this precept of St. Paul by giving scandal to the Church of God and to Superiors Civil and Sacred as by omission of them you must do The wisdom which is from above is impartial Yea do not many of you submit unto them when you find it necessary to avoid Civil and Church censures and to serve the interests of your party and shall these low concerns prevail more with you than the Churches Peace the procuring all those blessings which would ensue upon our unity and the prevention of those mischiefs which follow upon our divisions Pudet haec opprobria vobis c. § 9 Thirdly Consider that the Apostle to quell the Schisms and Disorders committed in the Church of Corinth informs them That God is not the God of confusion but of Peace as in all Churches of the Saints 1 Cor. 14.33 Now it is fully proved here and by others who have laboured to convince you of the mischief of your Separation 1. That upon the same principles by which you do excuse your Separation from us and your erecting opposite Communions you consequentially do excuse many of the Antient Schismaticks condemned by the Church you give to others an Apology not Answerable by you to separate from your selves And lastly you condemn the practice of the first and purest Ages of the Church and must have separated from Communion with her in what Age following the Apostles soever you had lived and so have made disturbance throughout all Churches of the world and therefore you may rest assured you do not act agreeably to the good pleasure of that God 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 who is the God not of disturbance but of Peace And we may speak unto you in the language of Theophylact In locum 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 be you ashamed to contradict the customs of all Churches § 10 Fourthly 1 Cor. 7.12 15. Consider that the same Apostle forbids the believing Brother to separate from his Heathen Wife and the believing Wife to desert her unbelieving Husband for this very reason That God had called us to peace and yet he elsewhere shews how inconvenient it was to be thus yoked to unbelievers 2 Cor. 6.14 If then our being called to Peace will warrant and even sanctifie our yielding to so great an inconvenience and render it our duty to make no separation in our Families on those accounts will it not hallow our submission to some things inconvenient in the Church and render it our duty to make no separation from it on the account of such things § 11 Fifthly Consider that if all things indifferent be left so by your Governours the Minister who officiates must and therefore may impose upon you in many things relating to Gods Publick Worship for as I have already shewed he must chuse some place and time in which he will officiate he must do it in some habit he must chuse some Chapters to read some Psalms to sing some kind of Bread and Wine to Consecrate with many other things of a like nature and if they may do this why not the Magistrate If your Ministers may as Governours impose these things upon you why not the Bishops as their Governours upon them why not the Magistrate as the Supreme Ecclesiastick Governour upon both The seal of Government is finally resolved on them who have the power of imposing so that to deny the Ministers this power over the people or the Bishops over the Ministers is to make neither the one nor the other properly Governours § 12 Sixthly That God who hath established the Office Ministerial and Magistratical must have consigned that power to them which is sufficient to acquire all the ends for which it was designed these ends are among others the Peace the Union the Order the Edification of the body or society of Christians subject to them God therefore must have given to these Officers sufficient power for the acquiring of these ends as far as they are needful for the Church of God but without a power of silencing disputes when they arise and do disturb the Church and making Rules for Uniformity and Order when differences do arise and divisions multiply and confusion is introduced by variety of practice in indifferent matters it is apparent they cannot obtain these ends in Church or State and therefore 't is not to be doubted but God hath given them a power of making and imposing of such Rules in the forementioned cases to those ends Seventhly Consider that since it is for ever necessary that things should be done decently and in order and to edification and what is decent orderly and tending to edification will be ever subject to variety and to a relative uncertainty seeing that may be so in some place age and circumstances which may in others cease to be so 't is necessary that there should be perpetual judges of these things and they can be no other but the Rulers of the Church they therefore must have power to judge and to determine in those cases Eighthly Consider that it cannot reasonably be imagined that the God of Love and Peace who questionless delights to see men converse peaceably together Eph. 4.3 Rom. 14.19.12.18 and with one heart and mouth to glorifie him and who so strictly doth command us to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of Peace to pursue the things which make for Peace and do as much as in us lyes in order to it should disapprove of what is so expedient and visibly conducing to this end if not expresly or by plain and immediate consequence forbidden by him or should approve of Separation and division upon trivial accounts Now how can we be said to do as much as in us lies in order to that end if we will not comply in order to the Churches Peace with constitutions of Superiors which are not evidently repugnant to his Law or to the dictates of our natural reason § 13 Ninthly Consider what is like to be the natural result of your refusal of Communion with us even no less than Excommunication which though perhaps the fault committed may not in it self deserve yet can I see no reason 1. Why you should not dread the Sentence seeing Pastoris sententia etiam injusta timenda est even the injust Sentence of Superiors may be dreaded when it doth actually deprive us of Church Priviledges and therefore we stand bound to do what lawfully we can even all that is not evidently sinful to avoid it 2. Nor can I see even why the Sentence may not be valid before God though not by reason of the moment of the things themselves yet for that disobedience to lawful Governours and violation of the Peace which is contained in our refusal to submit unto them I confess there is an opinion much received in the world that makes the censures of the Church only declarative which will excuse you from these fears for if the confirmation of these censures by
used by the Church from the 3d. Century at least unto this present Age. And thence to shew that our Dissenters do by condemning these things in the Church of England in effect condemn the Church of Christ throughout all Ages and all Places Def. of the principles of love p. 55. for as Mr. Baxter well observes they who condemn our Church for reasons common to all the Ages of the Church must virtually condemn all the fore-going Ages of the Churches But because Laymen are ignorant of what was practised by Antiquity and have been taught that Anti-christ began to work in the Apostles days and therefore have but little Reverence for Arguments of this Nature I shall endeavour to convince them of the lawfulness of holding Communion with us in these Ordinances by the Example of our Blessed Lord and Saviour who in like cases did yield Obedience and Submit to the Prescriptions of the Rulers of the Jewish Church And 2ly I shall endeavour to return a full and a perspicuous Answer to all the Arguments they urge from Scripture or from Reason to prove that 't is unlawful to submit unto the things required by the Church of England in order to Communion with her Beginning first with those Arguments which do suppose the things required by the Church of England as the Conditions of Lay Communion to be sinful in themselves or things forbidden by the Word of God And 2ly Proceeding to the Consideration of those Arguments which do allow the things imposed to be lawful in themselves but yet suppose it is unlawful for them to submit unto them 1. Because the Imposition of them is a Violation of their Christian Liberty 2ly Because by their Submission to them as they imagine they shall be indirectly guilty of the sin of the Imposers 3ly Because they have been abused to Idolatry and Superstition and therefore are become unlawful to be used And 4ly Because by using of them they may scandalize the Weak which God having forbidden no Precept of the Magistrate can oblige them to do § 2 And 1. The Practice and Example of our Lord is such a President as our Dissentors cannot reasonably except against nor can they justify their own Refusal to be Followers of Christ or to submit unto such Constitutions made by the Rulers of the Church of Christ as our Dear Lord submitted to being appointed by the Rulers of the Jewish Church or to hold Communion with such a Church as he became a Member of Now 1. Our Blessed Saviour was a Member of the Jewish National Church and of the Synagogue at Nazareth the Confirmation of this Assertion I shall deliver in the Words of Doctor Leightfoot who speaks thus Harm part 3. p. 124. What did Christ all the while he liv'd at Nazareth a private Man Did he never go to the Synagogue upon Sabbath and Holy Days and Synagogue-days Whilst others went to the Congregation and to the publick Service did he stay at home did he not appear before the Lord at the appointed Seasons in the place which he had chosen We are assured he did so for his Parents went to Jerusalem every year at the Feast of the Passover and when he was twelve years old they went up to Jerusalem after the Custom of the Feast and the Child went with them 2. Luke 41 42 43. That he went up unto the Feast of Tabernacles we are informed Joh. 7 10. And being circumcised he became a Debtor to do the whole Law Gal. 5 3. being made under the Law Gal. 4.4 he was obliged to the Performance of those things which were enjoyned by it Now the great Business of these Feasts was to offer Sacrifice to rejoyce in the Assembly of Gods People to put up Prayers and Praises for all the Blessings they did then commemorate at these times all Israel met together Lam. 2 22. they heard the Reading of the Law Deut. 31 9 10. and they sang Praises to God Isai 30 29. Ye shall have a Song as in the Night when a Holy Solemnity is kept If then our Saviour did observe these Feasts if he did celebrate the Passover then certainly he did communicate with the Jewish Church for these Appearances were Ordinances and Symbols also of Communion § 3 2ly That Christ himself neglected not the times of publick Prayer that he declared it not unlawful nor did prohibit his Disciples to attend upon them is evident from this that he still owned the Temple as his Fathers House Joh. 2 16. the House of Prayer that his Disciples after his Resurrection continued daily in the Temple and went up to it at the hours of Prayer Act. 3 1. And they esteemed it a very commendable Action of the Widow Anna to serve God there continually with Prayer and Fasting Luke 2.37 Whence we may certainly conclude that Christ himself did not refuse nor did advise his own Disciples to refuse Communion with the Jewish Church in common Prayer but did approve Communion with them in that publick Service Now since the Jews themselves observed no time for Prayer no number of Prayers seeing no dayly Forms of Prayer were appointed by the Law of Moses Therefore saith Dr. Leightfoot Harm part 3. p. 217. the Sanhedrin in several Generations made Canons and Constitutions to decide and determin upon all these particulars as their own Reason and Emergences did lead them and give occasion as in one Generation they prescribed such and such times for Morning and Evening Prayer in process of time they found these times allotted to be too strait therefore the Sanhedrin of another Generation did give Enlargement as they thought good and so concerning the number of Prayers to be said dayly one Sanhedrin appointed so many but time and experience found afterwards that these did not answer such and such occasions as it seems was not observed when they were first appointed therefore the Sanhedrin of another Generation thought good to add more and more still as occasions unobserved before did emerge and so the number of their dayly Prayers grew at last to be eighteen To all which Additions to the Law of Moses our Lord and his Disciples did submit attending the publick Service of the Temple and the Synagogues where they were used And § 4 3ly That he was particularly a Member of the Synagogue at Nazareth is proved from that Passage of St. Luke Luke 4 16. who tells us that he came to Nazareth where he had been brought up and as his Custom was he went into their Synagogue on the Sabbath-day and stood up for to read for Illustration of which place observe that there were Seven Readers appointed in their Synagogues who Leightf Harm part 3 p. 125. when the Angel of the Church or Minister of the Congregation call'd them out did read Now that our Saviour was a Member of this Congregation may be argued thus ibid. p. 124. You find not in the whole Gospel tho Christ preached in
I shall first lay down plainly the Assertion or Doctrine of the Church of England in reference to the Perfection of the Holy Scriptures and from it give a direct Answer to this Objection 2ly I shall lay down the contrary Tenet of some Non-Conformists which is here asserted in this Argugument 3ly I shall endeavor to shew the Dangerousness of this Opinion and the Swarms of evil consequences which do naturally follow from it And 4ly That they who hold it did do many things repugnant to it And 5ly That it doth necessarily make the Holy Scripture an imperfect Rule 1. Then when we assert that Scripture is a perfect Rule we mean it thus that it doth perfectly contain all that is necessary to be believed or done in Order to our acceptance with God here or to our happiness with him hereafter not that it doth particularly prescribe what ever Circumstance of Order Decency or Convenience may be observed in the Service of God And this doth seem to me to be the true Distinction in this matter betwixt the Protestant of the Church of England and the Rigid Puritan that the Protestant of the Church of England asserts the Holy Scripture to be a full and perfect Rule of all the Articles of Christian Faith and Christian Piety but notwithstanding he maintains that Holy Scripture hath left it in the Power of the Church Governors Sacred and Civil to appoint such Rites and Ceremonies to be used in the Service of God as they shall judge convenient and conducing to the ends of Unity and Order Peace and Love Decency Uniformity and the Edification of the Church And that by virtue of these General Rules Follow after the things Rom. 14.19 Phil. 3.16 1 Cor. 14.40 which make for Peace and whereby we may edify one another Let us walk by the same Rule let us mind the same thing Let all things be done decently and in order Let all be done to Edification and to the Glory of God Give no offence to Jew or Gentile or to the Church of God c. They in the General are authorised to appoint such Rites and Ceremonies as they judge most conducing to these ends and that all Christian people who live under their Care and Jurisdiction are bound to yield obedience to them in matters of this Nature by vertue of those Seriptures which command them to obey those that Rule over them and to submit to them Hebr. 13.17 â— Pet. 5.5 Rom. 13.1 1 Pet. 2.13 To be subject to their Elders and to the higher Powers and to every Ordinance of man for the Lords Sake I say their Tenet is that by vertue of these Scriptures they are bound to yield obedience to them in all lawful things that is in all those things which God hath not forbidden in his Word for where there is no Law of God forbidding there can be no transgression and therefore to refuse obedience to our Superiors Civil or Sacred in those matters is to refuse obedience in things lawful and therefore to offend against the Precepts which call upon us to be subject and obedient to them So that we do assert in Answer unto this Objection 1. That the Scripture is a perfect Rule of all Ceremonies that are good Works antecedently to the Command of man so that in Scripture some express for them may be found but that it is not such a Rule of indifferent Ceremonies 2ly That 't is as perfect a Rule as it needs to be in reference to Ceremonies uncommanded in particular 1 By giving us the general Rules which should direct Superiours in the imposing of these things indifrent but not in a particular Prescription of them as this Objection doth suppose it being a plain contradiction that any thing should be to us indifferent and yet prescribed to us in the Word of God Dissenters therefore must deny that there is any circumstance of Worship be it Time Place Gesture or the Words in which it is to be performed left indifferent or that being so that circumstance must not be used in Gods Worship or else they must confess the weakness of the Argument produced And 2ly Because it doth command us to obey Superiors Civil and Sacred in all lawful matters and so instructs us to submit to what is not forbidden by Gods Word when by Superiors it is commanded This is our Tenet and this is a direct and a sufficient answer to this Argument But on the other hand the Tenet of some Nonconformists owned by this Argument is this That no Church Governors ought to ordain or introduce into the Service of God any other Rites or Observations than such as God hath in his Word commanded or Christ and his Apostles by their Examples which they esteem as Precepts hath approved and that if they enjoyn such things we must not yield obedience to them but must reject them as humane inventions superstition and will worship This is that Doctrine in which the Mystery of Puritanism doth consist and the pernicious consequences of it are so many that any person who doth weigh them seriously will if he be indeed a Lover of Christianity abhor and heartily renounce that Doctrine whence they so naturally flow And 1. This Doctrine casts a reproach upon Religion it gives just cause to Magistrates to scruple the admission of the Christian Faith and to the Atheist and the Polititian to represent it as the great instrument of sedition and disobedience For this opinion obliges men to thwart the Magistrate in all indifferent matters which he commands with a respect unto Gods Worship If he commands them to come to Church on the Lords-day at such a time in such a place they must stand bound in conscience by this Rule to refuse to do so because in Scripture God hath not determined how oft what hour or where they should assemble if he commands them to be uncovered in the House of God to stand or kneel whilst they are praying to sit whilst hearing or the like they must not do it because God hath not told them in his Word that they should be uncovered in his presence that they should kneel or stand whilst they do pray or sit when they do hear Now what a Scandal what a base impeachment is it to our peaceable Religion to say that it obligeth us to disobey Authority in matters God hath left us all to do or not to do at pleasure only because he doth command us so to do them as we might have performed them had he not commanded us and that nothing doth so much engage us to be refractory to the higher Powers as that perfect Law of Liberty which Christ hath left us 2ly Upon the same account it must be sinful to obey those Civil Laws which do concern those Laws of Justice Charity and Mercy towards our Christian Brother which cannot clearly be collected from the written Word For it is plain from Scripture that these are the more weighty matters of
