modesty of its Professors in upholding civil distinctions and degrees of honour among men and in rendring to all their dues according to those degrees CHAP. XXIII The observing of a due latitude in Religion makes for the security and increase thereof CHristianity is not to be extended to such a latitude as to take in Hereticks 〈◊〉 Idolaters or real Infidels because they arâ—… named Christians nor is it shut up in severeâ—… Parties distinguished by certain Doctrinâ—… Rites and Platforms which the tyranny 〈◊〉 ancient Tradition National custom Politicâ—… Interest or passionate zeal hath exalted but it incompasseth all those that hold Christ the Head in the unity of Faith and Life Wherefore the constitution of the Church must be set as much as may be for the incompassing of all true Christians which indeed makes for its most fixed and ample state And the taking of a narrower compass is a fundamental error â—n its Policy and will always hinder its stability and increase The true state of the Church as of any other Society lies in the universality or the â—hole Body and not in any divided or subâ—ivided parts thereof Accordingly its true â—nterest leads not to the things that make for the exalting of this or that Party but to those common and great concernments that uphold and increase the whole Body And it is but just and equal to accomodate the publick Order to the satisfaction of all Parties not in what their several designs and humors crave which is impossible but in what they all may justly challenge by their Christian liberty and which is possible namely that their consciencies may not be perplexed and â—…rdened with things unnecessary how highâ—… soever magnified by some one Party They that seek Worldly wealth and glory 〈◊〉 a Church state think it as good to yield 〈◊〉 all as to relinguish any thing of their â—…nstitutions For although they know that moderation might make for a general Peace and for the lasting good of a Christian People yet they foresee that by removing offences and reforming abuses they should open a door to men of such principles as may subvert the foundations of their building Therefore they think it safer to immure themselves by institutions sutable to their own estate and to adhere to them unalterably According to this reason in the Council of Trent the Pope gave his Legates instruction so to proceed that the Lutherans might despair oâ— Peace without a total submission For hâ— regarded not their return upon such termâ— as would diminish the Authority and Revenue of his Court or weaken any of thâ— foundations of Papal Power Such a Party value all men whether they draw nearer tâ— them or keep further from them as they stand affected to the interest which they maintain But true Religion stands upon another bottom and pursues other ends to wit Holiness and Peace and that without partiality and without hypocrisie It hath no privatâ— carnal Interest to uphold and therefore need not such carnal devices for its own securitâ— and advantage By comprehensiveness loseth nothing because it seeks not greâ—… things upon Earth nor serves the designs of anâ— Faction and as it loseth nothing hereby sâ— it gaineth much both in amplitude and stâ— bility In Church affairs those things are to be held fast which Christ our Lawgiver hath by his unalterable Rule determined and made necessary to the building up of his Church such as are the Spiritual Ordinances and Officers of his institution But things of meer human determination are not unalterable and the alteration thereof in a season that requires it doth no whit weaken Religion or darken the glory of it And doubtless they ought not to be more regarded than integrity of life and Ministerial ability and industry for the Churches Edification in Faith and Holiness The exercises of Christian meekness and charity in such things is far more glorious to the Church than a forc'd uniformity and that constraining rigor which doth but debase mens judgments into servility and teaching them to strain their consciences â—ends to make them less Conscientious and Religious Besides the said moderation in those matters wherein uniformity of apprehensions is unnecessary and imposible will keep the Church in a better consistency and deliver it from those contests and breaches wich may end â—n its dissipation But what glory or safety â—s there in a publick Order that is and ever will be made the subject of controversie more than the Rule of Unity The hinderance of the most important things of Christs Kingdom is a mischief that always follows the promoting of narrow principles and partial interests in Religion Whereof these instances among many others may be noted The obstructing of the liberty of publick Ministerial Service to be given to Ministers that lie under restraint lest some that accept it not should be weakened in their severed Interest Also the opposing of a publick order of Catechizing the People in the uncontroverted principles of Religion lest the petty Liberties of a Party in their severed way should be impaired But the concerns of any particular Party are set behind the common Interest of Christianity by a true Catholick Spirit which is ready to joyn hand in hand with any that seek the increase of Faith and Godliness in the unquestionable means thereof And no detriment can accrew by concurring even with men of adverse principles in setting on foot those things received in common that have a sure tendency to advance true Religion of which sort are all good means of introducing knowledge and civil conversation among a People rude and ignorant The fixing of Divine right upon matters of meer prudence and the damning of things indifferent for unlawfull is an error of evil consequence It causlesly breaks a People into Parties and excites them to subvert their opposites and the opposition seems unchangeable Hereby publick affairs are discomposed the cause of Religion is imbroiled and the propagation thereof obstructed and perhaps at length after tedious contests either both Parties being weary of endless strife sit down in silence or the weaker being vanquished is crush'd or yields with shame and loss Into the snare of this Error men are brought by narrowness of judgment or strength of fancy or hurry of prejudice driving from one extream to another to which may be added the private Interests of leading men Wherefore we should take care that we lay no bonds upon our selves in those things wherein neither the Law of nature nor any positive Law of God hath bound us up Furthermore it doth not stand with the settlement or inlargement of any Church Interest to enter into such Religious bonds as must needs conflict not only with the opposition of perpetual adversaries but also with the dissentings and dissatisfactions of friends considerable for number and quality in as much as they are too narrow for the common Interest and biass too strongly to a Party of one persuasion For which cause their preâ—alence is
holy In the first times of Christianity the Scripture makes mention of Churches that were in particular houses teaching that Christian families should resemble Churches for piety and godly order By Family-godliness Religion thrives exceedingly and decays as much by the neglect thereof By Domestick instruction knowledge is much increased For this private particular Teaching is apt to be more heeded than that which is publick and general and persons are hereby prepared to attend with profit upon the publick Preaching Good principles are infused and impressions of good are made upon those that live under such government And where much may not be wrought at present towards conversion something may stick upon them which may afterwards appear when the grace of God shall visit them more powerfully Moreover National and Church Reformation should here begin Nations will be wicked and Churches corrupt while families remain disordered but by the reformation of these lesser Societies the larger are easily reformed as the whole street is made clean where every one will sweep his own door which is but an easie task It were most desirable that houses of eminent persons were exemplary in this kind as it appears King Davids was by that profession I will walk within my house with a perfect heart I will not know a wicked person he that walketh in a perfect way shall serve me But it is lamentable that in so many families of professed Christians of high and low degree wickedness carries it with a high hand in drunkenness swearing cursing open profanation of the Lords day in hatred of Godliness and contempt of Gods ordinances and that in many others free from debauchedness and open lewdness there is no face Religion no divine Worship performed no Godly discipline no instruction in the way of Godliness observed Should any professing subjection to God maintain under his charge and government an open Rebellion against God or at least a totall neglect of him Should not God rule where his Servant rules Wherefore it is the proper work of Christian housholders in their several houses to offer Prayers and praises to God dayly both Morning and Evening as the dayly Sacrifice to Sanctifie the Lords day in Prayer singing of Psalms reading the Scriptures and other holy Books in repeating Sermons instructing Children and Servants and in taking account of their diligence and proficiency under the means of Grace and this to be done not formally and customarily but conscienciously in good carnest and to good effect It is their charge also to hold a prudent hand over children in their Minority and not to indulge them in a course of idleness sensual pleasure or any inordinate liberty also to make intercession to God for those under their tuition to allow Servants time for secret duty lastly to purge their Families of sinfull disorders and to remove scandals as carefully as the Israelites cleansed their houses from Leaven at the time of the Passover As the Religious care of Superiors so the submission and teachableness of inferiors is injoyned Children Servants and Sojourners in Godly families being come into the Lords heritage and portion and under his special protection and the dispensation of his grace should not think it a yoke of bondage to live under such a Discipline and to be held unto such exercies but should improve the advantage and be followers of whatsoever is good and praise-worthy And whatsoever imperfections they find therein they should not malignantly aggravate the same but bless God for the good and consider the defects as the remainders of human weakness CHAP. VIII Private mutual Exhortations Pious discourse and edifying Conversation IT is also of great advantage when Christian people are inured in the way of Religious converse and discourse for edification For by this means they propagate the knowledge and love of the truth and keep themselves in Spiritual life and vigor and daily building up one another on their most holy faith advance heaven-ward And it is as comely as advantageous The royal Prophet understood what was seemly and worthy of him in his conversation and he saith I will talk of thy commandments before Princes and not be ashamed Is it not seemly for those that are risen with Christ to speak of the things above and for Fellowtravell rs towards the heavenly Kingdom to mention the affairs of their own country It is also sweet and lovely a partaking of that grace that was poured into Christs lips and it is pleasant to all such as savour the things of God Yea are not Converts bound by all means to seek the conversion of others We have received this holy commandment Let no corrupt communication proceed out of your mouth but that which is good for the use of edifying that it may administer grace to the hearers Indeed holy language proceeding from the mouths of Scandalous persons or detected hypocrites is disgraced and loseth its savour If affectation and vanity appear therein it hath not so sweet a relish But this can be no disparagement to gracious words which holy and humble men of inoffensive lives speak feelingly from the abundance of the heart and those that judge them hypocrites God will judge Moreover honest minds may be sometimes guilty of imprudence and thereby occasion some disgust and make that which is good and wholsom to be unacceptable and ineffectual Nevertheless t is a bad matter for any one from the baseness of some Hypocrites and the weakness of good Christians to take occasion of pouring out contempt upon this godly Practice Yea whosoever gives a check to it upon pretence of its unseasonableness and impertinency at some times are not well advised for the interest of true Religion because for one that is overforward herein a hundred are too backward and that among the Wise and Able who might reap a harvest of much good if they were not too shie or sluggish The most have need rather of the spur than the bridle in this case Wherefore discretion will mind the season in which every thing is beautifull and not inconsiderately force Discourse and run on therein when it will not be entertained as in the set times of other Mens sports or business Nor will it press any beyond due measure and what they can well receive lest that which in it self is precious become nauseous or untastfull Opportunity and leasure will sufficiently offer it self for set and solemn conference and besides this there will be room almost continually to put in by the by a word that may take effect How forcible are right words It hath sometimes come to pass that a short Saying occasionally let fall upon a prepared mind hath entred deep and stuck close Yea that which takes not much at present may be remembred and have its effect after a long time and then be matter of much Blessing and Praise The counsel of the wise Preacher looks this way In the morning sow thy seed in the evening with-hold not thy hand for thou
Their Union and Fellowship being chiefly mystical and invisible their Unity is far greater than what outwardly appears to the World and sometimes than what themselves can discern among themselves in particular by reason of many inferior yet very disquieting differences and discords Nevertheless it behoves them to provide that it might appear as much as may be what it is indeed and that it be conspicuous and illustrious in the sight of Men by their walking in love and peace Unity is the Churches strength and beauty the honour of the Faithfull and an argument for the certainty of their most holy Faith It makes Religion lovely and draws forth blessing praise from the Beholders of it and wins the World to a love and reverence of that Piety which makes the Professors of it to live in brotherly kindness and mutual charity But Division is the Church's weakness and deformity the reproach of Christians and a scandal against Christianity and an objection put into the mouths of Infidels against the Faith and an occasion of stumbling unto many In the present divided state of Religion each Party is apt to appropriate Godliness to themselves or at least to carry it towards others as if they did so And they that are loudest in accusing Dissenters of uncharitableness in this kind are themselves as uncharitable as any others It is true that God hath a peculiar People distinguished from all others by a peculiar Character but it is not confined to any Party of this or that Persuasion or Denomination that is narrower than meer Christianity And all true Christians are to receive one an other as God hath received them Indeed the best Christians are to be best esteemed and their fellowship is most desired But if they should be severed from the universality and in a strict combination set up as divided Party it tends to the Churches Ruine For a Kingdom divided against it self cannot stand and if the nobler parts of the Body forsake the rest the whole must needs die Christian Concord doth not signifie an aggregation of things inconsistent as the fellowship of righteousness with unrighteousness the communion of light with darkness the concord of Christ with Belial To set up Unity against Piety is a conspiracy against Christ who is King of righteousness and to pretend Piety against Unity is to oppose Christ the Prince of Peace whose Kingdom is the Reign of Love in the Soul Holiness and Peace must kiss each other and as inseperable Companions walk together It is the unity of the Spirit we are charged to keep in the bond of Peace But concord in any external Order without fellowship in the Divine Life is not the unity of the Spirit which is to partake of the same new nature and to walk together in the same holy way This is far more excellent than the greatest compliance in matters of meer external order and consequently much more regardable in our estimation and reception of Persons Though to meet in one place be not of so great importance as to be joyned in one Spirit yet it must not be counted a small matter The unity of Faith and Love is much concern'd in the unity of Church Communion it will be a matter of some difficulty for them to live together in Love whom one Church cannot hold Church divisions commonly divide affections and draw men into Parties and divided Interests and make them seek to strengthen their own Party by weakening all others to the great dammage of true Religion in general For which cause the unchurching of Churches and renouncing of Communion with them that are sound in the Doctrine of Faith and Sacrament and in the substance of Divine Worship should be dreaded by all sober Christians yea all unnecessary distances should be avoided least they lead to greater alienations and direct enmities and oppositions Those Churches that cannot hold local communion one with another by reason of differences that destroy not the essentials of Christianity should yet maintain a dear and tender Christian love one to another and profess their owning of each other as Churches of Jesus Christ and should agree together upon certain just and equal Rules for the management of their unavoidable differences so as may least prejudice charity and common good and least harden the ungodly and grieve the weak or dishonour God or hinder the success of common great and necessary truths upon the Souls of men amicably promoting the common cause of Christianity and every part thereof in which they are agreed and opening their disagreements to the People as little as they can Schism is an unwarrantable separation from or division in a Church and without controversie it is a heinous sin and to be detested both for its exceeding sinfulness and wofull consequents But it hath been so disguised and the odious name hath been so confusedly cast abroad and so unreasonably and maliciously misapplied that it is too slightly thought of where it should be sadly laid to heart For it is common with the strongest Party be it right or wrong to call themselves the Church and to have no better name for others than Schismaticks And so the reproach is but contemned by them that suffer it and the sin it self is too little feared on all sides But it is not a Temporal Law nor Secular Power nor any prevalence of Strength or Interest that makes a Church and none of these things will excuse them from Schism that act uncharitably against their Brethren and obstruct the progress of the Gospel and the increase of Godliness Nor are they forthwith to be counted Schismaticks who cannot in all points observe the Commandments of men and cannot neglect to yield their help to the saving of Souls that would otherwise want due means of Salvation when God hath called them to that Service with a woe unto them if they Preach not the Gospel For as much as all must dread the guilt of Schism truly so called let it be well considered that Ecclesiastical Superiors are as much concerned to take heed of Schismatical impositions as the People are to shun Schismatical Recusancy and Disobedience As well the Pastors Wisdom as the Peoples due submission is here importunately called for When Superiors know how to Command and Inferiors how to Obey things will go as well as may be hoped for in this our imperfect state here upon Earth As the Peace of a corrupt state of Religion is best assured by suppressing all conscientious inquiries into its Decrees so the Peace of the true Church and of the sound state of Religion is most secured by the most perfect exercise of sound Judgment and upright Conscience in all its adherents That Church that claims to her self an infallibility or challenges and obtains from her partakers an implicit Faith in her determinations without further enquiry needs not fear the breaking of the bond of her Peace if she multiply constitutions and impose any devised Doctrines and Ordinances sutable to
the Spirit among Christians is witnessed maintained and strengthened by their holy communion of Love and Peace one with another but is darkened weakened and lessened by their uncharitable Dissentions Hence it is evident that the Unity here commended is primarily that of the Church in its internal and invisible State or the Union and Communion of Saints having in themselves the Spirit and Life and Power of Christianity T is the unity of the Spirit we are charged to keep in the bond of Peace But concord in any external order with a vital Union with Christ and holy Souls his living members is not the unity of the Spirit which is to partake of the same new Nature and Divine Life Secondarily it is the Unity of the Church in its external and visible State which is consequent and subservient to the internal and stands in the profession and appearance of it in the professed observation of the duties arising from it Where there is not a credible Profession of Faith unfeigned and true Holiness there is not so much as the external and visible Unity of the Spirit Therefore a sensual Earthly generation of men who are apparently lead by the Spirit of the World and not by the Spirit that is of God have little cause to glory in their adhering to an external Church order whatsoever it be Holy love which is unselfed and impartial is the Life and Soul of this unity without which it is but a dead thing as the Body without the Soul is dead And this love is the bond of perfectness that Cement that holds altogether in this mystical Society For this being seated in the several members disposeth them to look not to their own things but also to the things of others and not to the undue advancement of a Party but to the common good of the whole Body Whosoever wants this love hath no vital Union with Christ and the Church and no part in the Communion of Saints The Church is much more ennobled strengthened and every way blessed by the Communion of holy love among all its living members or real Christians than by an outside uniformity in the minute circumstances or accidental modes of Religion By this love it is more beautifull and lovely in the eyes of all intelligent beholders than by outward pomp and ornament or any worldly splendor The Unity of the Church as visible whether Catholick or particular may be considered in a three-fold respect or in three very different points The first and chief point thereof is in the essentials and all weighty matters of Christian Faith and Life The second and next in account is in the essentials and integrals of Church state that is in the Christian Church-Worship Ministery and Discipline considered as of Christs institution and abstracted from all things superadded by men The third and lowest point is in those extrinsecal and accidental Forms and Orders of Religion which are necessary in genere but left in specie to human determination Of these several points of Unity there is to be a different valuation according to their different value Our first and chief regard is due to the first and chief point which respects Christian Faith and Life The next regard is due to that which is next in value that which respects the very constitution or frame of a Church And regard is to be had of that also which respects the accidentals of Religion yet in its due place and not before things of greater weight and worth Things are of a very different nature and importance to the Churches good Estate and a greater or lesser stress must be laid upon Unity in them as the things themselves are of greater or lesser moment The Rule or Law of Church Unity is not the will of man but the will of God Whosoever keeps that Unity which hath Gods word for its Rule keeps the Unity of the Spirit And whosoever boasts of a Unity that is not squared by this Rule his boasting is but vain An Hypothesis that nothing in the Service of God is lawfull but what is expresly prescribed in Scripture is by some falsly ascribed to a sort of men who earnestly contend for the Scriptures sufficiency and perfection for the regulating of Divine Worship and the whole state of Religion God in his Word hath prescribed all those parts of his Worship that are necessary to be performed to him He hath likewise therein instituted those Officers that are to be the Administrators of his publick Worship in Church Assemblies and hath defined the authority and duty of those Officers and all the essentials and integrals of Church state As for the circumstantials and accidentals belonging to all the things aforesaid he hath laid down general Rules for the regulation thereof the particulars being both needless and impossible to be enumerated and defined In this point God hath declared his mind Deut. 4. 2. Ye shall not add unto the word which I command you neither shall ye diminish ought from it Deut. 12. 32. What soever thing I command you observe to do it Thou shalt not add thereto nor diminish from it The prohibition is not meerly of altering the Rule Gods written Word by addition or diminution but of doing more or less than the Rule required as the precept is not of preserving the Rule but of observing what is commanded in it Such human institutions in Divine Worship as be in meer subserviency to Divine institutions for the necessary and convenient modifying and ordering thereof are not properly additions to Gods commandments For they are of things which are not of the same nature end and use with the things which God hath commanded but of meer circumstantials and accidentals belonging to those things And these circumstantials are in genere necessary to the performance of Divine Institutions and are generally commanded in the Word though not in particular but are to be determined in specie by those to whom the power of such determination belongs They that assert and stand to this only Rule provide best for the Unity of Religion and the Peace of the Church For they are ready to reject whatsoever they find contrary to this Rule they are more easily kept within the bounds of acceptable Worship and all warrantable obedience they lay the greatest weight on things of the greatest worth and moment they carefully regard all Divine institutions and whatsoever God hath commanded and they maintain Love and Peace and mutual forbearance towards one another in the more inconsiderable diversities of Opinion and Practice Those things that are left to human determination the Pastors Bishops or Elders did anciently determine for their own particular Churches And indeed it is very reasonable and naturally convenient that they who are the Administrators of Divine institutions and have the conduct of the People in Divine Worship and know best what is most expedient for their own Society should be intrusted with the determination of necessary circumstances within their
