peace they did not serve the Lord Jesus whose great and last command was Love which he made the Nature and character and badge of his true disciples but by those good words and fair speeches deceived the hearts of the simple and deceivable Here there are four words especially to be noted 1. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which we translate good words is commonly translated flattery but as Beza well noteth it signifieth a speaking of things that are plausible in themselves for some good that is in them and that are pretended to be all spoken for the hearers good as Satan pretended when he tempted Eve yea perhaps to be necessary to their salvation or to make them the most knowing and excellent sort of Christians 2. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which signifieth both to Bless them as ministers do that desire their happiness and to praise them and speak well or highly of them And so almost all sects and divided bodies are gathered by flattering the hearers into a conceit that thus they shall become the surest and most excellent Christians and all others are far inferiour to them 3. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 It is the Hearts of such hearers that are deceived and not their heads or reason only or chiefly For the good words first take with them by moving their Passions or affections And then the Praise fair promises and speeches kindle a kind of secret spiritual pride and ambition in the heart as Satans words did in Eve to be as Gods in Knowledge And the Heart thus infected and puft up promoteth the deceit of the understanding 4. And this is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 hominum minime malorum as Beza translates It is not simple fools but such simple persons as we call harmless or innocents as the Vulgar Latine translates it well meaning men or not ill men People that fear God and have good desires and meanings are for want of Judgement and watchfulness overcome by dividers And on the contrary the amiable examples of Vnity and Concord and their happy effects are recorded in Scripture to make us in Love with them but none so eminent as that of the first Christians It is very remarkable that when Christ would shew the world the work of his Mediation in its notable effects and when he would shew them the excellency of his disciples about the common world and of his Church under the Gospel above that under Moses Law he doth it by shewing them in the power and exercise of Vniting Love Love was it which he came to exercise and demonstrate his Fathers and his own Love was that which he came to kindle in their souls and bring them to possess and practise Perfect Love is the perfect felicity which he hath promised them Love and Unity are the matter of his last and great Command These are the Characters of his genuine disciples and of the renewed Divine Nature in them It was Love and Vnity which must in them be the witness of Christs spirit and power to convince the unbelieving world And therefore it is Love and Vnity which is the matter of his last excellent prayer for them John 17. 22 23 24 25. 15. 12 17. 13. 34. 1 John 3. 14 23. 4. 21. And all these his preparations precepts examples and prayers were accordingly exemplified in the wonderful Love and Concord of his followers When the day of Pentecost was come in which the Holy Ghost must be most eminently communicated to them they were all with One accord in one place Acts 2. 1. The Apostles had an Vnanimity and Concord before proportionable to the measure of their grace which was preparatory to their reception of the eminent gift of the Spirit which increased their unanimity And v. 41 42 43 44 45 46. the three thousand that were suddenly added to the Church continued stedfastly in the Apostles doctrine and fellowship and in breaking of bread and in prayers And all that believed were together and had all things common and sold their possessions and goods and parted them to all men as every man had need And they continuing daily with one accord in the Temple and breaking bread from house to house did eat their meat with gladness and singleness of heart praising God and having favour with all the people What greater demonstration could be given that Christ is the great Reconciler the messenger gift and teacher of Love the Prince of Peace and the great Vniter of the divided world both with his Father and Himself and with one another In this text Acts 2. and marvellous example you see the design and work of the great Reconciler When men fall out with God they fall out with one another when they depart from the only Center of Vnity they can have no true Unity among themselves when they lose the Love of God they lose the Love of Man as for Gods sake and interest And he that cannot see and Love God in man can see nothing in man that is worthy of much love As he that loveth not a man for his soul and its operations more than for his body loveth him not as a man And few have any great Love to a dead Corpse Cicero could say It is your soul that we speak to and converse with were that departed we should speak to you no more God is more to every man than his soul If God were not their life and amiableness all men would be unlovely loathsome carkasses Therefore wicked men that cannot Love God and Goodness can Love none thoroughly but themselves and for themselves or as Bruâ—es by a low or sensitive kind of love For it is self that they are fallen to from God and Man And yet while self is carnally and inordinately loved instead of God and Man it is but destroyed and undone by that inordinate idolatrous love And he that loveth Himself to his own destruction with a Love more pernicious than anothers hatred doth love his friends but with such a kind of killing love as I have seen some Brutes kill their young ones with the violence of their love that would not suffer them to let them alone Thus all love to man saving a pernicious love doth dye where the love of God and goodness dieth And Cain giveth the world the first specimen or instance of depraved nature in envy and wrath and finally in the murder of his Brother and undoing Himself by setting up and adhering inordinately to himself But when Christ reconcileth God and Man he reconcileth Men to one another For he teacheth men to love God in Man and Man for God with a Holy noble reasonable kind of Love And so to love all men as far as God hath an Interest in all And to Love all Christians with an eminent Love as God is eminently interessed in them And this is Christs work on the souls of men and much of his business which he came for into the world And therefore he would have his
first Disciples to give the world such a specimen of Love in this extraordinary way of Community For as extraordinary works of Power that is Miracles must be wrought by the first Preachers of the Gospel to shew Christs power and convince the unbelieving world so it was as needful that then there should be extraordinary works of Love to shew Christs Love and teach them the great work of Love which he came to call and bring men to For the first Book that Christ wrote was on the Hearts of Men which no Philosopher could do In fleshly tables he wrote LOVE TO GOD and MAN by the finger of his Spirit many a year before any Book of the New Testament was written And as his Doctrine was Love one another and Love your enemies forbear and forgive c. so his first Churches must extraordinarily exemplifie and express this doctrine by living in this extraordinary community and selling all and distributing as each had need And afterwards their Love-feasts did long keep up some memorial of it For they were the first sheet as it were of the New Book which Christ was publishing And LOVE was the summ of all that was imprinted on them And their Practice was to be much of the Preaching that must convert the world Christ was not a meer Orator or teacher of Words And non magna loquimur sed vivimus was the profession of his disciples He came not meerly to talk and teach men to talk but to Do and teach men to Do even to do that himself which none else ever did and to teach his followers to do that which no other sort of men did in this world But this leadeth me up to the next Use of Unity V. The SPIRIT of UNITY and LOVE is the Great means of the Churches increase There is a twofold augmentation of the Church 1. Intrinsick and Intensive when it Increaseth in all Goodness and hasteth to perfection And it is this Vital principle of Vniting Love or the Spirit of Vnity which is the immediate cause of this 2. Extensive when the Church is enlarged and more are added to it And it is a Life of Vniting Love among Christians that must do this as much or more than preaching Or at least if that preaching which is but the effect of Knowledge produce Evangelical Knowledge in the hearers yet a Life of Love and Vnity is the adapted means of breeding Love and Vnity the Life of Religion in the world Light may cause Light but Heat must cause Heat and it must be a Living thing that must generate life by ordinary causation That which cometh from the Head may reach the Head and perhaps the Heart but is not so fit to operate on Hearts as that which cometh from the heart Undoubtedly if Christians did commonly live in such Love and Vnity among themselves and shew the fruits of common Love to all about them as their Great master and his Religion teacheth them they would do wonders in converting sinners and enlarging the Church of Jesus Christ Who could stand out against the convincing and Attractive power of Uniting Love Who could much hate and persecute those that Love them and shew that Love This would heap melting coals of fire on their heads Our Saviour knew this when he made this his great Lesson to his disciples and when he prayed Joh. 17. 21 22 23 24. over and over for them which should believe on him through the Apostles word that they all may be One as thou Father art in me and I in thee that they also may be one in us that the world may believe that thou hast sent me And the Glory which thou gavest me I have given them that they may be One even as we are One I in them and thou in me that they may be made perfect in One and that the world may know that thou hast sent me and hast loved them as thou hast loved me O when will Christ revive this blessed principle in his followers and set them again on this effectual way of preaching that Love may draw the world into the Churches Vnity Some look for new miracles for the converting of the now-forsaken Nations what God will do of that kind we know not for he hath not told us But Holy Vniting Vniversal Love is a thing which he hath still made our certain duty and therefore we are all bound to seek and do it And therefore we may both pray and labour for it in hope And could we but come up to this known duty we should have a means for the worlds conversion as effectual as miracles and more sweet and pleasant to them and us Obj. But why then is the world still unconverted when all true Christians have this love Ans 1. Alas those true Christians are so few and the hypocrites that are selfish worldlings are so many that the poor people that live among professed Christians do judge of Christianity by those false professours who are indeed no Christians Men see not the hearts of one another Thousands of ungodly persons for interest education and custome take on them the name of Christians who never were such indeed by heart-consent When these counterfeit Christians live like Infidels men think that Christians are no better than Infidels For they think they must judge by the greater number of such as go under the Christian name But if the world could tell who they be that are truly Christians at the heart they would see that they have that spirit of Love which is not in unbelievers 2. And alas the Love and Vnity even of true Christians is yet too imperfect and is darkened and blemished with too much of the contrary vice were Christians perfect Christians they would indeed be the honour of their profession Then Love would be the powerful principle of all their works which would taste of its nature and as it is said of Wine Judg. 9. 13. it cheereth God and man so I may say God and man would be delighted in the sweetness of these fruits For with such Sacrifice God is well pleased Heb. 13. 16. But alas what crabbed and contrary fruits how soure how bitter do many distempered Christians bring forth If it will increase the Church and win men to the Love of Christianity to be reviled or persecuted to be contemned and neglected to be separated from as persons unworthy of our-love and kindness then Christianity will not want propagaters The pouring out of the Spirit was the first planting of the Christian Church And where there is most of Love there is most of the spirit As there needeth no forcing penal Laws to compel men to obey God so far as Love prevaileth in them so if Love were more eminent in the Church Pastors and Professors that they preached and ruled and lived towards all men in the power of sincere and fervent Love there would be less pretence for all that violence oppression and cruelty which hath been long
