hardest after this Ordinance then the two former especially by our Authour hereby the party is admitted out of the Infant into the Adult estate and received into full communion By confirmation say the Waldenses is forthwith given Confirmatione protinus data est c. Nemo ad sacroSanctam communionem priu admittatur quam catechismum dedicerit confirmatus sit full power of communicating in the body and blood of Christ with all the faithful for none according to our own Lyturgy is to be admitted to the holy communion before he hath learned his catechisme and be confirmed viz. in his right therein Now for confirmation as to these three last uses for which it is now onely desired I shall crave leave to signifie mine opinion very briefly of First I conceive it is not to be found in expresse command or example or in any expresse mention or words in Scripture what the confirmation of Apostolical practice was we have already noted and yet I beleeve it was not like to this Secondly though the eminently Learned and judicious Calvine and some other very worthy Divines are very peremptory that this kinde of confirmation was in use in the Ancient Church I confesse though I have earnestly sought it and desired to see it in some ancient Writer I could never yet be made so happy neither did I ever yet see any words cited or pretended to be cited out of any such ancient Authour that did offer any thing like it viz. the admitting such as were baptized in Infarcy when growne of age upon their personal publick profession and engagement into farther communion with the Church by the coremony of imposition of hands and prayer What the ancient confirmation was hath been already intimated Thirdly yet I rejoyce to acknowledge that this moderne confirmation for the three great uses mentioned is not onely agreeable to the common principles of nature and reason but that likewise it is juxta consensum Scripturae according to the consent of Scripture as Chemnitius teacheth Fourthly which consent of Scripture hereunto is I conceive not onely negative but positively given in such general commands as require all Church-dispensations and more expressely those of discipline to be directed and leveld at edification for I doubt not but that such a confirmation may be piously used and to the edification of the Church as Chemnitius also affirmeth as a meanes most happily accommodated to this great end Fifthly therefore I must have leave to say that I verily beleeve after these my small endeavours upon the point that our Reverend and most Worthy Father Master Hughes hath hit the very white and that if this kinde of confirmation which is now sought for or that way of examination which many practice by some also termed a little more mildly a ministerâ—al conference which are all one for substance cannot stand upon his or such like grounds they will stand no where but must fall at last Sixthly moreover were the late superstitions and formallity removed as all good men must needs wish and the stated effects and provisoes allowed as I cannot but desire and the present season and temper of our people duely considered and found to be receptable of it which I am willing to hope I do here most solemnly judge that confirmation might prove through divine mercy a most effectual mean as of the edification of the Church so of reconciliation of the much to be lamented differing brethren and therefore to be both piously and charitably desired and not onely coldly and faintly to be wished but by all the lovers of truth and peace earnestly prayed for and seriously endeavoured both as a most needful and seasonable Ordinance Seventhly yea though after all due paines and endeavours used we should not be able to reconcile our principles in every point if yet we can meet in the same practice about confirmation though on some small differing grounds why may not the Church be happily edified and the peace thereof in a measure obtained by such an unity uniformity in practice while the persons differing but in lighter matters may wait upon the Lord in this good service for the great blessing of unanimity promised also May it be still provided I humbly offer first that confirmation be not thought to have any ingrediency into the nature or being of our membership Secondly that the temper of the people be found such as will admit of such a change without any dangerous disturbance among them threatening more hurt then sober men can rationally expect advantage to the Church thereby these methinks have some weight in them and may not be reckoned among the lighter matters 8. Lastly for the Ceremony of imposition of hands I cannot beleeve it to be so necessary as the substance of confirmation alreâ—dy declared is though with Chemnitius I doubt not but it may be added here without superstition especially when the substance of the work shall rather receive solemnity and reverence then disgrace or prejudice thereby as Calvine intimates it did of old to the end this action saith he which otherwise ought deservedly to be esteemed grave and holy might have the more reverence and respect Quo autem haec actio c. Inst l. 4. c. 19. s 4 the Ceremony also of imposition of hands was added to it After the Learned Doctor Hackwell I am apt to judge this ceremony of laying on of hands to arise from natures fountaine and thence to spread it self over all the world by universal custome Man-kinde being as it were prompted by nature to solemnize any great honour to be conferred on a person with this ceremony both Jew and Greek and the Church of God have taken it into common practice upon all sch occasions as is most apparent both in prophane and ecclesiastical hystory is And upon this ground with some special allusion to the practice of the Apostle who its like took it up from the former natural and universal custome with Jewes and Gentiles when they conferr'd the Holy Ghost I presume the Churches afterward annex'd it as a right to confirmation However if this kinde of confirmation be not found in Scripture this right of it imposition of hands as relating to it cannot be found there wherefore we can onely say this of it that it is a decent ecclesiastical ceremony as Luther calls it solemne and laudable and very fit to be added in confirmation when general prejudice or any other extraordinary impediment doth not prohibit it or when it is not likely to lose its end We propose two ends at present of setting up the practice Two ends of now deâ—â—ring confirmation of confirmation the Edification of the people and Reconciliation of Brethren in the Ministery give me leave to present unto you a double Consideration hereupon First whether imposition of hands added in confirmation by us now may not grate upon popular prejudice and hinder somewhat the first of our ends Secondly whether some worthy brethren who do not at all scruple the substance of the action but are haply ready to joyne with us in it yet because they see not that imposition of hands was ever used but but by a Bishop may not be stricken off further from us should we venture upon it and thus far we should faile of the other of our ends I dare conclude that neither of those two great patrons of confirmation Calvine or Chemnitius doth lay such a stresse upon imposition of hands therein but that the substance of the action being solemnly practiced this ceremony of laying on of hands in such a case as was now proposed may yea ought to be omitted I had thought to have added a fifth proviso namely that the children of such as are baptized and do usually joyne with us Prov. 5. Children of the non-confirmâ—d to be baptâ—zed in attendance upon the worship of God though they be not as yet confirmed be not denied their Infant Baptisme this also seems to be granted us in our Reverend Authours own principles our Authour questions not the membership of such parents yea p. 54 60. further he argueth that such though appearing unworthy of confirmation through ignorance or scandal they are not to be excommunicate or dismembred He also asserts that children are p. 25. with 53. baptized by vertue of their parents membership Thus hence we might be bold to reason where there is membership in the parent there the childe may be baptized if children are to be baptized by vertue of their parents membership But there is membership in such parents as are baptized and not excommunicated nor to be excommunicated Therefore the children of such parents may be baptized and that regularly as p. 53. our Authour addes according to the Word FINIS
the very ground of the question is gone Indeed here is practice contrary to profession but not profession contrary to profession and practice contrary to profession may consist with profession for they professe to know God though in works they deny him If it be replied that a scandalous life is contrary to the faith professed and so the profession appears counterfeit I crave leave to ask once more whether faith here be taken objectivè or subjectivè if objectivè for the doctrine professed or the Will of God revealed to be beleeved then it may still be affirmed that the profession of the Scripture or an outward owning of the Will and Word of God is not inconsistent with a conversation contrary thereunto then why may not such whose practice is contrary either to their profession or to the Scripture which they yet professe be received by the Church if no other reason but this be assignable If it be said that a scandalous life is contrary to the faith in sensu formali vel subjectivo and that a wicked conversation declareth that the Professor doth not believe as he professeth and is to be rejected therefore as a counterfeit Once more I demand whether this faith professed be considered as saving or as common if as saving then Mr. Wood his cause is yeelded who is now opposing Reverend Master Baxter with this assertion that wicked men are not to be rejected formally because their wickednesse is a signe of unregeneracy but materially because it is contrary to the profession of the faith if as common or as other historical or dogmatical then though I grant that all those whose wickednesse is such as cannot consist with a real common or historical faith ought not to be admitted yet I deny the hypothesis that all wickednesse is such as is inconsistent with such a real common faith that common faith is in its kinde a true faith and that this true common faith is consistent with a wicked heart and life are two Propositions as little doubted by most Divines as much confirmed by sad experience and largely discoursed in the Treatise following Sunt in eo coetu viz. ecclesiae visibilis multi electi alii non Sancti sed tamen de verâ doctrinâ consentientes Phil. Melanct. part Sept. p. 33. Others may have leave to think that such scandalous persons ought not to be admitted into the Church because of the scandal that would come to Religion thereby and because that in this sense scandal is contrary to the profession of the faith the Church thus drawing a blot and disparagement upon her selfe as if she was ready to open her bosome to any vile unclean unreformed persons and truely I humbly conceive there is very much in this for if the Church ought to have a care that those already within cause not the wayes of God to be evil spoken of why ought she not to have the like care touching those she is about to let in or why should those be admitted into the community that now appear to be such as are presently to be cast out of communion but I presume this is not all For 3. From the premises it seemes at least probable to me that the Church is to have some kinde of respect unto the saving condition of the person she is about to admit into communion though I donbt not to assert with our brethren N. E. and Reverend Master Baxter that a sober and humble profession of faith and repentance with a desire of Baptisme is as much evidence of this saving condition as the Church is bound to expect without any farther positive proofs of conversion 4. Yet I humbly conceive that more then a bare outward profession is requisite to give real interest in the visible Church and the previledges thereof before God though no more is requisite to give visible interest before men and that there is sufficient ground for the trite distinction of right here Coram Deo ecclâ—sia for the Churches judgement of mens right must passe with her administrations upon visible or appearing signes by their outward profession but Gods upon real for the visible Church is really a Church with God as well as the invisible though the Church is bound to believe a profession that is made upon designe as the Jews at New Castle was yet God knows his wickednesse and count him a dogg eating the childrens bread out of the hand of Church deceived by his falsnesse but not erring because profession is her onely rule in the case If it be demanded what is more required besides profession to give real interest in the visible Church I Multi enim sunt non renaâ—i vel hypocritae consentientes tamen de doctrina ritibus extcrnis sen est coetus consentientium de doctrina habens multa membra mortua sen non regeneratos Maâ— 7. 