care that no Parish want a fit Teacher whom the willing may hear 2. And that the negligent and unwilling be forced to hear either them or some other allowed or justly tolerated Teacher But I never said that 1. Because the Catechumens may be forced to hear their Parish Teacher who are Free-men therefore those that are Wives Children and Servants may be forced to go to one Church when the Husband Parent or Master commands them to go with him to another 2. Nor yet that those Masters that are Communicants and not Catechumens may be forced from hearing their own Pastors approved or tolerated It 's enough that they be forced to hear either And Men ought not to be deprived of the due Government of their Families L. Is not the Patron as fit to chuse a Teacher or Pastor for your Wives Children and Servants as you are M. No 1. A Mans Interest in and power over his Wife and Children is earlier and greater than a Patrons is It is natural and by a Law which no Men have power to abrogate Self-government and Family-government are antecedent to Princes or States Government and they have no right to dissolve it 2. I shall gain or lose more by the welfare or misery of my Family than the Patron will. 3. Nature hath given me a greater Love to Wife and Children and bound me to a greater care for them than it hath done a Patron 4. I know them better and therefore know what they need and what Teacher and Communion is fit for them better than a Patron that never saw them or me 5. Supposing that I am allowed to chuse my own Pastor and Communion it will be inconsistent with Family-government that my Wife Children and Servants be forced to go to another place where I can have no account of them what they do and how they behave themselves 6. If no Man may justly chuse for my Children a Tutor a Trade a Physician or Diet or Cloathing rather than my self much less a worse when I chuse a better nor may impose Husbands or Wives on them much less may any chuse for them against my will and choice an Office on which their Salvation is so specially concerned L. But if you may force your Wife and Children to what Pastor you chuse for them it seems then a Man may be forced to one Pastor rather than another And then why may not the Magistrate force you as well as you may force your Family M. You mistake me I do not say I may force my Family to any Pastor I say if they that are not Communicants but Catechumens may be forced to one Teacher itâ—s meeter for me to force them than for a Patron or any other 2. But as to Communion I will not force them to it at all nor to this or that Pastor But because different Places and Pastors for Communion signifieth different minds and will be a great distracting inconvenience to a Family I will use all my reason and loving interest in them to bring them all to one place for Communion And it s very strange if I prevail not having better advantage to satisfie their reason and to perswade them than a stranger hath so that such Breaches will be very rare But if I be as injurious to them as some Patrons are and would draw them to chuse an intolerable Pastor or false Teacher it is their Interest and Duty not to be perswaded by me to their hurt L. What confusion will this make in the World when all people even Wives and Servants may chuse on what Pastor they will depend and where they will Communicate M. It were a happy World if you or any did deliver it from differences yea or confusion But perfect concord is no where but where is perfect knowledge holiness righteousness and love If it breed confusions in the World that every Man chuse his own Dwelling Trade Diet Cloathing Wife Servants Travels Company Physician Counsellor Tutor Master Books c. And so that their Life Death and Souls be more in their own power than anothers there is no remedy If you would devise any other Chuser for them of all these you would cure that disorder with madness and destruction who is it that should chuse all these for all other Men He that chuseth for them must answer for them and must be accordingly saved or damned for them If God had appointed some Pope that he would always make wise and good to chuse for the Kingdoms of China Pegu Tartary Iapan Sumatra and all the rest of the World what Religion they should be of and what they should love and hate speak and do it would have brought the World to a happy state if all would stand to that Mans choice But who can teach God how to Rule the World and say Thou shouldst have made Man otherwise Will you mark this Either it is only to command Men what to chuse or else to make them chuse by efficient determination of their wills or else to move them by force without or against their wills that you would have the World saved from sin and confusion There is but these three ways And I. To move them against or without their wills is natural motion or violent and will make none of their actions good or bad in a Moral sence Nil nisi voluntarium est morale Thus a Horse a Watch a Ship is governed And you may lay them in what order you will when they are dead II. To make them good by Physical efficient determination of Mens wills God can do it and doth not at least with most Man cannot do it It 's madness to pretend to it And I hope you will not accuse God who only can do it for not cureing the sin and confusions of the World this way III. It is therefore only the Moral way of Cure that remaineth by Laws Rewards and Punishments And hath not God made better Laws for Religion than Man can make More infallible and perfect with more aweful Power and with ten thousand fold greater Rewards and Punishments And now what mean you by saying that every Man must not be left to chuse what Religion he list 1. Every Man is a rational voluntary Agent and not a Stone or Brute 2. Every bad Man is left undetermined by efficiency of God or Man in all the evil that he doth 3. Every one in the World is left by God and Man to chuse Salvation or Damnation in the means and to speed as he chuseth 4. No Man is left Lawless to chuse what he will without the Obligation of a perfect Divine Law. L. But Men that believe not a God and a Life to come must be moved by temporal punishment which they can feel Let them stay till death and they will deride Religion and live in wickedness M. You are too confused while you talk against confusion 1. Do you think Men that believe not a God and a Life to come are fit