of the spirit to hear men in prayer and thanksgiving to be much and fervent for the Churches and for all the world and to make it the first and heartiest of their requests that Gods name may be hallowed his Kingdom come and his will be done on earth as it is done in heaven and not to be almost all for themselves or for a sect or a few friends about them as selfish persons use to be 68. A very fervent desire of Vnion conâ—ined to some few that are mistaken for all or the chief part of the Church with a â—ensorious undervaluing of others and a secret desire that God would weaken and dishonour them because they are against the opinions and the interest of that sect or party is not only consistent with Schism as I said before but is the very state of Schism called Heresie of old And the stronger the desire of that inordinate separating Unity is as opposite to the Common Vnity of all Christians the greater is the Schism Even as a bile or other aposteme or inflammation containeth an inordinate burning collection or confluence of the blood to the diseased place instead of an equal distribution CHAP. III. II. The necessity and Benefits of this Unity and Peace II. THE Necessity and excellency of the Vnity of the spirit and peace will appear in these respects 1. For the good of the particular persons that possess it 2. For the good of Christian societies 3. For the good of the uncalled world 4. For the Glory and well-pleasing of Jesus Christ and of the Father of these in order 1. For the good of each particular person that possesseth it 1. It is the very Health and Holiness of the soul and the contrary is the very state of sin and death What is Holiness but that Vniting Love by which the will adhereth to God and delighteth in his Goodness as it shineth to us in his works and specially in Christ and in all his members and in a common sort in all mankind And what is the unholy state of sin and death but that Conâ—ractedness and retiring to our SELVES by which the selfish person departeth from the due Love of God and others and of that holiness which is contrary to this his selfishness So far as any mans Love is contracted narrowed confined to himself and to a few so far his soul is indeed unsanctified and void of the Vnity of the Spirit or the Spirit of Vnity If a man lived in banishment or a prison uncapable of doing others any good yet if he have that Love and spirit of Unity which inclineth him to do it if he could this is his own health and rectitude and acceptable unto God Little do many Religious people think how much they do mistake unholiness and sin it self for a degree of holiness above their neighbours When they contract and narrow their Christian Love and Communion to a party and talk against the Churches of Christ by disgraceful and Love-killing censures and reproaches as being not holy enough for their Communion this want of the spirit of Love and Unity is their own want of holiness it self It was the old deceit of the Pharisees which Christ the messenger and mediator of love condemned to think that holiness lay more in sacrifices and Ritual observances and in a strict keeping of the Sabbaths rest and such like than in the Love of God and all men And the lesson that Christ twice set them to learn was I will have mercy and not sacrifice He hath most grace and holiness who hath most of the spirit of Love and Unity 2. It is the souls necessary qualification for that life of true Christianity which God hath commanded us in the world It is this inward Health which must enable us to all our duty 1. Without this spirit of Vnity we cannot perform the duties of the first table unto God Our sacrifices will be as loathsome as theirs described Isa 1. and Isa 58. If we lift not up pure hands without wrath and wrangling or disputing for so I would rather translate 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 1 Tim. 2. 8. than doubting our prayers will not be acceptable to God Though it be Christs worthiness for which our prayers and services are accepted yet there must be the subordinate worthiness of necessary qualification in our selves For Christ himself hath annexed specially the express mention of this one qualification in the Lords prayer it self Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive them that trespass against us and he repeateth it after For if ye forgive men their trespasses your heavenly Father will forgive you your trespasses but if ye forgive not men their trespasses neither will your heavenly Father forgive you Mat. 6. 13 14. Love is here included in forgiving as a cause in its effect And Christ rather nameth forgiving than Love because men may pretend to that act which is secret in the heart but if it should not work in the necessary fruits of which forgiving others is one it would be but a vain pretence And here I intreat the Reader to consider a while the singularities of this passage of Christ 1. That men that must trust in Christs merits and mediation must yet be told of such an absolute necessity of a Condition or qualification in themselves 2. That Forgiving others as an Act of Love is singled out as this qualification 3. That this condition must be put into the very prayer it self that our own mouths may utter it to God 4. That it must be annexed to this one petition of Forgiveness rather than any of the rest where men are apt to confess their own necessity and where many are readiest to think that Gods mercy and Christs merits and mediation must do all without any condition on their part They that know that their daily bread and deliverance from temptation and evil must have some care and endeavours of their own are yet apt to think that the Forgiveness of sin needeth nothing on their part but asking and receiving 5. That Christ should after single out this one clause to repeat to them by urgent application And yet how little is this laid to heart And indeed the first word in the Lords prayer Our Father teacheth us the same lesson How needful a qualification Love and Vnity are to all that will come to God in prayer He that teacheth us that to Love our neighbour as our selves is the second summary Commandment and even like to the first which is Love to God for it is Loving God in his Likeness on his works doth here call us in all our prayers to express it by Praying for our brethren as for our selves O that men of wrath and wrangling were truly sensible what affections should be expressed by that word OVR FATHER and with what a heart men should say GIVE US and FORGIVE US and how far VS must extend beyond ME and beyond OUR PARTY or our side or our Church in the
others They will have worâ— enough at home § 5. Were but Christian Princes and people united as they would be a terror to Turkish and other Infidel Oppressors and in likelihood easily able to vanquish them so they might easily contribute their endeavours to instruct and convince these Infidels with probability of greater success than any attempts have yet had upon them They might with greater advantage send out and maintain men of Learning and other fitness to perform it The Eastern Christians by divisions were broken off from the Greeks The Greeks by division and wickedness fell into the hands of the Turks The divisions of the Western Nations furthered their Conquest and hindred the Greeks recovery The divisions of the Military forces lost Palestine and frustrated their vast labours and expences Lost also Armenian aids and destroyed the hopeful beginnings of the Conversion of the Tartarians The division of Christian Princes hath set up the Papal Kingdom as the Umpire of their feuds That which hath done so much to destroy Churches and Kingdoms and hath murdered many hundred thousand Christians and gone far towards the extirpating of true Christianity out of much of the formerly Christian World must needs unfit us all to recover the World and convert unbelievers § 6. And were but Christian Preachers and Pastors United instead of their pernicious Church-destroying contentions how great things might their united diligence have done If all the mischievous unskilful proud wrangling and worldly ambitious strife by which the Christians were divided into Nestorians Eutychians Monothelites Phantasiasts Donatists Novatians and their Anathematizers c. had been turned into an united force and diligence by Light and Love to have converted Infidels What a happy case had the World been in And what blessings had that part of the Clergy been that now have left their Names and History to reproach and shame § 7. II. And as Efficiently so Objectively and Morally the Vnion of Christians tendeth to convert the World as it is notorious that their divisions have hindered their Conversion Men commonly suspect them to be deceived or deceivers that do not agree among themselves They that reverence united Christians despise them when they see them fall into divisions and learn of themselves to condemn them all by hearing them revile and condemn each other Christ had never made it so great a part of his prayer to his Father that his disciples might be One even as the Father and he were One to this end that the world may know that the Father sent him if this their Union had not been a special means of convincing unbelievers And this was not by a Political Union of the rest of his Disciples under some One of them as the Governing Head of all the rest For no such Head was set over them by Christ nor ever claimed or exercised any such authority But it was a holy Union of Minds in knowledge and faith and of Hearts in Love and of Life in their published Doctrine and their Communion and Conversation The common Sun-light maketh all mens sight whose Organs and Viâ—ive faculty are sound to agree and though a man hath two eyes they see unitedly as if they were one The more united fuel make one fire the more powerful it is to kindle on all other combustible matter near it When many Ministers of the same or several Churches agree it much availeth to procure the belief and obedience of their flocks And when Pastors and people agree it strongly inviteth the reverence and consent of those without By wilful dissensions we are scandals and snares to unbelievers and if Christians live not in Unity Love and Peace they rob the world of a great appointed means of their conversion And they who for so doing do justly exclaim against persecutors and hinderers of the Gospel should also remember how much they participate in that guilt while the Love of Christians to one another is made almost as needful as preaching to the winning of mens Love to faith and holiness § 8. As in the solemn singing of Psalms the harmony of concenting well tuned voices inviteth the hearers to joyn with them by delight when bawling confusion and discord one singing one tune and another another is loathsome and tiresome and driveth men away so would the sweet concent of Christians have won unbelievers to the Love of Christian faith and piety when their divisions and wicked lives have had contrary lamentable effects wo to the world because of offences and wo to them by whom offences come CHAP. VI. The Vnity of Christians is due to the Honour of Christ and is pleasing and amiable to God § 1. IT is not only Miracles that are Christs witness in the world The spirit of Prophecie also is called his witness Rev. 19. 10. And if many Prophets should all say that they speak from Christ and speak contrary things and charge each other with falshood and deceit would this be to his honour or to the credit of their testimony It is the great Concord of the prophecies promises and types of the Old Testament with the history and doctrine of the New and the great concord of all the writers of the New Testament among themselves which greatly facilitateth our belief both of the Old and New And all Infidels who accuse the Scriptures of untruth do accuse it also of contradictions And if they could prove the later they would prove the former § 2. And the spirit of Holiness as it regenerateth and sanctifieth sinners from generation to generation is no less a witness of the Truth and Love and Glory of Christ than prophecies and miracles The same spirit that is the author of prophecie and sacred doctrine is also the author of believers renovation to the image of God And Illumination is not the least or last part of this sanctifying work Christ is the light of the world and his word and spirit are given to enlighten blinded minds and to bring them out of darkness into his marvellous light and from the power of the Prince of darkness and from doing the works of darkness to the Father of Lights who giveth wisdom liberally to them that ask it that they may walk as Children of the light Light is usually called Glory Heaven is the place of the greatest Light and greatest Glory And heavenly wisdom in believers is much of their Glory here begun in which their Father their Saviour and their sanctifier is glorified Whatever therefore obscureth or diminisheth this sacred Light in Saints opposeth that Glory of God and our Redeemer which must appear and shine forth in them The holy Learning of his disciples is the honour of the heavenly Teacher of the Church All true believers are taught of God were they no wiser nor no better than other men where were the testimony and the honour of their Teacher and who would believe that he were a happier Teacher than Philosophers or that he were the true Saviour of