of any excellency in or Attribute of God but partly for distinction partly for decency and uniformity and partly for their Antiquity and lastly as being apt to put us in mind of our duty they cannot be supposed by commanding of them to these ends to make them parts of Worship 5ly External and Bodily Worship is either Substantial or Circumstantial and Ceremonial the Substantial parts of Gods outward Worship are vocal Prayer Praises hearing of the Word not as the word of Man but of God receiving of the Sacraments as they import an entering into Covenant with God and an Eucharistical Oblation of our Souls and Bodies to him Those Bodily Acts which be performed by us in pursuance of these substantial parts of Worship and whereby we do signifie either our Reverence of that God in whose presence we are or with whom we have to do as standing uncovering the head kneeling at Prayer bowing of our Body at our entrance into the place of Gods Worship prostration lifting up our Hands or Eyes to Heaven or whereby we do make profession of our Faith in God as standing up at the Creed to profession of our Faith in a Crucified Saviour on which account the Ancients used the sign of the Cross or lastly whereby we enter into Covenant with God according to his institution as by receiving of the Sacramental signs All these are Ceremonial or Circumstantial parts of Worship 6ly These Ceremonial parts of Worship are in the general commanded by God and they are natural signs of Reverence required by the second Commandment for that forbidding all outward Religious Worship to be given to that which is not God and that because it is that Worship which is due to God the affirmative part of that precept must be supposed to be this Thou shalt give unto me that outward Worship when therefore our Church Commands her subjects to Kneel at their receiving of the Sacrament with Prayer and doth exhort but not Command them to Worship God when they do enter into the place of Worship or bow unto the blessed Jesus who is God blessed for evermore when they are by his Name put in Remembrance of that great Salvation which he hath wrought for us she only doth appoint that to be done at such a time which God hath in the general Commanded to be done and so doth institute no uncommanded part of Worship 7ly When any thing is by God Commanded to be done in his own Worship which doth not primarily directly and immediately tend to express or signifie our sense or apprehension of his excellency or his Attributes the doing of it in its own Nature is no part of Worship but only the doing of it in Obedience to the Command of God for all obedience is an acknowledgment of Gods Sovereign Power and the subjection which we owe unto it Thus v. g. to receive the person that is to be Baptized to give the Bread and Wine to the Communicants are no parts of outward Worship because they are not directly and immediately designed to express any excellence of God but only done in order to the Baptising of the person to be received into the Church or the convenience of the Communicants receiving Sitting at the receiving of the Sacrament can be no part of Worship in those Churches which retain the gesture because it is retained only as a most fitting Table gesture and all those things which God enjoyned to be done in his own Temple the use of the Snuffers and the Tongs the cleansing of the Candlesticks the lighting up of the Candles the bringing in of the Wood for the Burnt offerings with infinite things of a like Nature could be no parts of Worship otherwise than as they were performed directly in obedience to a Divine Command Now hence 't is easie to return an Answer to the forementioned objections For 1st Hence it appears that the proper use of those Ceremonies of the Church of England which are not Natural or Instituted parts of Worship is not the Honouring of God by the acknowledgment of any of his excellencies which is sufficient refutation of the first Argument 2ly Hence it appears that they are not meer and immediate Acts of Religion or formally elicited from Religion as the second Argument supposes 3ly Hence it is evident that all the means that God hath appointed to teach Obedience are not Acts of Divine Worship as Preaching Reading of the Word pious Discourse good Advice and good Example which is sufficient Answer to the third Argument which also falsly doth suggest that our Ceremonies are devised to that end 4ly Hence it appears that it is no part of Gods Worship to teach his Worship teaching being an Action directed not immediately to God but Men nor are our Ceremonies devised to be means of Spiritual instruction by their Mystical signification nor are such signs necessarily essential parts of Worship unless afflictions which are signs of Gods displeasure designed to be means of Spiritual instruction be also parts of Divine Worship as the fourth Argument supposeth 5ly Hence it is manifest that the teaching and reading of the Scriptures for edification of the Church is no part of Gods Worship for the reason mentioned before on which false supposition doth the fifth Argument proceed 6ly Nor are all Actions whereby Spiritual duties are taught in Gods Solemn Worship Acts whereby God is Worshipped as is suggested in the sixth Argument 7ly Nor was the use of Jewish Ceremonies in the Solemn Worship of God any part of his true and immediate Worship unless they were such Jewish Ceremonies as did express or signifie some Divine Excellency or the acknowledgment thereof in those that used them as the seventh Argument suggest but doth not prove 8ly Nor are our uncommanded Ceremonies performed directly to God as is supposed Argument the eighth 9ly Nor are all special things done in the Service of God parts of his Worship as is asserted Argument the ninth 10ly Nor must all special Actions done in the Service of God bring special Honour to him viz. by the signification of any of his excellencies not the snuffing of the Candles not the bringing of the Wood to the Temple as the tenth Argument supposeth such Actions are indeed performed in order to those things which do bring Honour to God even as submission to the Ceremonies prescribed by the Church is done in order to the free Preaching of the Word and to the demonstration of our Obedience to Superiors and to the preservation of the Churches Peace by which things God is highly Honoured 11ly All Civil Ceremonies or all the Circumstances of them are not parts of Civil Worship not the taking of the Cup by the Cup-bearer but the Kneeling with it not the filling out of the Wine but the tendring it in that humble posture In a word only those Ceremonies whereby we do express our sense of some excellency in our Civil Superiors or which by Nature or by Custom signifie some excellency in
many other Instances of a like nature it appears that tho it may be doubted whether our Ceremonies be indeed apt to stir up the dull mind of man to the Remembrance of his duty to God yet cannot it be rationally doubted but what is apt to do so may be both practised and imposed without any derogation from the Kingly or Prophetick Office of our Lord. Answ 3 3ly Hath Christ set down in Scripture all things that may any way conduce to excite good affections in us or give occasion to any pious Meditations or hath he not if he hath not then is not the assertion true on which the Argument is grounded viz. That Christ in Scripture hath set down all things by which we lawfully may be admonished of our duty If he hath then 't is not possible that any man should have a good affection or pious meditation stir'd up within him by any other means or object then such as is expresly contained in the Word of God Than which assertion nothing can be be more false Who knows not that memorable Story of the Cook who from consideration of the heat of his own Fire was moved to reflect on the excessive torments of Hell-Fire and thereby to abstain from that iniquity which would expose him to them Should a Dissenter in his discourse with one of this calling or in his writings advise him to make this reflection would he usurp upon Christs Regal or Prophetick Office Answ 4 4ly Tho this Objection speaks only of Mystical significant Ceremonies yet doth it with equal strength conclude against all Ceremonies and against the Appointment of time and place for publick worship for if this be a good Argument Christ is the only Lawgiver to his Church and therefore the Rulers of the Church may make no Laws concerning Ceremonies of Mystical Signification why is not this as good Christ is the only Lawgiver to his Church and therefore they may make no Laws touching the time and place of publick worship And if Christ hath committed to his Church no Authority of appointing new things but only a Ministry to observe and do such things which Christ hath appointed then either Christ hath appointed time and place or she hath no Authority to appoint them To this Dr. Ames answers that time and place are no new things But I hope to appoint new time and place is to appoint new things and to make Laws determining a time and place not determined before is to make a new Law about them Again if this Argument be good Christ is the only Lawgiver to his Church and therefore the Rulers of the Church may make no Laws concerning Ceremonies c. why is not this as good Christ is the only Lawgiver to his Church and therefore the Civil Magistrate may make no Laws concerning the Payment of Tythes or allowance of maintenance to Ministers or of making charitable Provisions for the Poor or touching any other Christian duty But must leave every man to his Freedom in these matters as Christ did Answ 5 5ly 1 Cor. 14.40 10 31 32. Christ having by his Apostles given Commandments which only primarily concern the Rulers of the Church viz. That all things in the Church be done decently and orderly to the Glory of God Rom. 14.19 and so as to give none Offence that Christians should follow after the things which make for Peace and whereby they may edify one the other I say this being so all the Injunctions made by the Rulers of the Church pursuant to the ends of Decency and Order the Glory of God the avoiding Scandal the preservation of Peace Unity Edification and for prevention of the Contrary are done by virtual Commission from this one Law-giver and therefore can be no Entrenchment on his Legislative Power And if Superiours should mistake in Judging that such things did really conduce unto the decency and orderly performance of Gods Service or to the other ends forementioned when indeed they do not so yet would not their imposing of them for these ends be any usurpation upon Christs Legislative Power any more than a Law made by Civil Rulers which proveth inexpedient or burthensome to the people tho by the Makers of it it was intended for their good usurps upon the Legislative Power of the God of Heaven For as it is judiciously said by Mr. Disp 5. Chap. 2. §. 29. Baxter if just Authority shall injuriously he should have said mistakingly determine of such things it may be the Subjects duty to obey because these are not matters alien to their Power and without their line but only this is an imprudent overdoing in a work that belongeth to them When St. James saith that there is one Lawgiver he most plainly speaks of such a Law-giver who is able to save and to destroy or pass the Sentence of Absolution and Condemnation upon others whence he infers that they who take upon them to censure and condemn their Brethren usurp his Prerogative but he speaks not about the Laws of Decency and Order and therefore cannot be supposed to condemn them And whereas Mr. Answ to the Commissioners p. 65. Baxter doth plausibly object against the Imposition of our Ceremonies that they are equally useful to the Church Universal in all Ages as to any Particular Church or Age and therefore should be the Matter of an Universal Law if of any and so should be the Work of the Universal Law-giver if of any I answer This if granted will only prove that there is no such positive decency Expedience or Edification in these Ceremonies as is conceived by our Rulers that should render them fit to be imposed but doth not prove that they usurp upon Christs Legislative Power by imposing of them to these ends But 2ly This way of Arguing will necessarily condemn the Church of Christ throughout all Ages she having always used and by her Canons and Constitutions imposed such Ceremonies as were equally useful in all Ages and all Churches as in any as v.g. standing upon the Lords-day at Prayer receiving of the Sacrament of the Lords Supper fasting and all the Ceremonies anciently annexed to baptism to omit many others of like Nature before mentioned Now saith he in another place I dare not think or assert that for truth which will condemn all the Christian Churches in the World throughout most Ages of it Disp 5. Chap. 2. from §. 7. to the 24. 3ly The same Judicious Person gives us many instances of matters relating to the Service of God which Christ hath not determined by Law as v. g. What utensils to employ about the Publick Worship of God whether we shall receive the Lords Supper at a Table of Wood or Stone whether we shall sing in Rythm or Metre or in Prose what Order shall be observed in Reading of the Scripture or how much of it shall be read at a time what Method we shall use in Preaching what Words in Prayer or what Gesture with
and were permitted to separate from them and joyn in opposite Communions as oft as they imagined that others better did acquit themselves in Prayer or Preaching or in Administration of the Sacraments or any other duty which belongs unto the Ministerial Office Answ 5 Lastly this Text only engages Private Christians to separate from persons Guilty of such crimes as to familiar converse in things unnecessary but never to decline their presence so as to neglect the doing or receiving good to their own souls or bodies For 1. Divines agree in this that Christ and his Apostles do not in this or other places prescribe such separation as is injurious to any or takes off any duties which by the law of nature we do owe unto them or our Relation to them calls for A Wife must not by virtue of this Precept separate from her ungodly Husband no tho he be an unbeliever let her not leave him saith St. Paul 1 Cor. 7.15 A child must not deny subjection to a wicked Parent nor a Servant to an evil Master but must be subject with all fear not only to the good and gentle but also to the Froward 1 Pet. 2.18 If then this Precept will not oblige us to perform what is injurious to anothers temporals it cannot lay upon us an obligation to do that which is prejudicial to our own Spiritual concerns Much less what prejudicieth the concernments of the Church our Spiritual Mother and makes us disobedient to our Spiritual Fathers 2ly This Precept doth not bind in case of signal damage for I am not obliged to renounce his Company by whom my Trade is carried on my goods go off because I judge him wicked or Profane or to refuse a Customer because he is no Saint for then no Trade could lawfully be managed and there would be no living in the world I do not mean saith Paul to for bid your keeping Company as your occasions serve with the Fornicators Covetous Idolaters of the world for then you must go out of the world v. 9.10 If then as far as the concernments of our worldly callings warrant us we may enjoy their Company much more when this is necessary to the concernments of our Souls or our Spiritual Callings 3ly When I am called as a Guest where accidentally I meet with such a one I am not then obliged to depart and leave the Company because I find him there for this can be no evidence of my familiarity with him Much less am I obliged to depart on his account when I am graciously invited to this heavenly banquet and call'd to feast upon the Supper of the Lamb. And 4ly Our Lord did notwithstanding this duty of avoiding the Company of wicked men familiarly converse with Publicans and Sinners in order to their reformation and spiritual advantage Matt. 9 13. and justified his so doing by this Rule I will have mercy and not Sacrifice why therefore may not we by the same Reason justifie our converse with them in order to our own Spiritual Good But because this Objection of the want of Discipline is the great Scruple of Dissenters and some even among our selves seem to speak slighter of it than they ought to do I will endeavor in some few Propositions to shew how much it doth concern all Churches to endeavor to keep up their Discipline by the exclusion of notorious evil livers from the Church and how far the neglect thereof can be imputed to our Church and whether any separation from her can be justified on this account And therfore I assert That the Secluding of profane and wicked Persons who after admonition by the Church Prop. 1. continue such from the Communion of that Church of which they formerly were Members is the express Ordinance of Christ For 1. Matt. 18.15 16 17. Our Lord himself commanded that if by private admonition we cannot gain our Brother we should tell the Church and if he did neglect to hear the Church he should by Christians be esteemed as a Publican and Heathen adding that whatsoever ye the Church Governours shall bind on Earth shall be bound in Heaven Whence it appears that as it is the Duty of the private Christian who cannot gain his Brother by the private admonitions prescribed by Christ to complain of him to the Church so is it the Duty of the Church to admonish and reprove and call him to repentance and if he will not hearken unto her voice to bind him here on Earth and that the Brother thus bound is afterwards to be looked upon as to Communion in sacris as a Heathen and a Publican And altho no express could be produced from Christ to this effect yet even the constitution of Church Government must necessarily infer it for Government in Church or State there cannot be without a power of punishing unruly Members now the Government of the Church being Spiritual her punishments can be only such even seclusion of her Members from spiritual things moreover there can be no Peace and Order under any Government without a Power of secluding by some means or other such Persons from that Government as obstinately persist in the disturbance of it and violation of its fundamental Laws On Luc. 6.22 And therefore as Grotius truly saith Christ having once constituted a Church and that to be a holy and undefiled Temple to himself must be supposed to command all those things without which this his Temple could not be kept pure But it is plain that a Power of censuring Offenders against this Pure and Holy Institution and of ejecting those who by their wicked conversations do defile this Temple is necessary for the preservation of the Church in purity And indeed I cannot understand how the Church should be a Society without Union or how she can have Union without some Rules of Government and Order or what those Rules can signifie without a Power to punish nor what Power of punishing the Church as such can have except it be by debarring of her Members from some or all of their Church Priviledges nor do I understand how it should be the Duty of Christians to withdraw from every Brother that walks disorderly if the Church Officers have not a power to pronounce such persons fit to be withdrawn from especially seeing not hearing of the Church must go before his being deem'd or treated as a Publican and Heathen Nor Lastly can I understand St. Pauls discourse unless he Argue thus Vide sclater in locum The whole body of the Christian Assemblies ought to be a new Lump and purged from old Leaven or from such Persons as notoriously commit such Crimes as manifestly are repugnant to the profession of Christianity and inconsistent with true piety he therefore who being call'd a Brother that is making profession of Christianity is guilty of such Wickedness should be cast out of the Society of Christians for as when the Paschal Lamb was offered among the Jews no Leaven was
of Alexandria makes mention of the Hymns used by the Christians in his time now these were Forms of Prayer or Praises De Orat. Dom. p. 152. That Cyprian doth sufficiently intimate the use of some Forms in the Carthaginian Church by describing the entrance or beginning thereof saying Sursum corda Lift up your hearts and the people Answering Habemus ad Dominum We lift them up unto the Lord. That Eusebius informs us concerning Constantine that he would take Books in his hands for the expressing with his Court 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 De vita Constant l. 4. c. 17. the appointed Prayers and that he by so doing ordered his Court 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 according to the manner of the Church of God That the Council of Laodicea decreed that there should be always the very same Service of Prayers Morning and Evening i. e. that there should be the same Morning Service Can. 18. and the same Evening Service continually And to assure us that the Council had a particular respect to FOrms of Prayer then in use in the next Canon Can. 19. it gives an account of some part of the order of that Service viz. that after the Sermon or Homily they had first the Prayer for the Catechumeni then the Prayer for the Penitents then three Prayers for the Faithful And that this Canon was received into the Code of Canons of the universal Church which was cited confirmed and established in the General Council of Chalcedon A. D. 451. Can. 1. That the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the three prayers of the faithful were then so well known L. 2. cap. 59. that in the constitutions of the Apostles they are represented as saying the three Prayers standing every Lords Day without reciting what they were That when Paulus Samosatenus about the year 262. Euseb ubi supra took away the Psalms and Hymns which had been used to be sung in the Church pretending they were new and made by men of later date by a numerous Council called at Antioch he was censured for it and cast out of the Church of God Lastly that whereas the Constitutions Apostolical were first composed saith our incomparably Learned Bishop Pearson from the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Vindic. Ignat. p. 60 61 62. or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the instructions orders and constitutions made by Apostles and Apostolick men much changed indeed and interpolated in the seventh and eighth Books of those Constitutions we find Forms of prayers under their names for all Church Offices for the Catechumeni the Baptized the Penitents the Faithful the Ordination of Bishops Priests and Deacons the Celebration of the Lords Supper So that unless this whole eighth Book be wholly spurious and not only interpolated Haer. 45. n. 5.11 12.80 n. 7. we must have evidence of Forms of prayer like ours still used in the Church not only from the Fourth Century when Epiphanius cites thess constitutions but even from the days of the Apostles and haply these were the Liturgies of the Apostles so much spoken of and since so much encreased § 8 Moreover to convince men from plain evidence of reason in this matter it only will be needful to advertise them 1. That all premeditated Prayer in which we do consider what to say and in what words we should express our thoughts to God is in effect a stinted prayer for