to have destroyed But can you bear with me if I tell you truly and plainly what this Extirpating motion of all called Dissenters and Conventiclers signifieth and what it tendeth to L. I have had so much reason from you as obligeth me to hear what you can further say M. 1. The motion is so apparently from Satan that it will tempt those that are Christians indeed and know the devil's will and works to take you for no other than his listed souldiers against Christ if you set your selves to do this work Truth Love and doing Good are the Christian State and Life Lying Hatred and Hurtfulness are Diabolism or Satans work and image All the Art of prating and deceit of Clergy or Laity in the World will never so far blind true Christians but that by your Fruits they will know you The pricks of Thorns and Thistles will be known from Grapes and Figs in despight of all the craft of Diabolists And if Children know not a Wolf in Sheeps-cloathing they will know him that see him tear the Flock yea or that see his bloody jaws And are you willing to renounce Justice Humanity and Christianity and openly to profess Diabolism Men will see how malignity greedily picks quarrels with honest innocent men while it beareth or cherisheth the debauched ungodly unconscionable rabble whose God is their belly or the world And methinks men so proud that they cannot bear with any that differ from their ignorant dictates should scarce be willing that History should list them among the Cainites or Diabolists any more than among man-eating Cannibals II. You cannot extirpate or destroy all Dissenters if you do your worst 1. So great a number will be true to their Consciences and suffer what ever you inflict on them as will take you up much time and trouble and render you more odious to the rest 2. The common People that were indifferent will enquire what these men have done and will be turned from those that afflict so many of the innocent especially their neighbours who know them better by experience than by your reports 3. Those that fill not Prisons or die not as Martyrs will but Conceal their minds and not change them And they will then be out of the reach of your hurting power When they communicate with you and give you no outward matter of accusation what can you do to them Or what pretence can you find to extirpate them The heart you know not Their actions they will keep out of the reach of the Law If you try them by Oaths or unjust Professions by increasing the number of Sufferers you will increase your infamy and odium And they that for fear do swear against their Judgments will hate you the more when they feel their wounded Conscience smart 4. And if you force them into secrecy they will there speak more freely and will Educate their Children into a hatred of your ways And if you could destroy them two for one will spring up as their successours Who would have thought that the great French Massacre should have rather increased than diminished the Protestants Or that Queen Mary's bone-fire should have extinguished Popery Or that the two hundred thousand murdered by the Irish should but have hastned the overthrow and ruine of the murderers In short you cannot extirpate them III. The more you attempt it and the more you succeed the more you will do against your selves 1. Is not the King more safe and strong and honourable and easy when he hath the Hearts of all his Subjects than if he rule a People by divisions and persecutions shattered like a broken Glass or living in prosecution or fear and hatred of one another as if they were still in a state of hostility and lived among their dangerous enemies If either Christ or Satan be to be believed a divided Kingdom in enmity cannot stand L. Methinks you argue against your self For therefore it is that we would have all Dissenters rooted out because of the danger of division by tolerated Dissenters M. Had you read a Book called The Samaritan and another called The True and only Terms of Church-Concord you would need no further answer to that objection If you would have all of one mind and way it must be in that which it is necessary and possible for all men to agree in and to make things unnecessary or impossible your terms is the certain way of pernicious division Will you extirpate all that dissent in Controversies of Law of Philosophy Astronomy Physick Grammar or that differ in Reason Constitution Statute c. Do you think that all will consent in all the Mysteries of Divinity while knowledge is so low and rare Yea do you think that even in circumstances and things doubtful all good Christians will ever be so much of one measure of knowledge as to agree How happy are we if we all agree in great plain necessary things But to understand also all little circumstances and humane Orders and Phrases which be lawful and which not supposeth all Plow-men Trades-men and Work-men to be far more perfect in the knowledge of Divinity than the most learned Philosophers are in Physicks who agree in little but a few principles and things within the reach of sense When yet alas we can scarce teach half the vulgar the meaning of the Creed or Baptismal Covenant If the King would extirpate all Lawyers Physicians or Philosophers who in a multitude of little and controverted points cannot tell which side is in the right he may have so much the more success in it by how much the more men will be bold to dissemble their opinions in matters of such a nature But about the matters of God and Salvation Consciences will be more afraid to stretch and dissemble It 's far less wise to take this way than for School-masters and Tutors to destroy or cast out all Scholars and Pupils that have not just the same degree of knowledge And at what age must this perfect knowledge begin which must extend to the most minute things that men will command At sixteen years of age you compel them volentes nolentes to receive the Lords Supper and do you think then that all at sixteen years old in England should be presumed to know more of the Lawfulness of all your impositions on them than I can reach to know at 68 now near 74 after the long and hard Study of my life If you compel no more Men Lads or Women to Communicate but such as really understand the Lawfulness of all such Impositions which I judge unlawful sure it will make a great change in your Communion and Courts L. By this talk you seem to intimate that the people must not be constrained to obey in Circumstantials or Little things because they may to them be doubtful and what worship of God can you perform without such little Circumstances M. Little or Great God in mercy hath made all Necessary things intelligible
Children in Distress and Want They are judged by the Iustices unworthy so much as to be summoned to Answer for themselves before they are judged or to be heard Plead their own Cause or to know and question their Accusers and Witnesses But as I my self was Distreined of all my Goods and Books on five Convictions before ever I heard of any Accusation or saw a Iudge so is it with many others and more In a word Lords Knights and Clergy-men take us for unsufferable Persons in the Land unfit for Humane Society Enemies to Monarchy Obedience and Peace and Corporations promise to choose such Parliament Men as are for our Extirpation And all this is for our Nonconformity which they all confess to be our Duty if it be any Sin that by the Impositions is required of us And if so small and easie a task as proving one or many such Sins required would recover the Charity and Iustice of all these Men and save themselves and the Land from the guilt of Prosecuting and Oppressing the Innocent and Condemning Men for Obedience to God and driving conscionable and loyal Persons out of the Land or overwhelming them with false Accusations because of other Mens Treasons or Sedition is not he that will forbear his Part and Duty in so dreadful a Case a greater Sinner than he that when the City is on fire will not do his best to quench it or that will not put out his hand to save a Friend or Child in fire or Water for fear of some trouble to himself I did in my first Plea for Peace only name the Matters which we dare not Conform to and durst not give the Reasons of our Fear and Nonconformity Whereupon many since have importuned me for those Reasons as without which I could not expect that Men should understand our Case