the world that doth not save his own disciples from sin and folly No wonder that God hath no pleasure in fools and that the foolish shall not stand in his fight when they are such a dishonour to Christ and him what fellowship hath Light with darkness And who knoweth not that disagreement proveth ignorance and errour in one party at least When they hold and plead for contrary opinions both cannot be in the right And when this is but in dark and difficult matters of no great influence on our hearts and lives and future hopes it is tolerable and no more to be wondered at than that we are yet but imperfect men in flesh and in this low and darksome world But when it amounteth to that which maketh Christians judge it necessary to anathematize one another and to cast out each other from their communion as intolerable and perhaps to seek one anothers destruction do they not loudly proclaim their shameful ignorance to the world § 3. I know that discipline must be exercised and the precious separated from the vile and this especially for the honour of Christianity For if the Church be as a Swinesty and the clean and unclean the sober and the drunken the chaste and the fornicators equally members of it such a society and their religion will be contemned For sin is a reproach to any people But casting a felon or murderer in Jaile doth much differ from a civil war For the Church to cast out the impure that repent not is necessary to their honour but to divide and subdivide among themselves is their reproach though the dividers have never so fair pretences § 4. I know also what pretences against heresie c. the dividing sects have had in all ages They have pretended that they only being the true Church the condemning and rejecting of all others was necessary to the Churches honour But is it indeed to the honour of the Christian name that so great bodies for so many ages have continu'd to condemn and anathematize each other That the Greek Church condemneth the Western and the Western them That the Eastern and Southern are separated from both And the Western Christians so divided among themselves Who that is not a stranger to man and history knoweth not that it hath been to exercise a Dominion over others and also to extol the skill of their understandings as speaking rightlier than others when they strove about ambiguous words that very much of their anathematizing hath been used And when the Pope hath anathematized the Patriarch of Constantinople he hath anathematized him again yea so hath the Patriarch of Alexandria also And when the three parties the Orthodox the Nestorians and the Eutychians for so many ages have continued anathematizing each other the dishonour falleth on them all in the eyes of beholders and no party recovereth their honour with the rest § 5. Undoubtedly it is they that God shall make the blessed instruments of restoring the necessary means of Concord and thereby of reviving Christian Love and peace that will be the chief and honourable agents for the repairing of the honour of the Christian Church if ever it be repaired in this world All parties seem agreed in this even they that most foolishly and cruelly tear and distract the Church that it must be Love and Concord that at last must heal it and recover its glory if ever it be healed And how much Christ is pleased to see his servants live in Love and peace his office his nature his many and vehement Commands do tell us CHAP. VII III. What obligations are on all Christians to avoid sinful divisions and discord and to promote this Vnity and peace § 1. FRom what is already said it is easie to gather that many and great obligations are on all Christians to be promoters of Concord and enemies of discord and divisions I. The many and express commands of Christ in Scripture do oblige them This is no dark or controverted point written in words which are hard to be understood but plainly uttered and often urged Yea when several of Gods commands are mentioned this is still preferred before most others that can be imagined to stand in competition against it As the uniting Love of God is called the first and great Command so the uniting Love of man is called the second like to that and the summ of the second table and the fulfilling of the Law It is not mentioned as an Accident of the New Creature but as an essential part not as the high qualification of some rare Christian but as that which is necessary and common to all that are the living members of Christ Not only as needful to some inferiour uses but as necessary to all the great Ends of our Religion preferred before sacrifice and all the rituals and not to be dispensed with on any pretence § 2. II. No man therefore can be an obedient servant of Christ that seeketh not to keep the Vnity of the spirit in the bond of peace If he that breaketh one of the least commands and teacheth men so to do shall be called Least in the Kingdom of God what shall he be called and where shall be his lot that breaketh the greatest § 3. III. The Love of God our Father and of Christ our Redeemer doth oblige us For if he that loveth not his brother whom he seâ—th daily cannot Love God whom he never saw how much less he that loveth not the multitude of believers and so great an interest of God in the world as is that unity and concord of the body of Christ And if he that doth or doth not good to one of the least of the servants of Christ is supposed to have done it or not done it to himself how much more he that doth or omitteth that which Christ and his whole Church is so much concerned in § 4. IV. The Love of our own souls obligeth us considering how many and great impediments discord doth raise against all grace and duty and against our holiness comfort and salvation And how much Christian Love and Concord do conduce to the preservation of all grace and to the attainment of Glory All men in true Concord are our helpers and all men in discord are our hinderers and tempters How fair and easie is the way to Heaven among true Loving and agreeing Christians and how hard is it where divisions and contentions take place § 5. V. The Love of our neighbours souls obligeth us to this That which is best for us is best for them Alas carnal minds deceived by sin need not to have the way to heaven made harder nor to be tempted by the discords of Christians to despise them Their own malignity and the devils temptations when we have done our best may suffice to deceive them and undo them Every Christian should be a helper to the salvation of all about him and a souldier under Christ to fight against Satan as he
or practice And sure no such for Images is in the Creed or Decalogue § 26. The same I may say of many other Religious practices As St. Paul speaketh of meats and drinks and dayes Rom. 14. 15. so must we say of all things that are of no greater necessity If men in all these must be brought to uniformity and practising in the same mode it must be either by argument and perswasion or by force The first we are sure will never do it in all things though it may in many All the twenty reasons before mentioned prove it and many hundred years experience much more It is certain to all save blinded persons that all Christians will never be in all things of a mind about Lawful and Unlawful Duty and Sin And 〈◊〉 that force will never do it St. Paul saith of things indifferent that he that doubteth is damned if he eat because he eateth not of faith For whatsoever is not of faith is sin Ungodly persons that have no true Conscience may go against their false Consciences for worldly ends and wilfully sin for fear of men But so will no true Christian unless in the hour of such a temptation as Peters by a fall from which he will rise again to a stronger resolution than he had before No sound believer will sell his soul to save his flesh nor hazard heaven by wilful sin to save his interest on earth So that this way of forcing men to practise contrary to their Consciences in points in which good and tolerable Christians differ will but make up Churches of wicked men that have no conscience joyned with one party that is therein agreed And I shall shew you in due place that they will never devise what to do with the Conscionable dissenters that shall not be far worse than a charitable and peaceable forbearance § 27. III. It is certain that there will never be so great Concord as that all Disputings opposition and passionate and injurious words and writings will cease among all sorts of Christians No nor among all that are honest and upright in the main For as long as one taketh that for a dangerous errour or sin which another taketh for a necessary truth or duty men will even on Gods account think ill of one another and in some measure speak ill as they think They that know that they must not call evil good and good evil nor put darkness for light and light for darkness will abuse and injure one another in things where they confidently err A Lutheran though pious will speak and dispute against a Calvinâ—â— and a Calâ—inist against a Lutheran And so of many other Parties And though it is greatly to be wished that all Christians had humble thoughts of their own understandings and would stay till they know well what they say before they talk much against things or persons and though it be so with wise and eminently sober humble men yet with too many it is far otherwise and like so to continue Perverse disputings and shameful backbitings and speaking evil of things and persons not understood have such unhappy causes in the remnants of dark corrupted nature that they seem to be like to live till a golden age or heaven do cure them Talking and writing against one another even of the same Religion yea praying and preaching against one another must be expected in some degree I would I need not say silencing and persecuting one another yea excommunicating and anathematizing among the worser sort of men such usage as Nazianzen had from one of the famous General Councils and such usage as Chrysostom had from such Bishops as Theophilus Alexand. and Epiphanius and a Council of other Bishops and such as abundance of excellent men in most ages have met with in the like kind and way may be expected again till Bishops and all Christians become more wise and resined persons § 28. II. But affirmatively there is yet an excellent sort and degree of Unity and Concord to be sought with hope among Christians worthy of all our utmost labour Yea there is a true and excellent Unity and Concord which all true Christians do already enjoy consisting in the following things § 29. I. All Christians truly such believe in One God and believe the