God offendeth against the Common order of the Church hurteth the Authority of the Magistrate and woundeth the Conscience of the weak Brethren Where by traditions I suppose is meant the Laws and Canons of the Church as the words following do intimate which speak of the Common order of the Church and Authority of the Magistrate Thus much of the Laws of the Church Neither are such meetings onely against the Laws of the Church but against sundry statute Laws of the Kingdom also in that behalf made and provided In the Statute of 35 Eliz. 1. It is provided that if any person or persons above 16 years old shall refuse to repair to some Church Chapel or usual place of Common-prayer to hear divine Service and receive the Communion or come to and be present at any Assemblies Conventicles or Meetings under Colour or pretence of any Exercise of Religion contrary to the Laws and Statutes And if any person shall obstinately refuse to repair to some Church Chapel or usual place of Common-prayer or by any motion persuasion inticement or allurement of any other willingly joyn in or be present at any such Assemblies Conventicles or Meetings under Colour or pretence of any such Exercise of Religion contrary to the Laws and Statutes of this Realm as is aforesaid which refers to other Statutes formerly made and yet of force against Conventicles as well as this one shall be committed to prison and there remain without bail untill be conform and untill he make an open Submission in the words set down in the Statute viz. I. A. B. do humbly acknowledge and confess that I have grievously offended God in contemning her Majesties Godly and lawfull Government and Authority by absenting my self from Church and from hearing divine Service contrary to the godly Laws and Statutes of this Realm and in using and frequenting unlawfull and disorderly Conventicles and Assemblies under Colour and pretence of Exercise of Religion And I am heartily sorry for the same c. And I do promise and protest without any dissimulation that from henceforth I will from time to time obey and perform her Majesties Laws and Statutes in repairing to Church and hearing divine Service and doe my utmost endeavour to maintain and defend the same Neither can it be pretended as it is by some that this Statute was made or stands in force against any other sort of People than those in question viz. against Popish recusants onely and not against Protestant dissenters as they call themselves The answer is easie out of the words of the said Statute For in the beginning of the Statute the Persons that are concerned in obedience to it are expressed in these general and large words Any person or persons whatsoever above the Age of 16 which shall refuse to repair to Church and willingly join in and be present at any Conventicle or Meeting c. Which words comprehend and take in Persons of all Religions Sects and Persuasions whatsoever And whereas the penalty of the Statute to all that shall refuse Obedience and Conformity to it is abjuration of the Realm or to be proceeded against as Felons There is a Proviso toward the End of the Statute that sixeth the penalty altogether upon Protestant recusants and not on Popish In these words Provided that no Popish recusant or feme Covert shall be compelled or bound to abjure by virtue of this Act. And lest the Popish recusants should be the onely Persons therein meant or intended the Conventiclers of our Age make themselves more perfect Recusants than that Statute supposeth For whereas that makes absence from the Prayers of the Church for one Month together a Crime sufficient to render them obnoxious to the penalties of that Act these men for the most part withdraw themselves for many Years together and for ought I see if they are let alone resolve so to doe all the days of their lives In Anno 22. Caroli 2di Regis there was a Statute made to prevent and suppress seditious Conventicles as the Title of that Statute truly calls them wherein Every Person of the Age of 16 years and upward that shall be present at any Assembly Conventicle or Meeting under Colour or pretence of any Exercise of Religion in other manner that according to the Liturgy and Practice of the Church of England in any place within the Kingdom of England Dominion of Wales and Town of Berwick upon Tweed at which Conventicle or meeting there shall be 5 persons or more assembled together is made liable to suffer the penalties of 5 s for his first fault and for his second 10 s and so onward the Preacher to suffer the penalty of 20 ll And the owner of the house or ground that shall wittingly and willingly suffer such Conventicle Meeting or unlawfull Assembly to be held to suffer the penalty of 20 ll In the late Act for Uniformity all Non-conformist Ministers and disabled and prohibited from preaching any Sermon or Lecture indefinitely either publick or private And for as much as the King's Majesty by the Law of God and the Land of right is and ought to be master of all the assemblings together of any of his Subjects therefore what Meetings soever are not allowed and authorized by the Laws of the Realm are adjudged by the Learned in the Laws to fall within the compass of those Statutes that forbid and punish Riots and unlawfull Assemblies and are or may justly be presumed to be in terrorem populi and in the Event it is to be feared will prove to be contrary to the peace of our Sovereign Lord the King And by the Law all the King's Liege-people are commanded to assist in the suppressing of them upon pain of imprisonment and to make fine and ransome