Why should I deny this Is it through despair that Rulers and Clergymen will not regard Reason or will not bear it but answer it with Contempt or Prisons That is to accuse them of such Injustice Uncharitableness and Inhumanity as I must not accuse any of that do not by open practice accuse themselves Is it lest I should suffer by them My Life and Labours have been long Vowed to God He hath preserved my Life and succeeded my Labours above forty Years by a continued course of remarkable Providence beyond my own and other Mens expectations What he hath thus given me is doubly due to his Service which hath been still so good to me that it hath made even a painful life a continual pleasure He never failed or forsook me I dare not ask any longer life of him but for more and longer Service And if my Service be at an end why not my Life also If I refuse his Service I invite God to cut off my Life And what Service else can I now do I have neither leave nor strength to Preach I have these fourteen Months been disabled so much as to go to any Publick or Private Church or hear a Sermon My Body with pain and languid feebleness is a daily heavy load to me I suffer more by it every day than from all my Enemies in the World. And shall I be guilty of the heinous Sin of the Omission of my Duty in a time of such urgent and crying Necessity to save so calamitous a Life which I am still looking when it endeth Is not a Prison as near a Way to Heaven as my own House I will not do as those Christians that Cyprian writes to Comfort who were greatly troubled at Death because they died not by Martyrdom But I take a Death for so publick and pressing a Cause of Truth Love Innocency and Peace to be a more comfortable sort of Martyrdom than theirs that were Burnt in Smithfield for denying the Real Presence and such like and if God will so end such a painful Life when Sickness and Natural decay is ready to end it I hope he will teach me neither to repine nor to be utterly unthankful And as to the uncertainty of success He that observeth the Wind shall not sow God must be trusted to bless our Work while we Plant and Water It 's my part to do my Duty and God's part to give success I commend my self living and dying into the hands of my Creator and Redeemer and end this Preface in the words of St. Paul Act. 20. 23 24. Bonds and afflictions abide me But none of these things move me neither count I my life dear unto my self so that I might finish my course with Joy and the Ministry which I have received of the Lord Jesus to testifie the Gospel of the Grace of God. Richard Baxter London Sept. 28. 1683. An Instance of the ACCUSATIONS which call for our Defence besides those in the Act for Banishment from Corporations c. Devon ss Ad General Quarterial Session Pacis Dom. Regis tent apud Castr. Exon. in pro Comitat. praed Secundo die Octobris Anno Regni Dom. nostri Caroli Secundi Dei gratia Angliae Scotiae Franciae Hiberniae Regis Fidei Defensor c. Tricessimo quinto Annoque Dom. 1683. WE have been so abundantly convinced of the Seditious and Rebellious Practices of the Sectaries and Phanaticks who through the Course of above One hundred years since we were first infested with 'em have scarce afforded this unhappy Kingdom any interval of rest from their Horrid Treasons as that we must esteem 'em not only the open Enemies of our Established Government but to all the common Principles of Society and Humanity it self Wherefore that we may prevent their Horrid Conspiracies for the time to come and secure as much as in us lies our most Gracious KING and the GOVERNMENT from the Fury and Malice of 'em we resolve to put the Severest of the Laws which we find too Easie and Gentle unless enlivened by a vigorous Execution in force against ' em 1. We Agree and Resolve in every Division of this County to require sufficient Sureties for the good Abearing and Peaceable Behaviour of all such as we may justly suspect or that we can receive any credible Information against that they have been at any Conventicles and Unlawful Meetings or at any Factious or Seditious Clubs or that have by any Discourses discovered themselves to be disaffected to the present Established Government either in Church or State or that have been the Authors or Publishers of any Seditious Libels or that shall not in all things duely conform themselves to the present Established Government 2. Because we have a sort of False Men and more perfidious than professed Phanatiques who either wanting Courage to appear in their own shape or the better to bring about their Treasonable Designs privately Associate with and encourage the Seditious Clubs of the Sectaries and with them Plot heartily against the Government and yet that they may pass unsuspected sometime appear in the Church with a false shew of Conformity only
you seriously read and studyed what is written by us I my self have told you 1. In a Book called A Plea for Peace what things they be which Nonconformists take to be sinful in Conformity and how great and hainous the sin is which they fear and what separation is unlawful and what is necessary 2. In a full Treatise of Episcopacy I have shewed what Episcopacy we are for and what we are against and why and what Antiquity held hereabout and what we have to say to most of the Learned Men that have written for that Diocesan form which we cannot approve 3. In an Apology I have proved it our duty to Preach though forbidden as far as we are able and mens necessities require it 4. In a second Plea for Peace I have fully given the World an account of our Doctrine of Magistrates Power and Subjects Duties in matters Civil and Ecclesiastical c. 5. In a Treatise of Church Concord I have fully proved that the Primitive simplicity in things divine few plain and sure is the only possible matter of Universal Christian Unity and Concord I know not of any one of these that are Answered or any thing like an Answer to them written save that to some part of the first some meer impertinent noise was made by some one that is confuted L. We that have other Employment have not leisure to read so many tedious Writings Tell us your Case in a few words if you would have us understand you M. Did you get your skill in Law by so easie and so short a Study Or is any kind of Knowledge so easily got where Controversie hath drowned the matter in contradicting words You know that it is multitudes of Volumes that are written on the other side And it 's impossible to Answer them all in a few words And if they be unanswered they will say we have done nothing But had you as seriously studyed but one or two of these Books e.g. my first Plea for Peace and Treatise of Episcopacy as you do Law Books I scarce think you would have been long unsatisfied But if indeed you have no time to hear read and study say also you have no time to know or judge And no more censure what you know not L. How comes your Case to be so little understood if you have done so much to open and justifie it M. You may know by your self 1. Men study their own matters in which they feel themselves concerned and as for ours they think they are not much concerned to know them 2. At least not at the rate of any hard and diligent study which neither love nor necessity leads them to 3. Most are strangers to us even they that dwell near us and converse not with us 4. The rather because that as we are out of the