it is not the Writing or the Printing but the ordering and composing of the words which makes the Prayer a Form if therefore this be be done before we pray our prayer must be a Form 2. This being so the true state of the Question can be only this whether in our addresses to the most immense infinite eternal God we should use consideration or pray and praise him inconsiderately Whether we should deliberate and take good heed that we offend not with our tongues or speak without deliberation whatsoever cometh first into our thoughts Hos 14.2 Whether we should take unto our selves words and speak unto him as the Prophet Hoseah doth advise or should present our selves before him not knowing what to say And for our better satisfaction the Wise man doth advise us Eccles 5.2 not to be rash with our mouths nor let our hearts be hasty to utter any thing before God and that for an eternal reason viz. because God is in Heaven and we are on Earth Now what man in the world is hasty to offer any thing before God if he be not who prays ex tempore or who speaks rashly with his mouth if he doth not who speaks without deliberation or consideration what to say Secondly our own experience will inform us how natural it is to all mankind to take such good advice before hand when they present their thanks or their petitions to an Earthly Prince as may secure them that they deliver their requests in grave and decent Forms of words and can it therefore stand with the reverence we owe to the most Glorious Majesty of Heaven and Earth to use to him what we durst not present unto a Prince or prudent Governour in such a serious matter as ought to be the subject of our Prayers This is the Argument by which God pleads against the lame and the imperfect sacrifices of his people saying if ye offer the blind for sacrifice is it not evil and if you offer the lame and sick is it not evil Mal. 1.8 offer it now unto thy Governour will he be pleased with thee or accept thy person implying that the great King of Heaven and Earth must be served with the best sacrifices we can tender to him and therefore with the best prayers and praises which we can conceive and that what earthly Princes may slight as beneath them must be unworthy to be offered to the King of Kings Moreover if we compare together both these kinds of prayer by Form and by extemporary effusions we shall find the former to be more expedient in our publick Worship for several momentous reasons concerning both our selves and others For 1. The Apostle doth require us 1 Cor. 14.15 and even reason doth inform us that we should pray with the understanding and that we cannot say Amen to that Prayer we understand not now what assurance can the people have in joining with a Minister who prays ex tempore and oft in mystical expressions of the Old Testament that he shall understand the meaning of his words whereas if constant Liturgies be used we may be well assured by our own reading or by the information of others of the meaning of them 2ly The Apostle intimates that 't is the duty of the hearer to say Amen to the Prayers offered up in publick and indeed otherwise we cannot well be said to join with the Minister in Prayer now this we cannot do sincerely unless we do approve the matter of the Prayer now what assurance can the people have in that great difference of
THE Protestant Reconciler PART II. Earnestly perswading the DISSENTING LAITY To joyn in FULL COMMUNION WITH THE Church of England And Answering all the Objections of the Non-Conformists against the Lawfulness of their Submission unto the Rites and Constitutions of that CHURCH By a Well-wisher to the Churches Peace and a Lamenter of Her Sad Divisions Anglicanam Ego Ecclesiam exoticis pravis superflitiosis cultibus erroribusque aut impiis aut periculosis egregiè ex scripturarum coelestium norma purgatam tot támque illustribus Martyriis probatam pietate in Deum in homines Charitate laudatissimisque bonorum operum exemplis abundantem laetissimo doctissimorum ac sapientissimorâ—m virorum preventu jam à Reformationis principio ad hodierna usque tempora florentem equidem es quo debui loco habui hactenus ac dum vivam habebo ejus nomen honos laudes semper apud me manebunt Dallaeus de cultibus Religiosis Latinorum part 2. l. 2. cap. 1. p. 97 98. LONDON Printed for Awnsham Churchil at the Black-Swan near Amen-Corner 1683. THE PREFACE TO THE Dissenting Laity The Contents of the PREFACE Six Arguments from the Book called the Protestant Reconciler to perswade the Dissenting Laity to submit to the conditions of Communion required of them by the Church of England viz. 1. That they stand bound to do what lawfully they may in order to it and that nothing unlawful is required of them § 1.2 Because they are to do to their Superiors as in like case they would be dealt with § 2.3 From the liberty they take of changing a Ceremony of Christ's own institution § 3.4 Because the mischiefs which will follow on their refusal to submit are greater than those which will ensue on their Conformity § 4.5 From the example of St. Paul § 5.6 From the pernicious nature of Schism § 6. Other Arguments produced 1. From that of the Apostle If any man will be contentious we have no such custom 1 Cor. 11.16 § 7. 2. From his command to give no offence to the Church of God § 8.3 Because God is not the Author of Confusion but of Peace § 9.4 Because he requires the believing Wife not to desert her unbelieving Husband vice versâ because God hath called us to Peace § 10.5 Because were all things left indifferent the Minister must impose in some cases § 11.6 From the power committed to Church Governours and the necessity of submission to it § 12.7 From the sad result of their refusing this submission § 13. Two propositions conducing to this end 1. That no prejudices or scruples of Dissenters can excuse them from the guilt of Schism in separating from us till they have done all that lawfully they can for the removal of them § 14.2 That their imagination that the Magistrate exceeds or else unduly doth exert his power in commanding any thing will not warrant their refusal of Obedience to it § 15. Requests to them who cannot fully comply with us viz. 1. To comply so far as they declare either by words or actions that they lawfully may do it § 16.2 To refrain from censuring reproaching or speaking evil of their Governours in Church or State § 17.3 To abstain carefully from all Rebellious Principles and Practices and to confess ingenuously and heartily renounce what hath been done by men of their perswasions in that kind § 18. Brethren MY hearts desire and prayer to God in your behalf is this That you may fully be united to the Communion of the Church of England And in pursuance of this passionate desire I have composed the following Treatise containing a full Answer to all the scruples obstructing your Communion with us which I could meet with in the writings of our Dissenting Brethren And let me O my Friends entreat you by the love of God and your own souls of the Church of Christ which is his body and of her union peace edification by your concern for Christian Religion in the general and for the Protestant Religion in particular which I hope is very great by all the motives which Christianity affords to love peace unity by all the blessings it doth promise to the promoters and all the dreadful evils it doth threaten to the disturbers of them by the sad experience you have had already of the most fatal consequences of our Divisions and by your present fears of a more dreadful issue of them lastly by all that you are like to suffer in your souls and bodies by refractory persisting in your Separation let me I say beseech you on my bended knees by all these weighty motives to lay to heart what I have offered in this Book and in this Preface shall farther offer to engage you to conform and seriously to consider of it and act according to the convictions it may minister unto you as you will Answer your neglect to do so at the great and terrible day of the Lord. Now the considerations I would humbly offer to you are either 1. Such as are proper to induce you to the desired Conformity or 2. Such as may tend to keep you peaceable and conscientious though you do not Conform and may preserve you from doing any thing which may reflect on your Religion towards God or Loyalty towards your Soveraign § 1 1. Then to move you to the desired Conformity be pleased seriously to consider what hath been offered in a late Book stiled The Protestant Reconciler to that end In which Book as the Author pleads warmly for an indulgence or mitigation of some lesser things which do obstruct your full Communion with us which nothing but a due sense of the great danger and unsafe condition of your present state could have induced him to do and nothing but his fervent love to souls and his sincere desire of their Salvation can excuse so hath he many passages which seem most strongly to conclude for your desired submission to the injunctions of Superiors For First P. 34 35. He lays down this position That you stand bound in Conscience to do whatsoever lawfully you may for the prevention and removal of our Schisms and the occasions of them and for the healing our Divisions Which is a proposition evident in it self and there confirmed from plain Scripture testimony and the concern we ought to have for Christian Faith the Protestant Religion the welfare of the Nation and for the peace the order the edification of the Church Secondly He adds That nothing can be unlawful which is not by God forbidden 1 John 3.4 sin being the transgression of a Law and the Apostle having told us Rom. 4.15 P. 198. that where there is no Law there is no transgression whence he infers That Dissenters cannot satisfie their Consciences in their refusal to obey the commands of their Superiors unless they can shew some plain precept which renders that unlawful to be done by them which is commanded by Superiors And seeing God in Scripture hath enjoined
all persons to obey those that have the rule over them Heb. 13.17 and submit themselves Rom. 13.1.5 1 Pet. 2.13 and to be subject to the higher powers as to the ordinance of God and that for Conscience sake and the Lords sake He that can satisfie his Conscience in his refusal so to do must shew some Law of God as evidently forbidding his obedience to what Superious do enjoin P. 197. as do these Scriptures command obedience to them in all lawful things I having therefore in this Treatise answered all your pretences for such a prohibition of the Holy Scripture forbidding your submission to the Rites and Constitutions of the Church of England enjoined by Superiors have made it manifest that you can never satisfie your Consciences in your refusal to submit unto them nor can you or your Leaders return a satisfactory Answer to the Questions propounded by that Author to you in these words P. 58. Do they prefer mercy before Sacrifice or comply with the forementioned injunctions of Obedience to their Superiors who will not submit to Rites or Circumstances or to the use of things no where forbidden in the word to prevent Schism and all the dreadful consequences of it but rather will give cause to their Superiors to judge them scandalous Resisters of Authority and pertinacious Disturbers of the Churches Peace 59. Do not they scandalize offend and contribute unto the Ruine of Christs little stock who do involve them in a wretched Schism on the account of things which they may lawfully submit to Do not they shut up the Kingdom of Heaven against men who forbid them to enter when they may Do not they impose heavy burthens also who say to their Disciples Hear not the Common Prayer Receive not the Sacrament Kneeling suffer not your Children to be signed with the Cross Communicate not with that Minister who wears a Surplice or with that Church which imposeth any Ceremonies or any Constitutions but concerning the time and place of performing Publick Worship If nothing doth so scandalize Christs followers as to find their Teachers at discord and divided can they act as becometh his Disciples who are not willing to procure Vnity and Concord and to avoid this scandal by their submission to things indifferent in their own nature and not forbiden in the law of God § 2 Thirdly He pleads for this submission from that great rule of equity which calls upon you to do to others as you would be dealt with putting the Question to you thus p. 187. Do not you expect obedience from your Children and Servants in like cases Should you command them to come at ten of the Clock into your Parlour to Family Devotions requiring them to come dressed and to kneel at their Devotions would you permit them to refuse to come at the time and to the place appointed because all times and places are indifferent to God or in the garb appointed by you because God regards not habits or to refuse to kneel because they may pray standing Would you not rather judge them contemners of your lawful authority and needlesly and sinfully scrupulous in those matters And must not you by the same Rule be guilty of contemning the lawful Authority of your Civil and Spiritual Fathers and of the Masters of Christs Family by your refusal to submit unto their Constitutions in matters of like nature upon the like accounts or can those Principles derive from him who is the God of order not of confusion 1 Cor. 15.33 which would so evidently should they obtain fill Families as well as Kingdoms and Churches with confusion and destroy their order § 3 Fourthly He argues ad hominem thus If notwithstanding the evidence produced p. 289. that Baptism by immersion is sutable both to the institution of our Lord and his Apostles and was by them ordained to represent our Burial with Christ and so our dying unto Sin Rom. 6.4 Coloss 2.12 and our conformity to his resurrection by newness of life as the Apostle clearly doth explain the meaning of that Rite I say if notwithstanding this Dissenters do agree to sprinkle the baptized Infant why may they not as well submit to the significant ceremonies imposed by our Church for since it is as lawful to add unto Christs institutions a significant ceremony as to diminish a significant ceremony which he or his Apostles instituted and use another in its stead which they did never institute what reason can they have to do the latter and yet refuse submission to the former and why should not the peace and union of the Church be as prevailing with them to perform the one as is their mercy to the Infants body to neglect the other And § 4 Fifthly The said Author shews that our divisions do highly prejudice the Christian Faith Chap. 1. that they gratify the Infidel and Sceptick and scandalize the weak and doubting Christian that they minister to the advantage of the Papist and to the prejudice of the true Protestant Religion that they are highly prejudicial to the State that they have a pernicious influence upon our selves by promoting strife enmity carnality and all the evils consequent upon them by obstructing the love peace unity order and edification of the Church and the benefit of our Prayers by hindring the efficacy of the means of Grace by depriving us of all the blessings of love and peace and by endangering our eternal peace And hence he strongly doth infer That if Dissenters do not think it better that all these evils should ensue than that they should comply or bear with those few ceremonies P. 22. and scrupled expressions of our Liturgy then must they in these matters submit to the commands of their Superiours And p. 29. he puts this serious Question to Dissenters Whether those ceremonies and those expressions in our Liturgy which they at present scruple be so plainly evil and so unquestionably forbidden that for preventing all these dreadful evils they may not be complyed with adding That if they be not so clearly and indispensably evil that these great ends of the promoting the salvation of mens Souls and the preventing of the forementioned evils which do inevitably ensue upon them cannot hallow them they cannot be excused from being accessary to those evils which ensue upon their separating from and their dividing of the Church on these accounts Now that Dissenters cannot rationally judge these things to be thus clearly and indispensably evil or think it better that all these mischiefs should ensue than that they should submit unto them he seems convincingly to prove from these considerations 1. Chap. 6. §. 1. from p. 167. to p. 170. That the duties of promoting Christian love peace unity and the edification of the Church and the preventing of Division Schism and the disturbance of the Civil Government are moral and essential duties which will admit no dispensation so that it is the duty
lawful to Communicate with us in Prayer and hearing of the word and in Receiving of the Sacrament upon occasion stand bound in Conscience so to do as oft as by the Magistrate you are required so to do and it can only be pretence of Conscience which doth induce you to forbear such Communion with us at these times for seeing negative precepts do bind always and at all times so that no man at any time may do what is forbidden by God It follows that there can be no prohibition against doing that at other times which we can sometimes do and which cannot be more or less lawful or unlawful for being done at one time than another as clearly seems to be the case with reference to your occasional Communion It therefore is to be suspected that men only pretend Conscience against that Communion with us at all times which they at sometimes can maintain And yet I wish there were no instances of men of your perswasions who when they are presented or when they find it necessary to qualifie them for an Office or to give a vote in which they may do service to their party will attend upon the publick worship used in our Churches and will receive the Sacrament according to the order of the Church of England who before never did and afterwards neglect to do so Now whilst men do thus vary in their practice according as their interest and as their circumstances vary they tempt men shrewdly to suspect that they act rather out of interest than Conscience in these matters and that they notwithstanding all their pretence to Conscience have either none at all or a bad Conscience for if they thought Communion with us in those Ordinances unlawful by doing it in the forementioned circumstances they only must be doing evil that good may come and making Conscience and Religion stoop to interest which is the proper character of Hypocrites but if they did conceive it lawful their Separation and refusal of it cannot be excused from Schism or from transgression of the injunctions of St. Paul If it be possible as much as in you lies live peaceably with all men follow after the things which make for peace give no offence unto the Church of God obey Superiors and submit your selves Ah my Dear Brethren by doing of these things you have given greater scandal unto others than your submission to the Constitutions of the Church of England could have done and therefore if you do indeed abstain from our Commuon for fear of giving scandal to weak Brethren do you more carefully abstain from matters of this nature which carry with them such a plain semblance of Hypocrisie that no pretence can hide no Charity excuse it Under this head I cannot pass by your violence in Petitioning His Sacred Majesty against His Royal Proclamation to the contrary for be it granted that the Law did authorize or give permission to you to Petition sure I am it laid upon you no necessity to do so and so this might have been forborn in compliance with the pleasure of his Majesty And if you do Reply That then you may by Proclamations be abridged of that liberty the Law affords you Consider I beseech you what it is that you expect and call for from Superiors viz. That for your sakes and out of pity to your weakness they would abate the exercise of their own power and with what equity and justice can you expect they should do this if you at their request will abate nothing of that liberty and power which the Law allows you § 17 2. If you cannot conform let me intreat you Religiously to abstain from censuring reproaching or speaking evil of your Governours in Church or State For this undoubtedly you may do and it doth very much concern you so to do For they who being Christians do reproach and do speak evil of their Civil Governours do that which the Wiseman would not permit the Jew to think of for his command runs thus Eccles 10.20 Curse not the King in thy heart or Entertain not any light vain contemptuous or dishonourable thoughts of him Assemb Annot. wish thou no evil to his Person Crown or Dignity in thy most secret retirements They do what all good men should tremble to commit for of such men St. Peter gives this Character Presumptuous are they 2 Pet. 2.10 self-willed 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 they do not tremble when they speak evil of Dignities Such persons dare to offer that to Gods Vicegerents to those who bear his Name or Character on Earth which Michael the Archangel durst not offer to the vilest and the worst of Creatures Jude 8 9. for he contending with the Devil durst not bring against him a railing accusation and yet it well deserves to be observed that if this sin was capable of pardon or excuse in any case or circumstances it must have been so in the reproaching of the then present Governours they being by consent of all Historians the greatest monsters of mankind and the most bloody Persecutors of the Christian Faith Moreover they who offend in the like kind against their Ecclesiastical Superiors do that which blessed Paul when he had ignorantly done to a corrupt High-Priest acknowledged as a crime condemned in the Law of God I wist not saith he that he was the High-Priest Acts 23.5 for it is written thou shalt not speak evil of the ruler of thy people they do that which the Conscience of a Jew could not let pass without just indignation and reproof for when St. Paul had said God shall smite thee thou whited wall v. 3 4. they presently cry out Revilest thou Gods High-Priest There lies indeed no obligation on us to call evil good or flatter our Superiors in their sins or judge well of them against the clearest evidence of Sense or Reason but then we are obliged not to cherish evil thoughts or harbour groundless jealousies of our Superiors much less must we express our inward apprehensions of them by opprobrious language or disrespectful carriage towards them And yet 't is but too evident that both the Writings and Discourses of Dissenters are too often stuft with these malevolent reflections in which they take the liberty of speaking evil of the Rulers of the people and of blaspheming Dignities and representing the Reverend Bishops as Popish Antichristian and Ithacian Prelates § 18 Lastly Let me conjure you by that affection which you bear unto the Name and Doctrine of our common Lord and Saviour and to the credit of the Protestant Religion to abstain carefully from all Seditious and Rebellious Principles and Practices and to do all you can to clear your selves from all suspicion of maintaining or approving of them For to deal plainly with you this is one great fault among you that you have many of you vented and more of you have practised sutably to those Opinions which are Seditious and Rebellious and these Opinions
have been asserted and been made publick not only in the times of the late Civil Wars but also since the happy Restoration of His Sacred Majesty whom God preserve For this great scandal you have hereby ministred both to Religion in the general and to the Protestant Religion in particular I verily believe you by just judgment of Almighty God do suffer and will smart severely Wherefore my counsel to you is 1. No longer to defend to countenance or to extenuate those wicked principles and execrable practices which followed from them but humbly to confess and take the shame due to your party for them and patiently bear the indignation of the Lord because you have thus sin'd against him Be pleased I pray you in order to this end to ponder seriously these words of your admired Mr. Defence of the principles of love p. 14 15 16. Baxter who speaks thus unto you I beseech you let us review the effects of the late War is it possible for any sober Christian in the world to take them to be blameless or to be little sins What both the violating the person and the life of the King and the change of the fundamental Government or constitution c. Was all this lawful and to do all this as for God with dreadful appeals to him Dare any man not blinded and hardned justifie all this If none of all this was Rebellion or Treason or Murther is there any such crime think you possible to be committed Are Papists insulting over us in our shame are thousands hardned by these and such like dealings into a scorn of all Religion are our Rulers by all this exasperated to the severities which we feel are we made by it the by-word and hissing of the Nations and the shame and pity of all our friends and yet is all this to be justified or silenced and none of it at all to be openly repented of I openly profess to you that I believe till this be done we are never like to be healed or restored and that it is heinous gross impenitence that keepeth Ministers and people under their distress and I take it for the sad prognostick of our future woe and lengthened affliction to hear so little open profession of repentance even for unquestionable heinous crimes for the saving of those who are undone by these scandals and for the reparation of the honour of Religion which is most notoriously injured Your Commissioners at the Savoy give this account of their faith to his Majesty whom God preserve viz. that in things no way against the Law of God the commands of our Governours must be obeyed but if they command what God forbids we must patiently submit to suffering and every soul must be subject to the higher powers for conscience sake and not resist these are our principles And these must be your principles or you can never reasonably expect the favour or protection of the Government For what their Subjects do at present or may hereafter think forbidden by God in these divided times and contrariety of various sects the Higher Powers cannot know and therefore if they cannot be secured of this I mean by the ordinary way of security given by oaths subscriptions declarations that when their subjects think God hath forbidden what the higher powers do command they patiently will submit to suffering and not resist they cannot be secured of the peace and quiet of their Kingdom I therefore cannot but conceive you are obliged in Conscience as you desire to avoid the truly odious name of Rebel and the just imputation of seditious persons and to wipe off in some good measure the horrid scandal which lies upon your party for your former practices That you are bound in justice as you desire to repair the credit of the Protestant Religion which hath so deeply suffered by the past Rebellions of men of your perswasions and give security unto that Government from which both you and yours expect security That you are bound in policy and prudence as you desire to abate the just suspicions which the Government at present hath and will have of you till you secure them of the contrary and to wipe off the manifold reproaches which are cast upon you as you desire to remove the Prejudices all loyal subjects have against you from their experience of your seditious principles and practices I say I cannot but conceive you highly stand obliged on all these accounts to publish your sincere repentance for and your abhorrence of what men of your perswasion have already done to make now solemn declarations and protestations of your present loyal principles to shew your readiness to give all satisfaction to the Government which can be reasonably desired from you that you do not at present hold nor ever will maintain rebellious principles to remonstrate that if you cannot yet obey in all things the commands of your Superiours you in no cases will resist the Government but patiently will suffer under it and lastly that you will permit no person to be of your communion who will not make this declaration heartily and sincerely Bishop of Winton's Sermon before the King Nov. 5.67 p. 38. For as a Reverend Prelate of our Church doth truly say The best and safest way for Prince State and People is to protect cherish and allow of that Religion and that only which allows of no rising up against or resisting soveraign power no not in its own defence nor upon any other account whatsoever which most Christian and most Orthodox profession if those of the Romish and those of other perswasions that live among us but are not of us would make as frankly and as ingenuously and as sincerely as we do though it would not presently reconcile all other differences betwixt us and them yet it would perhaps be enough to make us live peaceably and charitably and securely together without fear or jealousie of one another which would be a good step towards an accommodation of all other controversies betwixt us in time also Now to conclude this Preface with the Prayer of our own Church Blessed Jesu our Saviour and our Peace who didst shed thy precious Blood upon the Cross that thou mightest abolish and destroy all enmity among men and reconcile them in one body unto God look down in much pity and compassion upon this distressed Church and Nation whose bleeding wounds occasioned by the lamentable Divisions that are among us cry aloud for thy speedy help and saving relief stir up we beseech thee every Soul of us carefully as becometh sincere Christians to root out of our hearts all pride and vain-glory all wrath and bitterness all unjust prejudice and causless jealousie all hatred and malice and desire of revenge and whatsoever it is that may exasperate our minds or hinder us from discerning the things which belong unto our Peace and by the power of thy Holy Spirit of Peace dispose all our hearts to such meekness of wisdom
and lowliness of mind such calm and deliberate long suffering and forbearance of one another in love with such due esteem of those whom thou hast set over us to watch for our Souls as may turn the hearts of the Fathers to the Children and the hearts of the Children to the Fathers that so we may become a ready People prepared to live in Peace and the God of Peace may be with us Amen Advertisement THrough the neglect of the Bookseller and Printer this Book hath been detained otherwise it might have come out six Months sooner CHAP. I. The CONTENTS The Design of this Treatise is to perswade our dissenting Laity that they ought to maintain Communion with the Church of England 1. Because she requires nothing in her publick Worship which is unlawful to be done 2ly Because they cannot condemn her Communion without condemning the practice of the Vniversal Church of Christ § 1. 3ly Because they cannot do it without contradicting the Practice and Example of our Lord who was a Member of the Jewish National Church § 2. 2ly Observed the times of publick Prayer § 3. 3ly Was a Member of the Synagogue at Nazareth § 4. 4ly Observed the Customs which by the Jewish Canons were prescribed to be observed by those who entred into the Temple § 5. 5ly Complyed with the Rules prescribed by the Jewish Doctors to be observed by the Readers Preachers in their Synagogue § 6. 6ly Observed the Customs in which the Jewish Doctors varied from or added to the observation of the Passover § 7. 8ly Admitted Judas both to the Passover and to the Celebration of the Sacrament and so declared that Communion with the Professors of Religion was not to be refused for their want of inward Piety § 8. 9ly Paid Tribute when it was not due and thereby taught us to submit unto those things which were required by Superiours without sufficient grounds in Case of Scandals § 9. 10ly Our Lords Commands were suitable to his Practice For first he commanded the Leper to shew himself to the Priest thô both the Priest-hood was degenerated and many idle things required of him who was to be pronounced clean 2ly He commands even his own Disciples to obey the Scribes and Pharisees because they sate in Moses Chair § 10. Corollaries 1. That corruptions allowed taught and practised in a Church are no sufficient grounds of separation from the Communion of that Church provided that the Members of it be not required as a condition of Communion with them to do teach practise them or to profess that they are not corruptions § 11. 2ly That great Corruptions in the lives of our Church-Pastors will not warrant our Separation from Communion with them or our Refusal to attend upon their Teaching provided we be not enjoyned to allow of or to comply with them in their Sins § 12. 3ly That it is lawful to comply which such Churches as enjoyn some significant Ceremonies not mentioned in the Word of God and for the sake of Peace Order Vnity and the avoiding of Scandal to submit unto them when by Authority they are enjoyned § 13. 4ly That it is not unlawful to use a publick Form of Prayer and that the using of such Forms can be no sinful stinting of the Spirit § 14. 5ly That we stand not obliged in all Punctilios of time and place and gesture to follow the Example of the first Institution of the Holy Sacrament of the Lords Supper § 15. 6ly That the presence of wicked men should not deter us from joyning with the Church in the Participation of the Holy Sacrament § 16. 7ly That we stand not obliged to refuse Communion with other Churches in their Sacraments and other publick Offices because of some additions to the Institution § 17. 7ly That our Dissenters have no just cause to fear or plead for that Refusal of Submission to the Constitutions of our Church and of Communion with us that by Communicating municating they should approve of the imposing of these things and should partake with them in that supposed Sin or countenance them in the imposing things which they do look upon as Grievous Burthens § 18. CHAP. I. § 1 MY Design in this Discourse is with all the Strength of Reason I can offer to perswade our Dissenting Laity that lawfully they may and therefore that they ought to hold Communion with the Church of England in all her constant and solemn parts of publick Worship To prove that lawfully they may I might Insist on many Topicks As 1. That which doth throw the Burthen of proving the unlawfulness of holding Communion with us in the forementioned Worship upon them and of this Nature is the following Argument Viz. It is lawful to hold Communion with the Church in all her constant and solemn parts of Publick Worship which in those parts of Publick Worship requires nothing which is unlawful to be done by those who shall communicate with her in them but the Church of England in all her constant and solemn parts of Publick Worship requires nothing to be done which is unlawful to be done by those who shall communicate with her in them Ergo 't is lawful to communicate with the Church of England in all her constant and solemn parts of Publick Worship Where by the constant and solemn parts of Publick Worship I understand those parts of Publick Worship which she requires all Laymen to joyn with her in under the penalty of being lyable to be presented and to be subject to her censures if they do refuse them that in these parts of Solemn Worship nothing unlawful is required of them I shall endeavour to make good by Answering the Objections which they make against them But I might do it more briefly by calling on them to instance in any thing unlawful to be done which is required in any constant and solemn part of Publick Worship upon which they are by the Constitutions of the Church obliged to attend under the penalty of being subject to her Censures for their Neglect or their Refusal so to do 2ly I might thus argue with them That which the Church of Christ hath in all Ages since the Apostles required of her subjects cannot be reasonably conceived unlawful to be done for otherwise we must condemn the universal Church of Christ through all Ages since the time of the Apostles but the Church of Christ throughout all Ages hath required of her Subjects conditions of Communion like unto those required by the Church of England And therefore these conditions of Communion cannot be reasonably deemed unlawful to be done In Confirmation of this Argument it would be very easy to instance in multitudes of Ceremonies required of and used by the members of the Universal Church throughout all Ages consequent to that of the Apostles as lyable to the exceptions of Dissenters as are any Ceremonies imposed by the Church of England and also to evince that Liturgies or Forms of Prayer were always
every Synagogue where he came that he read in any of them but in this and altho strangers were permitted sometimes to preach in Synagogues yet none did publickly read there but he that was a Member of it we find not any Instance to the contrary in all the Jewish Records saith the Learned Leightfoot who was a diligent Peruser of them Moreover the next Verse tells us that there was delivered to him the Book of Esaias as was the manner of the Master of the Synagogue to do unto the Reader which is a farther Argument to shew he was a Member of the Synagogue Ibid. p. 28. for had Christ gone about to read beside or contrary to the common Custom of the place it cannot reasonably be conceived that the Minister of the Congregation would so far have complyed with him to give him the Book that he might read irregularly or besides the Custom and lastly had Christ intended only to rehearse the Passage of Esaiah to be the Ground of his Discourse there was no need of giving to him any Book but only because he was the Reader of the second Lesson that Day in the forementioned Congregation And § 5 4ly Seeing Christ entred into the Temple both as a private Man Joh. 18 20. and as a Publick Minister since he was dayly teaching in the Temple as he himself informs us it must hence follow that he observed the Customs which by the Jewish Canons were prescribed and in obedience to those Prescriptions were observed by all who did resort unto the Temple Now as the Rulers of our Church by vertue of that Precept of doing all things decently and in order do impose their Ceremonies as thinking they conduce to the more decent and orderly performance of Gods Service so did the Rulers of the Jewish Church by virtue of that Precept Thou shalt reverence my Sanctuary make diverse Canons and Constitutions which they supposed to conduce unto the greater Reverence of God or of that Temple where he dwelt as v. g. That no man should go into the Temple with a Staff Vide Leightf Temp. Serv. p. 115. it being thought unfit that Instruments of striking should be brought into the place of Peace on which account saith Doctor Leightfoot our Saviour drove not out the Merchandizers and Money-changers with a Staff Joh. 2 15. but with a Scourge of small Cords 2. p. 116. That none should come into the Temple with his Shoes on that being Holy Ground and putting off the Shoes being with them a sign of Reverence like to our putting off the Hat 3ly ibid. That none who came to worship there should use a Scrip or bag purse or come with Money tyed up in a purse or come into the Temple till they had wiped the dust off from their Feet to teach them to shake off all Worldly Thoughts and all Incumbrances when they came to worship 4ly p. 118. 119. That none must spit in the Temple nor use an irreverent Gesture there but go gravely to the place where they were to stand and there continue not sitting leaning lying but standing only because that was a Praying Posture Now had not Christ submitted to these Customs we cannot rationally think he would have found so free an entrance into the Temple as he did and they would have been ready to retort upon him when he censured their Irreverence toward this House of Prayer that he also by his neglect of these Particulars was guilty of as great Irreverence had he not put off his Shee s as even Kings were wont to do when they came thither for to Worship they would have made this an exception against him that he refused to do what even Kings and Priests and Prophets did for that this very Ceremony was used in our Saviours time we learn from that of the Poet Exercent ubi festa mero pede Sabbatha Reges and from that appellation given to their Sacred Service that they were Nudipedalia Sacra or Barefooted Solemnities And it deserves to be observed that Christ not only did not charge the Rulers of the Jewish Church with Superstition in these Matters but he himself in Reverence to that Place of Worship would not suffer that any man should carry any vessel through the Temple Mark 11.16 § 6 5ly Seeing Christ was a Reader in their Synagogue and oftentimes a Preacher too it may deserve to be considered that he did readily comply with the Rules prescribed by the Sanhedrin or those who sate in Moses Chair to be observed by those who should perform the foresaid Offices Leightf Harm part 3. p. 125. as v. g. the Reader by their Canons is bound to stand in Honour of the Law Accordingly the Scripture doth expresly say that as his Custom was Luke 4 16. Christ went into the Synagogue on the Sabbath-day and stood up for to read ibid. p. 138. It also was the Custom of the Teacher to sit down when he instructed others and sutably the Scripture saith that our Saviour closed the Book and sate down v. 20. Yea throughout all the Gospel we never find that he taught the people standing but on the contrary that he continually used the sitting posture as v. g. in his Sermon on the Mount seeing the multitude he went up into a Mountain and when he was set Matt. 5 1.2 he opened his Mouth and taught them when he taught them out of a Ship Matt. 13 2. he sate and spake to them in Parables saith Matthew he sate in the Sea and taught them saith St. Mark Mark 4 1. he sate down and taught the people out of the Ship saith Luke Luk. 5 1. Joh. 8 2. when all the People came unto him in the Temple he sate down and taught them this was his constant Custom in that place as he takes care to let us know saying I sate dayly with you teaching in the Temple Matt. 26 55. so far was Christ from scrupling the observation of this Custom and Institution of the Rulers of the Jewish Church § 7 6ly Our Lord thrice celebrated the Paschal Feast with his Disciples besides his constant Celebration of it with his Parents whilst he continued with them and in this Celebration of it it may deserve to be considered 1. That our Lord did not observe the Passover in all its Circumstances according to the Primitive Institution of the Law of Moses For 1. Exod. 12 3.6 Whereas the Institution expresly doth require that every man should take up the Paschal-Lamb on the 10th day and keep it up till the 14th day of the same month the Jewish Doctors taught that this was not required of the future Generations after Leightf Temp. Serv. p. 127. nor was it done but at the Passover in Aegypt only at least it was not done by the Masters of Families but by the Priests in our Saviours time who provided Lambs for the people taking them up in the Market