to the King Notwithstanding all which good Laws this practice hath continued in the Church these several years and still doth notwithstanding His Majesties reinforcement of their execution by his late Proclamation in open defiance and contempt of all Authority as if the Laws of the Church and Realm were but fulmen inane a shadow of a Cloud that vanisheth as soon as it is made and as if obedience to Magistracy were no part of Christian duty Concerning these Laws of the Realm to silence clamour I will touch lightly at five things I. That the King being next under God within his Dominions supreme in the Church on Earth hath Power and Authority over the Persons of Ministers as well as of any other his Subjects He being Custos utriusque tabulae having both tables committed to him as well the first that concerns our religious duties to God as the other that concerns our civil duties to men may and ought to make such laws as conduce as well to the peace and order in the Church as as godliness and honesty Pertinet hoc ad reges seculi Christianos ut temporibus suis pacatam velint matrem suam Ecclesiam unde
whilst he would strike his foe They cannot confute it without condemning themselves This unguided zeal will be sure to run far enough from Popery and so runs into it as he that sails round the Globe the farther he goes after he is half way the nearer he approacheth to the place whence he set out The Quakers a considerable part of the Nonconformists railed at Popery till they began to be taken for Jesuits or their Disciples The like Stygma the Apostle St. Iude casts upon such Persons There are certain men crept in unawares c. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 How disgracefully and disdainfully the Scripture seems to speak of them who irregularly and contrary to good order and lawfull appointment intrude themselves as Teachers into the Church under pretence of Religion They creep in amongst People they come in by stealth as if they came in at a Window or Back-door insinuating themselves into flocks and societies of God's People creeping to Conventicles professing themselves to be the onely Gospel-preachers and pure Worshippers of God as if all Religion were lost except what they bring and profess Whereas they are indeed unless we will mince the Appellation the Holy Scripture fastens on them but a new sort of Creepers gotten into the body of the Church From such saith the Holy Ghost turn away Again St. Paul Now we command you brethren in the name of the Lord Iesus Christ that ye withdraw your selves from every brother that walketh disorderly and not according to the Tradition he hath received from us With more Apostolical Gravity and Authority a Duty cannot be urged on Christians than this of withdrawing or separating from such as walk 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 disorderly The Metaphor say Expositours is borrowed from the custome of War wherein every Souldier hath his proper station and employment appointed him from which when he swerves he becomes 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 out of his rank Now in an Army every Officer hath his place Company and Command assigned him by his General whereunto he must keep and from which he must not stir And if he should leave his place and take upon him either to make an attempt on the Enemy of his own head without Commission and Orders from his General though with never so good success or Command in another Company than that which is assigned and allotted to him by Authority he is guilty of a breach of that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 good order and discipline that ought to be in an Army and brings in a most odious and destructive disorder and confusion and so deserves to be either quite cashiered or otherwise by Martial Law severely to be punished Yea so absolutely necessary hath it been thought in the opinion of experienced Souldiers that the Laws and Orders of Martial-discipline in an Army should be strictly observed that whosoever have erred from it though in the least Punctilio have been adjudged worthy of death without mercy Famous to this purpose is that story we reade in Valerius Maximus of Manlius Torquatus Consul of the Romans in the Latin War who commanded his own Son to be beheaded for fighting the Enemy without his Father's Privity and Command though he was provoked thereunto by Geminius Metius General of the Tusculans and although he had obtained a signal Victory and very much and rich spoil Satiâ—s esse judicans patrem forti silio quam patriam militari disciplina carere Judging it better that a Father should be deprived of a valiant Son than that his Country should want Military discipline The Church is by Christ twice together in one place said to be an Army with banners he that is the Commander in chief is God himself holy just and wise not the Authour of Confusion but the institutour and lover of order and the hater and punisher of such as wilfully transgress such good rules of wholsome discipline as he either immediately by himself or mediately by his Deputies on earth shall establish amongst his People And is Discipline so needfull in an Army and can it be thought needless in the Church Is our spiritual warfare of less danger of concernment than our bodily Shall it be thought to be a venial offence to be committed without danger when a person shall undertake to intrude himself into the place and company of another and lead on and engage a Party in the Church militant into ways of schism and profaneness in opposition to the way