rising way and are under publick discountenance and banished from Corporations and much from converse with men of publick place and interest so our familiarity is become fearful lest it brings those that are familiar with us into suspicion 5. And they converse with those that through Ignorance or Malice do describe us and our Cause and Books as they would have all men think of us and it is not good manners or safe to contradict them And so the notice of our Mind and Case must be received not from us but from our accusers Do you observe this method in Westminster minister-Hall 6. And how much interest can byas mens judgments common experience too easily tells us They that are uppermost seldom want applauders nor dejected men accusers Every School-boy can tell you out of Ovid. de Trist. Dum fueris foelix multos numerabis amicos Nullus ad amissas ibit amicus opes Aspicis ut veniunt ad candida tecta Columbae Accipiet nullas sordida turris aves A few serious Believers that look for a more righteous and important judgment after death do not lose the treasure of Truth and Innocency in Shipwrack it being as near them as themselves But caetera fortunae non mea turba fuit L. But if there be no cause how come you to be so odious to others M. If you that dwell in England cannot answer that your self when you have taken a survey of the quality and lifes of them that hate us and them that they hate and of their distinct interests and motives I will not answer it to you L. But whence is it that Clergy-men of the same Profession so much disagree M. The former answer shall serve to this Whence is it that the Clergy by disagreement about Opinions and Superiority have broken the whole Christian World into that state of doleful division in which in Asia Africa and Europe it lyeth to this day If you know not read the History of the Church L. Which part of you soever is guilty the guilt must needs be very hainous when the Preachers of the Gospel of Love and Peace so hate each other and perswade all to do the like and will not let the World be quiet M. No doubt but Love and Concord are so great Duties and Blessings and there is so much of Satan in the contrary that you can hardly aggravate the guilt too much If it were better for that man that offendeth or stumbleth one of the least that he had never been born or he had been cast with a millstone about his neck into the Sea what a case are these Church Pastors in that tear the Church and Preach down Love and harden thousands in Ungodliness and Cruelty and endanger the loss of Religion to the Land. L. If I knew which of you had done most for Love an Peace and least against them I should know to whom to impute our troubles M. We justifie not our selves and we leave others to their judge We have deserved worse from God than we have suffered But we must say 1. That we impose not our words our books our forms our different rites on any nor would do by violence had we power We put no Oaths Subscriptions Convenants Professions or Practices doubtful upon any To them that tell us we did so in former times we still say let them use no other so but those that used them so and we are satisfied I know not six in England of all the present Nonconformists that did so We are not for Silencing or Imprisoning them nor forbidding them to worship God In 1660 we motioned no change of Church Government which should take down any of their Lordships Maintenance or Episcopal Power but only Arch-Bishop Vshers Draught of the antient Episcopacy and thankfully accepted what the King then granted in his Declaration of Ecclesiastical Affairs 2. We never craved Preferment of them but leave to serve Christ and his Church in the Office which we were Vowed to We certainly knew what impediments hindered the desired Unity and what divisions must needs follow were they not removed which by others they might easily have been without
during the Iewish Policy command them to use such a Discipline much more in his own Churches L. What are your other Reasons for it M. 2. The very Nature of Christ's Church required it which is a Society separated from the World under special Laws of Holiness and Love and for special heavenly Ends If therefore it shall be confounded with the World and not separated to Christ it is no Church 3. Christ did it for the Honour of himself and his Kingdom If he be no more for Holiness than the Infidel and Heathen World is what is he better than they or how is he a Saviour or what is the Church better than Infidels 4. It is needful to save Heathens from deceit that would come into the Church and to convince them that their impure Communion is insufficient 5. It is needful to save Christians from damning deceit that they may not think that a dead barren unholy Faith and Name of Christianity will save them without a holy obedient Heart and Life 6. It is needful to keep Christ's Ordinances from falsifying Profanation If a sealed Pardon and Gift of Life shall in the Sacraments be given as commonly to Dogs as Children it is a taking God's Name in vain and profane belying Jesus Christ. 7. It is needful to bring Sinners to Repentance that they may be Pardoned and Saved 8. And it is needful to the comforting absolution of Penitents 9. Accordingly God 's Church in all Ages hath owned it as their Law of Christ's institution to this day L. But some learned Men say This was but because there was at first no Christian Magistrate But when there was such the Discipline fell into their hands M. The first Christian Magistrates finding the Church in Possession of it confirmed it and too much accumulated and added to it but took it not away Of this see a small Book which I wrote of the Magistrates Power in Religion to Dr. Lud. Moulin which may end all this dispute Briefly I ask you Qu. 1. Would you have all Infidels and Pagans baptized and Communicate without any Profession of the Christian Religion first L. God forbid That 's a Contradiction M. Shall any words go for a Profession or what must that Profession be L. It must be a Profession of Christian Faith and Obedience M. Who must try and judge of that Profession whether it be Christianity or not Is it Magistrates or Pastors L. Magistrates have somewhat else to do Else they must study and exercise that work alone for they will have no time for Civil Government if they undertake this M. Did not Christ institute an Office for it and give them this Power of the Keyes And if one half that Office cease as soon as Magistrates were Christians why not the other half and so Magistrates must Preach Baptize and celebrate the Sacrament L. It must be no doubt the Ministerial Office to judge who is fit to be in Church Communion Else they were Slaves if they must be forced to take all uncapable Men to their Charge and Communion against their Consciences and Wills No Physician Tutor or School-Master will be forced to take such Patients Pupils or Scholars as will not be ruled by him and will make make him do what they list against his Will. M. You must confess the use of discipline or else openly disown the Word of God the very Being of the Church and the Judgment of the Universal Church to this day And do you think then that to deprive the Church of this is a lawful part of Conformity L. How prove you that the Laity is deprived of it M. 1. In our Great Parishes the People are few of them known to the Priest or to one another