as Studious of the Churches Peace and Concord as any others And though they have not the same latitude of judgment with others in some points yet they have a right Catholick Spirit to promote the common Interest of Religion and more especially the Protestant Reformation and dread the weakning and shattering of it by needless Divisions and are ready to go as far as conscience will allow in compliance with the injunctions of Rulers But they are cast and kept out of the Established Order by the injunction of some terms which in regard of their present judgment they can not comply with but under the guilt of so great a sin as dissembling in the matter of Religion Touching Church-Government they admit the Episcopacy that was of ancient Ecclesiastical custom in the time of Ignatius yea or of Cyprian Bishop Usher's model of Government by Bishops and Arch-bishops with their Presbyters was by some of them presented to the Kings Majesty for a ground-work of Accommodation They acknowledge the Kings Ecclesiastical Supremacy according to the Oath in that case required His Majesty in his gracious Declaration concerning Ecclesiastical Affairs gives a Testimony concerning the Ministers that attended him in Holland in these words viz. To our great satisfaction and comfort We found them Persons full of affection to Us and of zeal to the Peace of Church and State and neither Enemies as they had been given out to be to Episcopacy or Liturgy but modestly to desire such alterations in either as without shaking foundations might best allay the present Distempers They are ready to engage that they will not disturb the Peace of the Church nor indeavour any point of alteration in its Government by Rebellious Seditions or any unlawfull ways Those points of Conformity wherein they are dissatisfied are but some accidentals of Religion and external modes and the Declarations and Subscriptions importing an allowance of all and every thing contained in the Liturgy And they think that these points are not so necessary in themselves or in their consequents but they are very dispensable as the Wisdom of Governours shall see cause If it be objected that if any thing should be yielded to them there would be no end of their cravings that which I have to say is That reasonable men will be satisfied with reasonable concessions and if Subjects know not what is fit for them to ask Governours know what is fit for them to give By granting the desired relaxation the Church would not as some alledge be self-condemned as confessing the unlawfulness of her injunctions or as justifying the Opinions of the Dissenters For it can signifie from her no more than either her indulgence to the weak or her moderation in things less necessary and more controverted which would not turn to her reproach but to her greater justification I have here nothing to say to them that object against any relaxation after that manner as if they desired not our Conformity but our perpetual exclusion Such may be answered in due season And I have here nothing to do with those that argue against us from Politick considerations respecting a particular Interest too narrow for an adequate foundation of Church-Peace and Christian-Concord But my scope is to consider what may be done by the Higher Powers and Church Guides for the healing of breaches according to the Wisdom which is from above which is first pure then peaceable gentle and easie to be intreated full of mercy and good fruits without partiality and without hypocrisie I have made particular observation of those too most remarkable Parties which have been looked upon as the chief instances of Schism in the more ancient times The other Schisms that I find of any remark in those times were raised sometimes by Persons cast out of the Church for their Crimes and thereupon drawing Disciples after them as was that of Meletius a Bishop in Egypt who was desposed for having sacrificed to Idols Sometimes by offence unjustly taken at some supposed faultiness in a Bishop as was that of an Orthodox Party in Antioch against another Meletius an Orthodox and right worthy Bishop of that City only because he was at first brought in by the Arrians sometimes by the exasperations of the People for injuries done to them or their Pastors and outrages committed by their opposites as was that of the Johannites at Constantinople upon the banishment of Chrysostom and somtimes by meer animosity and humor of discontentment as was that of Lucifer a Bishop in Sardinia who separated from Eusebius Bishop of Vertellis and others because they disliked his rash act of Ordaining Paulinus to be Bishop of Antioch as tending to perpetuate the Schism there begun Touching all the said Parties it may be observed that they did not plead that any Opinions or Forms were imposed on them to which their consciences did reluctate nor did they desire others forbearance towards them in such things as might bear too hard upon them but they themselves would not bear with others in that which they supposed faulty but did nither choose wholly to abandon the Communion of the Churches and did not seek nor care for accomodation with them But this is not the case of at least a great part of the Dissenters of these times For they importune an accommodation with the Churches of the Established Order and for Peace sake are willing to bear with the practice of others in that which themselves dislike or doubt of but they cannot obtain a Dispensation from others in some things which are very dispensable points according to their judgment but are forced to abide in a severed state unless they will profess what they believe not or practice what they allow not Now because the judgment and practice of antiquity is much insisted on I pray that it may be considered whether in the Primitive or ancient times of Christianity men yea many hundreds of men duly qualified for the Ministery by sound Faith and good Life as also by their Learning and Industry and offering all reasonable security for their submissive and peaceable demeanure were or would have been cast and kept out of the Church for their Nonconformity to some Opinions Forms and Ceremonies which at the best are but the accidentals of Religion and of the truth or lawfulness whereof the Dissenters were wholly dissatisfied and which the Imposers judged to be but things in themselves indifferent And I further pray that it may be considered whether it be easier for the Nonconformists to be self-condemned in Conforming to some injunctions against their consciences and in deserting the Ministery to which they are dedicated than for Superiours either by some relaxation to make them capable of Conforming or to bear with their peaceable exercise of the Ministery in a state of Nonconformity while some of their injunctions confine them to that state CHAP. V. Of making a right estimate of the guilt of Schism and something more of taking the right way to
of words Ye have heard brethren as well in your private examination and in the exhortation and holy Lessons taken out of the Gospels and Writings of the Apostles of what dignity and how great importance this Office is whereto ye are called that is to say the Messengers the Watchmen the PASTORS and Stewards of the Lord to teach to premonish to feed to provide for the Lords Family I mention my Ordination according to the Episcopal Form because it is of greatest esteem with them to whom this Representation is more especially tendred Nevertheless I own the validity of Presbyterial Ordination and judge that Ministers so Ordained may make the same defence for exercising the Ministery in the same case that is here represented Christ is the Author and the only proper Giver of this Office and though he give it by the mediation of men yet not by them as giving the Office but as instruments of the designation or of the solemn investiture of the Person to whom he gives it As the King is the immediate Giver of the power of a Mayor in a Town Corporate when he gives it by the Mediation of Electors and certain Officers only as instruments of the designation or of the solemn investiture of the Person I am not conscious of disabling my self to the Sacred Ministrations that belong to the Office of a Presbyter by any Opinion or Practice that may render me unfit for the same Touching which matter I humbly offer my self to the tryal of my Superiors to be made according to Gods Word Nothing necessary to authorize me to those Ministrations is wanting that I know of I am Christs Commissioned Officer and I do not find that he hath revoked the authority which I have received from him And without the warrant of his Law no man can take it from me Nor do I find that the nature of this Office or the declared will of Christ requires that it be exercised no otherwise than in subordination to a Disocesan Bishop That I do not exercise the Ministery under the regulation of the Bishop of the Diocess and in other circumstances according to the present established Order the cause is not in me who am ready to submit thereunto but a bar is laid against me by the injunction of some terms in the lawfulness whereof I am not satisfied whereof I am ready to give an account when it is required I do not understand that I am under any Oath or Promise to exercise the Ministery no otherwise than in subordination to the Bishop or the Ordinary of the Place The promise made at my Ordination to obey my Ordinary and other chief Ministers to whom the government and charge over me is committed concerns me only as a Presbyter standing in relation to the Bishop or Ordinary as one of the Clergy of the Diocess or other peculiar Jurisdiction in which relation I do not now stand being cast out and made uncapable thereof Moreover in whatsoever capacity I now stand the said Promise must be understood either limitedly or without limitation If limitedly as in things lawfull and honest as I conceive it ought to be understood then I am not bound by it in the present case For it is not lawfull nor honest for me to comply with the now injoyned Conformity against my conscience or in case of such necessitated non-compliance to desist from the Ministery that I have received in the Lord. If it be understood without limitation it is a sinfull promise in the matter thereof and thereupon void Absolute and unlimited obedience to man may not be promised Let it be considered also that the objected promise could not bind me to more than the Conformity then required But since my Ordination and Promise then made the state of Conformity hath been much altered by the injunction of more and to me harder terms than formerly were injoyned When I was Ordained I thought that the terms then required were such as might be lawfully submitted to But young men such as I then was may be easily drawn to subscribe to things publickly injoyned and so become engaged before they have well considered The Ordainer or Ordainers who designed me to this Office of Christs donation and not theirs could not by any act of theirs lessen it as to its nature or essential state Nor can they derogate from Christs authority over me and the obligation which he hath laid upon me to discharge the Office with which he hath intrusted me That a necessity is laid upon me in my present state to preach the Gospel I am fully perswaded in regard of the necessities of Souls which cry aloud for all the help that can posibly be given by Christs Ministers whether Conformists or Nonconformists The necessary means of their Salvation is more valuable than meer external Order or Uniformity in things accidental I receive the whole Doctrine of Faith and Sacraments according to the Articles of the Church of England and am ready to subscribe the same I have joyned and still am ready to joyn with the legally established Churches in their publick Worship The matter of my sacred Ministrations hath been always consonant to the Doctrine of the Reformed Churches and particularly of the Church of England I meddle not with our present differences but insist on the great and necessary points of Christian Religion I design not the promoting of a severed Party but of meer Christianity or Godliness I am willing to comply with the will of my Superiors as far as is possible with a safe conscience and to return to my Ministerial station in the Established Churches may I be but dispensed with in the injunctions with which my conscience till I be otherwise informed forbids me to comply In the whole of my dissent from the said injunctions I can not be charged with denying any thing essential to Christian Faith and Life or to the constitution of a Church or any of the weightier matters of Religion or with being in any thing inconsistent with good Order and Government My Case as I have sincerely set it forth I humbly represent to the Clemency of my Governours and to the charity equity and â—â—â—â—â—r of all Christs Ministers and People 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 e I design to follow after the things which make for Peace and I hope I am not mistaken in the way to it I. C. FINIS Books lately Printed for Tho. Parkhurst at the Bible and Three Crowns in Cheapside ONe Hundred of Select Sermons upon several occasions by Tho. Horton D. D. Sermons on the 4th Psal. 42. Psal. 51. and 63. Psal. by Tho. Horton D. D. A Compleat Martyrology both of Foraign and English Martyrs with the Lives of 26 Modern Divines by Sam. Clark A Discourse of Actual Providence by John Collings D. D. An Exposition on the 5 first Chapters of the Revelation of Jesus Christ by Charles Phelpes A Discourse of Grace and Temptation by Tho. Froysall The Revival of Grace Sacramental Reflections on the Death of Christ as Testator A Sacrifice and Curse by John Hurst A Glimps of Eternity to Awaken Sinners and Comfort Saints by Ab. Coley Which is the Church or an Answer to the Question Where was your Church before Luther by Rich. Baxter The Husbandmans Companion or Meditations sutable for Farmers in order to Spiritualize their Employment by Edward Bury Mr. Adams Exposition of the Assemb Catechism showing its Harmony with the Articles and Homilies of the Church of England The present State of New-England with the History of their Wars with the Indies Popery an Enemy to Truth and Civil Government by Jo. Sheldeck Spelling Book for Children by Tho. Lye Principals of Christian Religion with Practical Applications to each Head by Tho. Gouge Almost Christian by Matth. Mead. Godly Mans Ark by Edmund Calamy Heaven and Hell on Earth in a good or bad Conscience by Nath. Vincent Little Catechism for Children with short Histories which may both please and profit them by Nath. Vincent Ark of the Covenant with an Epistle prefixed by John Owen D. D. This Author hath lately Published this Book Intituled The Kingdom of God among men A Tract of the sound state of Religion or that Christianity which is described in the holy Scriptures and of things that make for the security and increase thereof in the World designing its more ample diffusion among professed Christians of all sorts and its surer propagation to future Ages Printed for Tho. Parkhurst
THE KINGDOM OF GOD among Men A TRACT Of the Sound State OF RELIGION Or that Christianity which is described in the Holy Scriptures And of the things that make for the Security and Increase thereof in the World Designing its more ample diffusion among Professed Christians of all Sorts and its surer Propagation to future Ages With the Point of Church-Unity and Schism Discuss'd By JOHN CORBET LONDON Printed for Thomas Parkhurst at the Bible and Three Crowns at the Lower end of Cheapside 1679. THE PREFACE A Disquisition concerning Religion and the State Ecclesiastical wherein several Parties are vehemently carried divers ways whether right or wrong according to their different interests or apprehensions is apt to stir up jealousie and to meet with prejudice in a high degree and therefore had need be managed as advisedly as sincerely It is humbly craved that the present management thereof may find a favourable reception so far as it hath in it self the evidence of its own Sincerity and Sobriety This Treatise is not framed for a present occasion or any temporary design but insists upon those things that concern the Church universally and perpetually It aims at the advancement of meer Christianity and with respect to the common concernments thereof it leaves the things that are more appropriate to the several Parties and Persuasions to stand or fall It ingageth not in the controversies of these times touching Forms of Church Government but in any Form such depravations or deficiencies are blamed as hinder the Power Purity Unity Stability or amplitude of Religion Nothing prejudicial to Government to the rights of Superiors and Civil Pre-eminences or to Decency Unity and Order in the Church is here suggested Sedition and Faction are evicted to be a contradiction to this Interest which can hold its own only in those ways that make for the common good both of Rulers and Subjects Our design carries no other danger than the more ample diffusion of true Christianity and the power of Godliness among men of all degrees and the surer propagation thereof to future ages Here be some things that are the vitals of Christian Religion and cannot be removed and here be other things of conscientious or prudent Consideration and let these so far pass as they are found clear and cogent I had rather be charged with any defect or weakness than with uncharitableness and therefore am ready to renounce every line and every expression in this Book that cannot stand with true Christian Charity in the utmost extent thereof Let it not be taken amiss that to obviate suspicion or prejudice I declare my self in the things here following I am one aged in the Ministery and by reason of age and experience am not eager for any Party but mellowed with charity towards real Christians of all Parties I have vehemently desired the union of the more moderate Dissenters with the Established Order by reasonable accomodation as for others that remain dissatisfied about such Union yet believe and live as Christians I do as earnestly desire an indulgence for them within such limits as may stand with publick Peace and Safety Though I am cast into the State of Nonconformity yet I am willing to exercise the Ministery under the present Ecclesiastical Government if I were made capable thereof by the relaxation of some injunctions My principle is for a closing with things that are good and laudable in any Established Government and for a bearing with things that are tolerable And the Wisdom of the Governours of the Church will direct them to turn away from such Principles Orders or Practices as tend to the ruine or the great indangering of any Ecclesiastical Polity that retains them whilest the Apostolick Doctrine as it is now Established in the Church of England is maintained THE CONTENTS CHAP. I. THe nature of Christianity and the character of true Christians CHAP. II. Of things pertaining to the sound state of Christian Religion viz. holy Doctrine CHAP. III. The ordering of Divine Worship sutable to the Gospel Dispensation CHAP. IV. The due Dispensation of Gods word or publick Preaching CHAP. V. The due performance of publick Prayer CHAP. VI. The right Administration of Ecclesiastical Discipline CHAP. VII Religious Family-government CHAP. VIII Private mutual Exhortations Pious Discourse and Edifying Conversation CHAP. IX The prevalence of true Religion or real Godliness in the Civil Government of a Nation CHAP. X. Christian Unity and Concord CHAP. XI A good Frame of Ecclesiastical Polity CHAP. XII Of the corrupt state of Religion and first externalness and formality CHAP. XIII The Sectarian and Fanatical degeneration CHAP. XIV Of the way of preserving Religion uncorrupt CHAP. XV. The enmity of the World against real Godliness and the calumnies and reproaches cast upon it considered CHAP. XVI Religions main strength next under the power of God lies in its own intrinsick excellency CHAP. XVII Religion may be advanced by human prudence what ways and methods it cannot admit in order to its advancement CHAP. XVIII The Interest of true Religion lies much in its venerable estimation among men CHAP. XIX The most ample diffusion of the light of knowledge is a sure means of promoting true Religion CHAP. XX. The advantage of human Learning to the same end CHAP. XXI The general civility or common honesty of a Nation makes it more generally receptive of real Christianity or Godliness CHAP. XXII The increase of Religion is promoted by being made as much as may be passable among men CHAP. XXIII The observing of a due latitude in Religion makes for the security and increase thereof CHAP. XXIV The Care and Wisdom of the Church in preventing and curing the evil of Fanatical and Sectarian Error CHAP. XXV The advancement of the sound state of Religion by making it National and the settled Interest of a Nation CHAP. XXVI Of submission to things imposed by Lawfull Authority CHAP. XXVII The surest and safest ways of seeking Reformations CHAP. XXVIII Considerations tending to a due inlargement and unity in Church-Communion CHAP. XXIX Whether the purity and power of Religion be lessened by amplitude and comprehensiveness CHAP. XXX Factious usurpations are destructive to Religions Interest CHAP. XXXI Of leading and following and of Combinations CHAP. XXXII The Wisdom of the Higher Powers in promoting the Religionsness of their People CHAP. XXXIII The Churches true Interest to be pursued by Ecclesiastical Persons The Conclusion A Book Intituled The Interest of England in matter of Religion in Two Parts formerly Published by the same Author PAg. 7. lin 3. read Service pag. 19. l. 11. read whereas pag. 27. l. 24. read So pag. 28. l. 14. read is pag. 29. l. 14. read regardable pag. 31. l. 16. read this ib. l. 18. read apposite pag. 39. l. 14. read is able to make pag. 41. l. 31. read affect pag. 53. l. 19. read For the pag. 59. l. 5. read face of pag. 60. l. 12. read exercises pag. 67. l. 3. read Religions pag. 71. l.
