there to be tried and examined by the spirit of the Prophets judging and determining by the word of God and if perchance they neither approve of his opinion nor yet be able to convince him then to refer him to the next Nationall Councell to which he must stand or fall In the mean time if he publish his opinion under hand to the breach of brotherly unity in the Church he ought to be taken as a disturber of publike peace and subject to the penalties mentioned in the third Article By these and such like means the power of the civill Magistrate may be preserved from contempt and the consciences of weak brethren from constraint till they shall pluck off their mask and discover themselves to be obstinate and unsufferable clamouring for toleration under pretence of weaknesse but indeed making a breach and separation in confidence of their own strength and perfection disdaining with supercilious eies the infirmities of their brethren by which falacie they think to blear the eye of the Magistrate and make the weak to overthrow the strong To such wolves in sheeps cloathing whether they be Papists Hereticks Schismaticks or whatsoever they be for a weak conscience is now-adaies become a cloak for all shoulders my meaning is not that any indulgence or connivence of the Magistrate should be extended to them who it is plain enough are employed in malicious designes working under-ground the divisions and ruine of the State Therefore to conclude with the same spirit as I began which is a spirit of unity peace and love In the fear and before the face of Almighty God and by the bowells of that love wherwith Christ Jesus loved us all I do beseech the brethren whether they be leaders or followers that agree with us in the same doctrine but dissent in government to lay their hands upon their hearts and examine what they would be at Is it at the advancement of truth the practise of holiness the purity of Gods worship Let them consider whether all these may not be had as they are all intended under the present government is it at spirituall perfection whiles they are present in the flesh Let them consider that the perfection of a Christian consisteth in humility love peace meeknesse sobriety and uprightnesse which are truly spirituall and none of them excluded by this government Is it at the setting up of the kingdome of Christ Jesus that he might raigne as Lord omnipotent upon earth Let them consider that the kingdome of Christ Jesus is not of this world he prescribeth no forms nor modells of civill government as he findeth them so he leaveth them where he is received he sublimeth and refineth them where he is not received hee doth not destroy them Let them consider that this present governmet doth no waies eclipse the kingdome of Christ Jesus for whither it be placed in a single Congregation or in a generall Assembly or in the last resort of the supreme Magistrate all are under the government of Christ Jesus who ruleth among them by his Word whereunto they conform their government is it at the setting up of any other government which they think is onely divine and necessary to salvation Let them consider that by such assertions they do not onely blast all reformed Churches at this day and leave them in a state of condemnation living under another government but also condemn multitudes of soules departed which under other governments lived Saints upon earth died martyrs for the faith of Christ and are now triumphants in heaven Or els is it at no government at all till they receive on revealed from heaven Let them consider whether any such promise be made us in Scripture which we ought to expect This wee find that God is not the Author of confusion but of peace order and government which ought to be setled in all Churches of the Saints Or lastly is it to set up an infallibility of private judgement taking themselves to abound in the spirit and be able to judge all above them Let them consider that the hearts and spirits of men are deceitfull above all deceits aâ—â— that to strive and contend to make rents and separation for these things to despise the powers and ordinances of God are reckoned among the workes of the flesh rank and carnall But if it be as I will hope it is a pure and sincere weakness of conscience arising from a weaknesse of judgement not yet seeing the clearnesse of that light which hath in lightned the Magistrates and Ministers and greatest part of the Kingdome Let them be intreated in the fear of God to seek to him for further illumination and in the mean time to suspend their opinions and forbear contentions by Christian modesty and moderation becomming the Saints to maintain Christian charity which is the bond of perfection and make it manifest unto the world and to the Angells in heaven that they are not led by the spirit of error strife and vain-glory but by the spirit of truth which worketh by love and lowlinesse patience and meeknesse minding the same things and improving the gifts of faith grace and knowledge whereunto they have already attained And in other things of lesser moment concerning the formes of discipline and government and the outward face of order and decency in the publike worship whereunto perhaps not having yet attained they may be otherwise minded therein to wait Gods time with quiet and patience who hath promised to reveale even that also unto them that one may not be perfect without another It may be they may thinke themselves unkindly dealt withall and very ill requited that having so frankly adventured their lives and estates and done so valiantly against the enemies of God and the Land they should after all this be denyed any request especially that which so nearly toucheth their freedome of conscience and inward peace Truly it is on all hands confessed and no man that I know seeketh to