21. Mat. 13. 24. par in Urs cat 343. have at large answered in the Treatise that in Adult persons about to be admitted a real actual and not fained consent but in persons borne in the Church and baptised in their Infancy and now at the adult estate a non-dissent a not dissenting from or a not rejecting of the truth and wayes of the Lord at least for all that are of the visible Church must be one of these ways either negatively or positively consentientes to true doctrine as Melancton before as wel as outward professors of it 4. Yet I must still hold my maine Proposition till I see more reason to let it go that unregenerate persons once received into the Church are notwithstanding their unregeneracy or their want of evidences of saving grace really or truely members of the visible Church till they cut themselves off by Heresie Schisme or the perfection of both Apostasie or at least are cast out by Church-censure what reasons what authorities from the Scriptures and the Church I shew for it and what absurdities I alledge against the contrary opinion must be left to your censure in the reading of the Treatise Onely that it may passe here a little the more freely I cannot but adde the remembrance of one or two late most eminent and full Testimonies Mr. Hooker of New England saith Survey of Church discipline p. 36. that externally those are within the Covenant and consequently the Church who expressing their repentance with their profession of the truth engage themselves to walk in the wayes of God and the truth of his worship though they have not for the present that sound work of faith in their hearts and may be never shall have it wrought by Gods Spirit in them Master Norton also a Minister of N. E. to this very question whether truth Against Apol. p. 3. of grace be required to visible Church-membership answereth one may be admitted into the Church-communion of the external or visible Church that is not endowed with the real inward holinesse of regeneration and justifying faith in Christ or that
in an united and conjunct sense is the forme of the Church that is neither the called nor society but these both together as a company or society of the called or the faithful though then we know not as before was said where to finde the matter of the Church and that the whole definition will be taken up in the form and consequently we may not grant it yet I conceive we may safely give it for the visible Church may be as well considered to be a society of persons called conjunctively as persons called and a society without respect to saving grace 3. And although we should farther give him that which also we have before denyed to grant him viz. that that faith which is the essential forme of the Church is a saving faith yet he is pleased freely to recompense us again with with as much in affirming that persons that are onely externally called and such as onely professe as himself speaks are truely members of the Church of Christ according to the outward state thereof or as it is a visible Church which is freely acknowledged to be all that is necessarily sought in the present controversie 4. Indeed he also adds that such profession and outward calling is but the accidental form of the Church as before which assertion we conceive will hardly bear this his conclusion however this is nothing unto us We thankfully take his concession and leave the consequence to be further considered CHAP. XI The Argument from the distinguishing forme of the visible Church WE now descend to the other branch of the formal cause called distinguens vel discriminans contained in those notes or marks whereby the Church is known to be true and distinguished from a false Church Whence the Argument is this The notes or marks of a true Church may be considered to be truely such without respect to saving grace therefore the Church her selfe None will venture upon the consequence for if those very things viz. the notes whereby alone we take to our selves a consideration of the Churches being and truth cannot be affirmed to have any dependance upon saving grace then certainly the Church may be considered to be truely such without respect to saving grace The Antecedent appears by an easie induction of the notes and marks of a true Church They are either essential or accidental it is generally agreed Professio verae fidei est maxime essentialis ecclesiae nota Med. p. 171. that the essential note of the Church is profession of the true faith which as Amesius saith is maximè essentialis in the highest manner essential to the Church Now the nature of an essential mark as the Schooles teach is certo demonstrare infallibly to demonstrate the essence of that thing of which it is a mark therefore profession of the true faith doth thus certainly infallibly demonstrate the essence and nature of the true Church but now profession of the true faith may be truely considered without respect to saving grace for the true faith may be professed by a Cain a Judas a Simon Magus a Demas and those that have no share at all in saving grace and that truely to as none I think will venture to question But this profession of the true faith I humbly conceive if we speak exactly as it is a mark of the true Church must be taken ecclesiastically and not personally for there may be a private personal owning and profession of the faith where there is no formal proper and exact Church and there we cannot affirme profession of the faith an essential note of the true Church personal profession I grant is a certaine mark of a member of the Church i. e. universal and ecclesiastical profession of the Church it self This ecclesiastical profession I conceive consists in attendance upon the Ordinance of divine worship and is rather a real then a vocal profession for the end of the visible Church being properly the worship of God the note thereof is properly that which renders it serviceable to its end which is attendance upon those things which are ordained for that end the Ordinances of divine worship I confesse Amesius intends a profession of faith formally and vocally taken which he distinguisheth from the solemne preaching Professio ista in coetu aliquo potest antecedere solennem verbi praedicationem Sacramentorum administrationem Med. p. 172. 30. of the Word and administration of the Sacraments By which he either meanes a profession made by all those that are admitted into an instituted Church which cannot I conceive be proved from Scripture to be a necessary duty much lesse an essential mark of the true Church and is not very consonant with reason seeing if this be maximè essentialis nota the Church may possibly through want of occasion of admitting be many years without such an essential note the nature of which if I mistake not requires that it be more usual Besides how such a profession can be looked upon as the profession of the whole which is of some necessity for its being a mark of the whole I know not it being not made by a publick Minister but a private member yea hardly a member if the end of his confession be in order to his admission but however 't is clearly the profession of the party and a note onely of his faith and worthinesse of admission and in any sober sense can hardly be look'd on as the profession much lesse the note and least of all the essential the chiefly essential note of the whole Church as indeed we never found affirmed before by any Authentick authour in the Church of Christ and which I humbly conceive is not Ames his sense here onely I took this occasion to free him from it because I fear these words of his are made a patron of such a practise But if this be not the profession of faith which Amesius affirmeth to be the note of the Church it must needs be the set and solemn declaration of the faith by the mouth of the Church to wit the Minister which was wont to be done as he requireth before the Sermon But this I humbly conceive is not to be distinguished from the Word and Sacraments as it is maxime â—ssentialis ecclesiae nota according to Scripture reason or the judgement of most if not all that have anciently written upon this subject is not the same faith professed by the Minister in preaching and the people in hearing and by both in participating in the Sacraments or seales thereof which is read in the Creed and are not these actions as visible and as essential to the Church as the reading and hearing of the Creed or dare any say that where there is a constant and diligent attendance on the preaching of the true doctrine and lawful administration of prayers and Sacraments that there we cannot discerne a true Church without a solemne declaring of the faith in a set Creed and most of our
whether there be a Church invisible i. e. such in the Church as are in a higher sense the children of God the members of Christ and in a state of salvation then others who may also be called a Church in a distinct consideration to the rest of visible professors which the Church of Rome denieth and the reformed assert and maintain against them Neither indeed is the controversie so much about the nature of the visible as about the being of the invisible Church every one knows that there is a vast difference about the head about the succession and about the visibility of pomp and multitude and about the infallibility of the visible Church betwixt us and them yet about the nature and definition of the visible Church the difference is but small the whole burthen thereof resting upon the nature being and definition of the Church invisible I shall presume to give my reader one famous instance of this from the great late controversie of the present point in France betwixt Mons Mestrezate and Cardinal Perron as is to read at large in an excellent Treatise written in French by that Learned Monsieur whereof please yet to take this short account He begins his book with a necessity of distinguishing â—he Church before he cometh to the definition of it his distinction is founded in divers respects viz. 1. â—he internal 2. The external state of the Church he gives us the notion of the Church in Scripture viz. 1. For a visible society of Christians 2. The invisible condition of Christians The first he builds on these places Col. 4. 16. 1 Cor. 14. 12 19 23. Acts 14. 22. Gal. 1. 13. Act. 8. 3. 2 Cor. 8. 1. Gal. 1. 1. 2 Cor. 1. 1. 2 Thes 1. 1. Apoc. 1. 4. and 2. 23. The second he builds upon Eph. 5. 25 23. Eph. 1. 22 23. Eph. 5. 29 30. Heb. 12. 23. According to this distinct acceptation of the word Church in Scripture he proceeds to distinguish of the Church more properly which he saith is the nuptial body of Christ and the Church lesse properly is the outward communions visible societies of Christians then he addresseth to his definitions of the Church thus diversly considered The first saith he is the body or multitude of those whom God according Lib. 1. cap. 4 to the eternal counsel of his election hath drawn out of their natural corruption and perdition by the Minstery of his word and the power of his Spirit incorporating them into Jesus Christ by true faith and sanctification unto life eternal now upon this rests the dispute for the last viz. the visible Church he agrees in most part with the Cardinal in this definition The Church is a society of those whom God hath called unto salvation Lib. 2. cap. 1 by the profession of the true faith and a sincere administration of the Sacraments by lawful Ministers Whence we conclude that the difference betwixt us and the Papists is not much about the nature of the visible Church both are agreed that it is a Church and that it is such a Church for the most part as the Monsieur hath here defined but chiefly about the Church invisible But before I close here methinks I am tempted to cry 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and that I have now hit the very sense of the reformed Divines touching the nature of the Church invisible and visible they clearly hold that there is but one Church and yet they do so distinctly consider this one Church in its strict and large acceptation For the militant and Catholick Churches are not all one in state by reason whereof they may be in one which are not in the other Whites way to the true Church or as visible and invisible that any one that gives the lightest observation thereunto must needs confesse that their definitions thereof do more then accidentally differ and therefore essentially which two things are reconciled onely by granting that when they define the Church strictly taken they define but one part of the Church when largely taken and when they define the Church largely taken they conclude the Church strictly taken under some general attribution which equally or at least joyntly admits both of the Elect and reprobate which are Heterogeneous matter yet united in one society the visible Church as before is explicated Yet would I with all modesty submit this and what else I have or shall conceive and write to the judgement of my abler brethren knowing that the spirit of the Prophets is subject to the Prophets CHAP. XVII The first Argument from Scripture God calls a wicked people his people and his Church THe arguments usually termed artificiall with their objections have been hitherto insisted on we shall therefore descend in the next place to take the evidence of testimony both divine and humane of God and the Church The records of divine authority and testimony are the holy Scriptures Whence our first argument is offered thus God is pleased in the Old Testament to own such a people for his people and Christ in the new for his Church which at the very same time he himself universally brands as wicked rebellious evil-doers back-sliders c. and taketh no notice at all of any good thing in them therefore surely a people may be considered to be truely a people of God and a Church of Christ without respect unto and upon other terms besides saving grace Here now what I have writ I read over againe and againe yet must I seriously professe that I cannot foresee any colourable answer that is to be given to this Argument He that hath but a slight knowledge in the holy Scripture must needs confesse the antecedent and he that hath but a very slight reason me thinks cannot but yeeld the consequence 1. For the antecedent viz. that God and Christ do thus acknowledge a wicked people at the very same time when such their wickednesse is charged upon them for their own people and Church is so legible in the whole course of the Scripture that truely to heap instances and proof upon it would be to weaken it I shall onely therefore fix my reader upon one undeniable instance in each Testament according to the parts of my proposition That in V. T. is Isa 1. 