the things here principally looked after are the receiving and propagating of holy Doctrine drawn out of the pure fountain of Sacred Scripture the right administration of true Gospel worship by which God is glorified as God and the worshippers are made more godly The due preaching of Gods word and dispensation of other divine ordinances by personslawfully called thereunto for the conversion of sinners and edification of converts Holy discipline truly and faithfully administred by the Pastors as the necessity of the Church requires and the State thereof will bear Religious family government Private mutual exhortations pious conferences and profitable conversation The predominant influence of religion in the civil government of a nation yet without usurpation or incroachment upon the civil rights of any especially of the higher Powers The unity of Christians and their mutual charity conspicuous and illustrious and lastly in order to all these intents a good frame of Ecclesiastical polity Holy Doctrine is the incorruptible seed of Regeneration by which the new creature is begotten It is not here intended to represent a perfect scheme thereof for it sufficeth to signifie that extracts thereof from holy Scripture are drawn out in the ancient Catholik Creeds and in the harmonious confessions of the present Reformed Churches Nevertheless our design requires the observation of some most important things about the Doctrine of Salvation As that there be first an earnest and hearty belief of the existence and providence of God and his government of mankind by laws congruous to their nature and of the immortallity of human souls and of a life of retribution in the world to come which is the foundation of all religion 2ly Right apprehensions of Gods nature and attributes more especially of his Holiness comprehending as well his purity and justice as his mercy and goodness that as he is ready to procure his creatures happiness and refuseth none that come unto him so that he cannot deny himself and that he receiveth note but upon terms agreeable to his Holiness 3ly An Idea of Godliness in themind not as shaped by any private conceptions but as expressed by the Holy Ghost whose workmanship it is that Christianity in the hearts and lives of men may be the same with Christianity in the Scriptures 4. The receiving of the great mystery of Godliness not as allegorized in the fancies of some Enthusiasts wherein it vanisheth to nothing but as verisied in the truth of the History wherein it becomes the power of God to Salvation and so not to sever the internal spirit of the Christian Religion from its external frame the basis whereof is the Doctrine of the Trinity in the Unity of the Godhead and of the incarnation of the eternal word Lastly Soundness of judgment in those great Gospel verities that are written for the exalting of Gods grace and the promoting of true godliness and the incouraging of the godly in opposition to ungracious ungodly and uncomfortable errours of which sort are these following truths That the study and knowledge of the Scriptures is the duty and priviledge of all Christians that according to their several capacities being skilfull in the word of righteousness they may discern between truth and falshood between good and evil and offer to God a reasonable service according to his revealed will That internal illumination is necessary to the saving knowledge of God the Holy spirit in that regard not inspiring new revelations but inabling to discern savingly what is already revealed in nature and Scripture That man was created after the image of God in righteousness and true holyness and that in this state he was indued with a self-determining principle called Freewill and thereby made capable of abiding holy and happy or of falling into sin and misery according to his own choice and that God left him to the freedom of his own choice having given him whatsoever power or assistance was necessary to his standing That the first man being set in this capacity fell from God and it pleased God not to annihilate him nor to prevent his propagating of an issue in the same fallen state which would follow upon his fall but left the condition of mankind to pass according to the course of nature being now fallen That by the sin of Adam all men are made sinners and corrupt in their whole nature and are under the curse of the Law and liable to eternal condemnation and being left to the wicked bent of their own wills are continually adding to their original sin a heap of actual transgressions and so are of themselves in a miserable and helpless condition That the Lord Jesus Christ according to his full intention and his Fathers commandment hath made propitiation for the sins of the whole world so far as thereby to procure pardon of sin and Salvation of soul to all that do unfeignedly believe and repent That man being dead in sin cannot be quickned to the divine life but by the power of Gods grace raising him above the impotency of lapsed nature That the culpable impotency of lapsed nature to saving good lies in the fixed full aversation of the will by a deplorable obstinacy nilling that good to which the natural faculties can reach and ought to incline as to their due object That the root of godliness lies in regeneration and inward Sanctification That God calleth some by the help of that special grace which infallibly effecteth their conversion and adhesion to him without any impeachment of the natural liberty of the will That whatsoever God doth in time and in whatsoever order he doth it he decreed from eternity to do the same and in the same order and so he decreed from eternity to give that special grace to some and by it to bring them to glory which decree is eternal election to which is opposite the pure negative of Non-election As for preordination to everlasting punishment it passeth not upon any but on the foresight and consideration of their final abode in the state of sin That the more common convictions inclinations and endeavours towards God in persons unregenerate are good in their degree and the ordinary preparative to a saving change and they are the effects of that divine grace which is called common That deligent seeking after God by the help of common grace is not in vain it being the means to some further attainment towards the souls recovery and it is regarded of God in its degree and God doth not deny men further degrees of help till they refuse to follow after him by not using the help already given them and by resisting his further aid That God hath made all men savable and though he doth not simply and absolutely will the conversion and Salvation of all yet he willeth it so far and in such manner as is sufficient to encourage the diligent in their endeavours and to convict the careless of being inexcusable despisers of his grace towards them That there is an
our heads is by custom taken for irreverence and incivility and therefore to be avoided as offensive All matters of necessary decency are in their generals of the Law of nature and in the particulars to be ordered by human prudence All natural expressions of devotion as kneeling and lifting up of the hands and eyes in prayer are allowed by all sorts We call them natural because nature it self teacheth to use them without any positive institution divine or human and a rational man by the meer light of nature is directed to use them yet not without some government and discretion For herein nature it self is subject to some variety and is in part determined and limited by the custom of several ages and countries as for instance in the prostration of the body in the act of adoration in the wearing of Sackcloth and renting of clothes in time of great humiliation which in former ages were sutable and that according to nature but not now adays in regard of the variation of custom And I suppose that in this sense St. Paul speaks against wearing of long hair as contrary to nature But there hath been much controversie about such Ceremonies as contribute nothing to the aforesaid necessary decency and are no natural nor civil and customary expressions of reverence and devotion but are of human institution and of a mystical and meerly instituted signification and made visible stated signs of Gods honour and the immediate expressions of our observance of him and obligation to him and by some supposed to be not meer circumstances but parts of divine Worship and yet more especially if they be designed in their use for that significancy and moral efficacy that belongs to Sacraments and made no less then the Symbals of our Christianity It lies not on me to determine on either side in this controversie nevertheless it is easie to apprehend this that it can be no danger nor dammage to be sparing in those things which being at least doubtfull and unnecessary have turned to endless strife and scandal between those that own the same doctrine of Faith and the same Church Communion Likewise it can do no hurt to reformed Christianity not to insist on that latitude in devised rites of worship that will acquit the greatest part of the Ceremonies used in the Church of Rome from the charge of Superstition and which makes way for the oppressing of the Churches and the sinking of religion under a luggage of unprofitable institutions To make any thing necessary and commanded of God which he hath not commanded and to damn any thing as forbidden by him which he hath left indifferent and to dread left God should not be pleased unless we do somethings which we need not do and lest he should be displeased when we do somethings not forbidden is no doubt the crime of Superstition but it is not the whole extent of that sin For it is no less Superstition to feign God to be pleased with mens vain inventions yea though they be not injoyned or observed as divine precepts and this also is to teach for Doctrines the commandments of men And who are the greater controlers of Gods wisdom and usurpers upon his authority They that fear to do what God hath allowed supposing it to be forbidden or they that presume to add their own inventions for the bettering of his service and make the omission thereof as criminal as the neglect of divine ordinances Doubtless it is a more tolerable Superstition to be over solicitous and scrupulous about the commandments of God than to be over-confident and vehement in the unwarrantable or questionable traditions of men Human devices multiplyed in Gods worship ingender to much vanity and superstition in the zealous observers of them and are apt to extinguish the inward life of Godliness as rank weeds choak the corn and they are commonly made a Cloak to real ungodliness And if some of them were first introduced with pious intention yet they are commonly maintained and multiplied to serve a carnal Interest And they are the more easily entertained and observed because it is easie to the flesh to buy out the inward Service of God and the subjection of the inward man by superficial bodily exercise But the depretiating of these devices serves to pluck off the mask of hypocrisie made up of meer formalities and to invigorate the life and spirit of true Religion To be the Ministration of the Spirit is the excelling glory of the Gospel Ministration wherewith a grave and sober decency and comely ornament doth well accord but excessive gaudiness pompous and theatrical shews various gesticulations and affected postures are vanities too much detracting from its dignity and spiritual Majesty CHAP. IV. The due dispensation of Gods word WHen our Lord Jesus ascended up on high he gave gifts unto men appointing and furnishing Spiritual Officers for the Service of his Kingdom some extraordinary and temporary as Apostles Prophets Evangelists others ordinary and successively perpetual as Pastors and Teachers Wherefore the interest of Christianity lies much in a right Gospel Ministery which is sutable and serviceable to our Lords design and the ends of his Gospel And it is a Ministery which is pure and uncorrupt dispensing the truth as it is in Jesus whereby men are brought to sound faith and true holiness which is vigorous and powerful apt to take hold of the conscience and reach the heart which is sollicitous and laborious travelling in birth till Christ be formed in the hearers and the Man-child the new creature be born into the world which is assiduous and instant in preaching the word by instruction reproof and comfort that as much as in it lies it may present every man perfect in Christ which comes with full Scripture evidence and cogent reason with solid matter in stile and language not negligent much less undecent yet not too curious and elaborate but free vehement grave serious and fit for the work in hand which is not to tickle ear but to break open the heart which is exemplary in faith purity charity self-denial and contempt of the world and finally which is not mercenary but naturally cares for the state of the flock and accommodates it self thereunto as its great charge and chief concern And who is sufficient for these things saith the great Apostle Doubtless much wisdom and grace is needfull in an able Minister of the new Testament and a Workman that needs not to be ashamed It being pre-supposed that he holds fast the form of Sound words and that he is throughly instructed in the mystery of Godliness which he is to impart to others in the first place his prudence will be concerned for the judicious management of the dispensation committed to him A prudent dispenser of the word will take care to deliver nothing to others but what is very intelligible to himself and whereof he can make good sense and render a reason to those that ask it He doth not
either hand For it is very discernable that the Antipathy against either way is mainly caused by the animosity and mutual opposition between the parties of different persuasions and inclinations in this matter They are too weak and ill-advised at least if not humorous and self-conceited that reject all Sett-Forms and on the other hand to suppress the gift of Prayer in our selves or others is to sin against the grace of God and to hinder much good The use of a Set-Form without an imperious restraint of Prayer thereto will obviate the objection of Stinting the Spirit which means if there be any thing to the purpose in that Phrase a suppressing or undue restraining of this Spiritual gift against which a caution is here given In our addresses to the great God it concerns us to look well both to thoughts and words that in both he may be Sanctified by us and glorified as God indeed And in our publick addresses to him a more special care must be had that nothing be uttered before him that is unmeet to be offered to his dreadfull Majesty Rude clownish and homely expressions as also quibling jingling and all levity and trifling is very loathsome in Preaching but in Prayer much more Affectation of words curiosity and politeness becomes not the weightiness and awfulness of this duty Yea abruptness obscurity and all incongruity of speaking is to be shunned herein as much as possible and that only is to be used which is plain clear seemly weighty savory and affectionate In like manner all indecency of voice and gesture is to be watched against as an offensive thing and apt to expose the Service to the derision of proud scorners Yet a seasonable elevation of the voice or other apt expression of earnestness is not to be counted rudeness Sometimes a worthy man may not be aware of some uncomeliness in his tone or in the posture of his countenance or some other bodily gesture by reason of the fervour of his Spirit in the duty joyned with inadvertency towards those exterior and lesser things And sometimes an ill habit or custom is not easily broken off These inconveniencies are prevented or redressed by a wariness of disposition and a moderate self-distrust and the actual observation of what is gracefull or uncomely in others Prayer is a holy Converse with God wherein an humble confidence and Son-like freedom of Spirit with him is acceptable yet withall it calls for the greatest prostration of soul and the deepest reverence and Subjection Wherefore humbly to expostulate with God is no sauciness The whole current of the Prayers of Saints in Scripture doth warrant it and that not only now and then in extraordinary cases Indeed our ordinary concerns with God are no less than the safety of our immortal Souls the pardoning of our great and numberless offences the subduing of inveterate corruptions our escaping of many deadly dangers our victory over the adverse world the powerfull presence of his Grace the light of his Countenance as also the interests of his glory and of his Church and people and of the world in general that poor Souls may be delivered from the power of darkness and translated into the kingdom of his dear Son all which are of the highest moment and of themselves exceeding difficult though to God all things are possible and they all require vehemence and importunity not as if God needed to be moved or stirred up but that we may declare our selves duely affected Howbeit even the best things may be over-done and this over-doing is the marring thereof If in the expostulations of Prayer men shall utter perverse or frivolous things or speak absurdly daringly or irreverently they are highly culpable and guilty of abusing the most holy things and of contemning the most glorious and fearfull name of the Lord their God Our freedom of access to God and converse with him must not be turned into an irreverent and presumptuous familiarity Those that are guilty of this rashness are worthy of great rebuke But I-know well that the Spirit of Luke-warmness and profaness doth usually cast reproaches and scorns upon that zeal and fervency of Spirit that well becomes the Servants of the Lord and labours to make the most accceptable and profitable kind of Prayer to seem ridiculous It is against reason to think that the Ministers of the present age brought up under such eminent advantage for Ministerial abilities should not be able to speak to God in good and solid sense in an orderly method and in affective grave and seemly language as becomes the Solemnity of Gods Worship Experience will justifie the sufficiency of serious pious and painfull Preachers in general though the captious and curious and such as love to cavil have found fault and despised the profitable endeavours of those whom God hath owned Besides the offences that are committed in this matter proceed more from inadvertency and imprudence than from insufficiency and may be corrected by care and causion and good advice And it is no vanity to suppose such a competency of prudence easily attainable by all those that are competently qualified for this Office Indeed it cannot be expected but that some will be less able and less perfect than others in this performance and that the same persons may not be alike perfect therein at all times nevertheless there is no such want of Security that the Churches service will be well performed if any Prayer be used in the Church besides a prescribed Form For who can doubt but that persons of competent ability and prudence may upon due incouragement be spread throughout a Nation in such an Age of learning and knowledge And to say otherwise were to disparage the Reformed Religion And there is no just cause of doubt but that an able Minister may make use either of a precomposed or of an immediately conceived Form of words Yet in this matter there is great diversity of judgment and affection even unto much prejudice and opposition But the same minds might well be conciliated to both ways if rightly ordered The Question is here supposed to be of the outward mode in which two things are mainly to be regarded to wit that it be reverend and affective Such as are best persuaded of a pre-composed Form and find it expedient for them doubtless may rightly manage it to the edifying of themselves and others For which end they must needs in some parts thereof make use of occasional variation and inlargement though premeditated as minding the more particular requiries of several times and occasions But others by a habit of ready utterance and much exercise are well prepared to pray by the immediate conceptions of their mind in proper and decent words and can do it without any straining of invention and with much freedom of Spirit No more is here spoken that what impartial men will grant And why should any forbid them that are thus qualified to use their gift But if any should be