incomprehensible Trinity and believe Gods Essential Attributes and Grand Relations to man They believe that he is Infinite in Immensity and Eternity and Perfection even a most Perfect Spirit Life Vnderstanding and Will most Powerful Wise and Good the Creator and preserver the Governour and the End of all of whom and through whom and to whom are all things in whom we Live and Move and have our being Most Holy and True and Merciful and Just whom we are bound to believe and trust and love and serve and obey and praise with all our heart and mind and strength and perfectly and everlastingly to see Love and Praise him to Please Him and be Pleased in Him in Glory is the end and happiness of Saints § 30. II. All true Christians believe in One Mediator between God and man Jesus Christ the Eternal Word God and one in Essence with the Father Incarnate assuming the whole Nature of man conceived by the holy Ghost born of the Virgin Mary and was holy harmless undefiled separate from sinners fulfilling all righteousness and overcame the Devil and the world and gave himself a Sacrifice for mans sin by suffering a cursed death on the Cross to ransome us and reconcile us unto God and was buried and went to the departed souls in hades and the third day rose again from the dead having conquered death And having declared the new Covenant or Law of Grace and commanded his Apostles to preach the Gospel to all the world and promised them to send the Holy Spirit he ascended into Heaven before their faces The said Covenant of Grace is summarily this that whereas all have sinned and come short of the Glory of God sin by one man entring into the world and death by sin and so death and condemnation passed upon all in that all have sinned God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son that whosoever Believeth in him should not perish but have everlasting life that is God freely giveth to lost undone sinners Himself to be their reconciled God and Father Jesus Christ to be their Saviour and the Holy Ghost to be their Sanctifier if they will Believe and Trust him and accept the gift and will in serious Covenant which Baptism celebrateth accordingly give up themselves to him Repenting of their sins and consenting to forsake the Devil the world and the Flesh as opposite to God and sincerely though not perfectly obey Christ and his Spirit to the end according to the Law of Nature and his Gospel institutions that so they may overcome and be Glorified for ever And they believe that Christ will come at last in Glory and judge all men according to his Laws
member of the universal Church who is not a member of some particular Church 23. That none are in the universal Church who are not the subjects of Diocesan Bishops 24. That a man not baptized by one that hath Ordination from a Diocesan Bishop is no member of the universal Church 25. That a member of the visible Church cannot be certainly known because it cannot be known what is essential to a Christian seeing it depends on the sufficiency of the proposal of truths which cannot be known of many or most XVII Of Gods worship preaching and Ministers and his day 1. That there are more Gods than one and several Countreys may worship their several Gods 2. That if we keep our hearts to God we may bow down before Images as Idolaters do 3. That it is not necessary that we actually love God above once a year or once a month or week at most 4. That if we fear Gods wrath and love one another we may be saved without any other love to God 5. That no higher Love to God is necessary than to love him for our selves and others as a Benefactor and means to the Creatures good 6. That Gods word is not to be trusted as infallibly true 7. That because God will be spiritually worshipped outward bodily worship is not necessary to spiritual persons 8. That he that loveth trusteth and serveth God so as yet he loveth trusteth and serveth the flesh and the world and sinful pleasure more prevalently may yet be saved without more 9. That outward worship without inward love and holiness may serve to Salvation 10. That we may give Divine worship to Angels or glorified souls or to the Cross or Images 11. That if prayer move not or change not Gods will it is needless to use much prayer 12. That it is lawful to require the people to pray and praise God in an unknown language instead of words which they understand and such prayer and worship they must preferr or use if the Pope or Bishops command it 13. That any man may make himself or become a Pastor or Teacher of the Church in office who thinketh himself fit without mans election or ordination 14. That none are true Ministers of Christ who are not sent by the Bishop of Rome or some authorized by him or ordained by such 15. That no Ministers are owned as such by Christ nor are the Sacraments administred by them valid that are not ordained by Diocesans or by such as had an ordination themselves by an uninterrupted succession from the Apostles down by Diocesan Bishops or a Canonical succession 16. That all Ministers ought to cease preaching the Gospel and all Churches or persons publick worshipping God who are forbidden by the Pope as some say or by Bishops as others say or by the King or Magistrate as others 17. That it is sinful for Presbyters to preach say some or to pray say others publickly in any other words save those that are written down for them or prescribed by the authority either of Pope Council Bishops or Civil Magistrates 18. That it is sinful to instruct the people or to pray to God or praise him in a form of words premeditated or prescribed by any other or agreed on in Councils 19. That it is sinful to joyn with any Pastor who speaketh any unlawful words in preaching prayer or other ministration 20. That it is unlawful to hold Communion with any Church where scandalous sinners are present or are tolerated members 21. That men may lawfully change the essential or integral parts of Gods commanded worship by diminution or additions of the like 22. That spiritual men are not bound to be members of particular Churches or put themselves under the guidance of any Pastors 23. That all the people are bound to believe all that to be Gods word which the Bishop or Priests tell them is so 24. That the people are bound to do in Gods worship whatever Bishops or other Rulers command them without examining and judging whether it be agreeable to the Law of God 25. That Pope Bishops or Priests can forgive sin even as to the punishment in another life by immediate pardoning power in themselves and not only by preparing men for pardon and offering and declaring it and delivering it ministerially by application from Gods word and in order hereto judging who are capable of Consolatory and Sacramental applications 26. That God pardoneth in heaven all that the Priest pardoneth on earth though erroneously and by mistake 27. That God will condemn to hell all that an erring or malicious Pope Bishop or Priest condemneth 28. That it is lawful to separate from and disown Communion with all parties of Christians differing in things not necessary to Gods acceptance except that one party which we judge to be rightest or allowed by the higher powers 29. That the first day of the week was not separated to Divine worship in commemoration of Christs resurrection by the Spirit of Christ in his Apostles or is not to be observed to that holy use any more than any other day 30. That it is lawful to swear unnecessarily and to use Gods name lightly and vainly in our talk 31. That perjury is lawful for our safety or in obedience to man 32. That Popes Councils or Bishops can dissolve the obligations of our Vows to God or Oaths of fidelity to Princes though the matter be lawful and good and otherwise God dissolve them not 33. That all Oaths and Vows are to be interpreted as not binding us longer than it is for our commodity or safety 34. That we may take Oaths imposed in words whose common sense is false or sinful though not otherwise expounded by the imposer because in charity we must suppose always that our Rulers mean nothing against Gods word or their own or the peoples good 35. That it is unlawful to break any Vow or Oath which was unlawfully imposed on us by man or unlawfully taken by our selves though the matter of it be good or lawful 36. That no Vow bindeth us to that which we were bound to before That all Vowing is sinful and all swearing when lawfully called for the attesting truth and ending strife XVIII Of our duty to our Rulers and Pastors and their duty 1. That Christianity so nullifieth all natural and civil relations or obligations that Children subjects and servants owe nothing to Parents Rulers or Masters but what they are bound to in meer justice and gratitude to them as benefactors or by voluntary consent and promise 2. That Parents owe nothing for their children but bodily provision and not to educate them in Godly and Christian doctrine and practice 3. That Princes may seek their own pleasure and wealth against the common good or above it 4. That they may lawfully make war upon neighbour Countreys only to enlarge their power or dominions or satisfie their pride passion or wills 5. That they or Bishops may fine imprison banish or put to death all
conclude no worse of the ingneous Element nor yet of sensitive or Intellectual spirits For 1. How far they are passive and partible being many we know not Most of the old Fathers especially the Greeks as Faustus Regiensis cited them in the book which Mammertus answered thought that God only was totally Immaterial or Incorporeal And it must not be denyed that every creature doth pati à Deo is passive as from God the first cause and many Philosophers think that all Passivity is a consequent or proof of answerable Materiality And many think that we have no true notion of substantia besides Relative as it doth subsist of it self and substare accidentibus but what is the same with Materia purissima 2. But supposing all this to be otherwise spirits being true substances of a more perfect nature than grosse bodies as they are more inclined to Union inter se so there is as little if not less danger that they should be losers by that Union than that a drop of water should be so For the perfection of the highest nature must needs be more the perfection of all the Parts Physical or intelligible than the perfection of the lowest And the noblest inclineth not to its own loss by desiring Union which to the lowest is no loss 38. It is called in the Text The Vnity of the spirit 1. As it is One species of Spiritual Grace which all the members are endowed with which is their Holiness or Gods Image on them which is called The Spirit in us because it is the immediate and excellent work of Gods spirit As the Sun is said to be in the room because it shineth there 2. As the Spirit is the efficient cause hereof 3. And because this One spirit in all the members inclineth them to Vnity even as the soul of every animal inclineth it to preserve the Unity of all its parts and to abhor wounding and separation as that which will be its pain and tendeth to its destruction by dissolution 39. The Holiness or spiritual qualification of souls which is called The Spirit is Holy or Divine Life Light and Love or the holy disposition of the souls three natural faculties Vital Power or Activity Vnderstanding and Will As all men have One species of humanity so all Saints have this One spirit 40. Though Quickning by holy Life and Illumination be parts of sanctification or this spirit yet the last part Love is the compleating perfective part and therefore is oft called Sanctification specially and by the word Spirit and Love is oft meant the same thing And when the spirit is said to be given to Believers the meaning is that upon and by believing the wonderful demonstrations of Gods Love in Christ the habit of holy Love is kindled in us 41. This holy Love which is gods Image for God is Love usually beginneth at things visible as being the nearest objects to man in flesh And as we see â—od here as in a glass so we first see the Glass before we see God in it And accordingly we first see the Goodness and Loveliness of Gods blessings 〈◊〉 us and of good people and of good words and actions But yet when we come up to the Love of God it is Hâ— that is the chiefest object in whom all the Church by Love is centred so that we thenceforth Love God for himself and all his servants