2 3 4 5 6. where the Lord himselfe doth very eminently and above all kinde of contradiction both charge and acknowledge a people as before is asserted 1. Then observe how he is pleased to charge them And 2. To own and acknowledge them The charge is observable In 1. The matter of it 2. The extent of it the charge in the matter of it is that they are ignorant and inconsiderate ver 3. rebellious against the Lord that nourished 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 them and brought them up v. 2. or magnified and exalted them as the Interlineary translates it or brought up and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 with the Arabick exalted as the vulgar Lattine
be of Israel whom yet in the very same place it denieth to have any true saving grace all are not Israel i. e. all are not in the purpose of God according to election v 11. that are of Israel or of the visible Church therefore some are of Israel that are not elected and consequently that have no saving grace 3. The Scripture Luke 15. 6. affirmeth some persons to be of the house of Israel also whom it also denieth to have any evidence of saving grace viz. lost sheep lost sheep are of the house of Israel but lost sheep are therefore without evidence of saving grace therefore persons whom the Scripture affirmeth to be without evidence of saving grace it attributeth interest in the house of Israel or the visible Church unto 9. To be the people of God to bring forth children unto God and to have a right coram Deo or in the sight of God unto the first seale or the Ordinance of initiation do all of them import in the Word of God visible Church-membership But the Word of God ascribeth every one of these unto such as it self also testifieth to have had no evidence at least of saving grace 1. The Word of God Jer. 7. 12. as also before the same was observed from Isa 1. 3. thus attributes the title of the people of God to such as had no evidence of saving grace even to those Israelites that by their abominable wickednesse had brought a curse and desolation upon the place where they lived viz. Shiloh see what I have done to Shiloh for the wickednesse of Israel yea of my people Israel but evidence of saving is inconsistent with such wickednesse 2. The Word of God Ezek. 16. 20. ascribes the honour of bringing forth children unto God unto such as had no evidence at least of saving grace they sacrificed their children unto Molâ—ck therefore they had no evidence of saving grace yet their children which they thus idolatrously sacrificed God owns for his sons and his daughters and such as the parents had borne unto him To say that these children were the first born onely which the Lord challengeth for his in a peculiar manner may seeme to gratifie an Anabaptist somewhat but doth not so much as seem to weaken my inference hence for the first borne of those in whom the Lord had this interest onely and who were related to God as his people were challenged by God for his in this peculiar manner therefore if we grant that these were the first-borne onely yet seeing God challengeth them for his sons and daughters he owneth and acknowledgeth the parents of them yet to remaine in his Covenant and to be in the number of his people If those that are gracelesse had a command to receive the seals had warrant to receive them then they had a right from God but such as Ishmael Mr. Hooker survey p. 41 3. The Word of God Gen. 17. 23. acknowledgeth that one may have a right to the first seal of the Covenant and that coram Deo and in the sight of God that hath no saving grace in the case of Ishmael Ishmael was thirteen years old vers 25. when he was circumcised and therefore past the age and state of Infancy and of age to answer for himself yet againe Ishmael had no saving grace which the Lord knew well enough neither was he within the Covenant of Isaac the Covenant of absolute and certaine salvation from which he was excluded vers 19. If Ishmael had not been circumcised he had broken the covenant v. 14 therefore he was in covenant The Hebrew calls Ishmael a wilde asse and the Targum retaineth the original word Metaphoricè pro homine insociabili ferinis moribus praedito saith Rivet who with Paraeus Cajctane Pererius and others judgeth him to be a reprobate as Mr. Mar. hath observed page 277. yet lastly Ishmael hath a right unto the first seal of the Covenant and consequently was truely in one respect within the Covenant coram Deo and in his sight as is most evident from the immediate command of God that he that was borne in Abrahams house as God knew that Ishmael was so already must needs be circumcised v. 12. and accordingly Abraham understood it although the Lord himself had but now revealed to him that Ishmael in particular was to have no part in the Covenant of Isaac or the Covenant of salvation or the saving state of the Covenant rather he proceeds upon the command of the Lord to circumcise Ishmael first of all Now what is it that giveth one right to any Ordinance but the command or at least more evidently then the command of God himself and that right which we have from Gods command is doubtlesse a right coram Deo and in his sight and the consequence from that first seal of circumcision to ours of baptisme will passe without scruple upon all but Anabaptists with whom I am not now disputing 10. To be borne againe and to be of the body are both equivalent to Church-membership But the Word of God acknowledgeth such to be borne againe and to be of or in the body the one great body of Christianity whom it also witnesseth to have no saving grace 1. The Word of God John 3. 5. acknowledgeth that all that are baptized with water are borne again of water wherefore haply baptism is meant by the lavor or washing of regeneration Tit. 3. 5. 2. The Word of God acknowledgeth also that all that are baptized are baptized into that one great body of Christianity 1 Cor. 12. 13. we are all baptized into one body 3. And yet the Word of God hath witnessed that many are baptized that never had any saving grace as Simon Hymeneus Philetus Alexander Ananias and Saphira c. 11. To have the Spirit to have begun in the Spirit to be sonnes to be children of the promise to be children of the free woman that is I conceive by embracing and submitting unto the Gospel of Christ Jesus who was the seed in whom the promise to Isaac was especially fulfilled are all equivalent to Church-membership But the Word of God ascribeth all these to such as gave no evidence of saving grace and all of them in those two Chapters the third and fourth to the Galatians Gal. 3. 2 3. they are acknowledged to have received the Spirit and to have begun in the Spirit yet the same place witnesseth their folly and their great danger of ending in the flesh which gave no evidence of their saving grace Gal. 4. even those are said to be sons v. 6. to be the children of the promise with Isaac v. 28. and children of the free-woman that is I conceive not under the Law but the Gospel v. 31. of whom Paul travelled in birth again until Christ be formed in them ver 19. and of whom therefore we may safely say they had no saving grace 12. Beleevers sanctified redeemed and a state of grace are all equivalent to
visible Church-membership in the Word of God But the same Word of God attributeth all these unto some that had no saving grace 1. The Word of God as was noted before acknowledgeth that both Simon Magus and the stony ground beleeved and the Word of God witnesseth also that neither Simon Magus nor the stony ground had no saving grace 2. The Word of God Heb. 10. 29. ascribeth the title of sanctified to such as trampled under foot the Son of God c. which doubtless had no saving grace 3. The Word of God 2 Pet. 2. 1. acknowlegeth such to be redeemed and bought by Christ who yet fall away and deny him and bring upon themselves swift destruction but these had never any saving grace 4. The Word of God in the last place acknowledgeth Gal. 5. 4. that some persons were once in a state of grace who fell from grace and therefore such as never had any saving grace they were in a state of grace first otherwise they could not have fallen from grace their grace however was not saving for from saving grace none did ever fall away CHAP. XIX The third Argument from Scripture admitting persons into Church-membership upon account diverse from saving grace the difference of the Infant and Adult estate largely considered MY third and last Argument from the Word of God is grounded upon the condition of admission of persons into the visible Church of God therein allow'd and it is this The Word of God both alloweth and requireth that persons be admitted members of the visible Church upon an account that is really diverse from saving grace therefore the visible Church may be considered to be truely a Church of Christ without respect to saving grace The antecedent here is not to be touch'd for unlesse we pretend that according to Scripture the childe born within the Church is admitted a member thereof for his own habitual or inherent grace or that foederal or imputed grace is saving grace or that he is not of the Church or not to be baptized till he make a profession of saving grace in his own person all which are apparently absurd we must needs yeeld that according to Scripture persons are admittable into the Church upon an account that is diverse from saving grace Obj. It may not be objected that the child is admitted upon the evidence of his parents saving grace for as that is false in it selfe as anon will be shewne so it reacheth not at all to our present purpose which onely concerneth the qualification of the very person admitted and the ground thereof in himselfe Yet I grant that this is concludent onely in settled Churches for at the first plantation of a Church personal qualities are to be expected in Heathens adult for their admission into visible Church-membership as also when they are to be adjoyned to any particular Church already setled and therefore so farre onely as concerneth the admission of infants in setled Churches However is not this our common case yea and of all the Churches were not our and their members admitted in infancy time out of minde all standing as members grown up or branches sprung from the old root in the garden or Church of God at least ordinarily and for the most part for how rare a thing and extraordinary is it to hear of a Pagan Turk or Jew baptized Christian The consequence is also evident upon this ground that the same grace may easily be considered to continue the being of the visible Church which first gave it unlesse some violent accident as renouncing the Covenant c. hath since disolved it for as Dayrel saith well we must know that all which be once admitted page 171 into the Church do remaine members of the same Church be they never so wicked until either they themselves depart from it or else by excommunication they be cast out and that consequently all the scandalous persons aforesaid were in and of the Church yea the incestuous person till he was excommunicated and this as he addes they of the separation likewise acknowledge to be true Object The great objection here is that children remaine Church-members by foederal holinesse until they come unto their adult estate indeed but no longer for then they must give the answer of a good conscience for themselves and continue this relation to the Church upon the account of their own faith Answ 1. I readily grant that all children baptiz'd in their infancy ought when at yeares of discretion to give this answer of a good conscience both by their evidence of their knowledge of Christ and an holy conversation 2. I further grant that there is an evident necessity upon all such baptized persons to own the faith into which they are baptized at least negatively seeing that a positive renounciing thereof putteth out of the Church 3. Yet admit that persons thus baptized in their infant state state do not give such answer at years of discretion either of their knowledge or holinesse as they ought to do it by no meanes follows that they are forth-with rendred out of the Church or that their former foederal or relative holinesse is hereby null for these Reasons Reas 1. The Word of God wherein alone his minde is revealed hath no where evidenced that foederal or relative holinesse of persons borne in the Church or their relation to the Church thereby is extinct at years of discretion or removed and lost by ignorance or the want of the evidence of saving grace if but one text were produced intimating this this part of the controversie ends 2. Yea indeed the contrary is more then evident in sacred writ viz. that relative holinesse doth proceed even into the adult estate and that ignorance or want of the evidence of saving grace doth not then extirpate our former hurch interest convey'd thereby and sealed in infancy was not Ishmael and the incestuous person at their adult estate or were they such as evidenced saving grace yet Ishmael Gal. 4. 