rash with their mouths and hasty to utter any thing before God that is unmeet they are subject to the discipline of the Church to be censured for their errour Moreover heightened affections inlarge the heart and open the mouth and do not make a man at a stand for want of words Indeed astonishing affection or an extasie of Spirit may put one to such a stand but that rarely takes hold of any in a pubick performance But a calm admiration and reverence of God and seriousness and earnestness of address to him doth not hinder but further apâ—expressions For the use of one constant Form it hath been pleaded that a stranger may thereby the better know how we Worship God and that the people better understand and remember that to which they are continually used But on the other hand variety and newness of matter and words are more apt to quicken the affection and perfect the understanding also especially of the attentive whenas under the constant rehersal of one thing the faculties grow flat and dull Besides in the use of this liberty and variety the Prayer being ordinarily the same for substance in the main the vulgar apprehension and memory is help'd by the sameness of the main substance and scope and the affections are raised and the understanding further edified by that which is new in the frame and method and particular matter and the peoples more particular variable concernments are provided for by a more peculiar accommodation and respect thereto as occasions vary And by the received doctrine of Faith a stranger may be sufficiently ascertain'd of the substance of the Worship to be celebrated For a Doctrine of a Church governs its Worship and it is well known that one the same tenor thereof will pass through the several congregations of a nation that are not confined to a stinted Form yet combined in the same faith and order And when all is said that management and performance of this Service is the best that is most effectual to make the Comers thereunto more perfect in knowledge more devout and zealous towards God more pious and blameless in their conversation and every way more perfect in the divine life and it will be so acknowledged by them that are discerning and serious in the things of God But to conciliate the minds of men diversly affected in this matter and to prevent the inconveniencies and to obtain the good of either way a prescribed Form and a free Prayer will do best together in reference to the Churches peace and edification CHAP. VI. The right Administration of Ecclesiastical discipline THe Ministers of Christ and Stewards of the mysteries of God are Pastors of the Church and Pastoral authority includes both teaching and ruling and implies the peoples subjection in the Lord to their Doctrine and discipline To bereave the Church of discipline is to leave it unfurnished of that means which is necessary to the preservation of all orderly Socities of mankind It is to turn the Garden of the Lord by plucking up the fence thereof into a Common or Wilderness The power intrinsecal to this Office is not secular and coercive by temporal penalties but purely Spiritual which is in the name of Christ and by authority from him the chief Pastor to watch over the Flock to encourage them that live conformably to the Gospel by the consolations thereof and to warn them that walk disorderly and if any continue obstinate therein to declare them unworthy of Church-Communion and Christian converse and to require the faithful to have no fellowship with them to the intent that they may be humbled and reformed As the Discipline of all Societies is to be regulated by their true interest and and chief scope so is this of the Church of God Now the Christian Church looks mainly to the honour of Christ and the glory of Gods grace in him and to the Salvation of men for which ends it was ordained And consequently its true interest lies in the conservation and augmentation of true Christianity or the power of godliness but that Church interest which is elsewhere fixed and levelled to an other mark appertains to a carnal and worldly State set up in the room and pretence of this Spiritual Society The Churches true and proper excellency lies not in worldly splendor opulency and power nor in outward rites and formal unity nor in the stability and amplitude of a meer external State but in the inward light and life in the unfained faith and love in the purity and Spiritual unity of believers and in the security and advancement of this internal State and of the external State in order to the internal Wherefore the right end of discipline is not to promote temporal glory and opinions and formalities thereunto subservient but the Apostolick faith and worship and the regeneration of the professors thereof and their sincere devotion Godly unity Sobriety Righteousness Brotherly-kindness and common Charity and all the vital parts of Christianity and to keep and cast out Heresie Superstition Profaness Unrighteousness and all wicked error and practice that tends to frustrate the designs of Christs Gospel as also to prevent and remedy the causless tearing and renting of Churches and those alienations and animosities among Christians that proceed only from the wills and lusts of men And the management hereof to this right end is of far greater consequence than any scrupulosity or preciseness about its external form and order Nay if an external order could be proved to be primitive and Apostolical and were perverted and abused to inforce corrupt doctrines scandalous and insnaring inventions and impositions and in a Ceremonial strictness to indulge real profaness and discourage true Godliness it were no other then the mystery of a carnal state under a Spiritual name having a form of godliness but denying and suppressing the power thereof The right end of Discipline being such as hath been declared it follows that its proper work is to incourage Godliness and to disgrace open sin Accordingly being rightly managed it admonisheth the unruly casts out the obstinate and restores the penitent About these things it is active watchfull and vigorous What severity it hath it exerciseth in correcting real scandals and gross breaches of Gods Law and in maintaining the Churches peace against those that cause divisions and offences contrary to the Doctrine which we have received that is the Doctrine of Christ and his Apostles But it careth little for those matters wherein the life and power of Religion and the Churches peace and edification is unconcerned Much less doth it seek to quench godly zeal and to hinder the necessary means of the increase of true godliness or to afflict peaceable and pious Christians by any needless rigors CHAP. VII Religious Family-government IN the time of the Law the solemn Dedication of houses was in use the Solemnity expressing that holy exercises should be performed in it and that the houshold should be
authority and reverend esteem of their Persons and Office yet it regulates the same as much as may be to prevent ambition avarice sensuality idleness haughtiness that the worst of Men may not be incouraged to aspire to its Promotions and that good Men may not degenerate and that the sacred name of the Church may be held by a society of Men not carnal but truly spiritual It is constituted as much as may be to secure a succession of wise and godly Pastors and Teachers from age to age which is the surest means of the Church's perpetual good Estate It is not framed to uphold things only serviceable to a carnal interest but to inforce things acceptable to God and profitable to Men and to suppress whatsoever tends to defeat the power of the Gospell or disgrace the Profession of it and to reform abuses impartially and effectually According to the true end of Ecclesiasticall Authority which is for edification and not for destruction it inlargeth the power of doing good and restrains the power of hurting as much as the ends of Goverment will permit such restraint accordingly its greatest severity takes hold of the worst Men and the best are left most at liberty and secure from unnecessary molestation It is directed to the satisfying of the just and reasonable demands of conscience which is a choice and tender thing and therefore it is very tender of intangling and perplexing the same unnecessarily It makes the Pastors government truly pastoral that is not imperious and violent but Paternal proceeding by Exhortation and Doctrine and gentle instruction and love and when correction is necessary by the rod of Discipline It aims at the forming of Mens minds and the governing of their conversations by good and sound Principles and to make them aâ—… much as may be a Law to themselves yet aâ—… supposing the exceeding pravity of Mans nature and the infirmities of the best of men iâ—… leaves not the safety of Religion meerly to Mens good dispositions and inclinations buâ—… by due restraints curbeth the remainder oâ—… Mans perverseness It seeks not to debase the People and de press their faculties that they may be the more easily led captive by politick Men at their pleasure but to ennoble them as much as they are capable and to advance their understandings to the best improvement and accordingly it takes care that they may be throughly instructed in things pertaining to Faith and Godliness In a word it would make even the lowest and meanest of them not Brutes buâ— Men and not meer natural men but Christians or spiritual Men. The subject here described hath different degrees of excellency as it is more or less answerable to its rule and available to its end But notwithstanding divers defects and errours if that which is wholsom and good be predominant it is to be esteemed a good Constitution yet the best is most desirable Of such consequence is the structure of Ecclesiastical Polity that if it be naught it hath a continual evil influence on all Church affairs and perverts the whole course thereof and the making of many particular good Laws or Rules will not help it for in that case they are rendred almost useless It is notably observed by a Person of eminent worth Church Government is a fort or castle if Traitors to the Kingdom of Christ get the possession of it it were desirable that the Castle were ruin'd and the Christian Religion left to support it self by the innate evidence of its own Truth than be forcibly maintain'd for contrary ends and prove a mystery of Ungodliness and Tyranny CHAP. XII The corrupt state of Religion and first Externalness and Formality EVery kind of excellency in the present World hath its counterfit or false resemblance which in things of a moral nature is the depravation or degeneration thereof And so the true Religion hath its degeneration which is destructive to it yet in this corruption of Mankind is easily mistaken and exalted in the room of it It is a dead image of Christianity without the inward life of Christ and the works thereof are dead works being not wrought in God It is the dominion of the spirit of the World and of unmortified lust under pretence of the rule of the Spirit of God It is a zeal of some unnecessary Opinions and unprofitable Observances received sometimes from a more peculiar and private fancy sometimes from the general custom and tradition or at the best a zeal of Orthodoxality when that form of sound Doctrine is not obeyed from the heart It is a self-chosen godliness and not of Gods making taken up to delude the Conscience and lift up the Soul with high but ill-grounded hopes and in the mean while to excuse it from that which is the root of the matter the renouncing of the carnal life and all worldly lusts and the obtaining of the spirit of Power Love and of a sound mind and a life of Purity Goodness and impartial Righteousness The best of it is but a gloss or varnish of superficial Religiousness accompanied with a dead kind of Morality which hath its rise from education or from complexion otherwise called good Nature but springs not from the root of love towards God and of a living faith in Jesus Christ. The several impostures disguises and false pretences by which Men delude themselves and abuse the World in this matter are almost numberless yet they generally fall into one of these two main currents of religious Aberrations either the Political popular and broad way of Externalness and Customariness or the devious path of Sectarian dissetledness and extravagancy The more ample degeneration of Christianity is the meerly formal external and political State thereof that hath prevailed far and near over the Christian World This externalness is very plausible and specious but very consistent and for the most part accompanied with a large indulgence to the Flesh and with much licentiousness of Principles and Practice and it casts the mind into a deep forgetfulness of that which is spiritual and substantial in Religion It is the common rode and broad way because most obvious and easie to the carnal spirit of all sorts of Men who having some conscience of Religion gladly take up with a form that with more security and peace they may deny the power thereof as also because it seems most servicable to Superiors for shaping and swaying the consciences of Inferiors to their wills and to the ends by them designed Accordingly as it gets ground it erects a frame of things which hath a shew of Piety Unity and Order but is really an engine devised to destroy whatsoever may be truly called by those lovely names When Mens false and vain inventions rule instead of Gods Oracles when the truth of the Gospel is mingled with such Doctrines Institutions and Observances as corrupt the Purity enervate the Power and frustrate the ends of the Gospel when the misapprehension or misapplication of true
Doctrine depraves the mind and begets a false notion of Godliness or Christianity when Regeneration or true Conversion is prevented by being made in effect no more than Civility joyned with a dead conformity to the exterior part of the Christian Institution when Religion is placed in an outside Pharisaical Holiness in some bodily severity and it may be in meer forms and empty shews without internal and real Mortification and Devotion when the exterior Ordinances of the Gospel are retained but used after another manner than what becomes the Gospel-Church or sutes the ends of Gospel-Worship when a sapless and fruitless Generation of Men are nourished in holy Orders who cherish the People in ignorance profaness or lukewarmness who shew them a way to Heaven that is smooth broad and easie to the Flesh who serve or at least spare the lusts of Men who humour the vulgar Sort in rude follies who give absolution upon formal and loose terms and therewith a false repose to poor deluded Souls when the great interest of Churchmen is to promote Superstition blind Devotion and implicit Faith and to hold People in the chains of spiritual darkness and in the pleasing bondage of carnal liberty their Consciences being in the mean time secured by the belief of certain Tenents and Articles of Religion and the devout Observance of certain external Ordinances When the Policy of the Church is contrived to maintain fleshly ease and pleasure worldly pomp and power and the chiefest glory of the Ecclesiastical State lies in outward order without inward life and spirit in sacred Administration When the weapons of its warfare are not spiritual but carnal sutable to an earthly and sensual State When submission to the wills of Masters upon Earth is called obedience and their peaceable possession of Wealth and Honor is taken for the Churches Peace When concord in the unprofitable or hurtfull dictates of Men is made to pass for the unity of the Spirit When the Constitution it self the general corruption of Mankind being considered is found defective for the true end of Government and le ts loose the rains of depraved Appetite and by carnal Allurements alienates the mind from the things of the Spirit of God and turns it after the pomps and vanities of the World and serves the voluptuosness covetousness and pride of its adherents for which cause its yoke is easie to the sensual part of men but it is scandalous to them that know the truth and becomes a Stepmother to the most serious and conscientious when these and the like things prevail the Christian Religion is turned into another thing than what it is indeed by men of corrupt minds who serve their own lusts and by the wisdom that descends not from above but is Earthly Sensual Devilish square out to themselves and those that live under their influence a loose Form of Christianity not after Christ but after the course of this world But this corruption is more or less enormous in different Ages and Countries according to its greater or nearer distance from the times and means of purer knowledge And a less corrupt state may be severed from that which is more grosly vicious and impure and yet remain a degeneration in the same kind though in a lower degree And let this be noted that in a degenerate state the doctrines and institutions of Christ may be so far retained as to contain things absolutely necessary to Christian faith and life which may beget and preserve the vitals of Christianity in them that do not mingle with the other poisonous ingredients or at least not in their full extent Yea the Degeneration may happen to be in a lower degree and less pernicious and perhaps only as a Scab upon some part and not overspreading the whole Body of the Church and great multitudes therein may profess and practice the truth as it is in Jesus Thus the Judaical Church in its corrupt state retained the vitals of true Religion which were a sufficient means of grace to them that escaped the pollutions of those times and were not seasoned with the leaven of false Teachers CHAP. XIII The Sectarian and Fanatical Degeneration THe other deviation lies more out of the common rode of the generality of carnal Gospellers and this is usually stiled Sectarian whereof the particular by paths are numberless But let this be noted that whatsoever way swerves from the main ends of Religion and the great design of the Gospel is no other than a Sect or Faction yea though it spread so far and wide as that they who walk therein do for their huge multitudes presume to appropriate to themselves alone the Title of the Catholick Church Wherever the interest of a Party bears sway to the detriment of the universal Church and the common cause of Godliness where inventions false or useless are made the necessary Symbols of Religion there a Sectarian interest bears Sway and the gaining of the Secular power will not wipe off the blot of such a Party The name of Sectaries may fit proud usurpers as well as blind zealots This necessary proviso being made it remains to speak in this place of the more incoherent unstable and ungovernable sort of Sects The root of the evil in this kind is commonly a heightened fancy and complexional Zeal bearing Rule instead of Sober judgment and a more intellectual Spiritual and pure love It shall suffice to set down some notable instances for it were endless to recount them all Some have been so far transported with the hatred of Church Tyranny and persecuting Pride and cruelty that they mind not the good of Church unity order and government and they run so far from implicit faith in the dictates of proud men that themselves have proudly slighted the Churches directive judgment and all Pastoral Authority as a thing of no value and have fiercely impugned it as opposite to Christian liberty Of the like strain are they that upon pretence of higher attainments and greater Spirituality have rejected external ordinances as the dispensation of the Word and Sacraments and the publick Ministery and Ecclesiastical discipline as low and beggarly rudiments while they declare themselves hereby to be carnal and vainly puffed up in their fleshly minds Some through abuse and mistake of Divine promises concerning the Spirits Teaching have forsaken the sure guidance of Gods Law and betaken themselves to the uncertain intimations of Providence and the dangerous impulses of their own Spirits and pretended immediate inspirations which are for the most part the delusions of an exalted Fancy and sometimes they have really fallen under Satanical impressions Because there is the fleshly wisdom of the carnal mind that is enmity against God some have disclaimed reason it self as corrupt and carnal and in the mean while follow their own wilfull imagination under the pretence of the Light within them and delight in things irrational and unintelligible and render themselves uncapable of sound instruction A Fanatick fury