and word as for his sake and impress on them And our Vnion by Love would not be perfect if it United us together only among our selves and did not Unite us all in God and our Redeemer So that the Vnity of the spirit is the Love of God in Christ and of all the faithful yea and of all men so far as God appeareth in them to which Gods spirit strongly enclineth all true believers including holy Life and Light as tending to this Vnity of spiritual Love 42. Therefore Love is not distinctly named after among the particular terms of Vnity as faith and hope are because it is meant by that word There is One spirit 43. The love and Vnity of Christians as in One Church supposeth in Nature a Love to man as man and a desire of the Vnity and concord of mankind As Christianity supposeth humanity 44. But Experience and Faith assure us that this humane Love and Vnity is wofully corrupted and much lost and that though mans soul be convinced by natural light that it is good and have a general languid inclination to it yet this is so weak uneffectual as that the principles of wrath and division prevail against it and keep the world in miserable confusion 45. It is the predominancy of the corrupt selfish inclination which is the great Enemy and destroyer of Love and Vnity 46. Christianity is so far from confining all our Love to Christians that it is not the least use of it to revive and recover our Love to Men as Men so that no men have a full and healed Love to mankind and desire of universal Vnity but believers 47. The purest and strongest Love and Vnity is universal And it is not genuine Christianity if it do not incline us to Love all men as men and all professed Christians as such and all Saints as Saints according to their various degrees of amiableness 48. Love and Vnity which is not thus universal partaketh of wrath and Sâ—hism For he that loveth but a part of men doth not love the rest and he that is Vnited but to a part whether great or small is Schismatically divided from all the rest 49. But Love to All must not be Equal to all nor our Vnity with all Equal as on the same terms or in the same degree As the Goodness of meer Humanity and the meer Profession of Christianity is less and so less amiable than is the Goodness of true sanctification so our Love and Vnity must be diversified All the members of the body must be Loved and their Unity carefully preserved But yet not Equally but the head as an head and the heart as an heart and the stomach as a stomach and all the essential parts as Essential without which it is not a humane body and all the integral parts as such but diversely according to their worth and use The eye as an eye and a tooth but as a tooth Goodness being the object of Love and Love being the life of our Vnity it varieth in degrees as Goodness varieth 50. That Love and Vnity which is sincere in kind may be mixt with lamentable wrath and Schism as all our Graces are with the contrary sin in our imperfect state Not but that all Christians have an habitual inclination to Vniversal Love and Vnity but the act may be hindred by the want of due information and by false reports and misrepresentations of our brethren which hide their amiableness and render them to such more odious than they are 51. Sincere and genuine Love and Vnity hath an Universal care of
dividers sense I tell you if you will be welcome to God in your prayers or any other religious services you must come as in Vnion with Christ and with his Universal Church God will receive no one that cometh to him as alone and divided from the rest As you must have Union with Christ the Head so must you have with his Body A divided member is no member but a dead thing Little think many ignorant persons of this who think that the singularity and smallness of their sect or party is the necessary sign of their acceptance with God Because they read Fear not little flock As if a little flock must separate from Christs little flock for fear of being too great And as if his Flock which then was but a few hundreds must be no greater when the Kingdoms of the world are become his Kingdoms Yet such have there been of late among us who first became as they were called Puritans or Presbyterians when they saw them a small and suffering party But when they prospered and multiplyed they turned Independents or Separatists thinking that the former were too many to be the true Church And on the same reason when the Independents prospered they turned Anabaptists And when they prospered they turned Quakers thinking that unless it were a small and suffering party it could not be the Little flock of Christ As if he that is called The Saviour of the world would take it for his honour to be the Saviour only of a few Families or Villages and his Kingdom must be as little as Bethlehem where he was born Should they take the same course about their Language and say that it is not the language of Canaan but of the beast if it grow common and so take up with a new one that it might be a narrow one the folly of it would discover it self And what is the excellency of a Language but significancy and extensive community and what greater plague since Adams sin hath befaln mankind than the division of tongues as hindering communication and propagation of the Gospel And what greater blessing as a means to universal Reformation could be given men than an universal common language And what is the property of Babel but division and confusion of tongues And doth not all this intimate the necessity of a Union of minds While we keep in the Vnity of the Body and spirit we may we must strive for such a singularity as consisteth in an excellency of degree and endeavour to be the best and holiest persons and the usefullest members in the body of Christ But if once you must separate from the body as too good to be members of so great or so bad a society you perish God will own no Church which is so Independent as not to be a member of the universal not any person who is so independent as not to come to him as in Communion with all the Christians in the world We must not approve of the faults of any Church or Christian and so communicate with their sin by Voluntary consent But disowning their sin we must own them as Christs members and have communion with them in faith and Love and holy profession of both and while we are absent in body must be as present in spirit with them and still come to God as in communion with all his Church on earth and offer up our prayers as in conjunction with them and not as a separated independent thing 2. And as our Vnity is part of our necessary fitness for duties of holy worship so is it also for duties of the second table that is of Justice and Charity to men And this is evident in the nature of the thing No man will be exact in Justice till he do as he would be done by And who can do that who Loveth not his neighbour as himself What is our unity but our Love to others as our selves And how can we do the works of Love without Love It is divided SELF that is the cause of all the unmercifulness and injustice in the world Unity maketh my neighbour to be to me as my self and his Interest and welfare to be to me as my own and his loss and hurt to be as mine And were he indeed my self and his welfare and his hurt mine own you may judge without many words how I should use him whether I should shew him mercy in his wants and misery whether I should rejoice with him in his joy and mourn with him in his sorrows whether I should speak well or ill of him behind his back and whether I should persecute him and undo him whether I should defame him and write books to render him odious and to perswade the rulers that he is unworthy to have the liberty of a Christian or of a man to preach to pray to be conversed with or to live Would not uniting Love make a wonderful change in some mens judgements speeches and behaviour and make those men good Christians or good Moralists at least who now when they have cryed up Morality and Charity and good works would perswade men by the Commentary of their practice that they mean Malignity cruelty and the propagating of hatred and all iniquity Where there is not a dominion of LOVE and UNITY there is a dominion of SELFISHNESS and ENMITY and how well these will keep the Commandments which are all fulfilled in LOVE how well they will do good to all men especially to them of the houshold of faith and provoke one another to Love and to good works it is easie for any man to judge Once alienate mens hearts from one another and the Life will shew the alienation 3. This UNITY of SPIRIT and spirit of unity is our necessary preservation against sins of commission as well as of omission as aforesaid even against the common iniquities of the world LOVE and UNITY tyrannize not over inferiours contrive not to tread down others that we may rise and to keep them down to secure our domination They oppress not the poor the weak or innocent They make not snares for other mens Consciences nor lay stumbling-blocks before them to occasion them to sin nor drive men on to sin against Conscience and so to hell to shew mens authority in a thing of nought Had this ruled in Ahab and his Prophets Michaiah had not been smitten on the mouth nor fed in a Prison with the bread and water of affliction nor had Elijah been hunted after as the troubler of Israel Had this unity of spirit ruled in Jeroboam and in Rehoboam one had not stretcht out his hand against the Prophet nor the other despised experienced Counsellours to make heavier the burdens of the complaining people Had it overcome the SELFISHNESS of the Kings of Israel their Calves and High places had not engaged them against the Prophets and been their ruine Had it prevailed in the Kings of Judah and their people Jeremy had not been
their Vnion maketh all to be common to them Are not Parents pleased to see their children prosper and every one delighted in the wellfare of his friend what then if all the world were as near and dear to us as a husband a child or a bosome friend would it not be our constant pleasure to think of Gods blessings to them as if they were our own A narrow spot of ground doth yield but little fruit in comparison of a whole Kingdom or all the earth And he that fetcheth his content and pleasure from so little a clod of earth as his own body must have but a poor and pitiful pleasure in comparison of him that can rejoice in the good of all the world It is Vniting Love which is the great enriching contenting and felicitating art An Art I call it as it is a thing Learned and practised by Rule but more than an Art even a Nature as to its fixed inclination 3. And Vnion maketh other mens Good to be all ours as efficiently and objectively so also finally As all is but a means to one and the same end in which we meet It is my ends that are attained by all the Good that is done and possessed in the world They that have One holy spirit have one end The Glorifying of God in the felicity of his Church and the perfection of his works and the Fulfilling and Pleasing of his blessed will in this his Glory is the end that every true believer doth intend and live for in the world And this One End all Saints all Angels all Creatures are carrying on as means If I be a Christian indeed I have nothing so dear to me or so much desired as this Pleasing and Glorifying of God in the good and perfection of his works This is my Interest In this he must gratiâ—ie me that will be my friend All things are as nothing to me but for this And in this all the world but specially all Saints are continually serving me In serving God they are serving me while they serve my chiefest end and interest If I have a house to build or a field to till or a garden to dress do not the labours of all the builders and workmen serve me and please me while it is my work that they do This is no fancy but the real case of every wise and holy person He hath set his heart and hope upon that end which all the world are joyntly carrying on and which shall certainly be accomplished O blessed be that Infinite Wisdom and Love which teacheth this wisdom and giveth this Vniting Love to every holy soul All other wayes are dividing narrow poor and base This is the true and certain way for every man to be a possessour of all mens blessings and to be owner of the good of all the world They are all doing our Heavenly Fathers will and all are bringing about the common