Twelve and when enquiry was made among these Twelve which of them should betray him Judas particularly asketh Master is it I v. 25. Now as these Twelve were eating Jesus took Bread and brake it and gave it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to these Twelve Disciples and said to them Take eat this is my Body v. 26. He also took the Cup and gave it to the same Persons saying Drink ye all of this he therefore said to Judas Eat this is my Body and bad him drink the Sacramental Cup. 'T is said indeed Joh. 13 30. that Judas having received the Sop went immediately out but then as I have shewed Christ did not celebrate the Passover but another ordinary Supper before the Passover v. 1. Before their preparation for the Passover v. 29. which Dr. Leightfoot farther proves In locum because it was not lawful for any Person to depart from that Solemnity before the whole Solemnity was ended § 9 8ly Our Lord to cut off all occasion of Offence which the perverse and unbelieving Jew or Pharisee might take against him submitted to the payment of that Tribute which was not due from him as he demonstrates Matt. 17 25.26 Where 1. observe The Tribute here demanded was not the Tribute payd to the R. Emperours but the half Sickle yearly paid by the Jewish Nation to repair the Temple and buy things useful for the Service of it as the most skilful Commentators on the place conclude vid. Leightf in locum 2ly Observe The Scandal which our Lord was here concerned to avoid was not a Scandal given by himself but one that might be taken without ground by them who hence unduly might conclude that Christ and his Disciples did contemn the Temple and so the Efficacy of his Doctrine might through that Scandal be obstructed he then by this Example doth instruct us to submit unto those things which our Superiours may require or expect from us even without sufficient ground when our Refusal of Submission to them may be cause of Scandal or make them think we are Contemners of Authority or disobedient to those God hath enjoyned us to obey and much more must this be our duty when our Divisions and Contests about such Matters do bring a Scandal on the Christian Faith and we thereby in opposition to St. Pauls injunction do give Offence not only to the Jew and Gentile but to the Church of God And this Example seems also as effectually to prove that the Dispensors of the Gospel should be careful not to do any thing if it be in their power to avoid it which may give Scandal unto others or cause them to judge evil of them § 10 9ly Our Lords Commands were suitable to his Practice and he enjoyned to others what he himself performed For 1. our Saviour enjoyned the Leper that was cleansed to shew himself to the Priest Matt. 8 4. See Harm part 3. p. 205. and offer the Gift that Moses had commanded Where it deserves to be considered that altho the Priesthood was much degenerated both from its Institution and its Office yet Christ did not think fit on that account to advise any to a Separation from them or to renounce their Priesthood but would have all men to repair unto them for the Performance of those Offices which by the Law of Moses were to be performed by the Priests and to offer by his hands their Gift And yet it is observable that they to whom Christ sent this Man had added to the Institution many idle Customs to be performed by the cleansed Leper as you may see in Dr. Leightfoots Notes upon Matt. 8 4. Moreover in that very Chapter where our Lord giveth such opprobrious Titles to the Scribes and Pharisees lest that should tempt the multitude or any of his own Disciples to neglect Communion with them in hearing of the Word other Ordinances of like Nature our Saviour in the Preface of that Chapter speaks thus unto the multitude and to his own Disciples Matt. 23.2 3. The Scribes and Pharisees sit in Moses Seat all therefore whatsoever they bid you observe that observe and do Where 1. observe who were these Scribes and Pharisees they were not always of the Order of the Priests and Levites for St. Paul tells us that he was a Pharisee and the Son of a Pharisee Act. 23.6 Philip. 3 5. In Matt. 2. v. 4. p. 29. And yet that he was of the Tribe of Benjamin And Matthew speaks of Scribes of the People who were saith Dr. Leightfoot Elders of the Sanhedrin who were not of the order either of Priests or Levites but were of other Tribes now albeit none of these men did ever take upon them to be Instructers of the People without an Ordination to that Office Harm part 3. p. 122. as is well noted by that Learned Man yet may it seem that they could have no just and proper call to be Instructors of the People this being the peculiar Office of the Priests Mal. 2 7. For the Priests Lips should keep Knowledge saith the Prophet Malachi and the people should seek the Law at his Mouth for he is the Messenger of the Lord of Hosts And yet these Scribes and Pharisees were Publick Teachers in their Schools and Synagogues and by this they obtained the Name of Rabbies and Teachers of the Law 2ly Observe that by the Law of Moses nothing is determined touching the Office the Authority the manner of Admission of these Scribes of the people but their whole Function seemeth to depend upon the Churches Constitutions made for Edification or the Instruction of the People And thus it also was with those Ministers and Rulers of their Synagogues who were not of the Sacerdotal Order or of the House of Levi for of their Office or Admission to it we can find nothing in the Books of Moses or in the Writings of the Prophets and yet these Men received Admission to teach or exercise their Function by Ordination say Mr. Selden and Dr. Leightfoot and learned Men are of Opinion that Christ and his Disciples so far approved of them as to institute the Governors of his Church according to the Platform of the Synagogue Leights Harm part 3. p. 120. 3ly Some think our Lord here speaketh of the Scribes and Pharisees as being then their Legal Magistrates or signifying the whole Jewish Sanhedrin and their Authority so Dr. Leightfoot In locum and so the Reverend and Learned Dr. Hammond and so they make the import of the Precept to be this The Scribes and Pharisees those that are of the Sanhedrin are by you to be look'd on as your lawful Rulers that have Authority over you succeeding Moses and the seventy Elders and therefore do you live in Obedience to all their lawful Commands and in all Regular Subjection to them But I suspect this Exposition on these two accounts 1. Because our Saviour makes mention only of the Scribes and Pharisees whereas
had all the plausible pretences which have prevailed on our Dissenting Laity to make an Actual Separation to move them so to do Inf. 2. §. 12. Hence it will also follow that great Corruptions in the Lives of our Church-Pastors will not warrant our separation from Communion with them or our Refusal to attend upon their Teaching provided we be not enjoyned to allow of or to comply with them in their sins Our Saviour sent the Leper to the Priest to offer by his Hands the accustomed Sacrifices altho the Priesthood then was much degenerated both in its Office and in the manners of those who ministred at the Altar we find that Christ himself was present at their solemn Feasts and therefore did not come empty which the Law forbad but brought his Sacrifice and by so doing owned their Priesthood he was a Member of a Synagogue and so he joyned in the Service of their Synagogues upon the Sabbath and upon other Solemn Days and yet their own Josephus tells us that the whole Jewish Nation were then a very wicked people they were saith truth it self an Evil Wicked and Adulterous Generation The Teachers and the Rulers of the Church whom Christ commands the multitude and his Disciples to obey in all things lawful Matt. 2.7.12.34 Matt. 5.19 Matt. 6.23.7 8. Matt. 12.14 v. 24. were a Generation of Vipers they were such whose Righteousness could not qualifie any Person for the Kingdom of God They were Hypocritical and Vainglorious in their Prayers Alms and Fastings They consulted how they might destroy the Saviour of the World They were many of them guilty of Blasphemy against the Holy Ghost Matt. 23 13. v. 14. v. 15. v. 23. They shut up the Kingdom of Heaven against Men. They devoured Widows Houses out of pretense of Piety They made their Prosclytes ten times more the Children of the Devil then themselves They neglected the more weighty Matters of the Law They were full of Extortion Covetousness Excess And yet from the Communion of such Men our Lord himself and his Disciples did not separate in matters which concerned Gods Publick Worship he called none to come out from them and be separate but rather countenanced their hearing of them with Caution and Discretion which shews how groundless and unwarrantable a thing it is to separate from our Legal Pastors upon these accounts Hence 3ly Inf. 3. §. 13. we infer that it is lawful to comply with such Churches as enjoyn some significant Ceremonies not mentioned in the Word of God for the sake of Peace Order Unity and the avoiding of Scandal to submit unto them when by Authority they are imposed for this we find our Saviour and his Apostles did he ate the Passover prepared according to the Custom of the Jews and so he did partake of that thick Sawce which signifyed the thick Clay which they in Aegypt formed into Brick he ate the Passover in such a Posture as was used by the Jews to signify their Rest and their Security in the Good Land of Canaan He when he went into the Temple did put off his Shoes altho that Ceremony was used to signify their Reverence toward the Temple or to that God who dwelt in it he did not go into the Temple with a Staff or Scrip but did comply with all the Ceremonies enjoyned by the Jewish Sanhedrin to those who dayly came unto it He when he read the Law stood up as was enjoyned by the Jews in honour of the Law and when he taught the people he constantly sate down according to the Custom which had then obtained The Imposition of hands in their ordinary Benediction was a significant Ceremony Mark 10.16 it noted properly the Efficacy of the Divine Blessing the Hand being the instrument of Force and Vigor it was done also in Testimony of Gods Favor to them and yet that Ceremony was by our Lord observed in his Benediction of the little Children which were brought to him tho it was not commanded in the Law of Moses Inf. 4. §. 14. Hence 4ly we infer that it is not unlawful to use a publick Form of Prayer and that the using of such Forms can be no sinful sâ—inâ—â—â—â—g of the Spirit For our Lord scrupled not the Time the Number the Form the Matter of the Jewish Prayers both he and his Disciples were present at the 18 Prayers used in the publick Service of the Jews And he himself prescribed a Form of Prayer to be used by his Disciples He therefore did not think that his own Spirit was stinted by using of a Form or that he stinted the Spirit of his own Disciples by prescribing of it and yet Christ and his own Disciples when they attended on these Prayers had a more plentiful Effusion of the Holy Spirit then we can pretend to Hence also we conclude that we stand not obliged in all Punctilios of Time Inf. 5. §. 15. or Place or Gesture to follow the Example of the first Institution of the H. Sacrament of the Lords Supper For albeit a standing Posture was prescribed at the first Institution of the Passover and every Master of a Family by the same Institution was to keep up his Lamb four days before the Passover yet Christ complyed with the Custom of the Jewish Church which for prudential Reasons laid aside or changed these Customs Even so altho Christ celebrated the Sacrament after Supper and albeit he did it in a posture of Recumbency we do not stand obliged to conform unto these Circumstances they being done upon such grounds as do not now remain for we have now no Paschal Supper to be eaten before the Sacrament nor is it the Custom of our Nations to lye down on Couches when we eat nor have we any cause to do it in token of our Rest in Canaan And if we are obliged to use that very Gesture which our Saviour did why are we not as much obliged to the same time I mean not only after Supper but annually on the same Night in which our Saviour was betrayed why are we not as much obliged to receive in the same place viz. an Inn or in an Upper-chamber And lastly tho it be unquestionable that in the Primitive Institution Wine was mixt with Water for so the Primitive Christians testify and so the Hebrew Custom and their Canons teach and albeit this seems more fit to represent that Water and that Blood which issued from our Saviours Side yet because now it ceaseth to be the Custom to drink Wine mixt with Water Laightf Temp. Serv. p. 147. few scruple to receive it without such a Mixture and therefore on like grounds and from our Saviours Aphorism I will have Mercy and not Sacrifice I think we should not scruple to baptise by sprinkling altho our Lords Disciples did baptize by dipping and that more perfectly doth represent that Death of Christ into which saith St. Paul we are baptized and the ensuing Resurrection Inf.
6. §. 16. Hence do we argue That the Presence of wicked and ungodly Men should not deter us from joyning with the Church in the Participation of the Holy Sacrament because Christ did not scruple as many Passovers as he participated of to eat with Judas him he admitted to the Holy Sacrament as being by Profession one of his true Disciples and one who had done nothing openly which contradicted that Profession altho Christ knew that he was a covetous Wretch into whom Satan had already entred and who would certainly betray him Hence also we infer Inf. 7. §. 17. That we stand not obliged to refuse Communion with other Churches in their Sacraments and other publick Offices because of some additions to the Institution which are imposed for the sake of Order Uniformity or Decency but are declared to be no parts or necessary appendants to the Institution You see how many things the Jews had added to the Passover the Wine because it was a Feast of Joy the Benediction of the Cup before they drank it the Breaking the unleavened Cake the Hymn and yet our Saviour did not scruple to observe these things And you may see in Dr. Leightfoots Service of the Temple how many Ceremonies they had added to the observance of the other Festivals at which our Lord and his Disciples were still present And therefore on the same account we need not scruple that antient Ceremony of Crossing which we use in Baptism seeing our Church declares that she doth not intend it as any part of Baptism or any necessary appendant of it on which account she doth command us to omit it in our private Baptisms but only as a convenient Ceremony to testify unto the Congregation that the baptized Person hath Relation to the Society of Christians and stands obliged to maintain the Christian Faith As therefore when the Children of Reuben and Gad had built themselves an Altar their Brethren were troubled at it but when they understood it was not built for Sacrifice or in Rebellion but to entitle themselves and their Posterity to a Share in Gods publick and solemn Worship Josh 22.16 30 31. And to an Interest in his Tabernacle and Altar they were well pleased and declared their hearty Satisfaction so would our Brethren consider that the Cross in Baptism is enjoyned not as a part or necessary appendant of that Ordinance but only to be Ed a Testimony to the Congregation that the baptized Person had an Interest in the Society of Christians and was obliged to maintain and own the Christian Faith they would have equal reason to be well pleased and to declare their Satisfaction in the Matter Hence it is evident that our Dissenters have no just cause to fear Inf. 8. §. 18. or plead for the Refusal of Submission to the Constitutions of our Church and of Communion with us that by Communicating they should approve of the imposing of these things and should partake with them in that supposed sin or countenance them in the imposing of those Grievous Burthens as they do esteem them for our Dear Lord you see submitted to the Constitutions of the Jewish Church and enjoyned others so to do and yet I hope they will not say that he approved or countenanced their heavy Burthens or partook with them in their sins were then the Impositions of the Church of England such as they imagine them to be they could have no just cause to fear that their Submission to them would derive this guilt upon them CHAP. II. The CONTENTS Corol. 1. That the Scriptures of the Old Testament cannot prohibite this Submission The Objections answered Obj. 1. Thou shalt not add unto the Word that I command you Deut. 4 2. Deut. 12 32. Answ 1. That these Words do as much prove that our Superiours may make no Laws about civil as about Sacred Matters 2ly That the Dissenters are as much condemned by them as the Church of England because they also do use many uncommanded Ceremonies 3ly The Jews themselves never conceived that by these Precepts they were restrained from Instituting upon occasion sacred rites as is proved by many Instances 4ly To add unto the Word of God is only to avouch such things as the Commandment or Word of God which he hath not commanded 5ly Hence it follows that the Dissenters do transgress this Precept § 1. Obj. the 2d That God in Scripture declares that he abhorrs that way of Worship which he hath not commanded Answ 1. That this Objection is impertinent as only proving what we deny not 2ly That it condemneth the Dissenters 3ly Not to command is in the places cited to forbid § 2. Obj. 3d. That the 2d Commandment forbids the likeness of any thing to be made for religious use and-so forbids the use of significant Ceremonies of mens devising Answ The 2d Commandment only forbids the making any Likeness to be the Object of religious Worship or Veneration § 3. A 2d Corol. From the Example of our Lord and his Apostles § 4. Obj. 4th From Christs Rejecting the Traditions of the Scribes and Pharisees Answ 1. That our Saviour only rejecteth such Traditions as were taught for Doctrines or held equal to the written Word of God Particularly their holding these Washings to be necessary to avoid that Defilement which would render them displeasing or unacceptable unto God 3ly This Text rather condemns them who hold that indifferent Ceremonies may not be submitted to in obedience to Superiours as teaching for Doctrins the Commandments of Men § 4. CHAP. II. FRom what hath been discoursed it clearly follows that all those Texts of Scripture Corol. and all those Reasons which Dissenters offer from the Old Testament to prove it is a thing unlawful to use or to submit unto the Ceremonies appointed by our Church and that they are forbidden by those Texts to use them must be meer fallacies and sophisms seeing our Saviour who doubtless was acquainted with the true Sense and Import of them did submit unto the use of Ceremonies of a like Nature to them when by the Rulers of the Jewish Church they were imposed and prescribed And tho this instance is a sufficient Answer to all that is or can be urged from the Old Testament against Submission to the Ceremonies imposed by the Church of England yet for the farther Satisfaction of our Dissenting Brethren I shall particularly answer all that they have hitherto produced with any shew of Reason to this purpose Which was the second head proposed to be spoken to And § 1 1. It is objected by them That God in Scripture hath commanded that nothing should be added to what he had enjoyned in his Worship to this effect they cite these Words Deut. 4.2 Ye shall not add unto the Word which I command you neither shall you diminish from it that you may keep the Commandments of your God which I command you And Deut. 12 32. What thing soever I command you observe to