and carnall interests to false ways and vain inventions For which cause it behooves the zealous Religionist to be carefull even to jealousie that he be not imposed upon by himself or others and in this care heartily and intirely to resign and conform himself to the Law of God By such resignation and conformity he secures his own Soul and what in him lies the Sound state of Religion It is here acknowledged that what is written in nature is Gods Law as well as what is written in Scripture and that natural Revelation as well as supernatural is Divine and whatsoever is known of God by the Light of nature in the matter of Religious Worship is to be received as well as that which is known by the Light of Scripture and the divine Goodness is to be owned in both though in the latter it hath appeared more abundantly because therein is given us a full instruction in all things pertaining to Gods Kingdom which in the other is not given For the great mysteries of the Gospel could not be known by nature and in things that could be known thereby the light is but weak and glimmering and not easily able to fix the heart therein not so much for want of evidence in the object as from the pravity of our mind reason being laid asleep and all our faculties being sunk into the brutish life What is the utmost capacity of that light among the Heathens is hard for us to define and though it be harsh to determine that they were all utterly and universally forsaken of God yet it is evident both by Scripture and the lives of the Gentiles that Gentilism was a very forlorn state This is enough to shew the high favour of God toward the Church in supernatural Revelation by which he hath not only instructed us in things supernatural not otherwise to be known in this life but also more perfectly in the Laws of nature now transcribed into the Books of the Old and New Testament so that there is nothing of Religion or Morality that may not be found therein Besides the Law of God written in Nature and Scripture what certain and stable rule of Doctrine Worship Discipline and Conversation hath the Church to walk by that there can be no certainty or consent in meer or all Tradition or in the judgment of the ancient Fathers or the ancient practice of the Catholick Church is so evident as needs no confirmation and there can be no acquiescence or accord in the determinations of any visible universal Supream Power For whereas all Christians acknowledge the Divine Authority of the Scripture they neither do nor ever did nor will unanimously acknowledge that there is such a Power in being And the main Body of them that maintain'd such a Catholick Supremacy cannot agree in what subject the same resides whether in the Pope or a General Council And as several Popes so have several Councils of equal amplitude and authority often crossed one another and consequently some of both kinds must needs have erred And it still remains a controversie undeterminable which Councils are to be received and which to be rejected unless the whole Christian World hitherto disagreeing herein will be bound up by the resolves of one Party that can bring no better proof than their own pretended infallibility To all which may be added that an Oecumenical Council truly so called or a Representative of the universal Church was never yet congregated Wherefore let the Faithfull rest upon the old right foundation the Doctrine of the Prophets and Apostles whose infallibility is unquestionable Such being the fulness and perfection of holy Scripture which was given by Divine inspiration and that for this end that the man of God might be perfect throughly furnished unto all good works it must needs be safest in Divine matters not to be venturous without its warrant They best secure themselves from error who keep to that rule which is both perfect and infallible some pretending to lay open the folly of the way which they call puritanism affirm that the mystery thereof lies in this principle that nothing ought to be Established in the Worship of God but what is authorized from the Word of God Indeed there are those of that denomination who disallow whatsoever instituted Worship is not so authorized but they are not so ignorant as to suppose that all particular circumstances belonging to Divine Worship which admit of endless variation are defined in the Word of God such as are those natural and civil circumstances without which actions are not performable But they suppose a wide difference between these matters such as time place method furniture c. and those ordinances of Religion which they take for parts of Worship as being made direct and immediate signs of honour given to God by their use And all of this kind some do judge or at least suspect to be unlawfull that are not of Gods appointment My design obligeth me to shun the intangling of this Discourse with controversie and therefore I write not either for or against the lawfulness of such uncommanded Worship But it is sufficient for me to shew that the purity of Religion is more safe by acquiescence in that only which God hath prescribed than by addition of new ordinances of Worship devised by men who even the best of them may too easily deviate from the truth And who knows not that too much yielding to mens devised Forms and Rights which had a shew of Wisdom made way for the departure of so great a part of Christendom from the primitive Christianity All duties of the Law of nature may be clearly proved from Scripture though the particular instances thereof that are innumerable and their infinitely variable circumstances cannot be there expressed As for instituted Worship it is unquestionable that there is no such defect in those parts thereof that are of Divine authority as needs to be made up by the human addition of other new parts And it is granted on all hands that there are things meerly circumstantial belonging to it which are necessary in general but in particular not determined of God and must be ordered by the light of nature and human prudence according to the general rules of Gods word None that know what they say in magnifying the written Word will teach the People not to rely upon impartial reason which no true Revelation did ever contradict But we are so conscious of the weakness of human understanding that in case of any seeming contrariety between Scripture and Reason not to give the Scripture the preeminence we know is most unreasonable Is Scripture liable to be perverted so is Reason Is there obscurity and difficulty in the interpretation of Scripture so in human ratiocinations much more Whosoever can apprehend right reason can rationally apprehend Gods written word which is its own interpreter and whose authentick interpretation of it self we are inabled to discern by rational inferences and deductions
as well as the sense of any rational discourse whatsoever And the evidence of Gods Testimony is much more effectual than the arguments of human reason to command assent and quiet mens minds and appease their contests And if we yield not our controversies to be finally decided by this sacred Rule whither shall we go or wherein shall we all be bound up The truth is when men seek out vain inventions to please their own fancies or to serve their own ends and find their devised ways condemned by Gods word then they fall to derogate from its authority and sufficiciency and talk much of the impertinency and folly of those that insist upon it and cry up tradition and reason and that wisdom of Man that is but foolishness with God When things will not be as well as they should they must be as they may There be some usefull truths and practices that may be too dearly bought if purchased with the breach of the Churches Peace and Unity and the hazard of its whole Estate Howbeit then is the best state of things when the Apostolick Doctrine and Discipline is the standardmeasure of all and nothing is retained but what is plainly agreeable thereunto And the safety of pure Religion lies in as through a reformation according to this rule as the times will bear Let the severest reason that is impartial weigh the following words written by one of a Catholick Spirit and true to the Interest of Reformed Christianity touching our departure from Rome We should leave upon us no string or tassel of our ancient Captivity such as whereby they may take hold of us to pull us back again into our former bondage but look upon our selves as absolutely free from any tye to them more than in indeavouring their Conversion and Salvation which we knowing so experimentally not to be compassed by needless Symbolizings with them in any thing I conceive it our best Policy studiously to imitate them in nothing but for all indifferent things to think rather the worse of them for their using them as no Person of Honour would willingly go in the known Garb of any Lewd and Infamous Persons Whatsoever we Court them in they do but turn to our scorn and contempt and are more hardened in their own wickedness Wherefore seeing that needless Symbolizings with them doth them no good but hurt we should account our selves in all things indifferent perfectly free to please and satisfie in the most universal manner we can those of our own Party not caring what Opinions or Customs or outward Formalities the Romanists and others have and may have had from the first Degeneracy of the Church As for the word Popery it is not more odious than ambiguous among Protestants On the one hand some that will speak hard words against it have drawn it into so extreamly narrow a compass as to place it in little more than a secular interest of Power controverted between the Pope and the Princes and Prelates of Christendom and others that make it broader are yet very tender if not fond of many gross Corruptions of the Roman Church On the other hand some have extended it so far as to disparage things good and laudable and requisite and ignorantly call by that name whatsoever they fancy not Nevertheless those useless and offensive things taken up by the Papal Church since the time of their known Apostacy both Doctrines and Customs and that are theirs more peculiarly may justly be called Popish though they were not imposed as Apostolick commands or means of obtaining Pardon of Sin or of working Grace Why should we be tenacious of their Forms to the scandal of those of our own Belief How are we obliged or concerned to conform to their usages more than they are to ours Have they any Authority over us or are they any way a Rule unto us Are not the holy Scriptures of right both their Rule and ours Or can they upbraid us for departing from them in these at least unnecessary Opinions and Customs unless they upbraid us upon those grounds which we have rejected together with their Usurpation and and which if we receive again we must quit Protestancy it self This striving to come so near them whether tends it but to reduce us again into that Church For by all approaches to them they are not drawn one step towards us but are the more hardened and still they rest unmoveable on the rock of their pretended Supremacy and Infallibility The impurity of the Romish Church lies chiefly in its Superstition and Sensuality In the grosser part of its Superstition is manifold gross Idolatry and any way of symbolizing with Idolatry which is spiritual Whoredom should be dreaded by the chast Spouse of Chirst as the retaining of such Images as have been and are apt to be made objects of Religious Adoration and the making choice of the peculiar garbs and fashions of Idolaters in their worship Moreover where the gross Pollutions are avoided if their pomp and train of Ceremonies be retained they will be apt to take up the heart of such as are busied in them and to corrupt the Worship of God and make it a dead work and carnal Service and so the spirit and power of Godliness will decay and die among the People by this means Sensuality the concomitant of Idolatry and all gross Superstition is likewise manifested in their Devotions Of the Israelites Idolatry it is written The people sat down to eat and drink and rose up to play Sensual sports and pastimes are mingled with the Devotions of carnal Worshippers as is notably seen in the Popish Festivals And this makes the sensual part of Men addicted to such a way To pray a while and then to play is the business of their Sacred Solemnities But this course alienates the mind from true Holiness and tends to much Profaness and not only the Piety but the civility of a Nation will hereby much abate A Church that would maintain the purity of Religion the power of Godliness had need have its solemn days of divine Service distinct from the appointed times of carnal sport mirth and jollity CHAP. XV. The enmity of the World against Godliness and the Calumnies and Reproaches cast upon it considered THe security and increase of true Religion is a matter of no small difficulty The enmity against it is general and perpetual in the first race of Mankind it brake forth even to Bloud and throughout all Ages it hath been propagated that with great rage as well within as without the Pale of the visible Church The adverse World knows not the new Nature what it is for it knows not God whose Image it is The World is not only alienated from the Life of God but opposite to it by the antipathy of the carnal Life and so not only wants the true relish but hath a strong disrelish of the divine and heavenly Nature Moreover true Christianity is a light by which all things
that are reproved are made manifest and the World that lives in sin and loves darkness hates the light by which it is condemned not only with an hatred of Aversation but of hostile Persecution Nevertheless the Unregenerate sort of Men in general cannot and would not abandon all sense of Religion which is so deeply imprinted in human Nature and the form whereof may be acceptable even to corrupt nature Wherefore they own the name while they hate the thing and keep up a shew and form thereof while they deny the Truth and Power And having a false apprehension of Christ they adore him while they trample upon his present Members that really bear his Image and having a false Idea of Godliness they honor the memory of the Saints of former Ages while they vilifie those of their own times in whom Godliness really exists which shews that if Christ and the former Saints were now on the Earth to appear what they were indeed they would be no less hated and scorned than the Faithfull that are now living The manifold ways of destruction and misery wherein the wicked walk though contradictory to each other do all conspire in this Enmity and Godliness is put to conflict not with one sort of Enemies but with the various corrupt Parties of the divided carnal World Yet worldly Interests often make their advantages of Christianity and have their designs upon it and complicate themselves with it in some external and accidential Ingagements for a season and then the Enmity is restrained And not a few that fall short of Regeneration may be so illuminated and wrought upon as not only to cease from malignancy and hostility against it but to promote and strengthen its external Interests But for all this the Serpentine nature hath hitherto been more predominant in this lower World and Gods Kingdom hath had far greater Opposition than assistance from the Powers thereof Now we are noting the injury and despight that is done to Godliness the calumnies and reproaches heaped on the serious Professors of it to render them hatefull and contemptible requires some animadversion Their adversaries set them forth as Proud Froward Stubborn False Rash Fierce Petulant Sullen Fanatical Hypocritical Censorious Pragmatical Unruly Schismatical Seditious Unpeaceable Presumptuous Selfish and such like If we would judge rightly of these imputations we are to mind many things viz. The intrusion of Hypocrites the multitude of half Converts the great weakness of Grace and defect of wisdom in the greater part of Sincere Christians and the imperfections of the best and chiefest of them It is further to be considered that faults real or seeming are more remarkable in strict Professors than in any others as spots in a white Garment also that the common malignity will aggravate the same above measure likewise that the things they are charged with were they truly charged are not peculiarly theirs but the corruptions of the world in general and that some degrees thereof are found in all in whom human weakness is found and that they are less and in a lower degree in this party of men than in any other Add hereunto that the faults of some are commonly objected against all and the sins of men not yet made perfect are cast upon that holy and perfect way which condemns those sins and hath broken the dominion of them Moreover when it is undeniable that this sort of men in general have renounced palpable dishonesty injustice filthy lewdness wantoness intemperance luxury and other gross pollutions of the world they are burdened according to the true method of calumniation with matter of suspition or evil surmise as Hypocrisie Self-conceitedness Fancicalness and secret Pride things mostly belonging to the hidden man of the heart or with Spiritual wickedness as Envy Malice Bitterness Vain-glory Ambition Self-admiration and Contempt of others things of more close and covert nature and as not easily proved so not easily disproved where they are objected or with the ambiguous charge of Schism Faction Turbulency Singularity Peevishness Perversness Obstinacy which opposite parties are continually casting upon each other faults and duties vertues and vices happening to be called by these names And in this method of of accusation the innocent are sooner injured than cleared and slanderers do their work for the reproaches are boldly cast abroad and something sticks But notwithstanding all the obloquie and calumny the whole world may be challenged to produce an instance of any Sort or Sect of men that have exceeded or equal'd the serious Professors of the true Christianity in things honest and just and comely and usefull and praise-worthy It must not be exspected but that during their imperfect State obliquities aberrations will be found more or less in them as they are more or less remote from perfection But if true honesty and vertue be a reality and not an empty name and if it be not perished out of the world it exists and resides in them Howbeit in this way there are inevitable occasions of stumbling not given but taken and such fall thereat as do err in their hearts and have not known Gods ways The practice of true Piety lying out of the common road is misjudged as a kind of humorous Singularity To speak Feelingly of Divine things seems folly or meer fancy to them who have no knowledge or tast thereof in themselves To express with zeal or vigor such things as seem to others incredible though they be most true and excellent is taken for Madness Tenderness of Conscience strictness of life servour of devotion mortification and heavenly-mindedness is by Sensualists Formalists and carnal Politicians judging by their own measure taken for Hypocrisie designing the applause of men or some eminency and advancement in a party or some other Self-interest A Pious regard to the lesser as well as the greater commands of the Law and a dread of despising the least Commandment is commonly esteemed peevishness and needless preciseness To distinguish between the Holy and profane the zealous and lukewarm the carnal and Spiritual in the visible Church and to judge of both sorts as they are is a great offence to the world for which the Religious are thought to be Proud Boasters Dispisers of others Uncharitable Censorious and Formalists are magnified against them for their large charity towards all which is indeed no Charity but indifferency in Religion not seldom accompanied with bitterness towards the Godly To speak as the Scripture doth of a peculiar people and as Christ himself of the fewness of Gods chosen among the many outwardly called is accounted the confining of godliness to a Party and the fancying of themselves to be the only People of God Now such arrogance is justly charged on those that place Religion in narrow opinions and platforms and methods of their own chosing and judge of all men as they are nearer or farther from them yet nothing is surer than that God hath a peculiar People who are comparatively a small
after the long night of Popery Unlearned and barbarous times are noted among the causes of depraving Religion with multiplied Superstitious absurdities and deformities Indeed that great Mystery of Iniquity the Romish Synagogue is favoured by many wise and learned Ones but the interest of great Power and Wealth and other carnal alâ—urements ingage them to uphold that Babel and so to detain the Truth of God in their own â—nrighteousness The Papal Kingdom of darkness hath amply provided for an eminent measure of Learning in their Superior Clergy and certain religious Orders designed for Theological controversies and the propagation of the Roman â—aith being necessitated thereunto by the learnedness of the present Age. But for the vulgar Priests who dayly converse with the common People that are ignorant and unlearned it matters not how little Knowledge they have and the Grandees care not that they should be conversant in learned Books no not in their own Bellarmine As for the Laity t is a Principle in that Church that Ignorance is the mother of Devotion A corrupt Ecclesiastical State upheld for worldly ends hath no reason to desire the advancement of Learning any further than is requisite to defend it selâ— against learned Adversaries and to hold the Vulgar in admiration of it It would havâ— the People wholly to trust their Teachers and it is not well relished when learned Gentle men of the Laity are exact and studious iâ— Theological inquiries The supports and rewards of Learning may be so inordinately apportioned and confeâ—… red as to exalt boundless ambition and avariâ—… in some and to nourish a dronish idleness and Epicurism in others and to cast the residueâ—… and those the greatest number into ignorancâ— beggary baseness and superfluity of naughtâ—… ness Such a disposition of things besides thâ—… ruine of Religion would in the ruines thereâ—… bury Learning it self as it hath done in for mer Ages if the industry of some were nâ—… kept waking by the increase of Knowledge aâ—… mong another sort of Men. But whatsoeveâ— abuse corrupts that which in it self is excellent the supports of Learning are always necessary in the true Church and to settle a way for a perpetual succession of wise and learned Guides of the Flock in this intire and sound state of Religion is to build the same on a Rock The spirit of this Profession being sober solid and serious is happy in disposing towards the attainment of much Perfection in all profitable science and especially towards that which is most excellent and usefull in human affairs to wit solid and deep judgement In this respect the Children of true Wisdom stand upon the vantage ground and the scope of their business directs them to excell in the more substantial part of Learning which perfects reason and falls in with practice and makes them able effectually to converse with Men both in Religious and Civil matters These do not spend their days in a cloyster living to themselves alone but are seasonably called forth to sacred or civil Functions and so by Study in conjunction with practice and experience they become more perfect in Science The same â—ntents and purposes direct them to understand the end and use of their acquisitions and to have their Learning at command and maâ—ageable for present business CHAP. XXI The general civility or common honesty of a Nation makes it more generally receptive of real Christianity or Godliness REligion having considerateness