cast a vaile over their worth or suppressed their atchievements God hath done wonderfull things by many of their hands and the lesse honour they take to themselves the more will be given them by the voice of the Nation and Rulers of the band who ought to take care that their names be written in the Registers of fame from generation to generation But what will our dissenting brethren say if Jesuits and Malignents converse among them in sheeps-clothing If transformed into Angels of light they carry on these workes of darknesse and by secret suggestions and insinuations of the Serpent make them blow this cole and widen this breach against their own intentions It is not for nought that there be so maâ—y popish spies and Agents among us whose employment is to weaken the hands of the Magistrate by sowing factions and disobedience among the people They feele their blow and know well enough that their form is broken they are upon their last gaspe and their last refuge is this to compasse that by trechery and mischiefe which they could not do by force in the field If they can divide the civill and Military power and fling fire-balls of division into the tents of brethren they have yet a fainting hope to recover strength and destroy them both Let not our brethren think this to be an eary or empty admonition for there be men so finely spirited and rarified to the invisibility of the divell that if it were possible they would deceive the very Elect and weave their hypocriticall webbs with liberty that commonly the simple and many times the circumspect are involved and taken Happy it were that by some marke they might be known for then they were easily avoided but when they come to strike up division and separate the hearts of the brethren the safest remedy is to stop our eares as against Inchanters and Negotiators for the divell Return then ô Shulamite return return be not intrapped in the snares of division but return to the tents of peace what will ye see in the Shulamites we shall see when he returneth and joyneth his body to the State and his conscience to the Church that his countenance is faire as the Moon clear as the Sun terrible as an Army with banners and that his company united to the Common-wealth is like the association of two Armies linked together by one heart invincible and undissolvable by the powers of darknesse and of Antichrist Thus have I delivered my poor judgement and discharged my duty which I owe to the publike peace I pretend not to revelations nor an unerring spirit but being privy to the evennesse of mine own heart and unbyassed intentions my conscience is my testimony that I have not erred to cause any other man to erre In regard whereof I may hope that all men who are spirituall and dis-interessed in their ends will acknowledge this to be the mind of Christ so far-forth at least as it aimeth and tendeth to piety and peace Neverthelesse if any will be still contentions and dissent neither I nor the Churches of God have any such custome nor do I intend for this difference of judgement to breake charity and communion with them But I rather beseech them for a close of all to put on milde and gentle affections and whiles they approve of our faith not to disapprove our workes by excommunicating of us or separating from us till our workes go before us and condemn our selves Leaving them in this assurance that when our Lord Jesus Christ shall come the Judge and Master of us all to whom we must stand or fall it will be better for them and for us in that day that he find our hearts established in grace then our selves at variance about Church-government FINIS
looke for the good of man both wayes Our duty to God is contayned in fewer precepts but more words it seeming necessary that God should explaine himselfe in his own cause leaving no power to any man to adde or diminish or interpret his Lawes but by his own word which made Moses though he were a Law-giver in Israel yet he would not judge the gatherer of sticks upon the Sabbath day without consultation with the Lord Before the written Law every father of a family was both Priest and Magistrate to looke to both and the greater the family or society was so much higher was the Magistrate and reverenced with more honour as being the common parent caring for the whole Country This Law therefore of Nature being the very dictate of God himself may not improperly be termed a divine Law There were also other Lawes which God prescribed by his servant Moses to the people of Jsrael politicke and Iudiciall Lawes for preserving humane society and governing the Common-wealth and Ceremoniall Lawes for the outward manner and forme of his publike worship for performance whereof he ordained divers Sacrifices and Sacrificers allotting maintainance for them both But when the time fore-appointed came that God would restore man to that happinesse he had deservedly lost by the sin of the first Adam he sent his onely Son Iesus Christ the second Adam in the flesh who after he had manifested his divine power to the world by his Doctrine and miracles did by his last words on the Crosse and by the first visible testimony of the power of his death finish and consummate the Law and rent from the top to the bottome the vaile of separation by both declaring the necessity of types and ceremonies places and times of worship differences of people Sacrifices and Sacrificers fixed and impropriated maintainance for any of them was no longer to bee continued strictly in the letter although a morall equity shadowed by them was to be perpetuall Neither did our Saviour in the constitution of his Evangelicall Church revive any of them nor ordain any set form of worship rule for goverment or a certained and speciall maintainance for his Ministers but only repaired and restored man to that way