30. and the incestnous person 1 Cor. 5. 12. are both acknowledged to be within hath it not appeared abundantly that persons charged by God himself with actual rebellion are also acknowledged at the same instant by the same God to be his people how could they be so charged had they not been at adult age and how could they be so acknowledged had they had no foederal or relative holinesse for they had none other Yea to put it out of further question this people are expresly said to be a holy people Deut. 14. 2. even while they were charged with being stiff-neck'd and a rebellious people unto this place chap. 9. verse 6 7. and what holinesse could that be that was consistent with a stiffe neck and a rebellious heart but a Covenant-holinesse even as 't is there expounded to be I have chosen thee to be my people or a holinesse of separation as it also followeth Deut. 14. 2. to be a peculiar people unto himself
ancient people may not be excommunicated should of it self put the younger out of the Church or that wickednesse which cannot put elder persons out with censure should be thus effectual to exclude youth just at such a crisis or age 4. Why then are not such persons whose ignorance or want of the answer of a good conscience hath made their interest in the Covenant null upon their after-learning c. to be re-baptiz'd 5. Yea if this confirmation be indeed a new admission viz. upon the account of personal or habitual holinesse and the former ground of our Church and Covenant interest viz. foederal holinesse do passe no further then such an age why are not all at this transition rebaptiz'd we are no longer in Covenant then the reason of being in Covenant holds and the seal of the Covenant holds no longer then our being in Covenant continues and it seemes the reason of our former being in Covenant is now lost and we enter Covenant again upon our personal a new account why then must not we have the seale of entrance applied also viz. baptisme But Lastly this is most expressely confuted by the former instance of Ishmael he was borne in the Church he hath sigillum foederis put upon him and therein he continueth though wicked until he is by violence cast out as the Scripture witnesseth Gal. 4. 30. 2. Then there is no refuge left but that such as are found ignorant c. at yeares of discretion are to be cast out of the Church by Excommunication If this be said 1. I answer that it is hereby granted me that the interest of ignorant persons c. is real until they be excommunicated and consequently that such persons may be that is actually though not lawfully real members of the visible Church as have no saving grace which as much as I need desire in general yea or in this particular for then this Church-membership is continued upon the account of foederal holinesse not saving grace untill this violent accident of excommunication dissolve it 2. Howsoever this doth not at all distinguish the crisis or period of the beginning of the Adult estate which we are now upon for no reason can possibly be shewne why ignorance or scandal should deserve this censure more at this time or state of passing then at any other age of our lives 3. But lastly let me be answered did we ever reade either in Scripture or any history of any Church that ignorance or unreadinesse to answer or learne when catechiz'd doth render youth so censurable as to be wholly extirpated and cast out of all relation to the Church therefore and yet let us bethink our selves is not this the very case Let me conclude with plainnesse a childe is borne in the Church and sealed therein in his infancy and therein continues until ripenesse of yeares and all this by vertue of his first Covenant-holinesse I desire to know whether this his Covenant-holinesse and his relation to the Church so long held and continued till now thereby doth now expire what Scripture or reason depriveth him of it the authority of what Church hath declared it void what can cast him out but excommunication whether all excommunication doth utterly root up Covenant interest what can merit so great a penalty but known and proved scandal and lastly whether all or any ignorance at ripenesse of age or unaptnesse in youth to learn the Catechisme be tollerably to be accounted according to Scripture or the judgement or practise of any one Church of Christ a scandal or such a scandal as may be censur'd and punisht with utter extirpation out of the Church CHAP. XX. Objections from Scripture considered BEfore I passe to the humane authority I hold my self bound to answer such objections against my Scripture-arguments as are offered thence Though I humbly professe I can hardly find or think of any that have either weight or colour in them but what have had sufficient though occasional answer already or at least been anticipated However that this head may have some body and that I may not write nihil hic nisi carmina c. Object 1. It is objected from John 8. 37. that those that were Abrahams seed were yet the devils children Answ What then therefore some Church-members are really the children of the devil but this we deny not onely we still assert that notwithstanding they may be really members of the visible Church as well as really Abrahams seed in regard of their holy profession and state they were really Church-members and children of Abraham yea of God but in regard of their unregenerate nature and rebellious lives they were as our Saviour affirmes the children of the Devil Were there any need we might fully explicate the answer hereunto by distinguishing of the Jews First as they are acknowledged to be Abrahams seed And secondly as they are called the Devils children First these Jews may be thought to be Abrahams seed either carnally ecclesiastically or spiritually i. e. savingly as his natural off-spring as Jews or as borne of him the head of the Covenant as holy branches of that old root or members of the Church Or lastly in that strict and saving sense as the children of Isaac or the seed of the promise elect to salvation 1. Now to apply if our Saviour here mean that these Jews were Abrahams seed onely in this first sense viz. borne of his naturaly body but by their heresie denying Christ and their schisme negative keeping themselves off from the Gospel-dispensation and positive raising themselves as a Church in distinction and opposition to the Gospel Church now planting in the world of all which they were highly guilty deservedly divorced and cut off from the Church then I say this text reacheth not our case for though such desperate murderers of the Lord of life and open rebels against the doctrine and meanes of salvation are no real Church-members it followeth not that therefore we cannot consider others that joyn themselves to the Gospel and professe to expect salvation from Jesus Christ c. to be so neither 2. If our Saviour meant that they were the visible Church and people of God and Abrahams seed in that ecclesiastical or Covenant-sense This I take to be the common sense of Expositors for though they call these Jews carnales Abrahae posteras yet they oppose carnales here to spirituales i. e. veros in their known and common sense Vid. Expos in locum then it either resteth to be proved that our Saviour intended here to declare them onely nominally or equivocally so because he chargeth them as children of the Devil for which there is no colour in the world seeing both as before may be really predicated of the same subject viz. that they are really members of Christs visible Kingdome and yet really children of the Devil as those children of the Kingdome were who went accursed from the mouth of Christ in another place Or secondly it
had his Church because he had thousands which never bowed their knees to Baal but whose knees were bowed unto Baal even they were also of the visible Church Apostasie a genus or an integrum of heresie and schisme And if it be yet urged that apostacy should be reckoned among the meanes of unchurching I reply that Apostacy may be thought to be a genus of heresie and schism or a compositum made up of both and the perfection of heresie and schisme as it is in the first respect totum universale or in the latter respect totum essentiale vel integrale whose species or whose parts are heresie and schism 1. Now if we consider apostasie as a genus of heresie and schism Apostasie as a genus c. is such in grammar and Scripture then we may conceive heresie or a falling from the faith to be one kinde of Apostasie and Schisme or a forsaking the Assemblies to be another kinde of Apostasie by the one men fall from the truth and by the other from the Church and by either or both from God Apostasie thus understood as I humbly conceive both according to grammar or the Etymology of the word which is in general onely a falling from which may equally respect the truth and the Church and also according to Scripture or the use thereof in the Scripture is such in the first and properest sense of the word Now if we take Apostasie in this signification it cannot be reasonably added as a third meanes of unchurching unto Heresie As a compound the usual sense and schisme seeing that a genus is universale and not individuum and existing onely in its species and not as distinct thereunto or in it self 2. If we take Apostasie in the sense of the Church wherein it is usually taken for a compound of perfect or total Heresie and Schisme or a perfect and absolute renouncing the faith and forsaking the communion of the faithful then I answer that it seemeth needlesse to adde this as a third means of unchurching in this sense either seeing it hath no other nature or force thereunto but what it received from its parts to wit heresie and schisme which have been before insisted upon so that all the difference is that heresie and schisme considered in themselves do unchurch apart and considered in Apostasie they do unchurch together or they are considered to do that together in Apostasie which they were considered to do before apart in themselves and this need not be added as a third meanes which hath no energy to do this effect but that which it receiveth from the other two yea even as it consisteth wholly thereof I conclude this discourse with a synopsis of what hath been said herein given us in those pertinent words of Learned Willet Synop. of the second contr of the Church he first tells us who may not be of the visible Church viz. Infidels i. e. such as are not baptized 2. Hereticks 3. Schismaticks to which he addes excommunicate persons he secondly teacheth who are or may be of the visible Church viz. 1. Such as are not predestinate 2. Manifest sinners de facto 3. Close Infidels i. e. hypocrites CHAP. XXXV Our Churches in England are true Churches inferr'd from the former discourse I Had once resolved to have written no more but finis to the former discourse and to have entrusted it as it is to the impartial improvement of my Readers Genius for who seeth not what great things a very little use of reason may inferre therefrom both touching our Churches Sacraments and Censure However though peaceable prudence be ready to advize as things and persons now are to be very sparing in taking the advantages offered us thence yet love to the truth and the zeale of the house of the Lord hath prevailed with to add something upon each of these heads as most direct and easie conclusions from the former premises and first concerning our Churches thus If we seriously consider what hath been said what can possibly hinder us from concluding therefrom that our publick Congregations in England are true Churches Were