hardning nature and that long neglect of duty will dissolve the sense of obligation and we cannot but fear that if we be now neglected by you it may come to pass that our hearts may bee so hardned that if God should afterward raise up some Hezekiah who should call and invite us or ours to ingage our selves unto the Lord in these sacred Ordinances either we or ours should answer such gracious invitations after the same manner as the most of Israel did the summons of that holy King with scorn and contempt 2 Chron. 30. 20 O let this our imminent danger be weighed in your most advised thoughts you see how many have already turned their backs on Christ and all his Ordinances and are wholly gone after Satan and how industrious they are to draw others after them and then think what dangerous temptations you put us the weaker sort upon to revolt unto the enemy whilst you refuse to entertain us in the Camp of Christ Minde seriously we beseech you that great account that you must give to your and our Master the Lord Jesus Christ of your faithfulness in all your administrations in order to the souls of men and consider what answer you will make to him if you sleight or neglect so great a part of the purchase of his blood or what excuse you will finde when he shall arise to plead with you Did not I come from heaven and give my dearest life for the redemption of these poor souls Did not I with great endeavours even with the expence of the blood of many my holy Martyrs bring them under solemn bonds and ingagements to my self And when I saw them neglected by their former guides did not I by wondrous providences rescue them and deliver them over into your hands that you should feed and teach them And is this your faithfulness to me and mine to withhold the precious food that I provided for them to leave them to wander in the wilderness as sheep without a Shepherd yea to let loose many ravenous Wolves upon them to devour them and for an excuse of this your sloathfulness and treachery to deface my marks and badges which you found upon them that so you might plead they were none of mine Seemeth it a small thing to you O Rams and Hee-goats Ezek. 34 21. you fattest of the flock that you have taken the best of the pasture for your selves but that you have thrust with the shoulder and the side and pusht with the horns the weak and diseased of my flock till you have scattered them abroad O consider what answer you will make to the Lord Jesus when he shall arise and plead with you on our behalf and how sad your case will be if the blood of so many thousand souls perishing through your neglect and carelesness shall plead against you in the day of wrath We have indeed deserved from the Lord Jesus Christ by our unfruitfulness and many other sad miscarriages to be by him totally rejected and that his Gospel-sight should be wholly taken from us But what have we done to you that you should deal so hardly with us that you should be the instruments to bring this dreadful night of darkness on us Or that you should not rather endeavour our emendation and salvation What evil have you observed in us from which your joynt endeavours might not hope to rescue us Are wee blinde and ignorant Yet surely not so uncapable of instruction but that your joynt endeavours might even inforce the most ignorant of us to learn the fundamentals of Religion and so much as being practised would save our souls Are we wrapt and intangled in sinful lusts Surely your earnest and joynt endeavours might by the blessing of the Lord break these cords of sin and bring us by an holy violence to the obedience of the Lord Jesus Christ we cannot but think that noble King Josiah had as ignorant and stubborn a people to deal withall as you and yet he not alone ingaged them to the Lord in that his solemn Passeover but made them serve the Lord all 2 Chron 34. 33 his dayes We know the donation of life supernatural lieth not in your power but it lieth in your power to acquaint us with the waies of life to cause us to attend upon the means of grace to restrain us from the outward acts of sin yea to set and keep us in such waies of worship and obedience unto Christ as that you might comfortably hope by Gods blessing on your Christian endeavours to behold us as the Crown of your labour at the great day Now consider we beseech you in your serious thoughts whether a general reformation of the body of the people of this Nation a re-ingaging them in Covenant and keeping them at the least in an external obedience unto Christ will not be more for the honour of him to whom the Nations are promised for an inheritance more agrecable to your own former Vowes and Covenants and a more likely way to make you a blessing to the people and them to you than to leave the main bulk of the people to be overgrown with thorns and briars to degenerate into an howling wilderness whilst all your care is laid out upon the culture of some few small inclosures What comfort can it be to you O Magistrates to have the bonds between Christ Jesus and this Nation continued through the revolutions of so many hundred years dissolved in your dayes Or to you O Ministers to have the foundations of Religion which you found laid in the hearts of the generality of the people of this Nation quite demolished under your administrations Or to you that call your selves the godly party to have the Christian Religion which formerly did over-spread the whole surface of this Nation now abridged to your few separate Congregations Or what heart that is not altogether stupid can behold the great endeavours and high professions for Religion found in the beginning of these times and in a sad revolt of so great a part of the Nation back again to heathenism or the like abominations and not bewail it with a flood of tears We have thus