Of the two Parishes of my last abode I do not think but there are Fifty Thousand unknown to the Minister and to each other And how can these admonish the Offenders or the Minister exercise this discipline upon unknown Persons 2. The People know that it is in vain to begin where there can be no progress To what purpose is it to tell the Church when it 's sure to do more harm than good 1. The swarm of the Vicious is so great that they cannot be Prosecuted 2. The Minister himself forbeareth it as unpracticable 3. The accused must be Prosecuted at rates which Men cannot bear 4. And before Bishops that cannot possibly do this work to one of a Thousand any more than one School-master can Try and Correct all the faulty Scholars in a Diocess 5. And Men must be Judges that will never call Sinners to Repentance with Ministerial Evidence and Love and Patience but like Secular Courts bid them Recant or be Excommunicate 6. And the Cause must be decided by Lay-men that profanely usurp the Power of the Keys And how is Christ's discipline here possible Polluted common Churches frighten away the Religious conscionable People L. Do you not before complain of too much exercise of Discipline by Excommunications M. Yes of Discipline against Christ It is not enough for your Churches to be common and unclean without true Discipline but when you should drive out the Dogs and Swine you turn out the Children Witness all the fore-mentioned Canons As I said you first force in all the ignorant ungodly multitude that are unfit then these are the strength and major part Then they cannot come under due Discipline then this grieveth Religious People and they find fault with it And then they must be taken for Schismaticks and condemn'd and ruin'd for finding fault In short what need there disputing Is it not notorious matter of fact that this Discipline is not exercised against one Drunkard Swearer Fornicator c. of a multitude and are not Men then deprived of the use of it And when it 's known that they cannot have it in most or many Parishes how are they bound to live and die without the benefit of it L. Do you think Men are bound to separate from all Churches that have not this Discipline Sure it is not Essential to the Church M. I do not think that Preaching as distinct from reading is essential to a Church but that it may be at least for a time a sorry Church without it as those in Moscovy are But I would not continue in such a Church that is without it if I can have a better It 's one thing what a Man should endure that can have no better without more hurt than good and another thing what Men should chuse in obedience to Christ and for their own and the Churches good that can attain it Do you think it is lawful to omit all Duty that is not essential to the Church surely your many humane Offices your Forms and Ceremonies your Declarations and Subscriptions to them are further from being essential than true Discipline is and yet you think that the omission of these is unsufferable Is mans accidental inventions more necessary than Christs Ordinance and Church
Corn and Hay are all destroyed and the bloody War that is yet like to follow before the end I say do you think that all these are not a dear price to be paid for hindering men to Worship God only according to the Scripture Would leave to serve God only as Christ and his Apostles appointed and did themselves have cost the Emperour and People dearer than all this amounteth to 5. And the World knoweth that as Cromwel got his strength and usurpation in England by his Liberty of Conscience so the Turks won Constantinople and the Eastern Empire much by this For when their Emperours were become dissolute or cruel killing and deposing one another putting out their eyes and thrusting them into Monasteries forced Saints and when ambitious ungodly Bishops were still striving for superiority and persecuting Dissenters as not Orthodox and mutinous Souldiers pulling down Emperours and setting up others the poor Christians thought that to defend such a Government against the Turks that gave all men the Liberty of their own Religion would cost them dearer than it was worth and so were the more remiss in their resistance and the easilier yielded to the Conquerours Whereas had the Turks done as the Papists who make our extermination by our own Rulers a very part of their Religion the Greeks would have more resolutely resisted them in necessary self-defence And did not the Turks still give Liberty to Christians only restraining them from speaking against Mahometism do you think that the Greeks in all their Dominions would no more strive for their deliverance And that Transilvania Hungary Walachia Maldavia Croates and Cossacks Armenians Georgians Circassians Mengrelians Nestorians and Iacobites in so vast numbers would live so long quietly and patiently under them as they do All the great Conquerours of the World that are famous in History ever observed that sober policy to let Conquered Provinces enjoy their own Religion and mostly their own ancient Laws and inferiour Magistrates And then the People find the change so tolerable in the Supremacy as they the more easily yield with less resistance and continue their subjection with the greater quietness and peace The Iews in Christ's time and till they rebelled afterwards under Vespasian Titus and Adrian had so much of their own Religion and Law allowed them as was no small cause of their Crucifying Christ lest the name of a King sent from God such as they expected the Messiah to be should draw the People to such Insurrections as should provoke the Romans to deprive them of their Temples Religion and Laws and to destroy their place and nation And I hear by travellers that where the Turks yet allow their Provinces as in Transilvania their own Magistrates and Laws Religion prospereth almost as well as under Christian Sovereigns and far better than under the extirpating zeal or rather fury of persecuting Papist Princes I desire you therefore before you plead experience for your desolating way of Concord to study History better and be better informed of the case of the World. When I think but what men Bishop Wilkins and Judge Hale were that on my knowledge drew up an Act for the total cure of our English Church differences to which those called to it by the Lord Keeper Bridgman did on both sides consent I have thought it some defect of humility in some Clergy-men that took themselves to be so much wiser than these rare and excellent men as to judge that all our distractions sufferings and dangers by divisions are not so bad as the effect of these mens counsil would have been But I do with greater confidence ask you Whether those men seem to be serious and understanding Christians who think all the bloody Wars and tormenting Inquisition and the destruction of Love and Justice and good Works which are caused by Church-divisions in the World to be a less Mischief than it would be to ENDVRE CHRISTIANS TO SERVE GOD IVST AS CHRIST PRESCRIBED BY HIMSELF AND HIS APOSTLES AND TO VNITE ON THE TERMS ONLY WHICH HE AND THEY DID ORDAIN AND PRACTISE Shall we tell Turks and Heathens that it is no Wiser a Saviour that we trust in and no Wiser a Heavenly King that we obey And no Wiser Law and Gospel that He hath left us And is it any wonder then if they scorn both Him and us L. You are too hard for me I will talk with