship c mark the Parenthesis And in his Epist Propos 3. 4. From the Prâ—mises it seems at least probable to me that the Church is to have some kind of respect unto the saving condition of the person Shee is about to admit into Communion c. 4. Yet I humbly conceive that more then a bare outward Profession is requisite to give real Interest in the Visible Church and the Priviledges thereof before God Though no more is requisite to give visible Interest before men c. And for Immediate right to the Communion of the Church in the Lords Supper he saith pag. 270. Where there is want of Knowledg whether naturally or morally there we are sure the Condition of Right is wanting and consequently admission is to be denied when all is done And for the maine designe of this Book he saith Append. pag. 1 2. mentioning Mr. Hanmer's Book Some happily may be willing to surmise that our two Propositions are irreconcileable and interpret me an enemy to that most ancient usefull and desireable Ordinance Wherefore if I may possibly prevent so scandalous a censure I shall not venture to hold my Reader in so long suspence till he come to the pages where Confirmation is considered in the Book nor yet barely to acknowledg my allowance of it under my hand but after my humble thanks heartily tendered to our worthy Author for his excellent paines in so seasonable a Subject I do also presume earnestly to beseech my Reverend Bretheren that what Mr. Baxter hath so smartly pressed upon the Ministry about it may be speedily and seriously considered and undertaken by us And many pages after he addes 7. Yea though after all due paines and endeavoures used we should not be able to reconcile our principles in every point yet if we can mâ—et in the same practice about Confiâ—mation though on some smal differing grounds why may not the Church be happily edâ—fied and the peace thereof in a measure obtained by such an Vâ—ity Vniformity in practice white the persons diffâ—ring
but in lighter matters may waite upon the Lord in this good service for the greâ—t blessing of Vnanimity promised also Object But he addeth the proviso that Coâ—firmation be not thought to have any ingrediency into the nature or being of our membership and that the temper of the people be found such as will admit of such a change Answ We shall easily grant that Confirmation as it is a solemn Reception of the person by Imposition of hands or without Imposition in a purposed solemnity commonly known by that name is not of necessity to the Being of our membership and that all those that are received upon profession of Faith may be Church-members and that the ordinary use of Christian Assemblies and exercises of worship is a Profession though obscure and that a baptized person that never was called to a Verball Profession may be taken for a Christian or Church-member upon such a Practical sort of Profession joyned with a not denying of Christ in word or life But yet we are far from thinking that the Infant-Title-condition of such a one serveth to prove his present Church-state and Title now he is at capable age The Infant-Title ceaseth if he continue it not by a Personal Profession at age And as there is no middle betweene Believers and unbelievers so there is no such thing in a capable subject as non-dissenting in a moral sense but true Consenting It is not possible for the Soul to be neuter when the thing is offered to our consent but we must either will or nill consent or dissent though if it were yet not willing or not consenting is Infidelity and Rebellion in such a Subject And accordingly we maintaine and must maintaine that Profession of some sort or other is a necessary Condition of the Title and Church-state of the capable Adult and of Right to the Priviledges And as an obscure kind of Profession may serve when a man is called to no more to prove his Right so a clearer sort of Profession is necessary to the clearer proof and ad bene esse Ecclesiae And I have shewed what great and weighty Reasons we have to require an open cleare intelligible Profession And he that is justly called to for such giveth cause to the Church to question him of Apostacy if he refuse without cause So that of the three Conditions in question the first which is our Infant-condition is utterly insufficient to the capable Adult and the second which is an obscure signification of our mind by our Christian practises may serve ad esse at least when no more is required and the third which is an open approved Profession by word or subscription is necessary ordinarily ad bene esse Thus farre we are agred But what if we were not Must we therefore refuse to agree in the practice of the aforesaid Confirmation Will any good and peaceable man refuse to joyne with those that think it necessary to Adult Church-membership If this opinion of the said Non-necessity had been an Article of Faith and among the necessâ—ry Credenda of the Church we should have had it in some Creed or heard more of the necessity of it then we have done from the Ancient Churches If we meet