spread our mournful case before you hoping that the God of all grace and mercy in whose hand are the hearts and wayes of all the sons of men will incline your hearts to pity our sad condition and more compassionately to apply your selves unto our help for which purpose we now make our humble addresses unto him who gave his pretious blood a ransome for us O Glorious Prince and Saviour Jesus Christ the faithful and merciful high Priest of our Profession who didst for our sakes suffer and wert tempted that thou mightest be touched with the feeling of our infirmities and know experimentally to pity us in our temptations have mercy upon us have mercy upon us O blessed Saviour and grant that these our mournful complaints and supplications may pierce the ears and hearts of thy Vicegerents and Ambassadors with all the more eminent of thy pretious servants amongst us that our eternal welfare may be more cordially regarded by them that they may more faithfully and diligently lay out themselves and al their abilities for the salvation of those souls whom thou hast bought with thy pretious blood Let our Magistrates inherit the zeal of Hezekiah Josiah and other famous nursing Fathers of thy Church of old Let our Ministers as thy dear Apostle Paul be willing to spend and be spent for our salvation Let the impressions of thy tender mercies be upon all the more knowing of thy servants that they may compassionately imploy all their abilities for our emendation and salvation O thou that wept over thy Jerusalem when they would not own thee Let us who though unworthy are called by thy Name and have taken hold of thy Covenant taste of thy tender compassions Look down from heaven the habitation of thine holiness Where is thy zeal and thy strength and the sounding of thy bowels towards us Doubtless thou art our Redeemer though our Fathers be ignorant of us and our Elders will not own us thou art our Redeemer and thy name from everlasting O do not suffer us to erre from thy wayes do not harden our hearts from thy fear Wee cannot expect the like compassions from sinful man as from thee O blessed Immanuel who felt the pains of our redemption not Paul but thou O Christ wert crucified for us we cannot repose in any other arms but thine who carriest the feeble lambs in the bosome of thy love Though the Priest and Levite pass by on the other side yet thou the good Samaritan have compassion on us and poure thine oyl and wine into our wounds and the more we are neglected by men the more forcible and alluring let the cords of thy love be to us though the hearts of men melt not over our misery yet let thy bowels of compassion yern upon us and let us not lose our hold of thy Covenant but still be refreshed with thy protection and rejoyce under the shadow of all thine Ordinances Look down from heaven and behold this Vineyard and the Vine which thy right hand hath planted in this Nation make up the hedge of thy providence about it and let not the Boar of the Forrest continue to waste it or the wilde beast of the field to devour it Return O Lord and let it repent thee concerning thy servants and let not the evil that is already come upon us appear little before thee Heal thou the dreadful breaches and distractions which the cruel enemy hath caused amongst us repair the ruined walls of thy Jerusalem Grant the spirit of unity and charity to thy people of this Nation that thy family here may be truly a family of love and on their doors engraven Here is no strife for we are brethren O Lord hear O Lord forgive and heal our desolations remember not against us former iniquities let thy tender mercies speedily prevent us wee are brought very low Help us O God of our salvation for the glory of thy name deliver us and purge away our sins for thy names sake So we thy people and sheep of thy pasture shall give thee thanks for ever and teach our children to celebrate thy praise to all Generations FINIS
those that do oppose you upon this account that our children are holy being the off-spring of beleevers and yet when we would come to presâ—nt our selves to the Lord in the other Sacrament you refuâ—e and stave us off as unholy and unbeleevers In all acts of civil converse where the greatest danger of contagion from polluted persons is and which the 1 Cor. 5. 1â— Scripture most expresly forbideth with scandalous Christians you neither warn others nor do you your selves decline communion with us you eat and drink with us at your own ours and other mens tables and that without scruple so far as we perceive and yet when we would upon the command of Christ come and present our selves with you at our Masters Table you seem to fear contagion from us and alledge against us that of the Apostle With such a one no not to eat How your greater wisdome will accord these things we know not but to us the more ignorant they appear little less than contradictions and leave us in a strange amazement considering what thoughts you have of us or would have us to have of our selves whilst in some things you so sweetly own us as brethren and good Christians in others so strangely cast us off as Dogs or Swine Wee cannot think you have entertained the Popish doctrin of a real or corporal presence of Christ in this Ordinance more than in the rest and yet we cannot but wonder in what School you have learned to make this difference between Christs Ordinances that all the residue should be laid in common and onely the Communion table railed in Wee indeed hear this often alleadged that other Ordinances are converting this only confirming other Ordinances are instrumental to beget souls to Christ this only to nourish those that are begotten Now though it appeareth to us very hard to affirm that that Ordinance wherein there is a tender of Christ the principle of life unto the soul may not be a means of conveighing life even the first motions of life supernatural to the soul yet were this distinction used onely to difference the Sacrament from the preaching of the word we could more easily apprehend it but when wee finde it likewise used to distinguish it from Prayer and other the like Ordinances it quite surpasseth our shallow understanding to conceive the reason of it considering wee finde by the holy Scriptures 1 Tim. 2. 