and soberness in its nature hath great advantage by the sober and serious temper of a Nation City or Country where its advancement and propagation is designed Civility is a good preparative to Piety and experience witnesseth that among the serious temperate sort of People and in the most civilized places Religion takes best and that it takes least in those places where debauchery and Sensuality raign in those of the higher rank and a Heathen-like rudeness and stupidity seiseth the common multitude Wherefore that sort of Men whose spirit or interest leads them to uphold a corrupt and carnal Church-state seek to gratifie the most sensual and vicious part of a Nation because they cannot so easily gain the considerate and soberminded who are more inquisitive into the principles and practices of different Parties and look more than others into the inside of mens Devotions A Nation may be generally brought to civil conversation and the external part of Religion For the restraining of filthy lewdness gross excesses and rudeness best comports with the health of the Body the security of the estate and the quietness of the mind Therefore when it is in use it is no burden but an ease even to unregenerate Nature and so may pass generally among a People Likewise natural Men being convinced and awakened will easily observe Religious duties so far as the peace of the natural Conscience doth require The Conversation of the Pious is exemplary and of great authority especially when their strictness and seriousness is tempered with the amiable vertues of Meekness and Moderation By this they may do much towards the civilizing of those that live about them and to conciliate the minds of Men towards them and bring them to good thoughts of Religion But the harshness of some rigid honest Men may exasperate and beget hatred in some whom condescension and sweetness of conversation might have gained or at least molâ—ified Likewise by a discreet and seasonable use of christian liberty in the temperate injoyments of outward comforts in harmless Recreations and sober cheerfulness in honest Company the Religious may bring over others to a friendly converse with them and may be a means to keep them from the more gross and scandalous Pollutions of the world Yet as they ought to shun an excessive reservedness and austerity so they must take heed of too great compliance with others in carnal liberty upon pretence of a friendly converse with them They may not spend their time in recreations fruitless visits merry meetings and the like exercises wherein there is enough of idleness and vanity even when there is nothing of dissoluteness or gross immorallity For by such a trade of life they would lose themselves in a sober kind of Epicurism or Sensuality under a form of Godliness and they would harden others in their loose walking or make them think that Professors are but as other men except in a name and outward Form Wherefore they may be sociable no otherwise than that it may appear they make Religion their business and walk circumspectly and redeem their time from vanity for the serious Duties of their general and particular callings It may be further noted that whatsoever promoteth knowledge among the meaner sort promotes Civility Likewise where a people are generally settled in a way of industry and frugality and those of higher extract or education are bent unto exercises truly noble and worthy that Nation will be disposed to a more considerate and apprehensive habit of mind and to a more
not lasting but by usual and easie changes their weakness is discovered To tie a People to certain little rules and methods in Church Discipline that are geâ—erally displeasing as the necessary terms of â—hurch Priviledges when the ends of Discipline may be as well obtained without them is at the best but the vanity of a needless trouble in doing that with much ado which might be done with less and it may occasion an incurable breach and the rejection of the whole Form of Government Narrow and uncertain boundaries of Church Communion and arbitrary and rigid rules of admission are contrary to that ample and fixed Church state which is necessary to uphold and propagate true Religion The Faith of Christ hath been propagated and perpetuated in large Kingdoms and Nations by incompassing under its external Rule and Order the multitude that made profession though they might faâ—… short of the New Birth and those things thaâ— accompany Salvation And it doth not rooâ— or spread in any sort considerable in a Region where the order of admission is set by the rigid and narrow principles of a small Party and the general multitude lies open as waâ—… ground for any to invade or occupy The strength and security of the Protestant Reformation came by the taking in of Kingdomâ— and whole Dominions within its compasâ— The external Kingdom of God must needs be much wider than the internal It is like the draw Net that gathered Fishes good and bad and like a Corn Field wherein Wheaâ—… and Tares grow together till the Harvest Moreover the increase of professed Christian makes way for the increase of regenerate Christians and Converts to the power of Godliness are generally made out of the mass of People of an Orthodox profession and few of them are turned immediately from Infidelity Popery or any Heresie CHAP. XXIV The Care and Wisdom of the Church in preventing and curing the evil of Fanatical and Sectarian Error AMong the Wiles of Satan whereby he depraveth the Spiritual excellency of pure Religion and mightily hinders its advance in the Kingdoms of this World Fanatical and Sectarian aberrations are not the least If these follies were but heeded by those that are most in danger before they are ingaged and drunken with errour it were in great part an antidote against this mischief For the well minded that are but weak and of easie impression are lead aside chiefly for lack of attention and observation Many are Children in understanding and many are passionate and inconsiderate and an innate levity and inconstancy of mind is very common It behoves the Guides of the Flock to possess the minds of the People with sober principles and to have a watchfull eye upon the first rising of any Pragmatick Fancies that feed on notions and novelties under a shew of a more discerning Spirit in Gospel Mysteries than others have Such being vanity puff'd up will be starting questions and multiplying slight exceptions against the received Truth and will please the itching ears and slight Spirits of some pretenders to Godliness who will become their hasty proselytes and join with them to unravel one thing after another in the texture of holy Doctrine And by the repute of their good parts and seeming Piety may stagger others of good intentions but weaker judgments And of this sort none are more dangerous than vain-glorious Teachers ambitious of leading Parties and by plausible indowments furnished for such designs These to raise their own fame and make to themselves a devoted People will become absolute Sect-Masters and those that close with them they hold with pleasing devices and serve their humours that they may serve themselves of them There is also in some Persons a right Sectarian leaven which is evermore to follow peculiar Opinions and some separated Party in Religion and they speak security to their own Souls by being of such an Opinion or of such a Party Against the Sectarian and Fanatick Spirit it concerns the Church to keep a continual watch and ward but not so as to imprison the truth to lock up the key of knowledge to stifle Godly zeal to detain a People in dead and dull principles that will not reach to the New Birth and Divine Life For this were all one as to prevent or cure a frenzy by causing a Lethargy or some other such like stupidity Moreover a Superstitious formal love and sensual way of Religion will in no wise be able to prevent or suppress this evil but will give occasion to its rise and growth except in times of profound ignorance and silence as in the depth of Popish darkness But whensoever the light breaks forth and the People see with their own eyes and the Ecclesiastical Governours will not admit a true reformation but persecute those that seek it then are many in danger of falling into this opposite extream For they are cast upon it both by the hatred of the present corruptions and by the weakness of their own judgment being not throughly instructed in the solid truth And so they â—un hastily from superstition and externalness into delusion and wild fancies from the common dissoluteness and remisness of those that call themselves Orthodox into a vain boasting of perfection from the usurpations of proud men incroaching upon Christs Prerogative and their false constrained Unity into Anarchy and confusion and from a wrathfull zeal and persecuting cruelty into a disorderly promiscuous and familistical love or indulgence towards all On the contrary a Church state that is agreeable to the Spiritual Ministration of the Gospel and truly Apostolical is the surest remedy against Sectarianism and Phanaticism truly so called When the Church abandons Romish Tyranny and Superstition and yet is settled in a regular and stable Polity when the publick Order throughly promotes the means of sound knowledge and incourageth real Godliness it satisfie the minds of them who justly expect in a Gospel Church and Ministry more than an outward Form even the manifestation of Truth and Spiritual Light and Life and Power anâ— it prevents their wandring to seek after it iâ— the devious paths of Sectaries It is of great moment that of the moâ—… learned able and judicious Persons of Orthodox profession there be many eminently Pious whose authority and reputation may bâ—… able to hold in those whose affection anâ—… fancy is apt to outrun their judgment likewise that the Pastors of the Church who aâ—… called the Light of the World do so walk iâ—… the Light as that there be no occasion oâ—… stumbling in them through notorious Pridâ—… Covetousness Self-Seeking inordinate sensuality or the vehement appearance of any gross evil For the weaker sort is commonly undone by offences And because seducers are very active and spare no cost nor travel but as they have done of old do compass Sea and Land to gain Proselites it behoves the Pastors carefully to keep their People and the People carefully to keep themselves out of the hands of these Hucksters The
common remisness in this matter is deplorable Sometimes the manner of opposition against Seducers is unadvised and prejudicial To contend for truth by wrath and clamour and contumelious language and usage inhanceth the price of Error and adds to its reputation But the surest way is to converse much with our plain hearted People and to season them with right principles and to detect the subtile methods of deceitfull workers and the dangerous issues of their allurements and by honest and inoffensive applications to prepossess those holds of which deceivers seek to possess themselves And here it is of chief importance that the influence of the Pastors and other prudent and able Persons upon the common multitude of professors be more prevailing than the influence of the common multitude upon the Pastors and other prudent Leaders Servile temporizing with vulgar fancies degrades the Authority and Wisdom of prudent Guides and lifts up a vulgar Spirit and will bring it to that pass that the weakest and most inconsiderate shall sway the Churches Interest Let Persons of approved worth be more faithful and noble than by such servility and treachery to raise to themselves a power in the hearts of the weaker sort Let them rather commend themselves by their known Integrity Wisdom and Goodness and by being ready also in all condescention to serve and please them to their Edification And such faithfulness is the surest means to gain them love and honour Let the Religious beware of seeking to be admired and magnified among one another or of overprizing each others esteem This latter seems to be the cause that drew Peter to a fit of dissimulation and separation from the believing Gentiles while he sought too much to please them that were of the Circumcision Sometimes we know not our own Spirits It is good to beware of provocations like to be given or taken Upon a supposed affront or injury men of parts have been hurried into dangerous contests and to make head against petty passionate opposition they have run beyond their own thoughts and wrought strange confusion Discretion and charity seeks to convince and satisfie and not to exasperate an offended Brother It is well observed that no turbulent Opinion or Party doth usually arise in the Church but by the Church's neglect of some truth or duty Wherefore if an evil spirit seek an occasion of mischief reform the abuse and so prevent his working upon the simple And forasmuch as some of upright hearts being deceived with a fancy of a more sublime and perfect way may pass into the tents of Sectaries so far as conceâ—ns Church Order and external Worship a compassionate regard must be had of such as walk honestly and retain those fundamental Truths that may be a ground-work for saving Faith and godly Life Now towards such the greatest charity is exercised in labouring to remove the stumbling-block of their error and to make it plain before them that the Faithfull whose Communion they forsake contend for the Perfection of holy Scripture and the explicit Knowledge of the doctrine of Salvation and the reasonable service of God according to his Word and spiritual Worship sutable to the Gospel Dispensation and the lively use of holy Ordinances in opposition to unwritten Traditions Mens inventions implicit Faith ignorant devotion and meer formality That they declare by word and deed against the iniquity and impiety of this evil World and therefore the world hates them that they insist upon no forms or usages in Religion but what are commanded by the positive Laws of Christ or are necessary in their general reason by the law of Nature that they seek no worldly advantages or advancements in the Church but what are necessary for the support of the Truth according to Gods ordinary Providence and lastly that human infirmities must not be thought strange in them that have not obtained Angelical perfection These and the like things should be laid open before honest People that have been seduced into Sectarian error CHAP. XXV The advancement of the sound State of Religion by making it National and the settled interest of Nation CHrists little Flock cannot go out of the World nor retire within themselves alone from the Nations of the Earth but they must needs remain a part of Kingdoms Commonwealths with the World in general They must take themselves to be concerned in the civil Powers for the Powers that are will take themselves to be concerned in them and their ways For which cause their aims and actions as far as their Sacred Rule allows must be fitted to the capacity of the civil Government and directed unto the generall peace and quietness of the nation whereof they are in which they enjoy their civil rights By this means religions interest may incorporate with the general interest of a nation run in the same channel That pure Religion may take root and spread and prosper it is necessary to bring its external frame to the consistency of a National settlement The just â—aâ—aude hereof is laid in the doctrine of Faith and substantials of Divine Worship and things necessary to Church unity and order but it goes not beyond these And being fixed in this extent it is in a way to gain besides the support and power of the Law the Nations unstrained compliance and approbation As on the one hand Ecclesiastical tyranny is a root of bitterness always bearing gall and wormwood so on the other hand unfixedness and unlimited liberty consists not with that stability wherein all prudent Governors would settle their own affairs as also with that general tranquillity and repose which is the health of any People If one were raised to empire by a meer Fanatick Party he cannot settle himself nor stand upon firm ground till he wind his interest out of their hands and turn himself to the way of general satisfaction To the same intent and purpose it is of great importance so to fix the terms of Church Communion as not to set a perpetual bar against the main body of the People A Church state so barr'd though it were asserted with a veterane Army and could inclose all preferments both of honor and profit within it self to be at its disposal yet it is hard to see how it could ever obtain a firm establishment For a Christian Nation in general being shut out of the Church or barr'd of such Privileges as are supposed to belong to them as Christians are inraged and likely to be ingaged as one Man to oppose that which they take for intolerable oppression Or if they care not to be admitted they will turn to a contrary interest and Party in Religion or to infidelity Barbarism Atheism or some destructive way or other Now the intention here propounded may take effect if the Constitution shut out none from Sacred and Spiritual Priviledges but such as make not Profession of true Christianity or be destitute of that knowledge which is absolutely necessary to true
Faith in Christ or to the profitable use of those Ordinances whereof they would partake or by publick tryal can be evicted in their deeds to deny Christ to whom they profess subjection or be guilty of such scandalous enormity or disobedience as is reproachfull to the Christian Name It is likewise to be considered that Discipline is a work of time and that People are to be brought on by degrees when they have lain long undisciplined For a Nation is not born in a day Right Ecclesiastical Discipline grates hard upon Mens corruptions and stirs up many nemies Likewise the civil Powers are often jealous of it lest it should move excentrick to their motions Therefore being a tender point it requires so much caution as nothing more Cogent reason persuades those that are herein concern'd most willingly to put themselves under the regulation of the civil Magistrate and to contain themselves within all tolerable limitations prescribed by him I mean such as defeat not the ends of Discipline and by clear and moderate actings within their own sphere to render their Office less invidious CHAP. XXVI Of Submission to things imposed by lawfull Authority WHosoever duly prizeth the publick peace of his own liberty for publick service will consider the utmost lawfull boundary of Submission to things imposed by lawfull Authority that nothing possible to be done be left undone But what is sinfull â—…s in a moral sense impossible We may not â—…ie for God Nothing erroneous may be asserâ—ed nothing simply evil may be admitted in our own practice But in an established Church not infected with Heresie or Idolatry nor defective in any vital part of Religion it is duty to bear with much that we conceive to be amiss in others practice to which we make not our selves accessary by neglecting any means of redress within our Power and Calling Yea being constrained by others rigor we may stoop to the use of some things which profit little if they be not simply evil nor by an evil consequent destructive to the main Service to which they are superadded The yoke of such subjection may cause grief of heart but doth not wound the conscience Indifferent things are not made unlawfull meerly by being injoyned and it is necessary that some things indifferent in specie should be determined for orders sake But forasmuch as things not in themselves unlawfull may some times be so pernicious in their consequents aâ— by a vehement appearance of evil to draw others into sin and by a strong tendency to evil to lead and settle them in a way that is not good I dare not say that the latitude of conformity to things in their own nature indifferent is unlimited Rulers have received their power of Injoyning and subjects their liberty of conforming for edification and not for destruction In a case of this nature we are led on to consider whether the scandal of compliance with things indifferent in themselves but of harmfull consequence be not of lesser moment than the scandal and misery that may follow upon non-compliance Though of things simply evil neither may be chosen yet of things evil only in their consequents either the one or the other inevitably coming upon us that must be chosen upon which the lesser evil follows Peradventure the scandal of Submission may be overballanced by the apparent consequence of a more important good by which also it may in time be quite removed The wisdom of the Prudent must herein direct their way Though the Ruler be judge of what rules he is to prescribe yet the conscience of every Subject is to judge with a judgment of discretion whether those rules be agreeable to the Word of God or not and so whether his Conformity thereto be lawfull or unlawfull Otherwise he must act upon blind obedience and might be excused in doing things either simply evil or pernicious in their consequents A general certainty that Rulers must be obeyed in lawfull things is no security to the conscience for Obedience to this or that Injunction when we doubt of the Lawfulness of the thing injoyned For we cannot be sure that obedience in this case is a duty and not a sin because we are sure it is a sin to obey in things unlawfull and such the thing now in question is or may be for ought that we discern and our ignorance cannot change Gods Law Therefore the doubtfulness of the thing it self makes the obligation to Obedience likewise doubtfull And perhaps the danger may be greater on the part of obeying than refusing For possibly the injunction of an heinous sin may be the matter of the uncertainty and in this strait we apprehend it more unsafe and less excusable to choose the greater before the lesser sin on which side soever it be though indeed it be lawfull to choose neither Indeed it is much easier for Rulers to relax the strictness of many injunctions about matters of supposed convenience than for Subjects to be inlarged from the strictness of their judgment And blessed are they that consider Conscience and load it not with needless burdens but seek to relieve it iâ— its distresses And as this forbearance and tenderness iâ— Superiors is the praise of their Government and advanceth peace and concord so doth moderation and a submissive disposition commend Inferiors and much advantage their godly zeal For it stops the mouths of clamourous Men it obviates the ensnaring designs of adversaries and it gives greater boldness in contending for weightier matters Howbeit sometimes that submission which all circumstances considered both Prudencâ— and upright Conscience declareth necessary may be liable to a reproach as a matter of temporizing The truth is a Ministers reputation is of great moment to the ends of his Ministery and he is not to be blamed that is loth it should suffer shipwrack and an appearance or suspition of time-serving doth greatly indanger it If a man should forbear some compliances which he clearly foresees will bring him into a vehement suspition thereof in Charity it should be taken not for an undue valuation of his own credit but for a tender regard to the honor of the Gospel When an exalted Party shall set themselves to profligate the credit of those that are brought under by constraining them to such Compliances they have more regard to their own particular triumph than to the honor of the common Faith and all true Religion which is by this means exposed to the contempt of the irriligious as if it were meer hypocrisie and matter of interest on all sides As for Inferiors in this case they are in a strait between â—wo and which way can they turn themselves â—o avoid-all inconveniences For the same â—ersons that reproach them as temporizing would in case of non-submission clamour against them as humorous and factious Herein I shall offer the aptest remedy I know â—amely neither in word nor deed to abandon or disown the Truth and in these burdensom yet not unlawfull compliances