not all our members borne in the Church baptized in the Church and have they not hitherto remained in communion of the Church hath Apostasie Heresie Schisme hath a removal of the Candlestick or excommunication it self if it have such a power unchurched them Are not all our Congregations called out of the world of Infidels Turks Jews yea and Papists too and do not they stand as holy communities separate therefrom to the true worship and ordinarily exercised in the Ordinances of God Doth the Scripture require any more to the essence of the Church then ours have or doth it note any thing sufficient to unchurch that ours are not free from are not all the causes distinguishing marks of the true visible Church eminently in ours or doth not the whole definition thereof agree to them do not all the Churches salute and own us as true Churches and would not many dangerous absurdities both in judgement and practice immediately follow the denial thereof Are our Churches corrupt in their conversation true but the essence of the Church consisteth not in saving grace nor its visibility in an holy life besides what Scripture-Church is there except one viz. that at Philippi but is even by the Scripture it self both blamed for corruption and also acknowledged to be a Church or people of God But I intend not to enlarge here having elsewhere largely anticipated this discourse onely having often observed one great objection taken from the first constitution of our Churches to be the last and onely hold of the ancient Brownists as also of the subtiler sort of our later Anabaptists to whom we might adde the Papist I shall spend the remains of this chapter in the view and answer thereof 't is this Obj. Our Churches were not rightly constituted at first therefore they are no true Churches Answer This Objection as it lieth thus in general may be easily evaded upon all our adversaries own principles 1. To the Papists we reply that our Church was at first rightly constituted upon Popish principles for do they not say that we were at first converted unto Christianity by the preaching of Augustine the Monk and that he was commissionated thereunto by the Pope himself 2. To the Brownist we say that we were at first converted by the Ordinance of preaching whether of Joseph or not to which we may adde in answer to the Anabaptist that our ancestors were then baptized upon their personal professing the faith at years of discretion which thing cannot be rationally doubted seeing all are agreed that Heathens are not to be baptized but upon such profession of the faith and againe that our Ancestours were Heathens before their conversion to Christianity Object I know that all these adversaries are ready to reply that something hath since intervened that hath destroyed our Churches Answ Yet then the objection taken
or actual right to be admitted by the Church to the Lords Supper but may and in some cases ought to he debarred thetefrom First that every person lawfully baptized hath a right to the Lords Supper appears from precept promise and ptecedent in Scripture and Reason grounded upon or drawn from Scripture 1. Those whom Christ commands to celebrate his Supper have certainly some kind of right so to do fot what better right or Reas 1 from the command Debitum agendi debitum habendi warrant can we have to do any thing or receive any thing then our Masters command Thus duties and priviledges are inseparable what God commands is both These things I command for your own good and if we must do what God commands as our duty then we may do what God commands as our tight and priviledge But now God commands every disciple and lawfully baptized person to receive the Supper and to do all that Christ hath commanded his Church Do this in remembrance of me Teach them to observe and do whatsoever I command you This will not conclude that every Church-member must receive the Supper without any further consideration This hath been and may be further cleared for this command is but mediate and consequently gives but a mediate obligation to such as cannot and a mediate right to such as can and do not examine themselves yet it is a right though but remote or mediate and it is an obligation though it be conditional seeing the condition is commanded also and though the condition of this obligation be such as we before have heard 2. God hath conveyed and granted all Covenant-priviledges from the promise Reas 2 and consequently this of the Supper to all that are taken into and sealed in Covenant else why are we taken into Covenant if not to enjoy the priviledges of the Covenant yea what is the object of our right by Covenant but the priviledges of the Covenant Therefore the Covenant still runs thus I will be thy God and I will give thee c. yea can we have a right in God the greater and not in the Ordinances of God which is the lesse qui habet habentem omnia habet omnia how shall he not with him give us all things and with a right in him give us a right in all things I grant the Covenant is but a conditional Covenant and therefore a right unto the priviledges thereof is but a conditional right But now though differences rise high about the way and terms of being in covenant yet al agree that Church-membership discipleship and lawful baptism are of equal latitude with being in covenant Therefore wherever God begins with I will be thy God it necessarily follows and thou shalt be my people and wherever God ownes a people to be his is to be his Covenant-people 3. Those whom the Scripture admits to actual possession from example Reas 3 without requiring any new evidence or title have a plain and evident right to the Supper without any new evidence or title This cannot be denied because we have no other rule to judge of persons right to the Supper but the Scripture and because that would not admit to possession such as have no right unto it But now we finde Acts 2. 41 42. the Scripture admitteth persons baptized putting no barre by ignorance or scandal against themselves immediately without requiring any new evidence or title of them to actual communion with the Church in doctrine fellowship breaking of bread and prayers viz. in all Gospel-worship 4. A baptized Church-member stands not at the same distance from Scripture-ground Reas 4 from the Supper with persons that are neither Church-members nor baptized for he is visibly at least drawn out of that state of distance and being afarre off wherein the world of Infidels lies and is in Scripture acknowledged to be made nigh in opposition to Infidels Gentiles and those without Eph. 2. 11 12 Therefore a baptized Church-member must needs be granted to have some kinde of right to all Ordinances and consequently to the Supper for though there be a latitude in right yet there is no medium betwixt est and non est right and no right And if the baptized be nearer in right to all Ordinances then an Infidel he hath some kinde or degree of right thereunto not to be questioned if he be not ar the same distance with such as have no right he must needs have some kinde of right He that is not so far off from the Supper is nearer to it and he that is nearer to the Supper is nearer only in a way of right for there is no proceeding towards a legal possession but by a line of right Digression 4. The Grounds of the Churches power to deny the Supper to some Church-members materially considered Though every person lawfully baptized hath some kinde of right to the Lords Supper yet the Church hath power to withhold the present use thereof from some persons lawfully baptized The truth of this Proposition is generally allowed even in the granting 1. That children are lawfully baptized 2. That children are not to receive or not to be admitted to the Lords Supper I shall rather therefore spend this digression in digging for or fixing the grounds of this truth according to Scripture Which Grounds may be aptly considered Materially Formally The material Grounds are the objects about which this power of denying the Sacrament is exercised the Matter for which persons though baptized are to be denied the Supper or the grounds of denying the same to such persons The formal grounds are the grounds of the power it selfe by which the Church denieth the Sacrameâ—t to such the grounds on which this authority of the Church is built So that the present discourse is visibly engaged upon these two questions Quest 1. What are the just and lawful causes for which the Church may deny the Sacrament to baptized persons Quest. 2. On what is this power of the Church to deny the Sacrament upon such causes fixed or whence is it taken or derived Quest 1. First then what are the just and lawful causes of denying the Sacrament to baptized persons I answer that these causes are either privative viz. the want of some necessary qualifications conditional to this Communion or positive viz. some apparent ill quality or blemish for which a person though baptized ought to be debarred from this Communion the first is more eminently noted in 1 Cor. 11. and the latter in 1 Cor. 5. the first may be termed unworthinesse 1 Cor. 11. 29. the latter wickednesse or scandal 1 Cor. 5. ult persons under the first of these may be thought to be unfit and to be kept off upon principles of care and merciful caution persons under the latter may be thought to be und eserving and to be cast out upon principles of Justice The first are therefore rather not to be admitted ratione cautelae whose suspension called
same ground viz. without a censure may it not Answ I must have leave to speak my minde and to say it doth not follow indeed there seemes to be the same reason for both had not God in Scripture otherwise disposed I affirme that persons found ignorant may be deniedt his communion without a Church censure upon the foresaid grounds and I grant that so also might the scandalous but that God hath provided a heavier punishment for them Mat. 18. 17. 1 Cor. 5. by the censure of the Church If it be Gods will that scandalous persons must be excommunicated and thus denied this Sacrament what are our reasons to the contrary Therefore the consideration of such as will not examine themselves as appeareth by their obstinacy in scandal is to be referred to the next head viz. of censure and the case of ignorance alone is to be tried here Quest 4. But who are those that appear by ignorance not able to examine themselves Answ Certainly not onely children fools and madmen nor these properly indeed these are reduced under the rank of the ignorant but even thereby 't is evident that ignorance is more properly attributed to persons of years and in the use of reason then unto these However children c. are debarred quia ignorant the ignorant as such and not as children or as in any other consideration are immediately incapable of performing the condition of self-examination and therefore as such are not to be admitted and 't is all as proper to say that growns affectedly ignorant persons cannot examine themselves as children fools if we know they cannot by reason of ignorance The duty to be performed is such as necessarily requireth knowledge and where there is want of knowledge whether naturally or morally there we are sure the condition of right is wanting and consequently admission is to be denied when all is done This Text is conditional or not if not then none for want of self-examination are to be suspended no not so much as children c. but if then all that appear not to be able to examine themselves are to be suspended equally with them and I despair of seeing any reason to the contrary for if persons quia non-self-examining are forbidden then all persons non-self-examining are forbidden and consequently all ignorant persons whatsoever Quest 5. But what degree of ignorance is sufficient to ground suspension upon Answ This must be left in the hands of prudence and charity but it may be measured by its influence upon this duty of self-examination if a person hath not so much knowledge as in any good measure to see his sinnes and to discerne the Lords body aright in the Sacrament of which he is to examine himselfe this is a sufficient â—ause of denying the Sacrament to such a person in my opinion Digression 5. The grounds of denying the Sacrament to some Church-members formally considered We have last considered the Object about which this is conversant or to be exercised we proceed to the ground or principle of it formally considered the authority whence it is derived 1. Negatively 2. Positively The power of the Church to keep back the ignorant from the The ground of denying the Sacrament negatively considered 1. Not Reason Lords Table is not founded in reason as if because that through ignorance men have no rational capacity of improving this Sacrament therefore reason discovering this should warrant the Church in denying the Sacrament to them this is but a being wiser for God then he is for himself 't is but bad reasoning against Gods Will if God will have such in Covenant as cannot express consent and such sealed in Covenant as in reason cannot improve it what is that to us God may do what