joyn not with these that use it or with the Minister who wears a Surplice kneel not at the Receiving of the Sacrament do not stand up at the rehearsal of the Creed bring not your Children to receive the sign of the Cross in Baptism all these they teach for Doctrines asserting that they are actions which God hath forbidden and therefore may not lawfully be used in his Worship or by them be submitted to since therefore God hath not forbidden any of these things and yet they teach he hath forbidden them they plainly must be guilty of adding to his Word and teaching for Doctrines the Commandments of men which they who do declare these things to be indifferent and no where commanded in Gods Word cannot be guilty of CHAP. III. The CONTENTS Answering the Objections of Dissenters from reason grounded upon Scripture as Obj 1. God would have for the Tabernacle and the Temple an exact pattern how he would have all things done and that in writing and therefore Christ being faithful in his House as Moses was must have done as much in Scripture towards the building of his Spiritual House Answ 1. This Argument holds as well in Civil Matters as in Sacred and by arguing from such similitudes many false things may be concluded Answ 2. That it is falsly supposed that Moses was so full in his Institutions that nothing afterwards was to be added to them or ordained by the Rulers of the Church for the better Observation of them 3 'T is certain Christ hath not done what this Objection saith his faithfulness obliged him to do 4ly There is a manifest disparity betwixt the Christian and the Jewish State and thence good reason may be given why thô all things were determined then it should not be so now 5ly The fidelity of Moses consisted in this that he concealed nothing of that which God commanded and sutably the fidelity of Christ in this that he declared to us the whole Will of God § 1. Obj. 2. The Scripture is a Rule of Ceremonies for it prescribeth Ceremonies respecting Baptism and the Lords Supper if therefore it prescribe not all it must be an imperfect Rule Answ 1. The absurdity of this Argument is shewn by instances of a like Nature 2 The Doctrine of the Church of England concerning the perfection of the H. Scriptures is this viz. that it doth perfectly contain all that is necessary to believed or done in Order to Salvation Thô not all Ceremonies in particular of Decency and Order That the Scripture is a Rule of all Ceremonies that are good works antecedently to the Command of man 2. That it is sufficiently perfect in reference to uncommanded Ceremonies by giving general Directions to Superiors in the imposing of them And 2ly By Commanding Obedience to their impositions in all lawful matters The Tenet of some Non-Conformists that no Church-Governors ought to ordain or introduce into the Service of God any other Rites or Observations than such as God hath in his Word commanded or Christ and his Apostles by their Examples which they esteem as Precepts hath approved and that if they enjoyn such things we must not yield Obedience to them but must reject them as humane Inventions Superstition and Will-worship The pernicious Consequence of this Tenet 1. It casts a reproach upon Religion and gives just cause to Magistrates to scruple the Admission of the Christian Faith 2. It makes it necessary to disobey all Civil Laws concerning Charity and Justice which are not contained in Scripture 3ly This Opinion will force men to be troublesome in all the Churches of the World 4. It gives a great Advantage to Popery Mr. Baxters solid Confutation of this Opinion by 8 Arguments 5ly They who assert this Tenet do many things in Contradiction to it § 2. CHAP. III. HAving thus dispatched the Scriptures produced in this cause I proceed to consider the Objections of Dissenters from reason grounded upon Scripture and Obj. 1. It is objected That there was nothing appertaining in the least to the Worship of God but was fully set down even to the pins of the Tabernacle in the Law of Moses when Gods Material House was to be built he gave to Moses for the Tabernacle and to David for the Temple a Pattern according to which he would have every thing made or done And of this Pattern which God gave to David for the Temple it is expresly said God gave it him in Writing 1 Chron. 28.19 Nothing then might be done by Moses or by Solomon tho they were two of the wisest Men that ever lived about the Tabernacle or Temple or about the whole Service of God performed in them but according to that Pattern Exod. 25.9 40 39 42 40 16. and this charge the Lord repeats to Moses four times to shew the great Importance of it and the Author to the Hebrews Notes that it was said unto him Hebr. 8.5 see that thou make all things according unto the Pattern that was shewed thee in the Mount Hebr 3.6 Since therefore Christ was faithfull in his House as Moses was he must say they in building his Spiritual House have given us a Pattern according to which he would have all his works done and that pattern must be contained in the H. Scriptures Answ 1 Of this almost all the Arguments produced by Dissenters on this Subject it is observable that they hold as much against all Laws concerning Civil matters as concerning sacred For instance Moses as he prescribed those Laws whereby the Jewish Nation was to Act in sacred matters so did he from Gods mouth prescribe them a Judicial Law a Law for Civil Government and he moreover saith of that as well as of those Laws which did concern Gods Worship you shall observe to do as the Lord your God hath Commanded you you shall not turn aside to the right hand or the left If then the Argument here holds from the fidelity of Moses to that of Christ or from Gods care of his Churches Service under the Old Testament to his care of it under the New Christ must have given us a form of Civil Government as well as Sacred a Statute Law by which our Courts of Justice must be regulated and to which 't is not in the Power of King and Parliament to add on Statute or else Christ must be thought less faithful in his House then Moses was and God less carefull of the Christian than the Jewish Church And indeed Arguments of this Nature taken from Similitudes may be used to conclude things manifestly false as V. G. God is not less kind to his Ministers under the New Testament than under the Old and therefore as in the Law of Moses we are told punctually what they should receive from the People so must we be told also under the New Testament under the Law there was on Earth an High Priest over the Jews therefore we must have an universal Bishop over the Christians Moses
appointed a living Judge of Controversies to whom all Jews stood bound to repair in doubtful cases and according to whose word and information they were obliged to Act not declining from it to the right hand or to the left Deut. 17.9 12. And therefore by this Rule of our Dissenters God must have left us Christians such a living Judge or else his care and kindness towards the Christian Church will be less then was his care and kindness to the Jewish Church Answer 2 2ly It is falsly supposed by this Argument that Moses was so exact and full in all his institutions that nothing afterward was to be added to them or ordained by the Rulers of the Church for the better observation of them the Rulers of the Jewish Church did notwithstanding his exactness do many things Sacred and Civil for which they had no precept to direct them nor any other Warrant but the use of reason and prudential discourse and they made many constitutions which were of things very useful and necessary to be decided for the direction of the practice both of Priests and People The instances of this Nature are very numerous and may be seen in Dr. Leightfoots Temple Service from whence I shall Collect these few The Law of Moses appoints no Substitute to the High Priest in case of his uncleanness or any other matter which might render him unfit to do his Office at the great day of expiation or any other Solemnity Provision therefore was made for this and other occasions of like Nature by appointing with him a Sagan or a Substitute who might officiate for him in such cases Leight p. 34. p. 169. And of whose officiating for him in the great day of Expiation we find an instance in Josephus l. 17. cap. 8. p. 597. They had no Command for sounding their Trumpets every Morning at the opening of the Court Gates particularly at the opening of the Gate of Nicanor But tho this practice had no express and literal Command yet was it grounded upon this necessity and reason because that the Levites and Stationary Men might have notice to come to attend their Desks and Service and that the People of Jerusalem might hear Temple Serv. p. 57 58. and take notice and those that would come to the Temple so that this sounding was as the Bells to ring them in to the Service Agreeable to this was also the sounding striking or ringing of their great Bell Migrepha Ibid. p. 111. p. 59. The constant Psalms sung by the Levites every day of the Week with the reasons why they made choice of them The four and twenty courses of the Israelites of the station is no where mentioned or appointed in the Law of Moses and yet it was an excellent constitution p. 63. For there were some sacrifices that were sacrifices of all Israel and particularly the daily Sacrifice now it was impossible that all Israel should be present at the Sacrifices that were to be Offered up for all Israel and therefore it was needful that some Representatives should be chosen who instead and behalf of all the People should be present at every Sacrifice that should be Offered up for the whole Congregation Now because it would be too heavy for one Company of Men to attend continually on this Work as the daily Sacrifice required therefore they appointed twenty four Courses of these stationary Men as well as of the Priests and Levites that their attendance in these vicissitudes might be the more easie for which cause also was made the like division of the Priests and Levites p. 64. There was Sacrificing in the Temple Service twice a day and reading of the Law at least twice and Prayers four times and it became them and behoved them if it had been possible to have been all attending there but because this could not possibly be done they ordained these Courses of Stationary Men to be as the Deputies of all the People and a Representative Congregation in their behalf It had been an open contempt of those ordinances if being daily Administred none of the People had attended at them and it would have been a hazard that in time they might have been neglected by the People if they had been left to their own liberty to come or not come to them as they saw good therefore to prevent this visible contempt that might have accrued and to provide that there might be always a Congregation of the People These Stationary Courses were ordained that if Devotion brought no other of the People to the Service yet these their Representatives might be sure to be there That the High Priest should confess over the Scape Goat all the Iniquities of the Children of Israel and all their Transgressions in all their Sins we read Lev. 16.21 But in the Law of Moses we find no form of Words which the High Priest was to use and therefore the Rulers of the Church appointed him to say Ah Lord thy People the House of Israel have sinned and done perversly p. 173. and transgressed before thee I beseech thee now Oh Lord expiate the sins perversities and transgressions which the House of Israel thy People have sinned done perversly and transgressed before thee c. in the same Chapter the High Priest is Commanded to Offer a Bullock for a sin Offering for himself v. 6 11. to make an Atonement for himself and for his House Atonement for sin could not be made without confession of it provided that the sin were known it was therefore necessary that he should make confession of his sin in order to this Atonement wherefore no Words of confession being prescribed by the Law of Moses p. 171. they ordered him to say Ah Lord I have sinned done perversly and transgressed before thee I and my House I beseech thee oh Lord expiate the sins perversities and transgressions whereby I have sinned done perversly and transgressed I and mine House c. Moreover by every sin and trespass Offering Atonement was to be made and so the sin of the offendor was to be confessed but there being no form of confession mention'd in the Law of Moses the Rulers ordered the offendor to confess in this wise I have sinned p. 69. and done perversly I have rebelled and done thus and thus but I return by repentance before thee and let this be my expiation The Law of Moses in many cases appointed a Meat Offering but neither determined of the quantity of Corn or Oyl to be brought for it and therefore the Rulers determined that no Meat Offering should consist of less than the tenth part of an Ephah of Corn p. 95. and a Log of Oyl Moreover a Man that lived at a great distance from Jerusalem was fallen under such an offence for which a Sacrifice was due by the Law p. 99. the enquiry hereupon was what must he do must he away presently thither to offer his Offering must he
and as it grew more ancient its Constitutions grew more numerous and so the men of this opinion had they lived then as they did not none that we read of in those times ever pretending separation from any Church on these accounts they must have been obliged to separate from all the Churches then in being Come we to all the Churches of this present Age and we shall find that this opinion will oblige the Authors of it to separate from them also For the Church of Rome and all the Eastern Churches they must much more abominate on this account than any others because their Ceremonies are more numerous and many of them superstitious The Lutheran Churches have not only Lyturgies and other ancient Ceremonies which we observe but they have also Images many other observations which these men stile Superstitious Popish Antichristian Ceremonies In the Reformed Churches they will find Lyturgies of humane invention and change of Apparel for Divine Service even at Geneva they will find enjoyned a Book of Common Prayer composed by Calvin the Wafer Cake the use of God-Fathers in Baptism bidding of Prayer with divers other Coremonies no where commanded in the Holy Scripture and so as Dr. Durel largely proves it is in all Reformed Churches of the West I am not able saith Mr. Baxter to bear the thoughts of separating from almost all Christs Churches upon Earth but he that separateth from one or many Def. of the Princip of love p. 55. upon a Reason common to all doth virtually separate from all Since then it hath been proved that separating on the Account of this principle is virtually condemning and separating from all the Churches of this and all preceding Ages of the Christian World the Authors of it must renounce the principle or bear the blame both of condemning and separating from the whole Church of Christ throughout all Ages This Tenet gives a great advantage to Popery for it asserts that nothing circumstantial must be performed in Gods worship without particular direction from the Word Now it is certain that many circumstances of worship which concern Prayer Preaching of the Word Administration of the Sacraments Church Government the Exercise of Church discipline are not determined in the written Word of God and therefore it is needful if this principle be true either to own Traditions touching matters of this Nature to be received as the Word of God or to confess he hath appointed some infallible persons whether Pope or Councils it is not much material whose determinations in these matters must be received as the Word of God Now these two Tenets are the fundamental parts of Popery on which their other Doctrins and Practices depend and which if we admit we cannot rationally reject whatsoever these infallible Judges shall determine or deliver as the unwritten Word of God I shall conclude this head with a large Passage out of Mr. Baxter who in his defence of his principles of Love speaks thus There are men otherwise very honest and truly Godly who think that the Scripture is intended by God not only as a general Rule but a particular Law for all the very circumstances of worship and that the second Commandment in particular condemneth all that is the product or invention of man in or about the Worship of God and that to deny this is to deny the perfection of the Scriptures If this opinion prevail saith he what abundance of hurt will it do For 1. It draweth men into the dangerous guilt of adding to the Word of God under pretence of defending its perfection and extent For what is adding to the Word of God but making that to be commanded or forbidden by that Word which is not there commanded or forbidden Since therefore evident it is that all particular circumstances of worship are not by that Word prescribed as I have proved already whence it must necessarily follow that some necessary circumstances not there prescribed cannot be forbidden it is plain that this opinion which saith that all circumstances of worship are particularly prescribed in Scripture and that all not prescribed are forbidden there must add unto the Word of God 2ly It prepareth men for Infidelity and the denyal of the Authority of Holy Scripture for when men are made to believe that Scripture if it be a perfect Rule must be a Rule for those things which are not found in it at all they must be tempted when they cannot find all Accidents of worship particularly determined in it to suspect it as a delusory imperfect thing The Divine Will say it tells me not sufficiently and particularly what Books of Scripture are Canonical nor which of the various Readings are right nor whether it be to be divided into Chapters and Verses nor into how many nor in what Metre and Tune I must sing Psalms nor what persons shall be Pastors of Churches nor what Text I shall chuse next nor what Words or Method I shall use in my next Prayer or Sermon 3ly This opinion which seems to plead for the perfection of the Scripture Rule doth plainly charge it with imperfection and obscurity for it asserts that it is necessary in Order to the perfection of this Rule that it should have prescribed every particular circumstance and mode of worship fit and requisite to be used in Gods Service and it is farther requisite that it should do this clearly in all the instances forementioned since otherwise we cannot be assured that we act in all these modes and circumstances according unto its directions Now seeing it is certain that it hath not done so in all the instances forementioned in answer to the former Arguments since learned pious and judicious men can find no such determinations there and therefore judge dispute and act so variously in those matters because they find nothing delivered in those cases with so great clearness and particularity as may determine them in all these cases how to act I say this being so it must be evident that Scripture cannot be according to this supposition a sufficient plain and perfect Rule 4ly This mistake tends to cast all rational worship out of the Church by deterring men from inventing or studying how to do Gods Work aright for if all that man inventeth or deviseth without a particular direction from the Holy Scripture be forbidden by it then must we not study to find out the true Method of Praying or Preaching nor must we study what to say till we are speaking nor what time gesture place or words to use there being no particular direction for these things it being only said in general Study to shew thy self a Workman that needs not be ashamed Now banish Study and you banish Knowledge and rational Religion from the World 5ly This opinion will bring in all confusion instead of pure reasonable worship whilst every man is left to find that in Scripture which never was there one will think that he findeth one thing there and another
the person to whom they are performed are parts of Civil Worship And so also is the case with reference to Religious Worship Nor are our Ceremonies Religious but only Ceremonies used in Religion 12ly Nor would the Command of God to use a Surplice or sign with the Cross to signifie to the Congregation the Reception of the Baptized Person into the Society of Christians make these Ceremonies parts of Divine Worship any otherwise than the doing of them would be an Act of Obedience to Gods Command and therefore the doing of them without that Command can be no Worship and therefore no false Worship Nor is all that God tieth in a particular manner to his Worship any part thereof Obj. 4 To bring in any Ceremonies of Ordained and Mystical signification appropriated to the Worship of God without any License from Christ himself is to Trespass against his Kingly Office for he is the only Law-giver to his Church and hath committed to her no Authority of appointing new things but a Ministry to observe and do such things as Christ hath appointed with order and decency unto Edification It also is a derogation from the fulness of Christs Prophetick Office For Christ is the only Teacher of his Church and the Appointer of all means whereby we should be taught and admonished of any holy Duty and whatsoever he hath thought good to teach his Church and the means whereby he hath perfectly set down in Holy Scripture so that to acknowledg any other means of teaching and admonishing us of our Duty than such as he hath appointed is to receive another teacher into the Church besides him and to confess some imperfection in the means he hath ordained to teach us by This I would learn saith Ames how we can acknowledg and receive any means of Religious teaching with Faith except it appear to be appointed by an Authentick Teacher and Law-giver and how our Prelates in appointing means of Spiritual teaching which Christ appointed not can be accounted therein Ministerial Teachers under him as their and our only Authentick Teacher As also if Christ be our Authentick Teacher in all good that we learn about Religion who taught our Prelates so good manners as to put Fescues of their own making into his hand and so appoint him after what manner and by what means he shall Teach us To this objection I Answer Answ 1 That this Argument is grounded upon this false supposition that the Rulers of our Church have instituted any Ceremonies to teach Spiritual Duties by their Mystical significations or to be Authentick means of Spiritual Teaching whereas I know no Ceremonies appointed to be used to that end so that both the use of the Ceremony and the end are matter of the Churches Precept and it were folly for her to make such Constitutions for since the Church cannot discern whether I have learnt that Spiritual Duty by using of her Ceremonies or not She cannot punish the Offenders against such an Ordinance and so must vainly make it She hath indeed appointed such Ceremonies as she conceiveth apt to stir up the dull mind of Man to the remembrance of his Duty Preface to the C. prayer of Cer. c. by some notable and special signification and therefore hath enjoyned them because she so conceiveth of them but she hath no where said that she enjoyns them to Teach Spiritual Duties or assigned any determinate signification of them v. g. she hath enjoyned her Ministers to wear a Surplice when they Officiate but hath not said that she enjoyns it to Teach them Innocence or Purity or any other Spiritual Duty Rubr. after the Communion She enjoyns her People to Kneel at the Sacrament and tells us that we should signifie thereby our humble and grateful acknowledgment of the benefits of Christ but then she doth not say that she designs thereby to Teach us Humility and Gratitude for those benefits but only calls upon us to express that humility and gratitude which she supposeth we have learnt already In a Word these Ceremonies are not by her appointed to signifie at all much less to signifie what being used without her institution they would not signifie but they are appointed to be used as being apt when used to mind us of or bring into our minds our Duty or as fit to excite within us Pious meditations and reflections Answ 2 2ly I answer that if it be no derogation from Christs Kingly or Prophetick Office to stir up our minds to the performance of our duty by things apt to stir them up unto it or to express and signify our duty by things apt to express and signify it then can it be no encroachment on those Offices to impose or require such things as have an aptness thus to signify and mind us of our duties for in it self it cannot be unlawful to require what may be lawfully performed tho it be not required Now if it be a derogation from Christs Prophetick or his Kingly Office to use such things as are apt to put us in mind of our duty it must be unlawful to toll a bell to put us in mind of going to Prayers to keep by us a skull or skeleton to mind us of our Mortality or a pare of Leathern Breeches as Dr. Prideaux did to mind us of our former low Condition to have our vaults or burying places ready fitted and prepared as the Eastern Nations had and some great persons have because these things are apt to mind us of our latter ends or to set apart a closet in our Chambers for private devotions that so our coming thither may mind us of our duty Moreover then the ingenious Meditations of pious Mr. Boyle and Quarles his Emblems and all the History of the five Books of Moses graven in Stone in the Chapter House of Sarum and all things of like Nature which are apt to bring to our Remembrance good things and are not by our Lord in Scripture appointed to be used to these ends must be all Sacrilegious usurpations upon Christs Kingly and Prophetick Office Again then must that pack of Cards which Contains the whole History of the Popish Plot and our deliverance from it be guilty of this Crime because they were designed to stir up our minds to an abhorrence of their wickedness and a Thanksgiving to the Author of our Deliverance and we with equal reason may ask that profound Question of Dr. Ames who taught the Author of them such good manners as to put Fescues of his own making into our hands to mind us of these things Lastly Upon the same account it must be a derogation from Christs Prophetick and his Kingly Office to require men to come gravely into the House of God or be uncovered there or to kneel at their devotions because these things are apt to stir up the dull mind of man to the Remembrance of the Majesty and Greatness of that God with whom he hath to do By these and