and manner of worship which Adam had in his innocency prescribing him to serve God the Father of spirits in spirit and in truth without otherwise confining him to time place gesture posture or other circumstances which of their own nature are not permanently confineable In like sort the blessed Apostles whom Christ sent into the world to publish the glad tydings of Salvation laid no other foundation as necessary thereunto then Iesus Christ and what he had laid himself for they were only master builders on that corner stone Christ Iesus What they declared to any people converted to the Gospel concerning any rule of order about the outward man or his Christian behaviour in publike service it was only a temporary advise sutable to the times Countries and occasions wherin they lived not universally binding to all Nations and generations to come In their dayes there was neither Christian State nor Christian Magistrate nor any publike power to countenance or appoint the outward government of the Church in default whereof it was necessary for them to make such orders and constitutions as might serve for those present times neverthelesse as Christ himself took upon him no civill authority so gave hee none to his Apostles nor they to the Ministers succeeding For when Christ was required to divide an inheritance betwixt two brothers he asked with indignation who had made him a Iudge or divider over them and when the case of the Incestuous person fell out at Corinth St. Paul inflicted no temporall punishment upon him only advised the brethren that whiles hee stood obstinate against all reproof to shun his company and cast him out of their communion that the shame thereof making him sensible of his sinne it might beget repentance and make him returne to the fellowship of true beleevers I verily thinke that if all the directions which the Apostles have left recorded in Scripture were laid in one view together no man nor multitudes of men how learned soever could collect or frame out of them all an exact body of Church government in all the parts and Circumstances thereof to bee imposed as a divine binding infallible rule upon all Christian Churches and Kingdomes in the world Indeed where we meet with any Councels or constitutions of the blessed Apostles who were holy men indued with more immediate power from Christ with a larger measure of the spirit of truth and consequently with a greater certainty of judgment then any of their Ministeriall successors we may rely upon them and make them our patternes only remembring the distinction of times that the Apostolicall Church was in infancy and under persecution and the English in full growth and dominion in so much that in the framing of Ecclesiasticall orders an eye and regard must ever bee had to the civill Government which alwayes aymeth at the publike good both of Church and State wherein the Church is lodged The Ministers doubtlesse have power by their office to advise and instruct exhort and rebuke out of the word in a brotherly way but it is as doubtlesse that the power is in the Christian Magistrate upon hearing their advice to constitute and establish under the naturall notion of order such decrees as upon due debate and deliberation they shall find most wholsome and agreeable to the present State This is also to be observed that no man ought to take unto himself the office and honour to Minister for his brethren in things pertaining unto God unlesse hee be lawfully called thereunto Christ himself was sent by the Father and annointed by the spirit to his heavenly office by Christ the holy Apostles were sent into the world from whom they had their immediate Commission and the blessed Apostles following their pattern did not only send and appoint Pastors over all Churches in their present times but also lest rules and directions for ordaining all others for the time to come till the worlds end I make no question but God doth in our dayes call and stirre up many to this holy office by particular motions of his Spirit yet that exempteth not the persons so called from manifesting and approving their vocation according to the rules left in Scripture where we are commanded to try the spirits of men whither they be of God and the Spirits of the Prophets peculiarly such as are called to the Ministery are subject to the Prophets as fitting to be tryed and examined by them who by long experience and without reproach have conversed in the Church and dispenced the misteries of Salvation From this brief and plaine deduction I shall lay down some few Positions as ground-lines of the discourse ensuing 1. That God hath by his Son taken away all ties of necessity for observing any part or
lived many yeares separated from his wife in which time she had divers children by another man by the law he shall be injoyned to father them all may he not plead that it is against his conscience to take upon him the fathering of another mans children Many such examples might be brought wherein the consciences of men seem to have more just pretences to withdraw their obedience from such civill lawes then from this law of government so fully debated and â—o duly established Besides inasmuch as our brethren require a toleration of their own government they do tacitly acknowledge a power in the Magistrate to gratifie them or deny them and consequently they may also acknowledge that this power is either lawfull or unlawfull if it be lawfull they are with us bound to obey it if unlawfull they are bound to disprove it which when they go â—bout godly pens will not be wanting to endeavour to give them satisfaction 4. Moreover it is said by some that whatsoever is imposed by man in the worship of God not directly specified in his Word falleth under the condemnation of will-worship humane traditions or inventions