he will with his own this would reason children out of the Church and Covenant out of Baptisme and Circumcision as well as the Supper who are all as capable of acting at a few years old in eating and drinking bread and wine as of suffering at a few dayes old in Circumcision or Baptisme or in their Church and Covenant-relation as soon as they are borne and as able to improve that as these 2. Neither is this power grounded in prudence or a prudential Nor prudence care and caution for the good of our peoples soules who not discerning the Lords body may eat and drink judgement to themselves prudence is a good assistant but a bad principle of Church power Interest in priviledges especiully this of the Supper falls under the head of spiritual property and right which prudence serveth well to discerne but not to make or alter prudence ought indeed to labour to the utmost that persons come not to the Supper unworthily but doubtlesse she goeth beyond her laste if she once ventures to deny those whom God doth not or whom he doth deny if she hath no call thereunto matters of property are matters of necessity and justice as before but prudence hath to do onely with things in themselves indifferent 3. Neither is mutual consent in ecclesia consederata by a Nor mutual confederation or consent Church-Covenant a sufficient ground of thâ—s power as if because a company of people do agree together not to give the Sacrament to the ignorant c. therefore they may deny it to such 't is known that upon this ground a learned man of late hath L. M. fixed all Church-power but I verily beleeve that the confederated Churches dare not trust themselves upon this foundation or venture their power or government to stand or fall upon this bottome Doubtlesse mutual consent is of great power in all societies and may dispose even of all indifferent things for order and decency in Christian societies or Churches but are denying Sacracraments casting out Churches c. things indifferent The persons under Church power are allowed this dommunion in the Word of God or not if they be allowed it by the word how can mutual consent warrant the Church to disallow it if not then it is determined before by the word that such persons should not be admitted that wicked persons should be put away from among us and then the power in the Church to do this is plainly derived thence I mean from those Scriptures and not from mutual consent though this be very useful quoad exercitium for the putting of this power in execution according to those Scriptures To me this seems nothing but a pretty device to make the confederated Churches fall to the ground between two extreams They have hitherto pleaded much for Scripture for every circumstance of Church-government but thus they should stride too large from hence upon the sole ground of prudence and mutual consent for the very substance of it as if the former Basis would bear neither any longer 4. Neither is this power grounded on Mat. 7. 6. or such like Scriptures for we here treat of that power to suspend such persons as are not censured but dogs and swine
one that was borne in the Church will not cast him out yet who would admit a distracted Heathen while such a person known to be unregenerate would hardly be received while such yet known unregeneracy is not sufficient to cast a man out As Mr. Hooker before a scandalous person may be a Church-member and is so doubtlesse till he be excommunicate and while so he is in the Covenant within and his child is born in the Church and hath right to baptisme but I shall crave leave to signifie my mind a little more clearly herein by a few steps further 8. To draw a little neerer to our selves and our own common case I therefore adde that children borne of Church members and baptized in infancy are borne and baptized Church-members and though our case require it not yet I doubt not to say that the childes right in the Church and Baptisme doth not necessarily depend upon a vocal profession on purpose of its parents who yet abide in the faith and state of profession as is hereafter largely discuss'd for in Infants their being borne in the Church is instead of an outward profession as Bishop Usher affirmeth His sum of religion about Baptisme Yet I verily beleeve the childes actual possession of Baptisme not of the Church or Church-membership depends with the highest conveniency upon the parents claiming it and expresse owning the faith into which he desires his childe may be baptized and his publick undertaking to bring it it up in the fear of the Lord according to that now most general and laudable custome of the Churches of Christ amongst us which usage carrieth in my opinion as cleare a tendency to Reformation and order as any one practice not expresse in Scripture now exercised and truely such as seemes to me a great deal liklier to prevail with our people to a publick owning their obligations to God then any other course whereupon we haply fix greater expectations as to my observation lesse obnoxious to the jealousies and murmurs of a disturbed distracted and discontented generation 9. Againe those that were borne in the Church and baptized in their infancy continue in their right and possession of Church-membership as well as those admitted upon personal profession at the adult estate until they are justly devested thereof by themselves or the Church as before or in Master Cottens plaine and pertinent words the suffrage of N. E. Such as are borne of Christian parents and baptized in their His holiness of members p. 1 infancy into the fellowship of the Church are initiated members of the same Church though destitute of spiritual grace until they justly deprive themselves of the priviledge of that fellowship yea that such are not to be censured much lesse dismembred but His way of the Churches p. 89 with p. 51. upon known scandal and that they may claime the Supper also in the same Church wherein they were baptized if no exception lie against them which Learned Master Baxter hath sealed also for saith he no Church member ought to be kept from Church-communion Disp 3. p. 294 with p. 104. of his Rest much lesse cut off from the community but upon some just accusation of a crime which he was since guilty of more then he was at his admittance Consequently the children of these ought also to be reckoned members of the Church and to be Baptized to succeed in their parents profession who live and die in a state of profession from one generation to another without exacting any positive proofes or evidence of conversion or saving grace in the parents for they stand in possession and 't is not just for any to question their Title much lesse to void it without a positive disproving of it which can by no way be done without the censure of the Church upon evidence of obstinacy in known scandal which I confirme and conclude with those excellent words of worthy Master Baxter Those Disp p. 34 34. therefore that will any mans childe kept back from Baptisme for their parents unholinesse or persons kept from the Supper must not expect that men bring proof to them of their holinesse beyond their profession of it but must deale by them as by other notorious offenders even admonish them of their unholy miscarriages and he may not be so heavily punish'd before he be judged or heard 10. Thus we are at length arrived at our very case which I desire may be seriously considered who after our fathers and our fathers fathers time out of minde did generally come into the Church when we came into the world being borne of Christian parents and such as lived and died in a state of profession and do continue the succession of the same unto this day without rejecting the faith or the Church into which we were baptized or yet being rejected or censured by the Church for obstinate continuing in any know scandal Wherefore give me leave my Worthy brethren to intimate againe that if any question yet remaine about our membership 't is not to be resolved by debating what qualifications we ought to require in adult persons who desire admission or baptisme a case that hardly happens once in an age but what it is that nulls the membership of persons at age that were borne Christians and baptized in their infancy as we generally were in England This is the center where all the lines drawn like swords about most of our controversies must point at last a sound and effectual discussion of this would doubtlesse be a happy means of charming the great noise amongst us according to the determination of this most of our opinions and practices would easily be enforced one way or other thought if without offence I may so complain this is the thing that is least thought on I have venture in the Treatise upon one great and most special question under this whither I conceive we must needs be driven upon the debating of the means of unchurching viz. whether the want of saving grace be inconsistent with visible Church-membership and have afterwards though more briefly considered the general question what doth not and what doth unchurch more distinctly as also what doth constitute and evidence visible Church-membership Many other things are likewise occasionally discuss'd some more briefly and some more largely according as I thought them more or lesse serviceable to my maine designe and at last have added a large application of the whole to our Churches and to our administrations wherein some haply may judge me too large and others too strict measuring me as most men are wont to do the books they read by the model and idea of things that prepossesseth them though Reverend Sirs I cannot but hope better of you and do hereby cheerfully yet in true humility first cast my self upon your candour and then upon your censure and due admonition in any thing you shall find amisse In the mean while truely this is a comfort to me
that though some whose principles seem strictest may suspect that mine may favour wickednesse or not promote the reformation of the people I am most fully perswaded that there is no other lawful or possible way of a sound reformation of shaming sinne and encouraging holinesse but that which leads from these principles which I defend I should humbly beseech some abler pen to make trial if there be any doubt at all of it whether keeping to this maine principle the truth of our Churches he can possibly go in any other course or further in the same course towards their ends then I have done the truth is I rather feare the exceptions of those who judge me too strict then of those that censure me too large Onely one thing more I most earnestly begge not for my own but for Sions sake I earnestly begge though we cannot be in ever thing of one minde yet let us have but one heart and walk together in one way untill we must needs part resting upon the promise Phil. 3. 15. But O my dear brethren wherein so ver we must differ what urging crying reason is there that we should unite as one man to maintain our Churches in England that great dipositum put into our hands by our ancestors our very Birth-right and the greatest inheritance we can possibly leave our posterity after us what heed is requisite to keep out all disputes as well as principles that may but seeme to question them how are they struck at on every side how undermined how doth division and Heresie daily moulder them what a deluge of Popery is ready to overwhelme them The Sects which daily encrease and spread upon us as a Learned man from beyond the Seas complaines Notum est quot Sectae in Europa a reformatione surrexerint in dies surgunt suis commentis pernitiosae sua variotate notabiles immo nec non alicubi suis ausibus formidabiles Hot. tol Christ p. 119. Impossibile est ut vel per seculum serventur c. p. 118 How pernitious are they in their Heresies how notable in their variety and how formidable in their attempts The same Authour observes that after the manner of mans judging It is impossible that the Protestant Churches should be preserved one age longer against so great and so united a force against such depths of device and policy of the Sea of Rome unlesse they grow wiser and at length think more seriously of uniting among themselves and who knows but that this force may fall and the plot take first on England yea what fear should strike us what trembling should take hold upon us to think how we even we in the Ministry to whom the care of the Church is committed stand guilty of provoking our God to give us up to the cruelty of such as have rent themselves from us for our causing affecting indulging or suffering parties for our own undiscerned sehismatical inclinations or else to remove his Candlesticks from us who have had so little care of his Church or to resigne us in wrath to the lust and tyranny of bloody Popery who have almost lost our Protestantisme for a Reformation As my dear Brethren should our neglect of charity unity purity should our vanity oscitancy or any other kinde of folly indeed prevaile with God to let in a deluge of Popery upon England and by England upon all the Reformation should I say which the God of truth for