of true Religion and Worship of God established not onely without any lawfull allowance but contrary to all Law and Discipline both Civil and Ecclesiastical The baseness and wickedness of such doings is excellently displayed by Learned Doctor Henry More in his Apology annexed to the second part of his enquiry into the Mystery of iniquity Because some men saith he think themselves of more popular gifts for Prayer and Exhortation for these to spur out and run on in a Career without attending the direction of their Superiours were as if the Toy should take those Troopers that are best horsed to set madly a gallopping because they find their horses will goe so freely and so turn the orderly March of the Army into a confused Horse-race and put themselves into a rout even without the assault or pursuit of any Enemy Can it be pleasing to Christ that any should follow such men in their irregular and hare-brain'd ways when his Apostle bids all men from such to withdraw To what end should there be such flocking after them unless their followers could be partakers of some spiritual benefit from them But this cannot be For their disorderly walking and busie medling where they have not to doe renders all they doe unprofitable and is in effect a spending of a great deal of pains to no purpose wearying themselves out to weave the Spiders Webb and to sow to the wind The Apostle doth most excellently express it in a most elegant allusion of words 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 working not at all but are busie-bodies Their work is neither lawfull nor profitable For seeing that the Ministers of Christ are disposed of in the Church 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 according to the dispensation of God it doth follow that those things which they teach or doe receive their force and effect not from their own wills and authority but from the Authority Approbation and Concurrence of him that sends them And therefore what a Minister doeth contrary to the will of God cannot be of any force or effect at all as to the accomplishment of the end on mens souls for which God ordained the Ministry for he is bound to preach not onely those things but in that manner as God hath appointed God's Command for a separation and withdrawing from such dividing house-creeping and disorderly Persons must needs argue their Ministry not to be his ordinance since he so brands it and gives such Cautions against it ARGUMENT VII THAT
Some of the brethren of the Nonconformists have been of the same Judgment whatever this or their practice now is Memorable to this purpose is that saying of Mr. Baxter to his People of Kiderminster I ever loved saith he a Godly peaceable Conformist better than a turbulent Nonconformist and should I make a party or disturb the peace of the Church I should fear lest I should prove a Firebrand in Hell for being a Firebrand in the Church And by all the interest I have in your judgments and affections I here charge you that if God should give me up to any factious Church-renting course against which I daily pray that you forsake me and follow me not a step It is an unhappy degree of wickedness to be a ring-leader in any schism Every accessory is faulty enough but the first Authour abominable Those who either by his example suggestion advice connivence or otherwise are taught to doe ill increase his sin as fast as they do their own Whosoever shall break one of the least Commandments and shall teach men so shall be called least in the Kingdom of Heaven An unruly beast breaks the hedge and feeds in forbidden Pasture the whole herd follows but the owner must answer for all the trespass that is committed Therefore is Ieroboam so often branded in holy Writ with this note of infamy Ieroboam the Son of Nebat that made Israel to sin His fault lived when he himself was dead and 't is often said by Divines that his torment increased in Hell according as his sin increased upon earth and that the wickedness of Israel will not be taken off from his Soul for ever It was shame enough to Israel that they were made to sin by Ieroboam but O the miserable Estate of Ieroboam that made Israel to sin his pretence was fair enough but that was no excuse to the foulness of his crime nor is it any mitigation to his present torment Let the Authours of schism in the Church pretend what they please to Religion and Truth yet how they can have the true love or power of either in thier hearts or lives that seek not the Church's Peace and Unity withall I cannot understand The Holy Ghost in Scripture joins both together Love truth and peace And speak the truth in love He follows neither that persues them not both It was an unquestionable Maxime amongst Christians in the ancient Church which is no less a truth now than ever non habet Dei charitatem qui Ecclesiae non diligit unitatem The Love of God abides not in them who do not love and keep the Unity of the Church Nay the practice in question tends not onely to the dividing and distracting the Church but even to the dissolving and destroying her being It puts the members of the body of Christ out of joint and causeth a Luxation of the parts and so hinders that spiritual Nutrition thriving and growth in grace that ought to be in the body of Christ. For as in the natural body of man if a member be separated from it it can receive no nourishment or growth nay if there be but a dislocation of a part so that it be onely out of joint it will not thrive or prosper but wither and consume till it be set right again so the mystical body of Christ can never increase with the increase of God if either there be not a right Union of the joints to the head or if that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the ligament and bond that knits and fastens one member to another be broken Now this Union of the members the Apostle saith is made by the Ligament of Love which he therefore calls the bond of perfection because as it unites Church-members among themselves so it is the cause that they communicate mutual help to the profit and preservation of the whole The members of the Church then being made so loose and set at such distance so divided and distracted one from another some hurried this way and some that it must needs argue that this bond is either quite broken or much loosned And if it be a truth which Philosophers affirm that every natural body desires no less its unity than its entity I fee no reason why the spiritual and mystical body of Christ the Church should not in like manner desire its unity since if it be and continue thus unhappily divided it cannot long subsist in its entity As a tottering wall of stones heaped up together without mortar or binding is easily shaken and thrown down so must the Church be soon brought to ruine if this distracting and dividing course be suffered and practised By concord and good agreement among Christians the Church grows and is enlarged So by their discords and divisions it will in short time perish and come to nothing Say I this onely Or say not the brethren of the Nonconformists the same He that is not the Son of peace is not the Son of God saith Mr. Baxter all other sins destroy the Church consequentially but division and separation demolish it directly Building the Church is but an orderly joining the materials and what then is disjoyning but pulling down Believe not those to be the Church's friends that would cure and reform her by cutting her throat Pro Ecclesia clamitant saith St. Cyprian of such they cry out for the Church but contra Ecclesiam dimicant their practice is a fighting against the Church And that not by open and professed hostility but by secret and unseen Policy Their pretences are friendly but their actions mischievous their voice like Iacob's but their hands like Esau's Thirdly it hinders the Communion of Saints that holy and sweet fellowship which all the Members of Christ's Church ought to have both with Christ their head and each with other When in the natural body of man the members are joined to the head and one with another they have by virtue of that Union Communion also and do impart bloud spirits and life from one to the other So in the mystical Body of Christ the members being joined to the Lord and one to another there will be a sweet Communion among themselves in heart and affections joy with them that rejoice and forrow with them that weep prayer each for and each with other the multitude of them that believe will be of one heart and one soul. Now one of the closest bonds of Union amongst Christians is in their communicating together in holy duties We are then most one when with one mind and with one mouth we glorifie God together When holy David would set forth the greatest intireness of facred friendship he described it by walking to the house of God in company together The end and effect of our joint partaking in the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper is to seal up this Unity As by one of the Sacraments we
neither hath it in these but such as fight with their weapons and sharpen their instruments against it at their forge And if the Queens Highness would grant thereunto prove against all that will say the contrary that all that is contained in the Holy Communion set out by the most innocent and godly King Edward VI. in his high Court of Parliament is conformable to that order which our Saviour Christ did both observe and command to be observed and which the Apostles and primitive Church used many years And that if he might be permitted to take to himself Peter Martyr and four or five others whom he should chuse they would by God's Grace take upon them to defend not onely the Common-prayers of the Church the ministration of the Sacraments and other the rites and ceremonies but also all the Doctrine and Religion set out by the said King Edward VI. to be more pure and according to God's word than any other that have been used in England these thousand years so that God's word may be judge And that the Order of the Church set out at that present in the Realm by Act of Parliament is the same that was in the Church fifteen hundred years past Neither saith he it alone but we have the several testimonies of particular Learned and judicious Saints of that and the following generation touching the excellency and worth of that Book such as Saunders Taylor Ridley Iewel c. We have a Noble Army of Martyrs standing together in vindication of the purity of it The whole blessed company of persecuted Preachers in Prison at the beginning of Queen Mary's Reign in a petition of theirs to the King Queen and Parliament say thus If your said Subjects be not able by the Testimony of Christ his Prophets Apostles and Godly Fathers of his Church to prove that the Doctrine of the Church Homilies and Service-book taught and set forth in the time of our late most godly Prince King Edward VI. is the true Doctrine of Christ's Catholick Church and most agreeable with the Articles of the Christian faith your said subjects offer themselves then to the most heavy punishment that it shall please your Majesty to appoint Should but one