8 Jam. 1. 6 Rom. 10. 17 that repentance and faith are necessarily required in order to Prayer as well as to the Sacrament and experience assures us that a child must be born before it cryeth as well as live before it eateth But what ever difference your wisdome can finde out between this and other Ordinances sure we are that by this means it is come to passe that your censures if those your suspensions bee accounted such are made in great part frustrate and invalid in order to those ends for which our Lord Christ hath appointed censures in his Church as having little or no power to shame and consequently reclaim the offender or to preserve the sounder part from contagion for how is any man like to bee made ashamed who injoyeth full communion with the best excepting in one Ordinance and hath so many and some so honourable companions with him in the want of that or how is the sounder part like to be preserved whilst they converse familiarly with contagious persons excepting in one Ordinance and that one wherein of all others there used to be the least evaporation of corruption If these things yet move you not let us intreat you to behold the countenances of your poor people and if you find us more fair and fat in flesh since this restraint of yours than when we did eat our portion of the Kings meat then you may still detain it from us but if you see apparently that we are grown leaner and more feeble yea have more grievous and noysome spots and biles arising upon us then have pity on us and restore unto us the portion of food detained from us yea have pity on your selves and think what answer you will make unto the King when he shall please to look upon us O consider we beseech you the sad case of your poor people and instead of these unprofitable and as wee conceive unscriptural suspensions make more forcible applications to us teaching exhorting and admonishing with all earnestness not alone publikely but from house to house according to that noble pattern of St. Paul make Act. 20. 20 known to us the true nature of this Ordinance and how strong an obligation it layeth upon us of obedience to Christ whose servants we there profess our selves and then with holy Hezekiah call us to ingage our selves to the Lord in this sacred Ordinance and prove whether this will not be more effectual to recover us from sin and save our souls than these your suspensions have been And if you finde amongst our number some whose ignorance is so gross or scandal so notorious that you dare not but lay us under censures yet let those censures be inflicted in the way prescribed by the Lord Jesus Christ and let all your further proceedings with us bee according to the Rules of holy Scripture that both you and wee may expect his blessing in all your dealings with us Let those more private and publick admonitions injoyned Matth. 18. 15. by our Saviour go before your censures and prove whether he will not bless these to our emendation if after all such Christian applications made to us we go on boldly and contumaciously in sin wee then plead nothing for our selves if you censure us more deeply than a bare suspension from the Sacrament amounteth unto but till this be done and we found obstinate do not deprive us of the food by our Lord provided for us nor us of that precious opportunity of ingaging our souls more firmly unto him Make some difference wee beseech you between us though many wayes faulty and those that are desperate contemners of God and all Religion remembring that there are wandring sheep as well as dogs and swine carnal Christians and brethren walking disorderly as well as sons of Belial mentioned in Scripture that there were Numb 15. 30. many in the Church of Israel that did sin through weakness and ignorance besides those daring presumptuous sinners from whom the Lord would have no sacrifice Now if you acknowledge such a difference consider whether it be not more agreeable to the tender mercies of the Lord Jesus Christ to receive such weaklings in the faith as we amongst the better sort by whose godly counsels and example we may be edified than to leave us amongst the desperate contemners of God and all Religion by their cursed counsels and examples to be eternally ruined and destroyed O lay to heart the dreadful charge of God against his Pastors of old the diseased you have not strengthened neither have you healed
that which was sick you have Ezâ—k 34. 44. not bound up that which was broken neither have you brought back that which was driven away or sought up that which was lost O remember that you are Officers under him who hath professed hee will not break the bruised reed nor quench the smoaking Flax and who despiseth not the day of small things O! let your compassions imitate the mercies of him whose name you bear and say you concerning Isa 65. 