about the agenda in our practice let men take head how they divide from such as differ in the Reasons of their Practice till they can prove that they deny some Article of the Faith which is of necessity to be believed And as for the peoples unfitness or any disturbance that will follow thereupon 1. If there be such a thing it will be much long of the Ministers Let them unanimously agree and they may do well enough with the people or much the better But when Ministers themselves are the bellows of faction and think they can never sufficiently vilifie dissenters and so have themselves taught the people to take such a Practice for a Prelaticall foppery or formality or for an Independent rigidity and extreamity no wonder if when they come to practice their duty they meet with such reproaches from the people as they have taught them 2. But suppose that people would disturb us that may in some cases excuse us as to the mode of Confirmation or Profession but no unfitness of the people can excuse us as to the substance of the duty the requiring and approving their Profession We are false to our trust and the Church of God if to avoid disturbance we will confound Believers and Infidels and destroy the nature of the Church and Ordinances under pretence of the peoples good Object But it would be your only sure and happy course to exercise Discipline upon all that are baptized in their Infancy whether at age they consent or no And finding them in the Church you must do so Answ I have said enough to this before Have they that talk thus tried this course or have they not If they have not we will beare with them as well meaning men that talk of what they never tryed as we would do with a confident man that would condemn the actions of Souldiours and Seamen that himself was never in at warres nor at Sea But if they have tryed it what kind of Discipline do they exercise Would they make us believe that they are able in a Parish of 4000 or 5000 or 6000 Souls to exercise the Discipline mentioned in Scripture and the Canons of the Ancient Churches and that upon such persons as our Parishes commonly consist of I know they cannot do it I have had tryall to tell me what a man can do With the help of divers Ministers and many hundred godly people to watch over others and promote this work I am not able to do it on all this Parish if I might There is so many offendours weekely to be dealt with and so much time required to heare witnesses and admonish them that it 's more then I could pâ—ssibly do How Bishops deale with Diocesses let them see themselves And if we could do it yet the people will not consent If you send for them they will not come neer you If you admonish them in the Congregation by name they will have an Action at Law against you if they can However you will have such a multitude enraged by the exercise of Discipline if it be faithfully though never so tenderly done that the Church will be in a flame and your Mâ—nistry hated and the people undone as I have before declared So that it is but a name of Discipline to the destruction of discipline that this Objection pleadeth for or else it dishonoureâ—h it self and the Authors And as they do by Discipline so they do by Christian Charity which is a greater thing Of old the Visible members of the Church were the Objects of brotherly Christian Love And so as they seemed to them to be Believers and penitent persons the living members did love all the body with that special Love that was the matter of the new Commandment
here lay before the Magistrate the Reasons that shall evince the need of his help in the present case Reason 1. The people that we now speak of are so utterly ignorant that it 's easy to deceive them It 's no dishonour to Truth that a foole or a child my be deluded but such are not to be left to the malice and craft of jugling enemies Reason 2. So wicked are the hearts of those that we now speak of or many of them that they are prepared for Deceit and willing of it Materially though not Formally as such It 's easy drawing men from that which they hate or their hearts are bent against and to that which they Love and their hearts are set upon Such gunpowder will soon take fire Reason 3. Our people by the foremencioned work of Reformation will undoubtedly be cast into Discontents They will be sorely displeased with their Teachers which is a small matter were it not that it hindreth their own Salvation They have so long been used to have their own will and to be admitted even in Heathenish Ignorance and Impiety to the Communion of the Saints and all the outward Priviledges without any considerable exercise of Discipline over them that now it will be a strange provoking thing to them when their custom shall be altered So that in the discontent and hatred of their minds if Infidels or Papists or any such Malignant adversaries shall come among them their own malignity and discontent will drive them by multitudes into their nets and they will turn to the first that comes with any plausible though pernicious doctrine