you no more M. It is Truth and Light that is too hard for you and woe to the foolish Enemies that are too hard for it and overcome themselves and their own happiness and hopes in overcoming it And woe to the World to Churches and Nations where such prevail L. But I advise you that you never think that all your Truth and Reason will do any great good on those that are against you For you cannot have while to say all this to many that you have said to me and if you should Print all this the contrary minded will scarcely Read the Title page or Contents but scorn it before they know what you have said and if they read it it will be all the way with a militant spirit of prejudice and hatred and only study what to say against it and Ignorance Passion Interest and Prejudice will answer all with Rage and confidence and only conclude that the Author is a Fool or Rogue or Rebel and it 's like enough answer you with an Excommunication or Iail where among Malefactors you shall lie and die If you speak for and not against their prâ—conceived Opinion and Interest they will hâ—ar you but if you speak agaiâ—st any of their worldly Wealth or Honour or Grandeâ—r you may almost as hopefully dispute an hungry Dog from his Carrion and you must not wonder if they snarl or fly upon you and tear you And though I confess that all your Proposals seem very consistent with your Aâ—tagonists wealth and greatness yet remember the truth of Seneca's words That Men that have a sore do not only start and complain when they are toucht but even when they think that they are toucht though it be not so There is no expectation of justice from suspicious Jealousie much less if it be animated by Interest and Malice M. My expectations are not much higher than your description But when my own life is so constantly a painful burden and I am so near the Grave I am utterly unexcusable if I think so short and painful a life too good to sacrifice by way of Obedience to the will of God who hath long and wonderfully preserved it and if I do not live and die with St. Paul's resolution Acts 20. 23 24. Bonds and Afflictions abide me but none of these things move me neither count I my life dear unto my self so that I might finish my Course with Ioy aâ—d the Ministry which I have received of the Lord Iesus to testifie the Gospel of the Grace of God. And indeed if all our bad Laws and Ceremonies
were reformed and all granted therein which I have proposed alas there is so much to be done for the Reformation of the Persons that must execute good Laws Lords Bishops Patrons Priests c. without whom Laws are but a dead letter and against whose enmity and oppositions they are unlikely to prevail that I die the more willingly because I see no appearance of any such Golden Age or amiable Reformation and general Concord as might tempt me to desire to live much longer on Earth The Reformation of our Universities Clergy Nobility Gentry and licencious Youth and malignant Haters of Serious Godliness is a work for Omnipotency and would afford me matter for a Volume were I to write on such a Text as Ezek 37. 3. Son of man can these bones live And I answered O Lord God thou knowest In the mean time it giveth me matter for Groans Tears and Prayer but no belief of that good man's Prophecy who confidently foretelleth us of that Blessed Age about eight years hence If the Second Part of my Moral Prognostication written with more doubt than hope should prove as true as the First Part did of this Progress of Malice and Divisions I doubt it is but some small Rudiments or Preparations for such a Blessed Change that the men of the present times must see I should rejoice if They I mean God by them confute my fears CHAP. LXII Fifty Questions to unjust Silencers GOD IS LOVE AND HE THAT DWELLETH IN LOVE DWELLETH IN GOD AND GOD IN HIM Iohn 4. 16. The most fundamental and comprehensive Article of Natural and Evangelical Religion How Angels fell from Love and became Devils malignant Spirits is not revealed fully to us but that such there are both Scripture and too great Experience certify us But how Man fell is told us in the Scripture It pleased God to make a rank of intellectual Animals left to their understanding self-determining free-will between the Brutes which are determined to things Sensible and the confirmed Angels who are determined to things Spiritual It pleased him to oblige and allure Man by his Blessings to live still in the love of God but withal to permit the malignant Tempter to try whether by his allurement and deceit he could win him from this Holy Love As if a man should leave his Daughter to be his Wife who could win her own consent The malignant Spirit prevailed and turned man from the Reigning Love of God to the Love of SELF Self-pleasing Self-ruling and Self-trusting and having won man's Will he is by just permission become his Prince as long as he can keep the Will which he hath won But Infinite LOVE first promised and then gave his SON to be the PRINCE OF LOVE and so the Captain of our Salvation His Incarnation Doctrine Life and Suffering his Resurrection Ascension Intercession and Government are but the works of LOVE for Man's Salvation which is to recover the Will of Man to the Reigning Love of God from the Carnal Sensual self-self-love A war is thus commenced between Christ and Satan Christ's warfare is to Conquer malignant Enmity and set up a Kingdom of Love. The Devils work is to assimilate man to himself and to make him a Lyer Malicious and a Destroyer Thus two Kingdoms are set up in this World which are in continual war against each other The Subjects of each are discernible by their works TRVTH LOVE and DOING GOOD are the works and marks of the one and LYING HATRED and HVRTFVLNESS are the works and marks of the other and HOLINESS and DEVILISM constitute this world Cain and Abel were the leading instances Heb. 11. 4. By faith Abel offered a more excellent Sacrifice unto God than Cain by which he obtained witness that he was Righteous God testifying of his gifts and by it he being dead yet speaketh He conquered but died as did our Saviour 1 Ioh. 3. 12 14. Cain was of that wicked one and slew his Brother And why slew he him Because his own works were Evil and his brothers Righteous In this warfare we must live and die Marvel not my Brethren if the world hate you though we die as Abel we know that we have passed from Death to Life because we Love the Brethren He that loveth not his brother abideth in death though as Cain he kill and seem to conquer All that believe not a better life which will abundantly make up the loss of this are his subjects who is called the GOD OF THIS WORLD who blindeth the minds of unbelievers 2 Cor. 4. 4. Devils are called The Rulers of the Darkness of this world Eph. 6. 12. The Princes who set up a Worldly interest against or above the Heavenly interest are called The Princes of this world that come to nought 1 Cor. 2. 6. And to be Wise only for an interest is The Wisdom of the world which is Foolishness with God 3. 18 10. Thus Christ fighteth by Love to win Souls to Love for the Glorious World of Love and the Devil by Malice to destroy Love and separate them from the God and World of Love by fighting as Dogs about their Carrion for their fleshly interest in this deceitful world but the time is short and the War will be short but the Victory sweet and the Crown everlasting And it is greatly to be considered that as Christ's Cause Subjects are contrary to the Devils so also is his manner of Fight and Conquest Christ and Christians fight not by Wrath and Hatred against their Haters but by loving them as Men and praying for them even when they suffer by them And in this course it is that they are more than Conquerours Rom. 8. 