communion with them all as far as Catholick Principles will give leave In pursuing the ends of this Interest there is no need of private or unauthorized Persons entring into such stated combinations and correspondences as the Jesuits and other Orders under the Papacy have setled in their Societies throughout the World For all Pious Christians are taught of God and have one Spirit touching the main of this design and are inclined to pursue the same with one accord And indeed so it is that only the sincere friends of truth men of upright hearts and humble spirits and honest lives will observe and follow the rules of this Interest And it sufficeth if they keep close to their common rule of Faith and Life and follow after the things that make for Peace and know the present state of Gods Israel and acquaint themselves with each other as opportunity of converse offers it self and so govern themselves and carry on the advancement of Religion by such honest and harmless means as need not shun the light but may stand before the face of all opposers CHAP. XXXII The Wisdom of the Higher Powers in promoting the Religiousness of their People THe advancement of true Religion is the interest of the Higher Powers if to maintain Gods honour and mans chief good be their interest and if the defying of God and the utter undoing of men be against it Yea if the Tranquility and Peace of Governours and the stability of Government be regarded human Wisdom will direct to promote that way which is no other than the exercise of a Conscience void of offence towards God and towards Man Godliness includes Prudence Justice Temperance Fortitude and all Goodness It is an internal Law effectually subduing them that have it to all external Laws that are just and good and the example of it goes far to the bettering of many others in things pertaining to humanity It is regular and harmonious in every part it leads to Order Peace and Unity and there is nothing in it inconsistent with right Policy It is the way of true Wisdom and apt to take most among the serious and well advised part of the People and when it hath taken hold of them it makes them Wise and Serious more abundantly It corrects rash rugged wrathfull and fierce natures and to say the least whatsoever turbulency may afterwards remain in such it makes them of far more sedate and castigate Spirits than otherwise they would be And though it doth not forthwith exterminate yet it so debilitates all Complexional Distempers that they cannot break forth into a course of mischief and ordinarily it works an evident notable change Of so great force is an attentive and active Conscience over all human passions And doubtless it is the strongest bond to hold Subjects in obedience to their Governours For the Conscientious are held in by the terrour of the Lord and the dread of the wrath to come besides the sense of mans wrath which they have in common with all considerate Persons Wherefore it is clearly the Princes Interest that his Subjâ—cts universally if it can be should be Religious and consequently it is the Wisdom of his Government to indeavour it as far as it is attainable And if he would bring them to such a state he is to take care to exalt Gods immediate Soveraignty over their Consciencies and under that Soveraignty to hold them in subjection to himself For where Conscience is not preserved in its awfull regard to Gods Law as its Supream rule true Religion is extinguished And they are the Patrons of Irreligion who propagate such principles as tend to alienate the Conscience from its true Soveraign and Proprietor and either to make it servile to those who have no just dominion over it or to debauch it into searedness or dead security One way most needfull and advantagious for preserving Gods Authority over Conscience is most effectually to bind Gods Laws upon the People and to order what things else are necessary for the due observation thereof and to lay no other yoke upon them in things pertaining to God And as this way imports much to the sincerity and reality of Religion so it doth no less to the keeping of Religious minds in unity For in what center will the judiciously Conscientious unite if not in the revealed mind and will of God as it is apprehended by them Will the injunctions of the Civil Magistrate or the Authority of Ecclesiastical Superiors better resolve the doubts of such men or silence their Disputes This is not urged to prove that Superiors can injoyn nothing in Religion but what is particularly before enjoyned of God or that the Consciences of Inferiors are not bound by their Commands in subordination to Gods Commands but only that they take the best course for the unfeigned Piety and truly Christian concord of their People that by their injunctions seek mainly to promote obedience to the Divine Laws and add no more of their own than what is clearly necessary thereunto And what more just and prudent course than to forbear things that are unnecessary and unserviceable to the promoting of Truth and Peace yet with a perplexity and a stumbling block an easie inlet to all dissolute or ductile Spirits and a bar against many of known sincerity and to use that moderation in the publick Rule and Standard which takes away or exceedingly lessens dissents and consequently the occasions of dissention The Spirit of Christianity forbids Christian Magistrates to destroy sincere Christians for their little differences and narrow principles in Forms of Church Order And no reason of State will oblige them to that severity how importunately soever some Interessed men may urge it Judicious charity or a prudent indulgence towards such cannot undermine Religion or the Civil State And a sound Ecclesiastical Polity set for the increase of true Godliness will receive no dammage by it but it will rather gain upon those Dissenters and if their scruples be not removed it shall abide firm and stable and grow in strength by the reputation of its own goodness and sufficiency in that it is not hazarded or impaired by this charity and forbearance The Higher Powers by granting some limited liberty do more universally protect the faithfull and having no interest in competition with the advancement of Christs Kingdom are able and wise enough to provide against any dangerous inconveniencies The bounds and rules of this indulgence are not so undiscoverable as to make it a vain proposal yet it is but an idle demand of those that require an enumeration of all particulars than which nothing more or less may be tolerated in any case All particularities in any human affairs are not easie nor necessary to be known at one view nor are they so fixed but they may admit considerable variations according to the different state of things There be general rules of Prudence that are a sufficient indication of what ought to be done at any
time as the present case requires As the Wisdom of a Housholder will direct him how far to bear with faults and weaknesses in his Family so the Magistrate by Wisdom will discern what may be born with in his Common-Wealth so far as is sufficient to the true and just ends of Government CHAP. XXXIII The Churche's true interest to be pursued by Ecclesiastical Persons NOthing is more precious and among Christians nothing should be more valued than the good of Gods Church for it is Christs and Gods great interest in the world but the misery is that the Churches name is abused and its interest mistaken most perversly For none have more pretended for the Church than they whose business is to get and keep worldly pomp and power with carnal ease and pleasure and to make laws and rules serviceable to these ends and to corrupt the minds and debauch the lives of men that they may bring them into blind obedience to such laws and maintain their worldly dominion over Christs heritage and who value all men howsoever qualified as they stand affected to their estate and accordingly stick not to reject the eminently good and to receive the notoriously bad In the Romish Church all this is palpable Now let these be called the Church by them that list to give that name to a state of Pride and Luxury of Tyranny and oppression of carnal and Devilish Policy under which the souls of people are betray'd to everlasting perdition Wherefore those in the Ministery that are sollicitous of the Churches welfare should state the interest thereof aright which indeed is not for the service of the flesh or the carnal mind but for the promoting of the Divine life in men and the increase of the mystical Society of Regenerate Persons united in Christ their Head by his Spirit dwelling in them and in order thereunto for the increase of the visible Society of persons externally owning such an internal State And therefore it is to promote and propagate the sound knowledge of God in Christ and to make the people of their charge really good and to advance them what they can in grace and wisdom according to their several capacities and to deal with them in meekness and love and to walk before them as examples of all purity and goodness and to be more sensible and sollicitous about the corruptions and sinfull disorders than the sufferings of the Church and to be more zealous for Gods honour and the good of Souls than for their own honour wealth or power and in a word to seek the things of Christ more than their own things The Ministers that discharge their Office well are in Scripture declared Worthy of double honour And that they be indowed with honorable settled maintenance is necessary for the support of a Religion that for its excellency requires to be supported by the help of excellent Gifts as Learning Eloquence and Prudence not now to be obtained by Miracles but in the ordinary use of means with much cost and labour And questionless the withdrawing of these supports tends to the Churches ruine nevertheless an inordinate and licentious collation and accumulation of Preferments making for the Service of Covetousness Ambition and depraved appetite and for the decay of Sobriety Vigilancy and Industry in the Pastors is no less dangerous This exorbitancy after the Roman Empire became Christian allured and brought in the men of this World who have their Portion in this life and gave them advantage by carnal arts to possess themselves of the chief Seats of Power in the Church by which means Religion degenerated into externalness and carnality and that which was then named the Church was at length turned into a worldly State which grew more and more corrupt till the mystery of iniquity was fulfilled in it Where Christianity hath recovered it self out of the degeneracy of the later times and knowledge is generally diffused among the people the sufficiency industry and faithfulness of Ecclesiastical persons will be inquired after negligence in their Administrations and irregularities in their lives will not pass without noting the ignorant idle and scandalous will fall into contempt outward Formalities will be no covering as in darker times they were distinctive Habits and Reverend Titles alone will not procure veneration the Ecclesiastical Authority will sink and fall without remedy if real worth doth not uphold it In such times men will not be to learn that an arm of flesh doth not constitute a Christian Church and that the aid of the secular Power is not enough to prove one Party to be Orthodox and the rest Heretical or Schismatical External violence which is the common support of false Religions will in this case do little good but it will render them that call for it the more odious and more discover the weakness of their Cause Wherefore the Clergy must resolve to do Worthily and fulfill their Ministery or they must extinguish the Light of the Gospel or the Light of the Gospel will extinguish them But if as faithfull Shepherds they watch over the Flock and tender the state thereof if they labour in the Word and Doctrine and Teach with meekness and patience if they pitty and succour the weak and heal that which is lame that it may not be turned out of the way if they use the rod of Discipline with judgment and Paternal affection if they discard and lay by mens unprofitable institutes and maintain all Divine ordinances in their due honour and chiefly urge the observance of the indispensable Commands of God and turn men from externalness and make it their chief aim that Christ by his Word and Spirit may Reign in the hearts of Professed Christians then shall they magnifie their Office and establish their Authority and hold their Flocks in an unfeigned Reverence and submission as feeling the force of the Ministerial warfare in their Consciences And the inferior differences shall not be able to cause disgust or aversation or break those strong bonds of the Peoples sincere regard toward their Pastors but they would rather be swallowed up in love which is the bond of Perfectness The Conclusion NO greater thing can fall under the consideration of Mankind than the Security and increase of true Religion The Glory of God among men and their eternal Salvation depends upon it T is as far above the concernments of the Kingdoms of this World and their Politick Administrations all Secular Affairs and Philosophical speculations as the Heavens are high above the Earth An inquiry into the Sound state and true interest thereof is a contemplation worthy of the greatest minds and the advancement of it is the chiefest honour of the highest Powers T is the Royal interest of that Potentate who is King of Kings and Lord of Lords and of that Blessed Society which are incorporated under him their Lord and Head And who that in any degree hath truly known the felicity of this Kingdom and hopes for a
own Sphere But forasmuch as the Supream Magistrate is intrusted of God with the care of Religion within his Dominions and hath a Civil Supremacy in Eclesiastical affairs and a great concern in the orderly management of publick Assemblies he is authorized of God to oversee the determinations and actings of Ecclesiastical Persons and may assume to himself the determination of the aforesaid circumstantials for the honour of God the Churches edification and the publick Peace keeping within the general rules prescribed in Gods Word For the maintaining of Church-Unity that is according to Gods word it is the part of Subjects to submit to what their Governours have determined so far as their submission is allowable by the said rule and it is the part of Governours to consider well the warrantableness of their determinations More especially their wisdom and care is much required in settling the right bounds of Unity In this regard the terms of admission to the Communion and Ministery of the Church must be no other than what the declared will of God hath made the terms of those priviledges and which will shut out none whom God hath qualified for and called to the same The setting of other boundaries besides the iniquity thereof will inevitably cause divisions The Apostles Elders and Brethren assembled at Jerusalem Acts 15. 28. writing to the blieving Gentiles declare It seemed good to the Holy Ghost and to us to lay upon you no greater burden than these necessary things From which it is evidently inferred that the burden of things unnecessary ought not to be laid on the Churches The things injoyned by that Assembly were antecedently to their Decree either necessary in themselves or in their consequents according to the state of things in those times and places And whatsoever is made the matter of a strict injunction especially a condition of Church Communion and Priviledges ought to have some kind of necessity in it antecedent to its imposition Symbolical Rites or Ceremonies instituted by man to signifie Grace or Duty are none of those things which being necessary in general are left to human determination for this or that kind thereof They have no necessary Subserviency to Divine institutions they are no parts of that necessary decency and order in Divine Worship without which the Service would be undecent And indeed they are not necessary to be instituted or rigidly urged in any time or place whatsoever The being and well being of any rightly constituted Church of Christ may stand without them St. Paul resolves upon the cases of using or refusing of meats and the observance or non-observance of days which God had neither commanded nor forbidden and of eating of those meats which had been offered in Sacrifice to Idols Rom. 14. and 1 Cor. 8. That no man put a stumbling block or an occasion to fall in his Brothers way The Command here given extends to Pastors and Governours as well as to other Christians and is to be observed in acts of Governments as well as in other acts St. Paul was a Church Governour and of high authority yet he would not use his own liberty in eating Flesh much less would he impose in things unnecessary to make his Brother to offend In the cases aforementioned there was a greater appearance of reason for despising censuring or offending others than there can be for some impositions now in question among us viz. on the one side a fear of partaking in Idolatry or of eating meats that God had forbidden or of neglecting days that God had commanded as they thought on the other side a fear of being driven from the Christian Liberty and of restoring the Ceremonial Law Nevertheless the Apostle gives a severe charge against censuring despising or offending others of different Persuasions in those cases And if it were a Sin to censure or despise one another much more is it a Sin to shut out of the Communion or Ministery of the Church for such matters The word of God which is the Rule of Church-Unity evidently shews that the unity of external order must always be Subservient to Faith and Holiness and may be required no further than is consistent with the Churches Peace and Edification The Churches true Interest lies in the increase of regenerate Christians who are her true and living Members and in their mutual love peace and concord in receiving one another upon those terms which Christ hath made the bond of this Union The true Church Unity is comprized by the Apostle in these following Unities One Body one Spirit one Hope One Lord one Faith one Baptism one God But there is nothing said of one ritual or set Form of Sacred Offices one policy or model of Rules and Orders that are but circumstantial and accidental in a Church state and very various and alterable while the Church abides the same CHAP. III. Of Schism truly so called HEre I lay down general positions about Schism without making application thereof Whether these positions be right or wrong Gods Word will shew and who are or are not concerned in them the state of things will shew Schism is a violation of the Unity of the Spirit or of that Church-Unity which is of Gods making or approving This Definition I ground on the afore-cited Text Mark them that cause Divisions and Offences contrary to the Doctrine that ye have learned Separation and Schism are not of equal extent There may be a Separation or Secession where there is no Schism For Schism is always a Sin but Separation may be a Duty as the Separation of the Protestants from the Church of Rome Moreover there may be Schism where there is no Separation The violation of Unity or the causing of Divisions may be not only by withdrawing but by any causing of others to withdraw from the Communion of the Church or by the undue casting or keeping of others out of the Church or by making of any breaches in Religion contrary to the Unity of the Spirit By looking back to the nature and rule and requisites of true Church-Unity we shall understand the true nature and the several kinds and degrees of Schism As holy love is the life and Soul of Church-Unity so that aversation and opposition which is contrary to love is that which animates the sin of Schism and is as it were the heart root of it Whosoever maintains love and makes no breach therein and whose dissenting or withdrawing from a Church is no other than what may stand with love in its extent is no Schismatick The Unity of the Spirit being primarily that of the Church as mystically the breach thereof lies primarily in being destitute of the Spirit and Life Spiritual much more in being opposite thereunto under the shew of Christianity also in the languishing or lessening of Spiritual Life especially of the acts of holy love The Unity of the Spirit being secondarily that of the Church as visible in its external state and the first and