of men This is too large an assertion to be ever well proved for it is true neither way Neither whatsoever is omitted in Scripture to be rejected as wil-worship nor whatsoever is recorded in Scripture to be retained of perpetuall necessity We read that the first administration of Baptism used to be performed in open rivers which with us would be thought rude and dangerous The Saints had a custome in the close of their holy meetings to salute one another with a holy kisse which in our Congregations might be thought carnall and lascivious they also were wont after the celebration of the blessed Eucharist to bring their provisions together and make love-feast which among us would be esteemed loose and luxurious When a Brother or Sister was sick the Elders of the Church were sent for to pray over them and anoint them with oile which in our visitations might be held superstitious or perhaps fitter for a Physitian then a Minister All these customes and many others passed with edification in the innocency and infancy of these first times which not consorting with ours are universally disused On the other side the times and places of diuine worship the seats and gestures of the worshippers the manner of publike Praying and Preaching of singing of Psalms of collecting Almes of assembling and dismissing the people the forme of administration and receiving the holy Sacraments and many other things concerning the outward publick communion of Saints are for the most part undeclared in Scripture yet in full use and practise among us without offence that therefore must be understood for a wil-worship and humane invention which is set up for some humane and carnall end repugnant to Gods word and to his glory 5. There be yet remaining two more objections arising from two contrary grounds one from pretence of weaknesse th' other from presumption of strength Those that lay forth the tendernesse of conscience forget not to produce those heavenly exhortations whereof the Scripture is full that we should not bruise the broken reede nor offend the least of the little ones nor cast stumbling blocks before our brethren nor use our liberty to the destroying of the weake but rather spread the covering of love over our brethrens infirmities to raise up one another in the spirit of meeknesse to beare with the weake and please one another for good edification yea rather to abstain from matters which we think lawfull then to compell others to things they judge unlawfull This they say was the doctrine and the pattern which Christ and his Apostles taught and practised among the faithfull which because I intend not to deny I shall onely examine how fitly they are applyed to the controversie in hand and whether they be of force to absolve weake brethren from their due obedience to Gods Magistrate We are therefore to understand that all those excellent rules set down by the Apostles for tendering of weak consciences receive a double limitation First they were limited to the state of those times with respect to the condition of private Christians and their carriage one towards another For in the Apostles age nor long after there was in the world neither Christian Kingdome Common-wealth nor Magistrate whereby these Rulers were neither given to them who were not then in being nor for ought we find intended so for them when God should raise them up in his Church The contrary rather appeareth for Christ himselfe comming to set up a spirituall Kingdome in his Church intended onely to pull down the kingdom of Satan but not the Kingdomes of the world those he left standing not refusing to pay for himself and his Apostle tribute to Caesar nor yet to answer before the Courts and Tribunalls of the Jewes After Christs example th' Apostles were very carefull to instruct the faithfull that they should walke with circumspexion without blame or reproach lest if they should transgresse the law or commit scandalls or fall into divisions among themselves they should make the name of God and that holy profession which they had undertaken to be blasphemed among the heathen ordaining them moreover to make prayers and supplications for all in authority and to give them obedience for conscience sake indeed the Gospell is called a law of liberty because through Christ it freeth us from the bondage of sinne the slavery of Satan and the feare of death not because it dischargeth us of our Christian duty and obedience to the Magistrate in which case it giveth no liberty nor exemption From whence we may conclude that if Christ and his Apostles subjected the beleevers of those times both by their precept and practise to unbeâ—ieving powers It was never their meaning to exempt the faithfull of our times from their due obedience to Chrsitian and believing Magistrates Secondly these Evangelicall rules for the ease of tender consciences respected especially indifferent things The Christians of those dayes consisted of two sorts the converted Jewes and converted Gentiles The Jewes trained up in the Ceremoniall Law which they knew was appointed by God made a conscience of meats and dayes and other rites and rudiments of the time as yet not convinced that they were abolished by the comming of Christ These were then the weake Christians On the other side the Gentiles were fully instructed in their liberty that they might use them or not use them as they pleased They were then the strong Christians The Apostle therefore to lay the foundation of charity aright and preserve these dissenting brethren in the unity of the Spirit and bond of Peace giveth these rules about indifferent things That the strong should not despise the weake nor the weake censure the strong because whether they eat or eat not they do it to the Lord and are of him accepted and being both accepted of the Lord they