ever avert the ruines of all Protestantism lie on us how sad would the weight yea how dreadful may the thought thereof be Quantum quaeso scandalum vae autem illi per quem evenit per quem stat ut non tollatur The Lord humble us the Lord awaken us shew us our danger strike us together that as one man of one head one heart one hand we may at length think of saving our selves our Gospel our Churches from that immanent danger which though every one speak of yet how few feel or lay to heart anaeternum as the Authour above admires adeousque incauti per manebimus ut videre nec quidem sentire possimus illos prorsus irreconciliabiles adversarios ex aequo partis ruinam per-utriusque schissuram a se invicem Meditari But I fear least some may be apt to censure this my undertaking as likely to make more breaches and divisions amongst us but the Lord knows how I have laboured to avoid any such thing and that had I not thought that the way wherein I stand was a middle way wherin I might easily shake hands with my brethren on both sides and labour to draw them neerer together I had never been so publick upon this subject this censure may haply be cast unjustly upon me by those that do not read me it cannot be justly by such as do Yea my Reverend Brethren let me conclude with this free and bold assertion that one of the greatest motives inducing me at first to study and now to publish this discourse was some good hopes that if this point of the visible Church and its membership was but once laid in its just latitude it might through mercy prove a happy means of bring us to see many of our errours and causelesse differences in the circumference while we are agreed and meet in the center and to draw more direct and closer lines therefrom hereafter the hearty earnest humble desire begging and prayer of Dearest Brethren Your unworthy brother and co-worker in the service of Christ and his Gospel FRANCIS FULWOOD AN ALPHABETICAL Table A TWenty Absurdities following this position that saving grace is of the essence of the visible Caurch p. 165. to p. 171. That which partaketh of the accidental fâ—rme of a thing must needs partake also of the substantial forme of that thing proved 68. and 112 113 114 Beleeving is Virtual or Actual 29 Some do not actually beleeve others renounce the faith 29 30 31 Persons may be passively bound when they do not actively binde themselves 97. The largest acceptation not always the lesse proper 111 The difference betwixt the infant state and the adult 134. to 142 Adult persons become Christians how 177 to 181 Admonition distinguished and pressed pag-285 286. a Church censure ibid. A discourse of the terms Equivocum Univocum Axalogum as applicable to the Church 21 22 23. the eager dispute about it is unworthy Divines 22. Logicians differ about the application of them 22. The desire of the Reverend brethren is that we lay aside these distinctions and solely adhere to the terme in the question viz. truely a Church of Christ 21 Titles equivalent to Church-member given by God himself in Scripture to wicked men 126. to 134 The Church is totum aggregativum discussed the nature of aggregatives 7 8. Rational aggregative bodies differ from inanimate heaps 114. yet the forme of such lieth in aggregation 115 The Anabaptists objection against our Churches Answered p. 207 298 Apostasie unchurcheth men as
notwithstanding ignorance or wickednesse of heart and life doth proceed into and continue men members of the visible Church even in the adult estate 135 136 c. I Idolatry how consistent with a true Church 202 Jewes Abrahams seed and yet the Devils children 1. How 142 143 144 The Jewe outwardly what 144 145 Individuum and integrum the Church is both 4 5 1 John 2. 19. Examined 148 to 151 The ignorant how to be discovered 364 No one means absolutely necessary 36 Ignorance not inconsistent with Church-membership proved 184 185. Objections answered 185 c. Infants what constitutes their Church-membership 173 Infants borne members not de jure onely but de facto and sealed such by baptisme 175 Infants perfectly members though not perfect members proved p. 175 176 Infants may be known to be members 182 Infants right in the Church seated in themselves and not in their parents explained and proved p. 185 186 187 K Knowledge not necessary to membership 184 185 186 Knowledge dark and generall is sufficient for such consent as is necessary to keep adult persons in Covenant 188 189 L The largest acceptation not alwayes the lesse proper 111 M Matter of the visible Church both in its parts and subject may be considered without respect to saving grace 60 c. Meanes necessary to the attaining the end is allowed by the text which commands the end 277 No one Meanes of discovering the ignorant absolutely necessary 278 The matter of the visible Church as Professors of the faith not properly the grace but the doctrine 61 The Church is denominated visible and invisible from its Members p. 5 6 The Moral Law is to be applied to Gospel worship by two Rules 230 231. N Niddui whether persons under it might come into to the Temple or Synagogue 195 The one onely true Note of the true Church is the truth of the Word to which truth of Sacraments is inseparably annezed 76 O Outward calling hath inward effects the reason why said to be outward 85 The Jew outwardly what 144 The onely considerable Objection artificially framed against my maine conclusion largely answered 105 c. Objections against particular arguments See the Arguments Objections from Scripture are subjoyned to Scripture Arguments So are Objections from humane Testimony P A Particular Church without any savingly beleeving in it is at least ens reale potentia and for ought we know actum 26 27 Excommunicate persons members more then potentia 192 Ecclesiastical power wherein it consists 't is separable from a true Church 77 Power of the Church to deny the Sament to the ignorant not founded on reason prudence mutual confederation or on Matth. 7. 6. or 1 Cor. 5. but in our ministerial authority given us for edification largely proved 272 to 277 The great prohibition of unworthy receivers is 1 Corinth 11. 28. p. 237 to 240. Preaching how farre necessary to the first constitution of true Churches 208 to 212 Ecclesia presumptiva shut out of the Controversie 21 Preparations to duties are either meerly such as preparations to prayer c. or also conditions without which the duty is not to be done such is self-examination before the Sacrament 233 Preparations are necessary to hearing ad bene esse i. e. utiliter esse to the Sacrament ad bene esse i. e. honeste vel legaliter esse largely explained 334 Profession is properly of fides quae not qua proved 61 62 Profession of the true faith the chiefest note of a true Church 74. This is personal and so a note of a true member or ecclesiastical and so a note of the Church 75 What Ames by profession as a note 75 76 Profession of faith as a note of the true Church is not to be distinguish'd from the Word and Sacraments 76 Whether the visible or the invisible Church be most properly a Church largely debated p. 13. to 19. this is not a question properly betwixt us and the Papist but amongst our selves 111 The Protestant judgement is that saving grace is not of essence of the visible Church or visible Church-membership p. 153 to 157. further proved to be so by seven Arguments 158 to 165 Q Argument from the quality of the Church 80 81 82 The Question analised and and stated chap. 1 c. R Whether if none are to receive but the worthy the Sacrament essentially depend upon worthinesse Reasons for the negative 231 232 233 All kinde of right will not infer present possession several distinctions of right 251 252 253. the distinction of right into its first and second act grounded on the Laws of Reason Nations Scripture Churches 254 255 The Church of Rome and the reformed Churches differ rather about the truth of the invisible Church then about the nature of the visible Church 118 119 The reformed Divines true meaning of the onely true Church largely examined 105 to 120 The respect we owe to saving grace in the consideration of the visible Church 30 c. The reformed Divines give definitions specifically differing to the Church as strictly and as largely taken yet held but one Church 117 118 119 140 Schisme from Rome destroyed not our Churches 206 S Saving grace what respect we owe to it in the consideration of the visible Church 33 c. 't is not of the essence but of the excellency of the visible Church 36 Sardis acknowledged to be a Church though said to be dead 146 There are in the Church such as Seeme and are not Are and seem not Are and seem and are not seen Are seem and are seen also 31 The same persons in divers respects seem to be what they are and what they are not 32 Schism cutteth off from the Church and when 200 201 Schism from Rome hath not destroyed our Churches 206 The Supper is immediately forbidden to some Church-members therefore but mediately required of all proved by many arguments 219 c. Objections hereunto answered 225 c. The grounds of denying the Supper to some Church members largely examined 259 to 271 Self-examination is the great condition of a private persons coming to the Supper 237 c. Who may be suspected of ignorance 278 279 None but the suspected may be tried 277 Suspension for scandal 't is excommunication in part 287 288 289 Awicked man not excused from though not permitted to receive the Supper If he receive not he sins twice if he do receive he sins thrice 226 T Temporary faith is that faith whereby we profess the true Religion nor savingly 62. 't is true faith through not saving 84 85 Titles equivalent to Church-member given by God in Scripture to wicked men in number twenty three 126 to 134 Truth as applicable to the Church is genere entis vel genere moris 19. the usual distinction of a true Church and truly a Church questiond 20. the Chur. is true respectu naturali vel entitatis moralis i. e. vel status vel finis 107 vel simpliciter vel secundum
parts of it as similar and dissimilar as before was hinted for the Church as Junius is but one in number and two in manner because of the disposition of the members thereof For the whole professing is the visible Church and a part of this Paraeus whole also savingly beleeving is called the Church invisible the whole is visible as men called a part of these are invisible as men elect and regenerate Whence that common but most useful distinction ecclesia vocatorum and electorum Therefore saith Pareus between the visible and invisible Church there is even the same difference as is between the whole and the part for inuisible lieth hid in the visible which appeareth from that of Paul whom he hath chosen them he hath also called Exp. Urs cat p. 283 284. Polanus confirms it with his authority and reason too the invisible Polanus Church saith he lieth hid in the visible ut pars in toto as a part in the whole If we consider both as the company of the called by external vocation which is common both to the invisible and visible Church Synt. c. 9. l. 7. Osiander hath the same words also in coetu visibili ecclesia latet Osciander invisibili Encherid contra p. 126. which indeed is no other then that which in other words is asserted by even all our reformed Divines in their most common and known distinction of the Church as strictè and latè strictly and largely considered who intend generally by the Church strictly taken the Church invisible or the elect or elect regenerate and by the Church largely taken the Church visible or of the called comprehending good and bad the elect and reprobate as they do still explain themselves giving very differing definitions of them as will more fully appear anone Yea one greater then all these our Saviour teacheth that the wheat the corne the good fish and the elect are but part of the Church or the Kingdome of God which hath tares chaff bad fish and such as are not elected in it Whence Paraeus hath well collected ecclesia electorum in coetu vocatorum est SECT VI. Exceptions against this distinction of the Church Having shewed the ground of the distinction of the Church into visible and invisible and how I conceive it should be understood I shall now crave leave to shew my exceptions against it 1. My first exception will shrowd it self under those words of Field of the Church p. 14. Doctor Field We say saith he there is a visible and an invisible Church not meaning to make two distinct Churches though the forme of words may serve to insinuate some such thing Certainly that forme of words is not very commendable that may serve to insinuate that which we mean not by them if we change the instance haply this may be more notorious if one should say there is a heap of precious stones and an heap of common stones would not the hearer of these words rather imagine that there are two heaps one of precious stones and another of common stones then that there is but one heap of stones in all of which some are common and some precious and in the present case who would understand Bullinger other if he were not prepossessed with a better meaning then his words should insinuate his words are non sine causa gravi dixerunt alii ecclesiam Dei aliam quidem esse visibilem Bul. Decad. p. 355. aliam vero insibilem who can well make aliam and aliam ecclesiam to be but one Church 2. I am afraid also that the ill uncertain sound of this distinction in the ears of the world hath been a means of troubling us with those many intricacies wherewith the doctrine about the Church is still cumber'd we finde this distinction not of so frequent use either in Scripture or in the Church before the reformation from Rome and then how quiet was the Church about this point all concluding that there is but one Church how natural is it from this distinction of a Church invisible and visible for the Papist to reject the invisible to maintain his visible and for the Brownist to maintain his invisible by rejecting the visible while if we look on the Church as one entire totum or the Church of the called wherein the elect as part are contained without any more distinction we might enjoy with lesse controversie 3. 