chiefest point thereof being in the essentials and weighty matters of Christian Faith and Life the highest violation thereof and the chiefest point of Schism lies in denying or enormously violating the said essentials or weighty matters And it is directly a violation of the Unity of the Catholick Church and not of particular Churches only Not only particular Persons but Churches yea a large combination of Churches bearing the Christian name may in their Doctrine Worship and other avowed Practice greatly violate the essentials or very weighty matters of Christian Faith and Life and be found guilty of the most enormous breach of Unity It is no Schism to withdraw or depart from any the largest combination or collective body of Churches though for their amplitude they presume to stile their combination the Catholick Church that maintain and avow any Doctrine or Practice which directly or by near and palpable consequence overthrows the said essentials The next point of external Unity being about the essentials and integrals of Church state the Sacraments and other publick Worship the Ministery and Discipline of the Church considered as of Christs institution the next chief point of Schism is the breach hereof And this may be either against the Catholick or a particular Church Of such Schism against the state of the Catholick Church there are these instances 1. When any one part of professed Christians how numerous soever combined by any other terms of Catholick Unity than what Christ hath made account themselves the only Catholick Church excluding all Persons and Churches that are not of their combination 2. When a false Catholick Unity is devised or contended for viz. a devised Unity of Government for the Catholick Church under one terrene Head personal or collective assuming a proper governing power over all Christians upon the face of the whole Earth 3. When there is an utter disowning of most of the true visible Churches in the World as having no true Church state no not the essentials thereof and an utter breaking off from communion with them accordingly Of Schism against a particular Church in point of its Church state there be these instances 1. The renouncing of a true Church as no Church although it be much corrupted much more if it be a purer Church though somewhat faulty 2. An utter refusing of all acts of communion with a true Church when we may have communion with it either in whole or in part without our personal sin of commission or omission 3. The causing of any Divisions or Distempers in the state or frame of a true Church contrary to the Unity of the Spirit But it is no Schism to disown a corrupt frame of Polity supervenient to the essentials and integrals of Church state in any particular Church or combination of Churches like a leprosie in the Body that doth grosly deprave them and in great part frustrate the ends of their constitution The last and lowest point of external Unity lying in the accidental modes of Religion and matters of meer order extrinsick to the essentials and integrals of Church-State the violation thereof is the least and lowest point of Schism I mean in it self considered and not in such aggravating circumstances as it may be in Those accidental Forms and Orders of Religion which are necessary in genere but left in specie to human determination are allowed of God when they are determined according to prudence and charity for Peace and Edification and accordingly they are to be submitted to Consequently it is one point of Schism to make a Division from or in a Church upon the accountal of accident Forms and Orders so determined according to Gods allowance But if any of the accidentals be unlawfull and the maintaining or practicing thereof be imposed upon us as the terms of our communion it is no Schism but Duty to abstain from communion in that case For explicitly and personally to own errors and corruptions even in smaller points is evil in it self which must not be committed that good may come In this case not he that withdraws but he that imposes causeth the Division And this holds of things sinfull either in themselves or by just consequence And herein he that is to act is to discern and judge for his own practice whether the things imposed be such For Gods Law supposeth us rational creatures able to discern its meaning and to apply it for the regulating of our own actions else the Law were given us in vain Submission and reverence towards Superiors obligeth no man to resign his understanding to their determinations or in compliance with them to violate his own conscience Persons meek humble peaceable and throughly conscientious and of competent judgment may not be able by their diligent and impartial search to see the lawfulness of things injoyned and t is a hard case if they should thereupon be declared contumacious Seeing there be several points of Unity the valuation whereof is to be made according to their different value mens judgment and estimation of Unity and Schism is very preposterous who lay the greatest stress on those points that are of least moment and raise things of the lowest rank to the highest in their valuation and set light by things of the greatest moment and highest value as indeed they do who set light by soundness of Faith and holiness of Life and consciencious observance of Divine institutions where there is not also unanimity and uniformity in unscriptural Doctrines and human ceremonies And they that make such an estimate of things and deal with Ministers accordingly do therein little advance the Unity of the Spirit or indeavour to keep it in the bond of Peace Seeing the word of God is the rule of Church Unity a breach is made upon it when other bounds thereof are set than this rule allows An instance hereof is the devising of other terms of Church-communion and Ministerial liberty than God hath commanded or allowed in his Word to be made the terms thereof Also any casting or keeping out of the Church or Ministery such as Gods Word doth not exclude from either but signifies to be qualified and called thereunto God doth not allow on the part of the Imposer such tearms of Church communion or Ministerial station as are neither Scriptural nor necessary to Peace and Edification nor are any part of that necessary order and decency without which the Service of God would be undecent nor are in any regard so necessary but that they may be dispensed with for a greater benefit and the avoiding of a greater mischief And they are found guilty of Schism that urge such unscriptural and unnecessary things unto a breach in the Church Such Imposers are not only an occasion of the breach that follows but a culpable cause thereof because they impose without and against Christs warrant who will not have his Church to be burdened nor the consciences of his Servants intangled with things unnecessary Nevertheless such unscriptural or
unnecessary things if they be not in themselves unlawfull nor of mischievous consequence may be of Gods allowing as to the submitters Thereupon they are guilty of Schism who meerly for the sake of those unnecessary things yet lawfull as to their use though wrongfully urged upon them forsake the communion of the Church or their Ministerial station where things are well settled as to the substantials of Religion and the ends of Church order and when they themselves are not required to justifie the imposing of such unnecessaries Here I speak of contumacious refusers who will rather make a breach than yield But refusers out of conscience believing or with appearance of reason suspecting the said lawfull things to be unlawfull are either accquitted from Schism or guilty but in a low degree and much less culpable than the Imposers who might well forbear to impose Be it here noted that when Superiors sin in commanding a thing exempt from their authority it may be the Subjects duty to observe the thing commanded In this case the said observance is not an act of obedience for that can arise only from the Rulers authority to command But it is an act of prudence equity and charity and it is good and necessary for the ends sake and in that regard t is an act of obedience though not to the Earthly Ruler yet to God who commands us to follow Peace and maintain Unity in all lawfull ways and means In the judgment of the Apostle it is no slight matter to act against conscience rationally doubting or suspecting a breach of Gods Law Rom. 14. 5. Let every man be fully persuaded in his mind v. 14. To him that esteemeth any thing to be unclean to him it is unclean ver 23. He that doubteth is damned if he eat because he eateth not of Faith for whatsoever is not of Faith is sin The command of Rulers is no good security for acting against a rational doubting conscience When I am in doubt touching the lawfulness of the thing injoyned I have no certainty of being on the safer side by complying with Rulers For though in general obedience to Rulers be a certain Duty yet in the particular doubted case I cannot be certain that my compliance is right and warrantable obedience and not a breach of Gods Law Is it plain that I ought to obey the commands of Rulers in things that have Gods allowance so t is as plain that I ought not to obey their commands in things which God hath forbidden Moreover it is as plain that I ought not to act against my own conscience which as being the discerner of the will of God concerning me is of right the immediate director of my actions Indeed my conscience cannot alter Gods Law or make that which God hath made my duty to be not my duty yet it will not suffer me to act in disconformity to its directions Seeing the Unity of the Spirit is always in conjunction with Faith and Holiness to which the Unity of external order is always to be subservient it follows that when Unity of external order doth not tend to advance but hinder sound Faith and true Holiness then a false Unity is set up and the true Unity is abandoned and divisions and offences are caused And it is no Schism but a duty not to adhere to a Unity of external order so set and urged as that it tends to the destruction or notable detriment of Faith and Holiness which are the end of all Church Order The means are good in reference to their end and must never be used in a way destructive to it Of the hinderance of the said ends there be these following instances Here laid down in general without intendment of particular application to any Churches now in being which are left to be tryed and judged by that rule by which all must stand or fall 1. When a Church or Churches a Congregation or Congregations have an establishment of external Polity and an ordained Ministery and a Form of Divine Worship but are destitute of such Ministers as are qualified to feed the Flock and are burdened with such as are altogether unfit to have the charge of Souls committed to them who are either unable to teach or teach corruptly either teaching corrupt Doctrine or abusing mishandling and misapplying sound Doctrine to encourage the Ungodly and discourage the Godly 2. Where there are some Ministers able and apt to teach and duly qualified but their number is in no wise proportionable to the number of the People and there be multitudes that cannot have the benefit of their Ministery so that if they have no more placed among them than those few they have in effect none 3. Where sincere Christians or credible Professors of Christianity are cast out of an established Church by wrong sentence or are debarred from its communion by unlawfull terms injoyned them or unnecessary terms which are to them unlawfull by real doubts of conscience and which Christ hath not authorized Rulers to injoyn as terms of Church communion 4. When Ministers whom Christ hath furnished and called are driven out of their publick station by unlawfull terms injoyned or by terms unnecessary and to them unlawfull by real doubts of conscience and which Christ hath not authorized Rulers to injoyn as terms of the publick Ministery Upon the cases here mentioned I inquire whether the said Ministers and People may not draw together into new congregations Let it be considered whether the determinations of men may be a perpetual bar to true visible Christians it may be to multitudes of them against the injoyment of those most important priviledges to which God hath given them right Yea suppose their consciences were culpably weak in scrupling things imposed yet they may suffer wrong by such an excess of punishment as so great a deprivation And Christ doth not reject them for such weaknesses Let it be also considered whether such injured as Christians are wrongfully excluded from Gods Ordinances and such neglected Souls as are left destitute of the necessary means of Salvation may lawfully be deserted by Christs Ministers Should not the Stewards of the mysteries of God indeavour to supply what is lacking to such by reason of the rigourousness or negligence of others If it be said we may not do evil that good may come nor break the laws of Unity for such respects the answer is that this is not to do evil but a good work and a necessary duty and here is no breach of Unity that is of Gods making or allowing The necessary means of saving Souls are incomparably more pretious than uniformity in external accidental order especially when t is unwarrantably injoyned and attended with such evil consequents If within any local bounds assigned for the Pastoral charge of any Ecclesiastick the People be left destitude of competent provision for their Souls it is no intrusion or breach of Unity if an other Pastor perform the work of the Ministery within
Unity THe confused noise about Schism and the unjust imputation thereof that is commonly made hath greatly disordered the minds of many Some have been thereby swaid to an absolute compliance with the most numerous or the most prevailing Parties Others discerning the abuse of this name but forgetting that there is something truly so called have made light of the thing it self which is indeed of a heinous nature I have been engaged in this Disquisition by a deep sense of the evil of Schism and an earnest care of keeping my self from the real guilt thereof and what is here written I willingly submit to a grave and just examination Errare possum Haereticus Schismaticus esse nolo I am liable to Errour as others are but I am sure I am no wilfull Schismatick It is commonly given to men to pass a severe judgment upon every dissent from their own Opinions and Orders Whereupon as that hath had the character of Schism stamped upon it which is not such indeed so that which is Schism in a low and tolerable degree hath been aggravated to the highest and prosecuted against all rules of prudence and charity To make an equal judgment of the guilt of Schism in Persons or Parties the degree of the Schism is duly to be considered Our Saviour teacheth that reviling language contemptuous words and rash anger are breaches of the Sixth Commandment yet in degree of guilt they are vastly different from the act of wilfull Murther And indeed in the kind of delinquency here treated of there are as great differences of degrees as of any other kind The case of those that are necessitated to a non-compliance in some lawfull things by them held unlawfull yet seeking union would gladly embrace a reasonable accomodation is much different from theirs who upon choice and wilfully sever themselves because they love to be severed In like manner the case of those who desire and seek the conformity of others and would gladly have fellowship with them yet through misguided zeal are approvers of such unnecessary impositions as hinder the conforming of many is much different from theirs who designing the extrusion of others contrive the intangling of them by needless rigors Many other instances might be given to express the great disparity of cases in point of Schism all which may teach us in the estimate that we are to make thereof to put a difference between honest minds that by mistake are drawn into Division and those that out of their corrupt minds and evill designs do wilfully cause Division In many things we offend all and therefore it behoves us to consider one another as subject to the like errours and passions We should not judge too severely as we would not be so judged There be many examples of Schismatical animosities and perversnesses into which in the ancient times such Persons have fallen as were otherwise worthily esteemed in the Church Cyril with the greater number of Bishops in the Ephesine Council too rashly deposed John of Antioch and his Party of Bishops upon a quarrel that arose between them And John with his Adherents returning to Antioch did more rashly depose Cyril and his Party and yet both Parties were Orthodox and in the issue joyned in the Condemnation of Nestorius But the most remarkable instance in this kind is the disorderly and injurious proceeding of so venerable a Person as Epiphanius against so worthy a Person as Chrysostom to which he was stirred up by the instigation of that incendiary Theophilus of Alexandria The said Epiphanius goes to Constantinople and in the Church without the City held a sacred Communion and Ordained a Deacon and when he had entred the City in a publick Church he read the Decree made by himself and some others in the condemnation of Origens Books and excommunicated Dioscurus and his Brethren called the long Monks worthy and Orthodox men persecuted by the Anthromorphites And all this he did without and against the consent of Chrysostom the Bishop of the Place and in contempt of him I may further instance in the long continued division between Paulinus and Meletius with their Parties at Antioch though both of them were of the Nicene Faith likewise in the long continued Separation made from the Church of Constantinople by the followers of Chrysostom after his banishment because they were exasperated by the injuries done to their worthy Patriarch These weaknesses in good men of old times I observe not to dishonour them but that we may be thereby warned to be more charitable and less censorious towards one another in case of the like weaknesses and disorders and to be sollicitous to maintain Peace and to prevent discord among all those that are united in the substantials of Christian Faith and Practice and for this end to be more carefull in avoiding unreasonable oppositions unwarrantable impositions and all causless exasperations True Holiness is the basis of true Unity For by it the Faithfull cleave to God and one to another in him and for him and are inclined to receive one another on those terms on which God hath received them all And by it they are turned from that dividing selfishness which draws men into several or opposite ways according to their several or opposite ends Let not a carnal wordly Interest in a Church state be set up against Holiness and Unity Let the increase and peace of the Church visible be sought in order to the increase and peace of the mystical Let no one Party be lifted up against the common Peace of sound Believers and let not any part of the legitimate Children of Christs Family be ejected or harassed upon the instigation of others but let the Stewards in the Family carry it equally and so gratifie one part in their desired Orders that the other part be not oppressed Let not them be still vexed who would be glad of tolerable terms with their Brethren In Church-Governours let the power of doing good be enlarged and the power of doing hurt restrained as much as will stand with the necessary ends of Government Let the Discipline of the Church commend it self to the consciences of men Let the edge of it be turned the right way and its vigor be put forth not about little formalities but the great and weighty matters of Religion Zeal in substantials and charitable forbearance in circumstantials is the way to gain upon the hearts of those that understand the true ends of Church-government and what it is to be Religious indeed Let the occasions of stumbling and snares of division be taken out of the way and let controverted unnecessaries be left at liberty Discord will be inevitable where the terms of concord remain a difficulty insuperable The Conscientious that are willing to bid high for Peace cannot resign their consciences to the wills of men and humility and soberness doth not oblige them to act contrary to their own judgments out of reverence to their Superiors they cannot help themselves