8. our numerous cluster though it be not pleasing to the eye destroy it not there is a blessing in it O you the more eminent professors of Religion you have by the advantage of more excellent natural endowments better education greater diligence or more abundant grace from above far surpassed us in knowledge and understanding in spiritual things you have made a more glorious profession of Religion and have clean escaped some of those pollutions in which we are yet miserably intangled you as Schollers of the highest form are inabled to afford much help to us who are of the lowest in the School of Christ and divine providence hath so dispersed you amongst us in your habitations and caused such mutual intercourse of worldly businesse that you have much advantage to discover our infirmities and afford a seasonable supply of help and support unto us And blessed bee God amongst your number wee have found some humble charitable and truly self-denying Christians who have cheerfully laid out themselves and their several abilities for our good and comfort for whose faithfulness in order to our souls wee are bound always to be thankful and although sometimes through the prevalency of our corruptions wee too much slight their gracious counsel and advice yet when our spirits are more serious wee remember feelingly their godly admonitions and esteem them the most faithful of our friends But against many of you our mournful condition sadly complaineth that you have shut up the bowels of your compassions from us that you look aloofe upon us and proclaim us blind and miserable but do not strongly apply your selves unto our help you see us in imminent danger to fall into the pit but take little care to keep us out you see us worryed and much overpowered by our lusts but hasten not to our assistance you see us chilled with cold and you rub us not many of you think it enough to slip away and shut up your selves in some separate Congregations leaving us in danger to perish in our coldnesse or bee devoured by the cruel Enemy Yea though you proclaim us blind and ignorant yet you cease not to cast many fearful stumbling blocks before us whilst wee are inforced to see and hear from some of you scornful censuring and condemning others greedy panting and grasping at the riches honours and preferments of this world fraudulent circumventing and overreaching others cruel revenges upon those you judge your enemies bitter quarrelling and contending one against another And notwithstanding those miscarriages which might justly cause you with us to lye in the dust joyntly bewailing our dreadful transgressions yet wee finde you lifted up boasting of the glorious Times proudly appropriating to your selves the honourable names of Christians Saints the godly party not remembring the sentence of our Saviour in the case of the Pharisce and Publican Luk 18. 13 or what hee sometimes said to men whose profession was as high as yours when hee saw them lofty Maâ— 21. 31. Publicans and Harlots shall go before you into the Kingdome of God That you seem to us to measure the Saintship of your selves or others rather by some private opinions or some small punctilioes of worship then by the great things of Faith righteousnesse and mercy because we find some men whose profession of the Lord Jesus Christ is attended with righteousnesse and mercy yet accounts us no better than civil by diverse of you whilst others are cried up for Saints and godly who are much deficient in these That you animate and incourage yea in some measure necessitate and inforce our Ministers to their more harsh and uncharitable dealing with us it is usually from you rather than themselves that our children are not baptized nor our selves admitted to the other Sacrament whilst they are loath to loose or anger you and if any of them hath more courage in the case of Christ or more bowels of compassion towards us you presently brand and asperse them with your tongues yea often make schismes and separations from them That you carry all things towards us in a lofty magisteriall way not as Schollers of the higher form which wee could willinging admit but as Lords and Masters over us though you live in vicinity to us we seldome hear any words of wholesom counsel or instruction from you unlesse you get into our Pulpits neither can we enjoy any communion with you in our Churches unlesse all the power may be in your hands to admit exclude rule and order all things at your pleasure having forgotten as wee think that seasonable counsel of St. James My Brethren Jam. 3. â— be not many Masters Those powers and priviledges which you challenge as belonging to the Church of Christ you share in a manner wholly to your selves not affording to us any portion in them you say it is in the peoples power to chuse or reject their Ministers yet make no scruple to obtrude them upon us you say a Christian ought not to bee rejected or dealt with as an heathen till hee bee found contumacious after several admonitions yet observe no such rules in order unto us as if your very opinion of your selves were sufficient to make you the onely Christians and to intitle you to all the honours or liberties by Christ conferred and your ill opinion of us were sufficient to degrade us and seclude us from the meanest priviledge belonging to the Church of Christ That you indeavour to bring upon us and our posterity the saddest judgement that can befal a nation namely to unchurch and unchristian us and as you for the present seem to account us as Heathens or little better so your practice tendeth if infinite mercy prevent not to make us such indeed whilst you indeavour to take from us and our posterity all the marks and badges of our Christian profession and so what lyeth in you wholly to casheire us from the Camp of Christ as if you grudged to see the promises made by the Father unto Christ of causing Nations to bee gathered to him performed in this little Corner of the world Consider wee beseech you the infinite mercyes and long-suffering of that God whom you profess how exceeding flow and loath hee is to cast off those which are once entred into Covenant with him what heart breaking expressions hee hath concerning Ephraim and Judah in the height of their apostacy and rebellion and how exceeding Hos 11. 8 Jer. 3. 15 backward he was to give a bill of