end which every true believer seeketh It is this base and narrow SELFISHNESS and inordinate contractedness of spirit and adhering to individual interest which contradicteth all this and hindereth us from the present joyful tastâ— of the fruits of UNITY which we now hear and read of Yea I can dye with much the greater willingness because besides my hopes of heaven I live even on earth when I am dead I live in all that live and shall live till the end of all I am not of the mind of the selfish person that saith when I am dead all the world is dead or at an end to me But rather God is my highest object His Glory and complacency is my End These shine and are attained more in and by the whole Creation than by me while these go on the End is attained which I was made for And I shall never be separated living or dead from the universal Church or universal world so that when I am dead my end my interest my united fellow-Christians and Creatures will still live If I loved my friend better than my self it would be less grief to me to be banished than for him to be banished And so it would be less grief to me to dye than for him to dye And if I loved the Church and the world but half as much more than my self as my reason is fully convinced there is cause it would seem to me incomparably a smaller evil to dye my self than that the Church or world should dye As long as my Garden flourisheth I can bear the death of the several flowers whose place will the next spring be succeeded by the like And as long as my Orchard liveth I can bear the falling of a leaf or an apple yea of all the leaves and fruit in Autumn which the next spring will repair and restore in kind though not those individual What am I that the world should miss me or that my death should be taken by others or by me for a matter of any great regard I can think so of another and another can think so of me But unhappy selfishness maketh it hard for every man or any man to think so of himself Did UNITY more prevail in men and SELFISHNESS less it would more rejoice a dying man that the Power Wisdom and Goodness of God will continue to shine forth in the Church and world and that others shall succeed him in serving God and his Church when he is dead than it would grieve him that he must dye himself Yea more than all this this Holy UNITY will make all the Joyes of Heaven to be partly ours Even while we are here in pain and sorrows we are members of the Body whose Best part is above with Christ and therefore their joyes are by participation ours as the pleasure of the head and heart extendeth to the smallest members Would it be nothing to a mother if all her children or to a friend if all his friends had all the prosperity and joy that he could wish them The nearer and stronger this holy UNITY is the more joyfully will a believer here look up and say Though I am poor or sick or suffer it is not so with any of the blessed ones above My fellow Christians now rejoyce in Glory The Angels with whom I shall live for ever are full of Joy in the vision of Jehovah My blessed Head hath Kingdom and Power and Glory and Perfection Though I am yet weak and must pass through the gates of death the Gloriâ—ied world are triumphing in perpetual Joyes Their Knowledge their Love their Praises of God are perfect and everlasting beyond all fears of death or any decay or interruption UNITY giveth us a part in all the Joyes of earth and heaven And what then is more desireable to a Believer 5. And in all that is said it appeareth that UNITY is a great and necessary part of our preparation for sufferings and death without this men want the principal comforts that should support them They that can fetch comfort neither from
exercised by the worldly Clergy and so much the more odiously by how much the more the sacred name of Religion hath been used for its justification or excuse VI. UNITING LOVE is the GLORY and Perfection of the Church And therefore there will be in Heaven much greater Love and much nearer UNITY than there is of the dearest friends on earth yea greater and nearer than we can now distinctly understand And again I say that they that in thinking of the state of separated souls do fear lest all souls do lose their individuation and fall into one common soul do foolishly fear a greater Vnity than is to be expected And yet nothing else about the souls Immortality is lyable to a rational doubt For 1. It s substance certainly is not annihilated 2. Nor its formal essential Virtues lost by mutation into some other species 3. Nor doth the Activity of such an Active nature cease 4. Nor will there want objects for it to act upon Were it well considered that LOVE is as Natural to a soul as Heat is to the Sun that is an effect of that Act which its very essence doth perform 2. And that our UNITY is an Unity of LOVE Voluntarily performed it would much abate such selfish fears of too much Unity For who ever feared too much Love too extensive or too intensive too large or too near a Union of minds And as the beloved Apostle saith that GOD IS LOVE as a name which signifieth his essence why may not the same be said of souls which are his Image that A SOUL IS LOVE Not that this is an Adequate conception of A SOUL much less of GOD but of the partial or inadequate Conceptions it seemeth to be the chiefest The SOVL of Man is a Pure or Spiritual substance informed by a Virtue of Vital activity Intellection and Volition which is LOVE informing or animating an organical body for a time and separable at the bodies dissolution And as the Calefactive Virtue is the Essence of the Fire though not an adequate Conception of its essence For it is a pure substance formally induâ—d with the Virtue Motive Illuminative and Calefactive and the act of Calefaction is its essence as operative on a due recipient so LOVE is the souls essence in the faculty or Virtue and its Essence as operative on a due object in the Act which Act though the soul exercise it not ad ultimum posse by such a Natural necessity as the fire heateth yet its Nature or Essence immediately exerciseth it though in a freâ—r manner yea some Acts of Love quoad specificationem though not quoad exercitium are exercised as necessarily as calefaction by the fire yea more though now in the body the exercise by cogitation and sense be not so necessary we cannot say that in its separated state it will not be so yea yet more even in the body the LOVE of a Mans SELF and of felicity or pleasure seemeth to be a deep constant or uncessant Act of the soul though not sensibly observed And if LOVE be so far essential to it the perfection of Love is the souls perfection and the exercises of Love are the chief operations of the soul And consequently the perfection and glory of the Church which is but a conjunction of holy persons consisteth in the same Uniting Love which perfecteth souls And indeed Vniformity in circumstantials and in external Polity were but a Carkass or Image of Unity without Uniting Love which is its soul As much external Union in good as we are capable of doth advantage Vnity of spirit But all Union in evil and all in unnecessary circumstantials which is managed to the diminution of Christian Love are to the Church but as the glory of adorned cloathing or monuments or pictures to a carkass And the Church-Tyrants that would thus Unite us and sacrifice Love and the means of it to their sort of Vnity are but like the Physician that prescribed a sicâ—man a draught of his own heart blood to cure him The Inquisitors that torture mens bodies to save their souls are not more unskilful in their pretended Charity to save men than is he that hindereth or destroyeth Love while he seeketh the Churches Unity in humane Ordinances by fraud or fear When they have killed any Church by Love killing snares and practices and glory that it is united in Papal power splendor and decrees it is but as if they cut all a mans nerves or cast him into a Palsie or killed him and gloried that they have tyed his limbs together with strings or bound them all up in the same Winding-sheet and Coffin That edifieth not the Church which tendeth not to save but to destroy mens souls CHAP. V. This Vnity conduceth to the good of the world without the Church § 1. THe chief hopes of the Heathen and Infidel world consist in their hopes of being brought into the faith and Church of Christians And as God addeth to the Church such as shall be saved so the means that our charity must use to save them is to get them into this ark The measure of their other hopes or what possibility there is of their salvation I have elsewhere plainly opened It sufficeth us here to remember that no man cometh to the Father but by the Son and that he is the Saviour of his body however he be called also the Saviour of the world § 2. And as in nature it is the principle of life in the seed and womb which is the Generating Cause of formation and augmentation of the soetuâ— And it is the vital powers in Man which maketh his daily nourishment become a living part of himself and causeth his growth So is iâ— the Spirit in the Church that is Gods appointed means to quicken and convert the Infidel world And it is those Christian Countreys which are adjoyning to Mahometans and Heathens that should do most to their conversion who have far easier means than others by proximity and converse to do it and therefore are under the greatest obligations to attempt it As also those remoter Countreys that are most in amity and traffick with them § 3. And as Instruction by evidence must do much so this Vniting Spirit of Love must do a great part of this work and that both as it worketh inwardly on our selves in the Communion of Saints and as it worketh outwardly by attraction and communication to draw in and assimilate others § 4. I. The Churches Vnity of Spirit doth fortifie and fit it for all its own offices in order to the conversion of the world All parts are better qualified for the work by that Wisdom Goodness and Life which they must work by And each member partaketh of the common strength which their Unity causeth An united Army is likest to be victorious Their routing is their flight and overthrow And the Army or Kingdom that is Mutinous or in Civil Wars or not unanimous is unfit to enlarge dominion and conquer
Parish but not out of the Diocese nor separateth from his Diocesan doth not separate from that particular Church as they esteem it Sect. XXV 9. If the Temples and Tythes be given to a Priest or Bishop not lawfully called nor consented to by the Flocks and another be lawfully called whom the Magistrate casteth out of the Temples and Tythes or denyeth them to him it is the Peoples duty to adhere to the Pastor that is justly called And it is not alwayes a duty to adhere to him whom the Magistrate imposeth nor a sin to withdraw from him The Churches met against the Magistrates will above three hundred years Sect. XXVI 10. If a lawfull Bishop or Pastor be set over the Flocks and either Magistrate or Synod unjustly depose him because he refuseth some heresie or sin and set up another in his stead especially one justly suspected of unsoundness the People are not hereby disobliged from their first Pastor nor obliged to the latter But yet if the latter be tolerable the Magistrates Countenance may be so great an advantage to the one and disadvantage to the other especially in case of Persecution as may make it their duty in point of Prudence for the first Pastor and People to consent to the Change And the same is to be said of the abusive deposition by a Synod Sect. XXVII 11. If the Parish Minister be lawfully called and the Pishop not so he that separateth only from the Diocesan and not from that Parish-Church is not guilty of Schism The same I say of separating from an unlawfull Arch-Bishop or Metropolitan Sect. XXVIII 12. If the species of the Office Church-Policie or Form be unlawfull it is a duty to separate from that species On which account we separate from the Papal Church the species of an Universal Church as Headed by one Man without Christs Institution being unlawfull though we separate from no Material part of Christs own universal Church as such and so related And as the Mass Sacrifice seemeth to be of another species than Christs Sacrament so the Mass-Priest seemeth to be a new species of Office and unlawfull The case of Patriarks and other Church-Offices and Forms of mans invention is after to