Nonconformist have said so much for the antiquity and purity of this Book it would sooner have been believed by the people of our age than from the mouths of so many learned and holy Fathers Take therefore the testimony of one of that way and a learned one Mr. Iohn Ball who having spent great pains in quitting it from the objections of Separatists lays down this conclusion Our Service-book is not a Translation of the Mass but a restitution of the ancient Liturgy wherein sundry Prayers are inserted used by the Fathers agreeable to the Scriptures And in the same Chapter in a few pages after he hath these words To the praise of God be it spoken our Liturgy for purity and soundness may compare with any Liturgy used in the third and fourth Ages of the Church Which was long before Popery came into the World Neither hath any of the several emendations that it hath admitted since its first composure been of that nature or moment as to give an occasion to charge it in the least with any thing that is or was sinfull or Superstitious However thus much I suppose may unquestionably be concluded from the abovesaid acknowledgment that if it were an excellent and worthy work then it is not sinfull now but the use of it being enjoyned by Authority may be conformed to with a good Conscience Especially considering that it is farther acknowledged by the Divines first named That what things soever are offensive to them in it and desired to be removed are not of the foundation of Religion nor the essentials of publick Worship and must therefore be but circumstantials Which ought to be the more easily born with in complyance with Lawfull Authority by all such as mind their own duty or tender the peace of the Church it being a good and safe rule which St. Augustine gives in such a case Quod neque contra Fidem neque contra bonos more 's injungitur indifferenter est habendum pro eorum inter quos vivitur societate servandum est Whatsoever is enjoined that is not contrary to Faith or Holiness ought to be observed for peace-sake with them among whom we live Yet how is this Book called to the stake by the upholders and frequenters of Conventicles and made to fill up what was behind of the sufferings of those holy Fathers that compiled it How often have I heard it call'd by some of them Popery Idolatry Superstition and what not How are they accounted the onely Virtuoso's in these days and to have attained to a very high pitch of Piety when they have onely arrived at such a measure of profaneness as to rail at it and carefully to shun their joining with us in the Worship of God by it and think that they have then done him a very acceptable service when they have done him none at all but onely afforded their presence at the Preaching of a Sermon And to the end that malice may leave nothing unattempted to render it contemptible I have observed that these sinfull Assemblies are studiously continued till the end of Common Prayer in the Church at least if not during the Sermon also Could it ever have been thought that men who pretend Religion and Conscience could have proceeded to such a monstrous extremity of wickedness as to prefer their own private humours and fancies before God's publick Worship And thus endeavour to undermine and destroy so godly and legal an Establishment If confession of Sin profession of Faith reading of the Scriptures Prayers and Praise to God which is the substance of this whole Book be any part of God's Ordinance or Worship then surely the practice of these men is contrary not onely to Gospel order and commands but even to those Rules of Worship which the principal men of their own way and perswasion have given For in the Directory composed by the late Assembly of Divines the first direction for publick Worship which they give is this When the Congregation is to meet for publick Worship the people having before prepared their hearts thereunto ought all to come and join therein not absenting themselves from the publick Ordinances through negligence or upon pretence of Private meetings How are the mouths of Papists hereby opened against us to justifie their own Recusancy and to condemn our Church as false and adulterate seeing that our own members do revile it as they of the Romish Church also do calling it an abominable Book very pestiâ—erous c. the service of Baal plain Idolatry separate themselves from it join hands with them to destroy it and are contented to hazard their Estates and fortunes rather than to conform to it Doth not this harden them in their
it ought to be nothing else as if the whole day were to be spent at Church and in keeping publick Assemblies so far as conveniency and edification of the people will permit Why else did Holy David desire to dwell in the house of the Lord for ever Why prayed he that he might be so happy One thing have I desired of the Lord that I will seek after that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life Therefore if Conscience to obey God or desire to doe him service did draw them to his house at any time or to any part of his Worship the same would induce them at all times and to all parts of it The liberty then that such persons take in God's service as if all were Arbitrary argues much of hypocritical wantonness nothing of sound or sincere godliness They who are fed with Corn from Heaven meat to the full are thus faln to loath the Mannah that Rained down upon them twice every Sabbath-day Of a third sort I could inform the Reader who being weak yet I hope well-meaning Christians not knowing the depths of Satan under a specious