things but only whether what they do Command tho it should exceed the power given them by God may without sin be done and if they find it may they cannot without sin refuse obedience no not in case of accidental Scandal Obj. 4 If determination of Superiors were sufficient to take away the sin of Scandal then they do very ill that they do not so far as is possble determin all things indifferent that so no danger may be left of giving of offence by the use of them Then the Church of Rome is to be praised in that she hath determined so many indifferents then Paul with the other Apostles might have spared a great deal of Labour in admonishing the Churches how they should avoid offences about some indifferent things a far shorter way had been either to determin the matter fully or else to have given order that the Churches should among themselves determin it at home Answ 1. We do not say that the determination of Superiors will always take away the sin of Scandal but that it certainly will do it when upon that determination an equal Scandal follows on the other hand 2ly It will not follow hence that they do ill in not determining all things indifferent that so no danger may be left of giving of offence by the use of them Because the remedy may be much worse than the Disease as being 1. To bring a Yoke of bondage on the necks of Christians which they could hardly bear for if the Council at Jerusalem thought fit to stile their Imposition of a few necessary things a Burthen how well might the determination of all things indifferent deserve that appellation And 2ly As tending to distract Mens devotions by their attendance to such a multitude of Ceremonies as must be then imposed and as are actually imposed by the Church of Rome 3ly As tending to Minister occasion to endless divisions in the Church and scruples in the minds of her weak Members for if three Ceremonies determined by the Church are so much scrupled if by occasion of their Imposition such Divisions and Separations have so long continued as we by sad experience see what might be then expected should all indifferent circumstances be determined by her and for these reasons it by no means will follow that the Church of Rome is to be praised in that she hath determined so many matters of this Nature Nor 3ly Will it follow that the Apostles might have spared a great deal of Labour in admonishing the Churches how they should avoid offence about some things indifferent even by determining them fully or by giving order that the Churches should among themselves determin them for this which he here stiles a shorter way might have been far more dangerous by Ministring to great contentions in the Church and causing the weak Jews to flie off from the profession of the Gospel or from Communion with their fellow Christians and so that course would not have hindred the perishing of the weak Brother but rather would have tended to the promotion of his ruin Obj. 5 But say that the Arch-Bishop of Corinth for now I suppose such a one had called his Congregation and with consent of his Clergy had determined that Men might and for testifying of Liberty should at a certain time eat of such and such meats which Men formerly doubted of would not yet the Apostle have given the same direction he did Would not good Christians still have had care of their Brothers Consciences Can the determination of a Superior be a sufficient Plea at the Bar of Gods Judgment seat for a Man that by virtue or force thereof alone hath done any action that his Conscience telleth him will Scandalize his Brother I Answer 1. That no Mans Conscience can tell him certainly that he will but only that he may Scandalize his Brother by conforming to the Commands of his Superiors and it may also tell him that he is in danger to Scandalize them more by not conforming and in this Case the Plea holds good the Scandal being equal on both sides I durst not disobey Superiors against a plain Command and to the manifest dividing and disturbing of the Church to avoid the Scandal of a weak Brother arising not from my action but his ignorance And 2ly Hence I return an Answer to the Questions contained in the Objection to the first viz. Would not St. Paul in case of the determination of the Arch-Bishop of Corinth that all Meats should indifferently be eaten have given the same direction as he did Answ Had he so done there would have been no obligation on the Corinthians to obey their Arch-Bishop in opposition to St. Paul because the power Apostolical was much Superior to that of Bishops and Arch-Bishops they must have therefore in this case obeyed St. Paul by virtue of the general Command to obey Superiors but whether in this case St. Paul would have delivered the same direction is uncertain but this is certain and a sufficient Answer to the Question that St. Paul would have considered where the Scandal would have been greatest both with respect unto the number of Persons offended and the destructive Nature and consequences of the offence and would accordingly have given his directions and and so accordingly do we To the second Question Would not good Christians still had care of their Brothers Consciences Answer They would have shewed their care both of their Brothers Conscience and their own by giving him by their example no occasion to disobey those that Ruled over them in Lawful matters to the dividing and the disturbing of the Churches Peace To the third Question Can the determination of Superiors be a sufficient Plea at the Bar of Gods judgment seat for doing any action that his Conscience telleth him will Scandalize his Brother I Answer Why not if doing of his Duty will be a Plea sufficient But on the other hand can the pretence of Scandalizing a weak Brother be a sufficient Plea for disobedience to Gods Vice-Gerents in a Lawful matter and for dividing and disturbing of the Churches Peace and thereby ministring a greater Scandal both to Superiors and to all peaceable Conformists Obj. 6 I would fain know whether those Superiors do not give a great Scandal which take upon them to impose unnecessary Rites which they know many good Men will be Scandalized by Answ Good Mr. Doctor it concerns you more to know and practise your own Duty then to be censuring and curiously searching into the actions of Superiors for which not you but they must Answer if they do offend Obj. 7 It seems then in case the Magistrate Command it we may wound the weak Conscience of our Brother and destroy with our indifferences the work of God and him for whom Christ died Answ True we may do that which hath an accidental tendency to these unhappy ends As v. g. suppose the Nonconformists are grieved at our Preaching and submission to Superiors and our continuance
that account is never in the least insinuated this therefore Principles of love p 44. saith Mr. Baxter to his dissenting Brethren you may observe that no one Member is in these Scriptures or any other commanded to come out and separate from any one of all these Churches as if Communion with them in Worship were unlawful and therefore before you separate from any as judging Communion with them unlawful be sure that you bring greater reasons for it than any of these recited were And to confirm this Answer it deserves to be considered that we find in the New Testament express injunctions directed to the whole body of the Christian Churches requiring them to refuse Communion in their private conversations with such persons or to renounce familiarity with them not to company with them 1 Cor. 5.9 Not to eat with them v. 11. To mark them who cause divisions and scandals contrary to the Doctrine which they had received and avoid them Rom. 16.17 To withdraw from every Brother that walks disorderly Thess 2.3 6. To have no company with them that they may be ashamed v. 14. We also find the Angels or Officers of the Church oft blamed for this neglect by Christ and his Apostles as in the case of the Incestuous Person the case of Pergamos and Thyatira where they were suffered who taught the Doctrins of the Nicolaitans of Balaam and of Jezebel that is both spiritual and carnal fornication This I have against thee O Thyatira that thou permittest Jezebel Vid. Synops in locum quod eam non coerces censuris Ecclesiae that thou doest not execute the censures of the Church upon her this against thee O Pergamos that thou hast those who teach the Doctrine of Balaam whereas thou being the Angel of the Church shouldst have fought against them with the Spiritual Sword as did the Angel who resisted Balaam because his way Numb 22.22 23. Hebr. 12.15 was perverse before God We find them call'd upon 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to execute the Office of a Bishop by looking diligently that no such persons be among them and warned of the great danger that the Whole lump might be exposed to by such Soure Leaven We lasty find our Saviour praising the Angel of the Church of Ephesus that he could not bear them but never do we find our Lord or his Apostles calling the People to come out from them or to be separate but only in such cases as did oblige them to touch the unclean thing 2 Cor. 6.17 that is to joyn in their Idolatries or partake with them in their Sins From which Considerations Rev. 18.4 it follows as Estius well notes that the Governors of the Church which tolerate Such Persons in the Church offend and that the People who use familiar converse with them do likewise offend but it by no means follows that they who do perform the publick duties of Religion where they are present do offend and as the Reverend and Learned Dr. Unreas of Sep. p. 217. Stillingfleet well notes There be many Reasons to break off private familiarity which will not hold as to Publick Communion and which may render it the Christians duty to do the first and not the latter For our Communion in Publick is a thing which Chiefly Respects God and is a necessary duty of his own appointing the benefit whereof depends upon his promises and all the Communion we have with other men therein is only that of Christ and his Apostles with Judas at the Paschal Supper joyning together for the performance of a Common Religious duty But private familiarity is a thing which wholly respects the persons we converse with it is a thing of meer choice and of much danger it being hardly to be imagined without approbation at least if not imitation of their wickedness And to this the concurrent judgment of the Old Nonconformists who did not think this want of Discipline sufficient cause of separation from Communion with us for having laid this as a foundation that no man ought to separate from a true Church requiring nothing sinful of him Grav confut p. 18. in order to Communion with them they add that altho it were Granted that we wanted both the exercise of the Churches Censures and some of those Officers which Christ hath appointed to exercise them by yet might we be a true Church notwithstanding as there was a true Church in Judah all the days of Asa and Jehosaphat yet was not the Discipline reformed there till the latter end of Jehosaphats Reign The Church of Corinth was a true Church even when the Apostle blamed them for want of Discipline the Congregation of Samaria is called a Church before the Discipline was established there and even in Jerusalem there was a famous visible Church of Christ long before Sundry parts of the Discipline for want whereof they condemn us were established there yea it is evident that by the Apostles themselves divers Churches were Gathered some Good space of time before the Discipline was setled or exercised by all which it is manifest that howsoever those parts of the Discipline which we want be necessary to the beauty and well being and perservation of the Church yet are they not necessary to the being thereof but a true Church may be without them 2ly They add Ibid. p. 51.52 That it doth not belong to private persons to set up the Discipline of the Church against the will and consent of the Christian Magistrate and Governors of the Church yea they declare that in so doing they should highly offend they are bound saith Giffard P. 59 95 100 101 102. by the bands of Conscience and the fear of God from presuming to take upon them publick Authority And if so it is evident that they cannot chuse Pastors for themselves and set up other Churches and Church Governors to exercise the Churches Discipline because they do conceive it is neglected by the Christian Magistrate and other Governors of the Church Yea lastly let me ask our dissenting Brethren if on account of this supposed neglect of Discipline they think themselves obliged to desert Communion with the Church of England whether will they go The Church of Rome they know besides her other errors is more Guilty of this crime than we men may be any thing in their Communion provided that they be not Hereticks and still be owned as Genuine Members of their Church The rest of the Reformed Churches are as loose as we their Members Generally are as corrupt in manners as ours are the same may be affirmed of the Eastern Churches they therfore must acknowledge that they cannot lawfully maintain Communion with any other Church on this account and that there always was even since the reformation a necessity of separation from all Christian Churches in the world for this neglect of Discipline or that they notwithstanding this supposed neglect may hold Communion with the Church of England now have
tho Accidentally and by Performing their own duty occasion to the Sin of Eli's Sons What therefore I may do for the procuring the Spiritual Good of others from whom I am commanded to withdraw may be more certainly performed for the procuring of my own Spiritual Good by my participation of the Ordinances of Christ from Persons authorized by him and his Vicegerents to administer them what may be done in order to their welfare who are unworthy of Communion with us that may much more be done in order to the Churches Good for the promotion of her Peace and Unity and the prevention of those Schisms by which she is so much endangered and if those words I will have mercy and not sacrifice will warrant our Communion with wicked persons with whom we are forbid to eat when it may be a means of their conversion why then may it not warrant our Communion with them in Sacred things when this Communion is a means of our salvation and of the Churches Peace which is one of the chiefest ends of Discipline If Christians were not call'd to separate on the account of those impure Gnosticks who did feast among them and eat at the Lords Table with them why should they separate from the same Ordinances on the account of some profane Professors who are mix'd with our Assemblies And lastly If the People did transgress who came not up to Shilo to offer their accustomed oblations there tho they to whom they were to be presented and by whom they were to be offered were Sons of Belial and they alone did sanctifie and offer the Peace-offerings of which the People were afterwards to eat I fear they also will transgress who upon less pretences will not come unto our Shilo's the places of our publick Worship It may be doubted whether all those men whose presence with us in our Church Assemblies doth so much offend Dissenters Prop. 9. deserve immediately to be secluded from Communion with us seeing they seem not to have been both privately and publickly admonish'd by the Church for how can it be said they will not hear the Church when they have never been admonished by her to reform or threatned with her censures if they will not do it they therefore cannot be esteemed contumacious or such as will not hear the Church and so they are not presently to be excluded by Excommunication from Communion with her Mr. Baxter having cited Principles of love p. 87.88.89 Matt. 18.15 16. Tit. 3.10 Saith thus Note here that no sin will warrant you to cast out the sinner unless it be seconded with impenitency it is not simply as a Drunkard or a Fornicator that any one is to be rejected but as an Impenitent Drunkard or Fornicator Note 2ly That it is not all impenitency which will warrant their rejection but only impenitency after the Churches admonition Note 3ly That no private person may expect that any Offender be cast out either because his sin is known to him or because he is commonly famed to to be guilty till the thing be proved by sufficient witnesses Note 4ly That the admonition given him must be proved as well as the fault which he committed Yea lastly If all The town do know him to be guilty and witness prove that he hath been privately admonished he may not be rejected till he be heard speak for himself and till he refuse also the publick admonition This is Christs order whose wisdom mercy and authority are such as may well cause us to take his way as best Now were this doctrine true without exception it would 1. Answer the Objection by shewing that Dissenters do unreasonably separate for the Non-execution of the Churches Censures upon them who at the present are not the proper objects of them And 2. It would in a great measure cast the blame of this neglect of Discipline on the Complainants for if they know of any such why do they not first privately admonish them and if they cannot by so doing gain their Brother why do they not then tell it to the Church But if they do not know of any such nor ever told the Church of any such that she might know and knowing might admonish them and if they should refuse to Hear her might proceed to censure them why do they then complain But to confess the truth ingenuously this Doctrin contradicts the general practice of the Church of Christ whilst Discipline remained among them more especially the practice of the most Primitive and Purest Ages of the Church when all Notorious Offenders of what degree soever were without farther admonition immediately censured and separated from the faithful See Dr. Cave 's prim christian part 3. cap. 5. p. 367. till by long and strict penances of fasting and mortification by which they evidenced their sorrow for and their reformation of their crimes they were thought fit to be again admitted to the peace of God and of his Church This doctrine therefore must admit of some restriction to make it consonant to truth 1. Therefore if the crime be such as is consistent with Christianity and doth not prove the Author of it to be Carnal this admonition must precede the censures of the Church because in such a case 't is not so much the fact it self as the ensuing contumacy which deserves her censure 2ly If the crime committed be private and brings no infamy to the Church and the offender shew good signs of penitence the crime being not committed before many it seems not reasonable that it should be punished before many unless where such a publick censure may do good to many in which case that of the Apostle seemeth to take place them that sin rebuke before all that others also may fear 3ly 1 Tim. 5.20 If it be an act of injustice to some private person for which full satisfaction may be made and admonition may prevail upon him so to do which seems to be the case in which our Lord requires a threefold admonition adding that if our admonition do prevail our Brother is Gained and so the Church hath no occasion to proceed to censures Or 4ly If it be an offence of judgment and not of practice against judgment in which case the Apostles words are plain for a first and second admonition I say in all these cases this previous admonition seemeth reasonable But 2ly If the Crimes committed be of an heinous nature Tit. 3.10 and Christians cannot well be ignorant that they are so as in the cases of Apostasy Murther Incest Adultery c. Or if they be so publickly committed as to give scandal to the Church and the Crime be notorious or confessed then without farther admonition I suppose the Criminal should be excluded from the Communion of the Church till by repentance and mortification they have made satisfaction to the Church and have made reparation for the Scandal of their sin These Propositions do fully Answer this Objection even upon