be spoken of Sect. XXIX 8. There is a great deal of difference between the several local separations of men according to their several reasons and mutual separations No meer local separation without the mental is Schism or sin A man can be but in one place at once and is locally separate or absent from all Churches in the World save one Sect. XXX He that separateth from a true Church accusing it to be no true Church caeteris paribus is of the highest degree of Separation except that which is from all or from many And he that separateth as falsly accusing the Doctrine Worship Discipline or Conversation of the Church to be such as that a good Christian may not lawfully hold Communion with them therefore is in the next degree of Schism But he that withdraweth from one Church only for a greater convenience or profit or for purer Doctrine Worship Discipline or Practice in another is guilty either of no Schism if he have just cause or of little if he have not just cause while he no further accuseth the Church Sect. XXXI To separate unwarrantably from a pure and sound Church is a worse Schism caeteris paribus than to separate from an impure unsound maculated and undisciplined Church And to separate from many caeteris paribus is worse than from one Sect. XXXII If the Magistrate cast true Pastors and Churches out of his favour and out of the Temples and Tythes and forbid their Meetings and persecute them unjustly it is schismatical in any to call these men Schismaticks and to deny Communion with them as holding and calling them unlawful Conventicks as long as it is not so To separate from a prohibited Church may be Schism as well as from an allowed one when it is unjust Sect. XXXIII 9. To separate in mind from the Doctrine of Faith or in heart from the Love of Truth Worship or Brethren is dangerous mental Schism in those that ordinarily assemble with them Sect. XXXIV And all dividing Opinions and Doctrines and Practices tending to open Schism are schismatical according to their degree such are false accusing thoughts of the Churches Doctrine the Ministers Preaching the Churches Worship Order or Government or of the persons of the Pastors or the People Sect. XXXV 10. Secret ignorance or unbelief of necessary things is inconsistent with that internal union that maketh the Church Mystical Negatives may be Schism as well as Positives Sect. XXXVI 11. It is also internal Schism when men hate or love not Gods Word and Worship and the Communion of Saints and the Servants of God but love Pleasures Sin Deceivers and Dividers better Sect. XXXVII 12. Censuring reviling slandering defaming Rulers Teachers or People or other Churches of Christ by tongue or writing in Pulpits or in common talk especially by published false Invectives is Schismatical Of which many Controvertists and Disputants are guilty and many that reproach oppressed Churches and Persons are schismatical in calling others Schismaticks and Hereticks Sect. XXXVIII 13. Printing preaching or publishing Heresies or any false dividing doctrines is in its degree schismatical Sect. XXXIX 14. Making ones self uncapable of Communion and doing that which deserveth Excommunication is a rending ones self morally and by merit from the Church Sect. XL. 15. Causeless renouncing Communion with true Churches especially also setting up Anti-churches unwarrantably against them is Schism according to the degrees before described yea to hold Churches in other Countreys uncapable of Communion and unjustly condemn them as Hereticks is Schism Sect. XLI 16. The more men draw with them into Schism the more caeteris paribus it is aggravated And the Leaders and zealous Promoters are most guilty Sect. XLII 17. It is aggravated Schism to oppose Reconcilers or the healing Doctrines and Practices that are the proper means of unity and to reproach vilifie or resist them Sect. XLIII 18. The greatest and commonest Schism is by Dividing Laws and Canons which causelesly silence Ministers scatter Flocks and Decree the unjust Excommunication of Christians and deny Communion to those that yield not to sinfull or unnecessary ill-made terms of Communion And Persecution and Excommunications in the executing of such Laws are Schism in its virulent exercise Sect. XLIV 19. It is therefore schismatical to deny necessary toleration of Dissenters and Liberty for such to worship God in several places who by unavoidable difference of judgement in things tolerable cannot without violence to their Consciences meet in the same place For instance suppose the Parish-Churches have the use of Organs and some cannot be perswaded but it â—s sin As the rest will not be deprived of the Musick â—for their sakes so it is unjust and schismatical that they should be denyed leave to worship God elsewhere without
it So if a Church will cast men from the Sacrament because they dare not sit or stand or kneel and will not allow them otherwise elsewhere to receive it There is no possibility of Concord without tolerating some differing persons and Assemblies Sect. XLV 20. The worst Schism being that which is a separation from the universal Church it followeth that the most schismatical Church-Tyranny is that which unjustly excludeth men from the universal Churches visible Communion for from the spiritual they cannot such are 1. The Anabaptists that undisciple all Infants 2. Those that deny Christendome to such as dare not use or receive the transient Image of the Cross as the engaging dedicating Symbol of Christianity or the Children of such whose Parents dare not so present them nor yet commit the Covenanting for them to men called Godfathers instead of themselves 3. The Seekers that say all the Visible Church is lost 4. But the greatest Schismaticks are the Pope and Papists who unchurch all the Christian World save the Sect or Subjects of the Pope To cut off Christs members from his Body Visible or deny men their place in the universal Church is a far heinouser Schism than to cast them out of or rend them from a particular Church only 5. And the same guilt is on them that by unjust Excommunications pretend to cut men off from the Church universal especially by unjust hereticating whole Parties Countreys or Kingdoms or interdicting whole Kingdoms Gods publick Worship as the Pope hath often done And especially when on such Pretences they excommunicate Kings and raise warres in Kingdoms and embroil the Christian World in blood Sect. XLVI The greatest Causes of Schisms I have opened in the foresaid Scheme and the Preface to my Cathol Theologie viz. I. For Persons 1. A Contentious Clergy 2. Unwise and wicked Rulers 3. The deceived people II. For Qualities 1 Remotely 1. Selfishness and Worldliness in Hypocrites 2. Hasty Judging of things not well understood the common vice of Mankind 3. Slothfulness in Students 2 Neerly 1. Pride or want of Self-acquaintance 2. Ignorance and Error 3. Envy Malice and Bitterness III. The instrumental Engines of Schism are 1. In General Corrupt departing from the Christian Simplicity 2. Particularly 1. From Simplicity of Doctrine by Dogmatists Words and Notions 2. From Simplicity of Practice by superstitious Additions 3. From Simplicity of Discipline by Church-Tyranny and dividing Laws and Impositions Sect. XLVII The mischievous Effects of Schism I have also there named 1. The Corruption of Doctrine by Wranglings 2. The Corruption of Worship by faction partiality and wrath 3. The Corruption of Discipline by Tyranny or Partiality 4. Self-deceit by false Zeal 5. The destruction of Holiness and a heavenly Conversation 6. The Destruction of Love and the life of Wrath and manifold injuries 7. The corrupting and undoing of Civil Rulers by oppression partiality injustice persecution and warres 8. Exposing the innocent to slanders hatred and persecution 9. Hardening the ignorant unbelieving and ungodly to their perdition 10. Hindering the Success of the Gospel 11. Corrupting the Churches weakening them shaming them and strengthening their enemies and drawing down Gods Judgments on them 12. Shaking the Civil peace grieving good Rulers Teachers and People 13. Cherishing all Vice and hindering all men of the comforts and benefits of peaceable Communion with God and one another Whoever are guilty of true Schism or Divisions are guilty of all these consequent mischiefs in a respective degree CHAP. II. The true Preventions and Remedies of Schism Sect. I. TO tell men what should be done for Unity and Peace and for Salvation is far easier than to bring men to the Practice of it And as it is hard to prevail even with one man for all the Requisites hereto so if most of the Christian World were so happy as to be thus qualified yet as one diseased part doth trouble and endanger the whole body so the rest of the world by their badness would keep up common disquietments and troubles so that it is no more a perfect Concord than perfect Knowledge and Holiness which we can hope for in this World Sect. II. 1. It is presupposed that Christ the great Peace-maker hath done much and most to this work already He hath reconciled us to God he hath made himself the Center of our Unity He hath given us sound Doctrine to lead us out of dividing Darkness He hath made us such just and holy Laws as all tend to Unity Love and Peace He hath left us his own perfect and imitable example He hath prescribed the just terms of our Unity and Peace He hath made Love and Meekness and forbearing and forgiving and all healing Principles and Practices the Conditions of his Promises and the great Duties and Marks of his Disciples He hath disgraced and strictly forbidden all dividing qualities and actions all uncharitableness censuring wrath malice envy backbiting evil-speaking discord contention revenge c. He hath threatned to shut out the guilty from his Kingdom He hath instituted Church-discipline to shut them out of his Church till they repent He poured out the Spirit of Love and Concord miraculously at first on his Disciples making them of one heart and mind even to a voluntary Community of their goods He prayed that they all might be One in him He hath appointed his Ministers to preach up Love Concord and Peace throughout the world He hath instituted particular Churches for the exercise of Love Concord and holy Communion He giveth to all true Christians the Spirit of Love and Peace and every one hath so much of these as a new Nature as they have of his Spirit and saving Grace All this and more hath Christ done himself for his Peoples Unity Love and Peace Sect. III. 2. Under Christ the chief Instruments of Concord must be the faithful Ministers of Christ whose duty hereto I have before described Particularly 1. They must be men of more eminent knowledge and gifts than the higher sort of the Flock or else if the People once perceive that they are equal to them they will despise them and turn Preachers and set up for themselves 2. And then such Ministers being not able to deal with Sectaries and Hereticks will betray the Cause of God and the adversaries will carry away the Hearers And it will be easie to bring such persons into Contempt and then the Truth will suffer with them God fitteth men to do the work that he will bless them in Not that every Congregation must needs have such an eminent man for a great Light will shine to other Parishes and an able man in one Parish may be ready to help the next and to confute Gainsayers and may keep up the Credit of the Ministry But it is such that must preserve the Unity and Concord of Believers and preserve the Church from Schism Sect. IV. 2. And if Ministers do not also live in holiness justice charity free from fleshly lusts