37. And heap Coals of Fire on their Heads which will burn them for ever that would not on Earth be melted by them It seemeth a strange thing to us to see the poor French-men come hither from their own pleasant Land in Raggs and Bodily Distress And who expelleth them And for what Who caused all the blood and banishments that have been exercised on Christians since the Heathen Persecutions And for what Who destroyed those many thousands of Christians called Albigenses and Waldenses and Bohemians in History mentioned And for what Who set up the Inquisition as against Protestants and Tormented and Burnt so many And for what Who caused the French and Irish and other Massacres and Murders And for what Who keep out Truth and Reformation from all Kingdoms subject to the Pope It is men in the Sacred Offices Ecclesiastical and Civil We all own Reverence to Magistrates and Pastors Satan is not so foolish as to do his work in his own name nor to put its proper name upon his work Did you ever hear or read of Persecutors who openly said We are the Servants of the Devil and come against you for his Interest and in his Name to perswade or persecute you from Christ and your obedience to God and your Salvation No It is as for
wickedness that wicked men destroy the just and as for sinning that they persecute them that will not sin It is for Religion that Religion is impugned and for the Church that the true Children of the Church are Persecuted And is it for the Gospel that the Preachers of it are silenced and destroyed Without the Church a false Religion is set up against Christianity But within it an Image of Christ and of the Church and of Concord and Religion is set up against Christ Church Concord and Religion and men in the Garb of Magistrates and Pastors do prosecute the War as by Christ's Commission and in his Name And sin is defended and propagated by false pretended opposition If the Iews had known him they would not have Crucified the Lord of Glory Heathens would not for Idols fight against God nor Mahometans for a Deceiver against Christ if they knew what it is that they are doing Christ who was Crucified as a Blasphemer and Rebel foretold his Disciples that they should be kill'd as an act of service to God. Where the Gospel is believed it is a crime so horrid to silence and destroy Christ's faithful Ministers and forbid his publick Worship and render his most conscionable Servants odious and plot their extirpation and ruine that none dare do it but those that know not what they do When Christians as a Sect were every where spoken against Paul was exceeding mad against them and persecuted them to strange Cities and verily thought that he ought to do many things against the Name of Jesus Act. 26. But when he heard from Heaven Why persecutest thou me it stopt his rage and changed his judgment But alas How slender a means will serve to deceive the wicked A meer nick-name or malicious slander yea the avoiding of a sin which they think to be no sin is enough with them to make the best men seem the worst while Perjuries Adulteries Blasphemies Prophaneness Cruelty and Persecution are tolerable motes in the eyes of their Companions All the Holiness Wisdom and Miracles of Christ and his Apostles would not serve to make them pass for good yea or tolerable men while Sadducees who denied Spirits the Resurrection Ceremonious hypocritical blood-thirty Pharisees went for meet Rulers of the Flock And how can it be expected that he who thinks not Holiness desireable to himself should think it any excellency in others Or that he that thinks his own sin but a tolerable frailty should much abhor it in the World Satan then hath his Army not only among Infidels but nominal Christians And it is commanded by Honourable and Venerable Names and he pretends a good and righteous Cause whereever he fighteth against Christ and Holiness But by the fruits he may be known in the greatest pretenders whatever names he call them by It is the most profitable Preaching which he laboureth to suppress and the most faithful Pastors that he would silence the most conscionable Christians whom he striveth to make hateful and the more Spiritual Worship of God which he would hinders And therefore even among Christians we have great cause to warn men to fear least they be enticed into Satan's service against Christ and their own Profession and Salvation And especially in an age 1. Where worldly and cross Interests are set up against the Interest of Christ and Conscience 2. Where these worldly and cross Interests have already wasted Christian Love and Contentions have begun a Mental War. 3. When these have prevailed by scorns and slanders to make Conscionable Christians pass for some contemptible criminal or erroneous Sect and this Reproach is fortified by Honourable and Reverend Names Lest therefore such Causes too visible in the World should draw the ignorant and rash into the dreadful Sin of fighting against the Interest of Christ and Souls by hindering Christ's Ministers from their necessary Work and faithful Christians from worshipping God I will humbly beseech all that are in danger of such Temptations but seriously to exercise their own Reasons in the present Consideration of these following Questions and to take up with no other Answer to them which will not bear weight at Death and Judgment when worldly Pomp and Pleasures leave them and not worldly Interest Wit or Grandeur but the Righteous Lord the Lover of Holiness and Holy Souls will be the dreadful and final Judge The Questions to be well Considered Quest. 1. ARe we not on all sides agreed that we are Mortals posting to the Grave Doth any Man think he shall not die And is striving or mutual Love and Quietness a fitter Passage to the dust Do not all Men constrained by natural Conscience at a dying Hour repent of hurting others and ask Forgiveness of all the World Yea if you are not worse than most Heathens Are we not agreed That Man's Soul is immortal and that we shall all be shortly in another World and that it shall be with us there as we live on Earth If any doubt of this should not the least probability of such an everlasting Life of Joy or Misery prevail against the certain Vanity of such a shadow as this World Or if yet they believe not another Life Why should they not let those live in quietness that do believe it and dare not hazard their everlasting Hopes for nothing as long as they do no hurt to others Q. 2. Do not all Christians believe That the Knowledge of God our Creator and Redeemer and a holy Heart and Life are of necessity to our Salvation Do we not see That Children are not born with Knowledge nor free from fleshly and worldly Inclinations Doth not the World's Experience tell us how hard and how long a Work it is to make the Ignorant understand the very Articles of Faith and necessary Duty to God and man and as hard to perswade their Carnal Minds to the hearty Love and Practice of them and to save them from the damning Love of sinful Lust and worldly Vanities and how wofully the best Teaching is frustrate with the most Q. 3. Are we not all Vowed to God in our Baptism renouncing the Seduction of the World the Flesh and the Devil And do all understand and keep this Vow And is not the perfidious Violation of it a most damning Sin And when Thousands of full Age are yet to learn what Baptism is and what they Vowed Have they not great need to be plainly taught it Q. 4. Is a Baptized Infidel or ungodly Person any better or safer than the Turks or the Salvages in America Will the Name of Christians save perfidious Hypocrites Or Will it not be easier for Sodom than for such Q. 5. If Christian Knowledge and Practice be not necessary Why pray we for Conversion of Heathens and Infidels And Why doth the Article of the Church of England condemn those that hold That all may be saved in their several Religions And what are we better than Turks and Heathens Q. 6. Are not all Men