Such also was undoubtedly the gift vouchsafed to Timothy such were prophecy teaching exhortation 1 Cor. 12.10 29.14.3 such also was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 ministry for the Deacons were to be men full of the Holy Ghost and Wisdom Acts 6.3 and they most likely are the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 helps mentioned among spiritual gifts 1 Cor 12.28 and if so all these places must be impertinently alledged to prove that ordinary gifts may not be stinted Answ 3 These precepts cannot rationally be supposed to enjoin the use of any of these gifts farther than may consist with order and edification the peace and union of the Church and with subjection to the Prophets and then they cannot so enjoyn their exercise as to disturb her order peace and union and to oppose our selves to the prescriptions of her Prophets especially considering that the Church doth not wholly lay restraint upon the use of this supposed gift no not in publick but doth permit us to exercise it in our Prayers before and after Sermon Object 4 4ly It is objected thus That God promised under the Gospel times to pour out upon his people the Spirit of grace and supplication Zech. 12.10 and such a Spirit being given as are all the gifts of God for the edification of the Church must not be hindred Answ 1 There is no certain evidence that God here speaketh any thing of Prayer for what we render supplication is by divers Interpreters the Chaldee Paraphrast the Septuagint the Syriack and Arabick Versions agreeably to the derivation of the word rendred mercies and compassions by others the spirit of lamentation Answ 2 There is no evidence that God here promiseth the gift of praying fluently by the immediate assistance of the Holy Spirit for the effect of what is promised here is not Spiritual Hymns or Prayers not that they shall fluently express themselves in prayer but that they shall look on him whom they have pierced and shall mourn so that men may with equal reason argue hence for extemporary sorrow and against such considerations as serve to work this sorrow in us as for extemporary prayer and against such considerations as may prepare us to put up our addresses duly to the God of Heaven Answ 3 There is no evidence that if the Spirit of prayer be promised here this promise doth respect our Age and men may argue with equal reason from the promise made by Joel Joel 2.28 that in the latter days God would pour out his spirit upon all flesh c. that we may now expect Prophetick Visions Dreams and Prophesyings as from this promise of the Prophet Zechary that we may now expect the miraculous assistance of Gods Spirit in prayer Object 5 It is said 1 Cor. 14 15. I will pray with the spirit § 2 now though there is no shadow of an Argument in these words to countenance extemporary prayer yet may it be useful for undeceiving some of our Dissenters to observe 1. That there was when this Epistle was endited a spiritual gift of prayer which Christians exercised in their Assemblies by the immediate assistance and operation of the Holy Spirit For the Apostle in the 12th Chapter of this Epistle propounds to treat touching spiritual gifts beginning of his treatise thus concerning spiritual gifts 1 Cor. 12.1 Brethren I would not have you ignorant and this discourse he carries on to the end of the 14th Chapter where in the 15th v. we read these words I will pray with the spirit I will pray with the understanding also to pray then with the spirit is to pray with this spiritual gift for of those Gifts the Apostle speaketh in the whole discourse and forasmuch as he applyeth this spiritual gift to prayer saying I will pray with the spirit 't is certain he affirms that there was then a spiritual gift in the Church enabling them to whom it was given to pray in words suggested by the holy spirit or to make and utter upon the sudden a new prayer suiting the condition of the then present Church of God 2ly It is extremely evident that praying with the spirit then was using of the gift of tongues in prayer as is apparent from these words if I pray with an unknown tongue my spirit prayeth v. 14. i. e. my spiritual gift is exercised And 2ly because the Idiot could not say Amen to him that prayed by the spirit because he understood not what he said v. 16. 3ly From these words of the Apostle I speak with tongues more than you all and yet had rather speak five words in the Church with my understanding that I might teach others than ten thousand words in an unknown tongue v. 18 19. Moreover that it was also praying what he understood not is evident 1. Because praying with the understanding is opposed to it 2. Because the mind of him who prayed by the Spirit was unfruitful v. 14. 3. V. 13. Because he is bid to pray that he may interpret if then Dissenters desire thus to pray let them do it let us hear them pray in unknown tongues and when they do so they will only pray after the Roman manner disapproved of by St Paul who commands such persons to be silent in the Church vers 28. 3ly When this Spiritual Gift was exercised the Apostle plainly saith that it was better to pray with the understanding i. e. with words that might be understood by others than to pray with this spiritual Gift V. 19.28 where there was no Interpreter and in that case commands them who enjoined this Gift to keep silence in the Church And hence it follows unavoidably that in some cases it was not only lawful but even necessary in order to edification that they should stint this Gift if therefore the immediate operations of the Holy Spirit may be stinted in the Church much more the Gift of Elocution Moreover these Gifts were to be stinted by a Revelation made to another person vers 30 by subjection to the Prophets vers 32. by the Rules of order vers 33 40. and they were to give place to Charity and the edification of the Church vers 1 4 12. if therefore Charity Edification Order were to be preferr'd before these Gifts of the Good Spirit much more should Charity the Peace the Vnion the Order of the Church prevail to cut off our pretences to the exercising of this meanest of all Gifts if blessed Paul so undervalued that Praying by the Spirit which was the fruit of his immediate assistance that he preferred Edifying the Church a thousand degrees beyond it I suppose he would have preferred the edification of the Church before that Praying by the Spirit which men usually learn and do obtain to by the help of Dr. Wilkins's Discourse upon the Gift of Prayer Now sure 't is matter of concern towards the Edification of the Church to obey Superiors to preserve Peace Order Union in the Church as much as may be to consent
together in our Petitions and with one mouth to glorifie God to secure the publick Service from dark extravagant erroneous Petitions too oft put up by the contenders for and practisers of this Extemporary Devotion If therefore care ought to be taken that our publick Sacrifice should be as near as can be without blemish and that we do not offer unto God the lame and the blind Mal. 1.13 14. I think this cannot be done better than by prescribing of a well composed form of prayer to be dayly offered up unto God as our Morning and our Evening Sacrifice Lastly Whereas it is objected That in set Forms of prayer we restrain and confine the Spirit and in conceived prayers the Spirit is free unlimited and unconstrained I Answer That by restraining of the Spirit the Objectors mean the restraining of their own Spirits or of the blessed Spirit If by restraining of the Spirit they mean restraining the spirit of the Minister I ask 1. Why his Spirit may not be restrained by the wisdom of his Superiors as well as the spirit of the people by his conceived prayer And tell me Is not their spirit restrained when the whole Congregation is confined to the form of this one mans composing or unto words which on a sudden he doth utter 2. Did not Christ restrain the Spirit of his own Disciples when he taught them to pray the Lords Prayer if he had only said pray thus after this manner and given only a Directory for the matter of prayer this was a restraint but if he said pray this or pray these words as I shall prove he did he then prescribed both the matter and words too and therefore did restrain the Spirit of his Disciples as truly as any other form could do 3. The Spirit of the Minister must in some cases be restrained and that by precept Apostolical for otherwise what means St Paul by saying 1 Cor. 14.32 the Spirit of the Prophets must be subject to the Prophets what greater restraint than subjection for if subjected then they must be ruled if ruled then limited or prescribed unto and as much under restraint as the Spirit of the superior Prophets shall judge convenient In fine when the Assembly of Divines appointed the matter of prayers to all particular Ministers was that appointment by the Spirit or no if no then for ought appears the Directory not being made by Gods Spirit may be an enemy to it But if this appointment were by the Spirit then the determination and limitation of the Spirit in either sense is by the Spirit himself and such indeed is every pious and prudent constitution of the Church in matters spiritual such was that of St Paul to the Corinthians when he prescribed orders for publick Prophesying and Interpretation and speaking with Tongues All these are Answers to this Objection transcribed from the excellent Bishop Taylors Discourse concerning Prayer ex tempore And it seems reasonable to suppose with him that after all these Answers this Objection should trouble us no more If by the Spirit they mean the Holy Spirit I enquire 1. By what Argument shall any man make it so much as probable that the Holy Ghost is injured if every private Ministers Spirit shall be guided and so by necessary consequence limited by the Authority of the Church What prohibition what Law what Reason or Revelation is against it what inconvenience in the nature of the thing for can any man be so weak as to imagine a despite is done to the Spirit of Grace when men pray by such well composed Forms as the whole Church approves of and doth not in opposition to them use his private Gift 2. Is not the Holy Spirit as much restrained by premeditated prayers since the design of that premeditation is only to consider after what form or manner they should pray for what and in what words so that the Holy Spirits assistance is restrained to their conceptions and meditations men therefore must be bound to pray they know not what or else according to this Objection must lay restraints upon the Holy Spirit 3. Doth not the Directory that thing which is here called restraining of the Spirit Doth it not appoint every thing but the words and after this is it not a goodly Palladium which is contended for and a princely liberty they leave unto the Spirit to be free only in supplying the place of a Vocabulary or a Copia Verborum for as for the matter it is all there described and appointed and to these determinate senses the Spirit must assist or not at all only for the words he shall take his choice Now I enquire which is the most considerable of the two Sense or Language matter or words if the former is it not a greater injury to the Spirit to restrain his matter than to appoint his words so that in the greater of the two the Spirit is restrained when his matter is appointed and to make him amends for not trusting him with the matter without our directions and limitations we trust him to say what he pleaseth so it be to our sense 4. Is it not as much a restraint of the Spirit to sing a Psalm in Metre by appointment as to use a Form of Prayer and Thanksgiving by appointment yet this is done daily by Dissenters without any scruple made which seems to argue great partiality or want of judgment There being then no Scripture precept no evidence of reason against Forms of prayer we may hence rationally conclude that they are lawful For had it been the will of God that publick prayers should be performed by Christians in an extemporary manner and not by forms we may rationally conceive the Holy Spirit who is the Spirit of supplication would somewhere have admonished us to pray ex tempore and to beware of Book-prayers and the use of Forms as well as of neglecting this duty altogether or performing it in a careless and undue manner and this the rather because Forms of Prayer and Thanksgiving were used in the Jewish Church and because the modesty of many good Christians and the inabilities of many more would naturally prompt them to the use of so ready a help to Devotion as pious and useful Forms of prayer are but so far are we from finding any command in Scripture to pray upon suddain invention that we find no preference given to this way in Scripture above the use of Forms but rather the contrary for when our Saviour taught his Disciples to pray he enjoined them the use of a form As for all other vices by which this duty is corrupted or rendred less acceptable to God the Holy Ghost hath fully cautioned us against them Matt. 6.7 v. 5. Matt. 15.8 Luke 18.10 1 Cor. 14. James 1.6 1 Tim. 2.8 John 9.31 putting in caveats against Battology or much speaking against performing of this duty for ostentation against honouring God with our lips when our hearts are far from
judgments and opinions that there is among us and that great liberty men take to vent their private sentiments in Prayer when they are not restrained that they shall honestly be able to say Amen to a conceived Prayer whereas in a set Form of Liturgy this inconvenience is avoided seeing we know before hand to what we are to say Amen and therefore if we do not like it may absent our selves 3ly How can we sollicite any persons or perswade any strangers to come to our Churches or join in Communion with us where we cannot promise them that the Devotions to be used there shall be innocent we cannot shew them how we worship God and thereby put them in a condition to judge for themselves or promise them as in the Primitive Church they might whilst prayer by the Spirit lasted that all our prayers shall be agreeable unto the mind of God or how can this be done without producing some prescribed Form by which we pray This seems to be one reason why all the Churches of the World have had their publick Forms of prayer that they might let every-body know how God is served by them And why the best men in the Reformed Churches have wished those happy days might come Thes Salm. de Liturg. part 3. n. 46. in which the same Form of Divine Worship might be observed in the Church and all her members with one heart and mouth might glorify God that so the unity of the spirit and charity among Believers might be preserved as far as may be 4ly By set Forms many mischiefs are prevented to which conceived prayer doth stand obnoxious for hereby care is taken that nothing through the ignorance of some or the negligence of others should be offered up to God which is contrary to the Faith or unworthy of his Divine Majesty on which account it was long since resolved by the Milevitan Council Cap. 12. that no prayers should be used in the Church but those which had been weighed by the most prudent or approved in a Synod And this the wisdom of the Heathens saw whence Plato adviseth De. Legibus l. 7. that whatsoever prayers or Hymns the Poets composed to the Gods they should first shew them to the Priests before they published them lest they should ask evil things instead of good L. 4. c. 17. And Alexander ab Alexandro saith that the Gentiles read their prayers out of a book before their sacrifices ne quid preposterè dicatur that nothing might be spoken preposterously which two may pass for Christian Reasons as seasonable with us as they were among them these times being very subject to these infirmities as our experience hath too sadly found 5ly Our Saviour saith Matt. 18.19 20. where two or three were 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 agreeing in the same voice to request any thing it should be granted and the Apostle prays Rom. 15.6 that with one mouth as well as heart we may glorify God now sure there is more Symphony in a good Form of prayer jointly put up by a whole Nation than there would be in mens extemporary effusions and in it we may be better said to glorify God with one mouth than by the great variety of prayers conceived and so the use of well composed Forms in publick Worship are upon this account to be preferred before extemporary effusions And Lastly To confess my own infirmities I find one great advantage in a form of prayer that being naturally thoughtful and apt to make deductions from what I read or hear I very often make some observations from the Psalms and Lessons of the day as I attend unto them and my thoughts eagerly pursuing them my Devotions are too often interrupted with wandring thoughts which though they may be pious in themselves yet must be my infirmities as far as they withdraw my heart from diligent attention to the prayers then put up to God Now when this happens to me whilst others are using their conceived prayers I know not what are the desires I have neglected and so I cannot when I recal my self offer up those desires to God begging his pardon for my wandrings but when I find my thoughts thus wandring in any part of the Church Service I presently recollect where they began to wander what the petitions were which thus escaped me and either presently if I have any opportunity or when I make up my accounts with God in my retirements I humbly offer them up to God beseeching his forgiveness of my wandring thoughts This to me seems a kind of satisfaction made to my good God and is a satisfaction to my mind and therefore whatsoever others may think of it it seems to me no small advantage of a Form above a new conceived prayer though no man that I know of hath taken any notice of it since therefore by the use of Forms we may best pray with understanding and more securely and assuredly may join with him that doth officiate and say Amen to his petitions since hereby others may be assured beforehand that they can join sincerely with us in the publick service and may particularly prepare their hearts beforehand so to do Seeing hereby the benefit which is promised to the Church from the Symphony of her petitions is best acquired and both people and Ministers may be relieved best against their various distractions and seeing hereby all unbecoming scandalous expressions which disturb the most devout and minister occasion of derision to the looser Christian are in the most considerable and solemn parts of Divine Worship best prevented seeing a Form may be used no probability of any prohibition of them being made apparent and Christians stand bound to yield obedience to their Superiors in lawful matters seeing a Form must be used in our publick Prayers by virtue of our Lords command to say Our Father and in our publick Hymns and Psalmody by reason of our inability to conceive them suddenly and lastly seeing the whole Church of God hath constantly used Forms in the performance of her publick service for thirteen hundred Years upon all these accounts I think it is highy convenient that they should be retained in the Church of God especially if we consider that our Church doth not wholly exclude the use of any Ministers pretended gift in this kind but gives him liberty to use it both before Dr. Whitnal of Gifts in publick Worship p. 48. and after Sermon provided we acknowledge this habit to be what it is and use it according to the Laws of God with reverence to the Divine Majesty and care we speak not unadvisedly of him or to him according to the Laws of the Church with sobriety modesty peaceableness and order so as not to disturb or divide the Church by bringing thereby the publick and stated order into disesteem and finally with justice to our selves and the common Christianity so as not to make this the sole way of praying in a due or