THE TRUE AND ONLY WAY OF CONCORD Of all the Christian Churches The desirableness of it and the detection of false dividing Terms Opened by RICHARD BAXTER LONDON Printed for John Hancock at the Three Bibles in Popes-head-alley over against the Royal Exchange in Cornhil 1680. Act. 15. 28. It seemed good to the Holy Ghost and to us to lay upon you no greater burden than these necessary things Rom. 14. 17 18. The Kingdome of God is not meat and drink but righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Ghost for he that in these things serveth Christ is acceptable to God and approved of men 2 Tim. 4. 1 2. I charge thee before God and the Lord Jesus Christ who shall judge the quick and the dead at his appearing and his Kingdome Preach the word be instant in season and out of season Act. 4. 19. Whether it be right in the sight of God to hearken to you more than unto God judge ye 1 Thes 2. 15 16. They please not God and are contrary to all men forbidding us to speak to the Gentiles that they might be saved to fill up their sin alway for the wrath is come upon them to the uttermost Mr. Jones of the 〈…〉 Soveraign p. 344. Id fit quod jure fit 〈…〉 but great Lords of Nullities by the exemption of the Will and soul from and the frown of Heaven upon all bruitish injustice and force Read him also p. 23. THE PREFACE To the Honourable and Reverend Dr. George Morley late Lord Bishop of Worcester and now of Winchester and Dr. Peter Gunning Lord Bishop of Ely IT is now about eighteen years since you and many others were appointed by his Majesties commission with divers of us who desired some Reformation of the Church Discipline and worship to consider what Alterations of the Liturgy were necessary and expedient for the satisfaction of tender consciences and the restoring and continuance of peace and Vnity to the Churches under his Majesties protection and government His Majesties Gracious Declaration about Ecclesiastical Affairs had before shewed so much of his Wisdome and care to attain this Unity as we thought had almost done the cure the differences about Church Government and most of the rest being thereby as we hoped fairly ended As with the help of the Reverend Dr. Sparrow now Bishop of Norwich and Dr. Pierson now Bishop of Chester you maintained that no Alteration was necessary to these ends so I with others endeavoured to prove the contrary But since the said Declaration being dead such Alterations were made as greatly increased our Impossibility of Conforming we never treated with you for Presbyterian Government or Independent but for Vnity and peace Nor did we herein offer you any worse than Arch-bishop Vshers Form of the Primitive Episcopal Government which I had declared my judgement of before in print And I never heard of the name of Episcopal Presbyterians or Presbyterian Archbishops till of late And we thankfully accepted much less than that Form as granted in his Majesties foresaid Declaration As I doubt not but you still think that your way was best for the healing of the Church and Land so I know that I have greatly incurred both your displeasures for what I have said and done against your way One of you shewed it in a Printed Letter long ago which when I had answered I cast that aside for Peace believing that the opening of so many mistakes in matter of fact would not be easily born The other of you since told me that he would Petition authority that we might be compelled to give our Reasons as if we kept up a Schism and would not tell why I rejoiced at the motion and offered to beg leave on my knees to do it Since then your Mr. Walton in his Life of Bishop Sanderson hath called me by name to remember our debate aforesaid I know not of any two men living that I am now more obliged to give an account to of my continued dissent than unto you My judgement is not in my own power nor in yours Many are dead who were in that consultation You and I by Gods great mercy are yet alive and may review our actions before we come to the Bar of God which is like to be speedily to me and to you it cannot be far off especially to the elder of you so that I suppose that all three of us are really beyond the motives of any personal worldly interest what is this world to us who are taking our farewel of it for ever All the doubt then remaining is whether your terms or those desired by us are the true way of Love and Concord and which are the true causes of Schisms and the attendant evils I doubt not but you still think that the good which you have done doth far weigh down all the direct and accidental hurt What that Good is you know better than I Dr. Heylin in the Life of Arch-Bishop Laud tells us what some accounted then most desirable And how much more desirable it is to open the Church doors so wide as that moderate Loyal Romanists may come in as they did in Queen Elizabeths first years and to reconcile them by nearer approaches or concessions rather than to go further from them to unite with a few inconsiderable Puritans whose principles are against the Power and Wealth of the Church we have often heard from others As also that the ejection of the near two thousand non-conforming Ministers was the Churches deliverance from them that would have done more hurt within than they can do without The converted Priest Mr. Smith in his Narrative of the Popish Plot dedicated to the King nameth more reasons which I will not name which some were moved by For my part as with fear I foresaw so with grief I see so many hundred Ministers under the restraints and penalties which you know of of whom I have better thoughts than you have believing from my heart by the acquaintance which I have had with very many that notwithstanding the faulty former actions of some few of them and the unjustifiable scruples of others you cannot name that Nation under heaven out of our Kings Dominions which hath this day so many Ministers more sound in doctrine heart and life and liker to further mens salvation than those that in England have been silenced and cast out Name that countrey if you can And I believe that Christ hath given us no supernumeraries of such useful men but if all faithful Ministers Conformists and Non-conformists were employed and encouraged they would be still too few to do the work upon the ignorant ungodly and vicious which is to be done And considering how many souls a faithful Minister may hope to edifie and save I consider then how many thousands are like to be losers where such are lost and wanting It grieveth my soul to see what advantage Satan hath got in England against that Christian Love which is the
life and character of Christs disciples and to cause wrath envy hatred and strife when God saith He that hateth his brother is a murderer and no murderer hath eternal life in him 1 Joh. 3. 15. It grieveth me to see preachers against preachers and Churches against Churches and in Press and Pulpit Learning and Oratory imployed to render brethren odious and keep up a heart war against each other and all this O fearful as in the name of Christ and as for the safety of the Church and Kingdome To see families against families and father against son and as Guelphes and Gibelines Cities and Countreys in their ordinary discourses at the least accusing contemning and reproaching one another It grieveth me to think how much first the honour and then the success of the Ministry on both sides is hereby hindered and what temptations some have to further injuries which I am loth to name And how by all this the wicked and Infidels are hardened the weak are scandalized the Papists are encouraged to despise us all and many turn to them scandalized by our discord sects are advantaged the Church and Kingdome by divisions weakened and the King denyed the comfort which he might have in a loving united and concordant people I believe that you dislike all this as well as I All the question hath been and still is which is the true way of Cure And one would think that 1. the nature of the thing and 2. the experience of all the Christian world 3. and our own new experience these seventeen or eighteen years might resolve men of lower parts than ours Is there no better way to the Churches concord than that which must cast out either such men as you or I and that so many Can a wise Physicion a true Peace-maker find out no remedy which may better avoid the foresaid evils O what a loss had England in the removal of such healing men as Bishop Vsher Hall Davenant Brownrig c. Far was I and am I from liking any former injury to such men by Covenant or abuse But it hath been ever the just misery of the persecutors of worthy men to have the stone fly back on their own heads and to be themselves undone by striving to undo others while they first make and then stir up a multitude of enemies for their own defence who else would be friends and live in peace I am fully perswaded that in this book I have told you a righter way of Christian Church concord more divine sure harmless and comprehensive fitted by Christ himself to the interest of all good men yea of the Church and all the world I offer it first to you that you and posterity may see what it was that I desired and that if I here err you will faithfully detect my errour that I may repent before I die and may leave behind me the recantation of this and all my other mistakes and miscarriages as I intend to do upon just conviction But do it quickly or else I am not like to see it And I purpose not to provoke you by any confutation but to improve your evidence for my self And to answer the earnest demand of our Reasons by you the Lord Bishop of Eli I have also published an Historical Narrative of our case and judgement in another Book called The Non-conformists Plea for Peace If much contrary to my expectation you should be convinced that These Terms of Vnity and Concord are righter than those which you above all men that I know have effectually helpt to bring us under I humbly crave that you will use as much earnestness and diligence to procure the Churches concord by promoting them as you did for that which you then thought righter I have here opened those reasons which made me believe that the fourteenth and fifteenth Chapter to the Romans decideth our controversie and is to be understood as I then maintained If it prove the necessary Truth which is here offered you I beseech you see that prejudice resist it not It would be a happy work could we procure the reviving of Christian Love Unity and Concord that all Christs servants might strive together for the hallowing of Gods name the promoting of his Kingdome and the doing of his will with Love and Concord as it is done in Heaven And when instead of worldly wealth and grandure we are contented with our daily bread and instead of cruelty to the innocent or weak we bewail our own sins and forbear and forgive one another and instead of tempting men to the evil of wrath and making battering Cannons and tearing engines of Schism we cease to be over-wise in our own conceits and to judge despise and ruine others then we shall be in a hopeful way to this we shall then receive him that is weak even in the faith much more about our lesser matters even as Christ received us and not to doubtful disputations and he that pleaseth God by that in which his Kingdome doth consist will be also approved by us and we shall better learn what that meaneth I will have mercy and not sacrifice and that none of our Church power is given for destruction but for edification and so we shall not condemn the guiltless nor smite the Shepherds and scatter the flocks and then hunt them about as Schismaticks and see the mote of dissent from a formality ceremony or word in their eye while we see not this great beam in our own How joyfully should we die might we leave behind us by our endeavours a healed Church and Nation and see first this desired unity which would be the strength ease and joy of Ministers and people King and Subjects and a hopeful pattern to the divided Churches abroad to imitate If you will not contribute your help hereto those will who shall have the honour and comfort of being the blessed instruments of our concord if God have so much mercy for us I once more repeat to you the pacificators old despised words Si in Necessariis sit Vnitas in non-necessariis Libertas In utrisque Charitas optimo certe loco essent res nostrae Pardon this freedome and accept this Account of the reasons of all his former and later dissent from your judgement words and way to Nov. 15. 1679. Your unfeigned well-willer RICHARD BAXTER A Premonition Reader UPon the review of this book I find some things which may be to some an occasion of offence if this premonition prevent it not I. Some may think when I say Diocesan Prelacy Arch-Bishops and Patriarchs are not to be made necessary to Universal or subordinate Church Concord as being uncapable terms or means thereof that I speak against the Lawfulness of all Episcopacy when I speak but against such necessity of that sort Know therefore 1. that I meddle not with the question Whether every particular Church of Pastor and people associate for personal Church Communion such as Ignatius describeth should have a Bishop with