pretence of Piety are not content with what they hear at Church but must afterwards fill their heads with notions which they hear at Conventicles wherewith they feast themselves without fear after they have been fed to the full in God's house with Angels food Without fear I say of offending God by breaking the order he hath set in his Church by countenancing abetting or joining themselves with such unlawfull and ungospel-like Assemblies without fear of offending or provoking the Rules of the Church which they are bound to obey by seeing their Laws despised and affronted without fear of exposing themselves to the temptation and hazard of falling so fearfully as they cannot but see that some of their Brethren and Neighbours have done And without fear of losing what they have heard in publick by departing immediately from the Church to a Conventicle as if all Religion did consist in nothing but hearing and all the Service of God were but according to the French scoff a mere Preach If this be the way of keeping the Sabbath where is room then for Meditation which the Scripture as much enjoins as hearing Thou shalt meditate on the Law that thou mayst observe to doe according as is written Mary therefore kept Christ's sayings because she pondered them in her heart David therefore grew to be wiser than his teachers because God's Law was his meditation Conference with Neighbours and Family-instructions will by this means also be issued out Thus shall you say every one to his neighbour and every one to his brother what hath the Lord answered and what hath he spoken The best of Hearers even Christ's own Disciples took another course than these now doe When they had heard their Master Preach they spent their time after Sermon in conferring among themselves about what they had heard and went to their Teacher to be better informed and to have all doubts resolved For want of so doing it comes to pass with too many as sometimes it did with some of them that though they had seen their Lord's mighty power in feeding five thousand men with five loaves and two fishes yet their Faith was never the stronger And this was the reason They considered not the miracle of the Loaves for their heart was hardned They had seen the miracle but they had not considered it nor meditated on it and therefore it did them no good at all In the judgment of the Presbyterian Divines themselves the way these people take is not the right For the Assembly of Divines in their Directory for Worship give this rule for the Sanctification of the Lord's day that what time is vacant between or after the Solemn meetings of the Congregation in publick be spent in Reading Meditation Repetition of Sermons especially by calling their Families to an account of what they have heard and Catechising of them holy conferences prayer for a blessing upon the publick Ordinances singing of Psalms visiting the Sick relieving the Poor and such like duties of piety charity and mercy accounting the Sabbath a delight In a word I could inform the Reader what impious devices have been used not onely to make a rent in the Church but also to keep it open that it should never close again by endeavouring that an irreconcileable prejudice might be perpetuated in the minds of people against the publick Ministry and Ministers of the Church And to the end that those poor deluded Souls which have been drawn off from their due attendance to God's publick Ordinances to wait on these men in their clanculary and irregular conventions might never return to the Church any more I have observed that the absence of one of these Masters of Conventicles in the places where they are held have ever been carefully supplied by the presence of some other Domestick Chaplain to keep up their House-meetings As if Ieroboam's impious policy should never be forgotten who not daring to trust his new divided Tribes in a joint resort to the Temple at Ierusalem set up his Calves to be Worshipped by them nearer home But I will not rake any longer in this puddle lest it stink in the nostrils of pious and sober Christians as it cannot but doe in God's already Now I appeal to all my judicious and learned Brethren of the Clergy and to all persons else of stayed principles and piety whether for a stranger thus to pluck the work of a Pastour of a Congregation out of his hands be tollerable in the Church of Christ or no Whether this practice that tends thus to divide betwixt Minister and People breaking the near bond of relation that is and ought to continue between them robbing him of his flock and taking them off from dependance on him for the enjoyment of the work of his ministry be of God or no And whether he hath ordained any such course as the means of Grace in his Church or whether this be not rather a strategem of Satan to introduce all manner of impiety and ungodliness The Presbyterian Divines themselves have given their judgment on my side already in this case In these words To make a Rupture in the body of Christ and to divide Church from Church and to set up Church against Church and to gather Churches out of true Churches And because we differ in something therefore to hold Communion in nothing this we think hath no warrant out of the word of God and will introduce all manner of confusion in Churches and Families and not onely disturb but in a little time destroy the power of Godliness purity of Religion peace of Christians and set open a wide gap to bring in Atheism Popery Heresie and all manner of wickedness So also in their Preface to the Ius divinum of Church-government