Ministery to be Stewards of the house and mysteries of God and to give the Children their meat in season Luk. 12. 42. and to teach men publickly from house to house Act. 20. And is it not a calling fixed during life and ability not to be cast off at pleasure And this in those that are called by men As a Priest that hath marryed Persons cannot unmarry them and the Arch-Bishop who may Anoint or Crown a King may not Depose him because he was not the Donor or Lord but a Ministerial Invester so he that Ordaineth a Minister may not depose him till he become uncapable of the Office and if he do it doth not disoblige the Minister Q. 31. Did not the Church for 300 years worship God against the will of Princes and afterward when Arrian or other erroneous Princes forbid them And hath a Christian Prince any more power to hinder the Gospel and Worship of Christ and the saving of Souls than Heathens had or rather far greater obligations as nursing Fathers to promote them which I ask only in answer to such as pretend Law and human Authority to forbid what God Commandeth in which case saith Bishop Bilson we must go on with our work and patiently suffer Q. 32. Is it not a dreadful charge that is laid on Timothy one called by men 2 Tim. 4. 1 2. I charge thee before God and the Lord Iesus Christ who shall judge the quick and the dead at his appearing and his Kingdom that thou Preach the word be instant in season and out of season reprove rebuke exhort with all long Suffering and Doctrine Have you so little mercy on our souls as to drive us on such a Flaming Sword and wish us to be condemned by Christ for disobeying such a charge and to bid us obey any contrary charge of mortal worms Q. 33. Is the Conformists Ministery necessary or not If not why is all this stir made about it and all the Church Lands and Tythes to maintain it If yea why then is not our Labour in Preaching the same Gospel as necessary as theirs to such persons as cannot hear them for want of room and to such who say that their true necessity commandeth them to use better Pastors than many Parishes have And if any of them have a scrupulous errour about a Pastor must they therefore be Ruined Excommunicated or Forsaken Q. 34. Is not the silencing of faithful Ministers a far greater loss hurt to the people that need their Ministery than to them What if it prove my fault that all my most impartial Studies and Prayers did not serve to make me know that all the imposed Subscriptions Declarations Covenants Oaths and Practices are lawful Shall hundreds or thousands of Innocent people suffer for my fault and that in their Souls Should you for this have deprived all persons of any help which they have had by all my Preaching and VVritings this Twenty or Fourty years And is it just to wish it had been all undone and the like of many hundred others If we preach false Doctrine accuse and punish us If the Physicians were drunkards or fornicators you would not for that forbid them to help to save the sick If the Country Farmers scrupled Conformity you would not therefore forbid the Market to them and let the poor famish Q. 35. If our not Swearing not Subscribing c. be our fault as long as we preach Necessary Truth could not Lovers of the Gospel find some penalty for us that did not hinder it Is it worse than Drunkenness or Fornication Twelve pence an Oath is thought enough for Prophane Swearers and is there one in many hundreds pay it VVe had far rather be any otherwise punished so we be not hindred from serving Christ in the work to which we are devoted Q. 36. Do you think there is any such sin as Sacrilege in the world If there be is it not greater Sacrilege for me that am Ordained and Devoted to the Ministery to alienate my self than to alienate Church Utensils Goods or Lands These are devoted but for the Pastor who is Consecrated to nearer and more holy service VVhat think you of them that cry out against the alienation of large Church Revenues as Sacrilege and use them for worldly pomp and fleshly fulness to their own pleasure which are devoted to God's service but with a few confident words will prove it no sacrilege for many thousand faithful Ministers to forsake their Calling if Bishops forbid it them For what it is in the forbidders we leave to God and them Q. 37. Dare you undertake to justify at the Bar of God the many hundred Ministers forbidden to Preach if they obey you and cease their Ministery Or will you answer for all the People whom some drive away from their worship of God if they thereupon give over worshipping him and as thousands others idle it at home when all these say We Preach no Doctrine nor offer God any Worship contrary to any Word of God or in any other manner than Christ and his Apostles did or allowed Dare you give it under your hands that you will bear the punishment if we be condemned for obeying you and ceasing our work If you would were that man well in his Wits who should trust his Soul on your undertaking who are so unable to save your selves Q. 38. Should things Indifferent exclude things Necessary when Christ saith I will have mercy and not sacrifice And is neither our Preaching nor the Concord of the Churches here Necessary Q. 39. Have you thought what Christ meant when after his Resurrection he thrice saith to Peter and to others in him Lovest thou me feed my Lambs and Flock As if he had said As ever you loved me feed those whom I loved to the Death Would you unmercifully wish us to renounce our love to Christ and when Paul saith Necessity is laid upon me and woe unto me if I preach not the Gospel Would you wish us to run upon such a Woe upon the meer chat of such as do but tell us that we are not called as the Apostles and that we are under Bishops As if none but men called the Apostles were liable to that Necessity or Woe or God had allowed us to forsake His Work when Bishops please and will forbid us Q. 40. God hath encouraged us in our work by his undeniable blessing on many Souls If you take it for nothing for men to be turned from ignorance worldliness deceiving lying sensuality and fleshly lusts to the serious belief of a life to come and to the Love of God and Man and to the joyful hopes of Glory and the obedience of Christ and confidence in his salvation we take this to be worth our labour and our lives And would you have us so unthankful to God who hath blest us as to cast away our Callings Can you expect that all the threatnings of Men or the weekly reproach of Pamphlet-writers should