With half an eie we may easily see this And therefore if the Magistrate will not help us to quiet and secure the people and keep off deceivers while we are Catechising and Instructing and Preparing the grosly Ignorant and ungodly it will be to the hazard of many thousand souls and a temptation to many faint-hearted Ministers againe to cast open the hedge and lay the Churches Communion common for feare of the ill consequence that will follow to the people by displeasing them And yet I may well conclude that though still the Church will have need of some of the Magistrates help in this same way yet nothing so much hereafter as at first 1 It is Custom that most holdeth the people now and enrageth them against the breakers of it And when once the Custom is broken and turned they will be much more quiet 2. We now find the Churches in the rubbish and have the harshest work at first to do which will soone be over and the Churches and minds of men more setled 3. A few yeares Practise of Confirmation in the foredescribed way I hope will introduce such abundance of Knowledg and so increase the face of Godliness that we shall have little need of the Magistrates helpe in this kind as now we have But now at first our Necessity is very great Reason 4. Moreover our Doctrine and Practice is most contrary to mens sinnes and carnall Interest and therefore though it be True yet it is Provoking and seemeth to be against them as blood letting Fasting and bitter medicines to a Child or a foolish Patient And therefore no wonder if tolerated Seducers can draw them from it by sence or non-sence in such a case A little Reason seemes to take men off from that which seemes against them or which they hate Reason 5. On the contrary the Doctrine and Practice of Deceivers is suited to their nature and purposely sugered for them by Art For Instance If Papists fall in with them in the depth of their discontent and first raile at us as no Ministers but Lyars and Hereticks and then revile us for receiving maintenance which is their way though their Clergie receive so exceedingly much more and then tell them of all their Ancestours and then set them upon an easy outside Piety which ex opere operato will certainly conferre grace and shall take up at the strictest with an Auricuar Confession instead of necessary humiliation and true Church-Discipline and shall make those veniall and improper sinnes which we make damnable and shall send many but to Purgrtory that according to Scripture we send to Hell In a word when they shall comply with carnal hearts and Interests but as much as Montalte the Jansenian sheweth us that the Jesuites do what wonder if our Ignorant discontented people do greedily swallow such baits as these and turn to such a kind of Religiousness And this makes the Jesuites glad of our Reformation and stand by us as the Crows by Sheep that they may have our leavings or all that we cut off For it 's Number that they regard and if they will but believe in the Pope they shall be welcom to them yea be Catholikes and be saved though they believe not in Christ and the Holy Ghost nor know not what Christianity is He that thinks I wrong them 1. Let them look on millions and millions in their Churches 2. Let him but read Fr. a Sancta Clara Problem 15 16. Reason 6. The Adversaries also are very industrious and have many advantages of us from without In most Churches they will meet though with Godly yet with young unexperienced Disputers because our Ministery is but Reviving and the young ones must have time to grow And the Jesuites Fryars and other Missioners have a Pope and Cardinals and Bishops and Princes and Lords and Revenews and wealth and Seminaries and trayned Soldiers in abundance at their backs beyond Sea to furnish them with continual supply And how eager and busy they are the Christian world hath had long experience so that if such be let loose on Ignorant Souls what wonder if they prevaile Reason 7. And for the Event if the Magistrates shall refuse us this Reasonable and unquestionably lawfull aide it may be the means of the damnation of many thousand Souls I suppose I speak to Christians that believe that sinne is the poyson of the Soul and believe that Faith in Christ is necessary and that there is a Heaven and a Hell And if so they must needs understand what it is to suffer men to draw their Subjects from Christ from Scripture from the meanes of Grace and a Holy Life and to draw them into sinne that this is but to give men leave to do their worst to undo and damne as many as they can and to take them at the greatest vantage in their Ignorance and discontent to trip up their heels and tise them into Hell How dreadfull a thing is this to a Magistrate once to think of that hath but any belief of Scripture and pitty on the Souls of men And therefore as long as we do not now call upon them so much as to force Papists or Infidels either to be of our Religion or to profess that they are so or joyne in Communion with us but only desire that they may keep their venom to themselves and