'T is indeed a difference without distinction 't is no true distribution for whereas as Master Hudson hath well observed all distributions should have their parts distinct and different and the more opposite the members are the better the distribution is it is nothing at all so here for either the one part viz. the visible comprehends the other viz. the invisible and thus the one part becomes the whole as indeed it is or else this one part viz. the visible being distinguished from the invisible as of necessity it must be in this dâ—stribution hath no being at all and so the distribution hath lost a member and consequently it selfe for nothing can be distributed into one part SECT VII Three other lawful senses of this distribution of the Church yeelded to But least I be thought to reflect too much upon this distinction of the Church I cannot let passe three other ancient uses of it which I cheerfully allow 1. By the visible Church hath been sometimes meant the Church united in outward and actual communion together and by the invisible such as though gracious yet were not in actual fellowship with any particular Church Thus the Papists urging that none could be members of the Church but such as were in fellowship with the Church of Rome our Divines answer them that we must distinguish some say they are in actual communion with the Church these are members of the visible and some though not in fellowship outwardly with the Church yet if gracious they are members of the invisible Church among whom they usually ranked the Catechumeni and the Excommunicati if truly gracious accordingly Trelcatius saith Inst theol p. 231. Catechumini sâ—cundum externam ecclesiae formám ad quam quia non pertinent propriè de ecclesia non esse censentur licet ecclesiae in visibilis sunt 2. Again by the visible Church hath been usually meant as before the Church as professing by the invisible as sincerely or Vid. par in Ursin cat p. 475. pet du Moul. Buck. p. 264. Exp. of Eng. Art 39. p. 67. savingly beleeving or regenerate We may know who professe they therefore are visible We cannot know who are regenerate therefore they are invisible as Jewel God hath always a Church invisible i. e. known onely to himself God knew them but Elias knew them not to the judgement of men they were invisible Defen p. 361. Lastly the Church is frequently said to be visible when its profession is prosperous pompous and glorious in the eyes of the world invisible
so but though the Church may be sometimes obscured it never loseth its visibility or ceaseth to be visible So Ames ecclesia nunquam planè desinit esse visibilis Med. p. 166. 39 quamvis enim aliquando viz usquam appareat ecclesia tam pura c. ecclesia tamen aliquo modo visibilis exist it in illa ipsa impuritate cultus professionis which we may take in English in those pertinent words of Master Fox the right His protestation before his Acts and Monuments Church saith he is not so invisible in the world as none can see it The Scripture-Church is most properly the Church of Christ this none can well deny But now the visible Church is the Scripture-Church as appeares from the Doctrine of Scripture about the Church the examples the parts the Ordinances and number of Scripture-Churches First the Doctrine of the Scripture about the Church is generally such as agreeth onely with the Church-visible viz. as made up of tares and wheat good and bad Elect and reprobate c. Yea the very word Church in Scripture as some affirme is not more then once taken for the Church-invisible which is Heb. 12. 23. though that very place is by some Reverend Divines understood of the Church-visible also for it was already come into by persons then alive ye are come therefore the Church on earth and it was a Church that had Ordinances in it v. 25. therefore the visible But if it should be granted as Master Blake observes that in this place and in two or three more the Scripture meaneth the Church invisible which is as much as can be pretended unto yet doubtlesse that which is the ordinary language of the holy Ghost which he useth most often and almost always is that which is most proper 2. It also appears from the examples of Scripture-Churches De quâ solâ ecclefiâ praesumptivâ c. Dav. Detern p. 218. ex spalatensi for have not even all these a mixture of corrupt and wicked members and is such a mixture compatible with the Church invisible or what Churches can such be but visible therefore saith Davenant all such Scriptures and assertions of the fathers as speak of this mixture of good and bad in the Church are to be understood of the presumptive or visible Church 3. It further appeares by the parts of the Scripture-Church which are generally such as are onely to be found in the visile Church that the Scripture-Church is the visible Church The parts of the Scripture-Church are generally Priest and people Pastors and flock the Rulers and the ruled the Catechisers and the catechized and the like as both the Old and New Testament abundantly testifie Now in the Church invisible there are no such parts no such relations no such officers but all are members but Christ the head therefore the Scripture-Church wherein these parts and officers as such are viz. Priests Prophets Apostles Bishops Pastors Elders Deacons Rulers Cetechizers c. must needs be the visible Church Fourthly that the Scripture-churche is the visible Church appears moreover by the dispensation of Ordinances fixed therein which is proper and peculiar to the visible Church in all the Scripture-Churches we finde a dispensation of the Word Sacraments discipline the dispensation whereof is in the hands of men who are onely capable of dealing with the Church as visible yea the dispensation it self is visible and all will readily grant that these Ordinances are all of them peculiar to the visible Church the attendance of the Church upon them being the most eminent and remarkable meanes of rendring the Church her self to be visible Lastly this yet farther appears from the number of the Scripture-churches they are many the Church at Rome Corinth Galatia Ephesus Colosse Philippi Thessalonica Pergamus Thyatira c. Whereas the invisible Church is also indivisible 't is but one and not to be divided into any more therefore the Scripture-church which is thus actually divided must needs be the visible Church Arg. 5. My last Argument is taken from the Name Church and may be this The visible Church in its nature doth not properly answer to the name Church therefore it is most properly the Church for that thing which doth in its nature most properly answer to such a name must needs be the thing most properly which that name doth signifie Now the nature of the visible Church may be observed to answer to the name Church in a most proper signification both in English Latine Greek and Hebrew 1. In English the word Church doth in a true and direct propriety of speech signifie nothing but that which is the Lords and may be conceived to imply the Lords people or the Lords house Die Kyrchen nuxcupant ipsum Dei populum Domum in quo hic congregatur ad cultum Dei Vid. Bul. Dec. p. 135. it seemes to be taken from the German word Kurch which also alludeth haply to the Greek word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 dominica which as Bullinger observes they used to understand both of the people and the house of the Lord where the people of the Lord used to assemble and indeed of both as they have relation one to the other Now if the name Church intend the people of the Lord meeting together in one place to attend on the worship of God we need not much trouble our selves for its proper application to the visible Church 2. In Lattine the Church is called Congregatio the Congregation or the people gathered together answering haply to the Hebrew which may also be here taken notice of Katial 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Congregavit Now doth not this name also most properly agree with the nature and reason of the visible Church is it not a local gathering together that most properly constitutes a Congregation and is not this most proper to the particular and consequently to the visisible Church therefore is she also called an Assembly a body a City a Kingdom none of which but most properly resemble the Church as visible 3. Lastly the Church in Greek is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which most directly imports a people called out of the world as anon more largely Indeed the term from or out of which the Church is called is not expressed in the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 yet all agree that it is as necessarily implied in it Now this sense of the word Church most properly and exactly intendeth the Church-visible this being most apparently and properly called out of the world as easily appeareth For the world here must be understood to be either the world of the ungodly or the world of infidels but it cannot be understood of the world of the ungodly because there is still a mixture of the Church and the world in this sense according to that of our Saviour I pray not that thou shouldst take them out of the world then if the world out of which the Church is called be
and the called are of equal latitude But the called may be considered to be truely so without respect to saving grace therefore the Church c. That the Church and the called are of equal latitude is not only confirmed by the Etymology of the Church but is the evident consent of all Divines wherefore Amesius tells us that the first thing which constitutes the Church actually is calling and that the Church hath not onely its Name but its definition from calling who also desineth the Church to be a company of men called Yea so strict is Amesius in this point that he concludeth the very Elect are not of the Church either visible or invisible but as they are called and by consequence that the Church is made up of the called as distinguished not onely to those that are not called in general but particularly to the Elect. Trelcatius expresly saith that external calling is the very forme Forma ecclesiam visibilem constituens est vocatio illa externa quam mediatè Deus efficit Inst Theol p. 223. that constitutes the visible Church The assumption viz. that the called may be considered to be truely so without respect to saving grace appears 1. In the evidence of our Saviours known words many are called and few chosen 2. Of the very nature of a true call 1. Those whom Christ affirmeth to be called are truely called let Christ be true but Christ affirmeth some to be called that They are called foro Christi not onely foro ecclesiae have no saving grace for he saith that many are called and but few chosen therefore more are called then are chosen then some are called that are not chosen then some are called that neither now have nor yet ever shall have any saving grace unless the reprobates may Therefore some are truely called that have no saving grace and if so doubtlesse none will stick to grant but that they may be considered to be truely so without respect to saving grace 2. This appears from the nature of a true call which doth truely consist without saving grace as is easily manifest by a due distribution thereof Calling is Active or direct Passive or reflex and this Partialis Totalis Common Saving The direct or active calling is such a calling as is not answered by the persons called upon whereby though indeed they are called upon they are not in the Scripture sense called this hardly any can think doth render the persons called upon truely a Church thus Paul called the Athenians but yet left them as he found them not a Church of Christ but of Satan viz. Idolaters this call seeing it obtaineth no part of its end at all I presume to terme vocatio mefficax or as Master Baxter hath well Englished The calling which is common to Pagans is vocation uneffectual The reflex or passive calling is such as terminates effectually in the persons called upon which is when persons both hear and answer the word calling suffering themselves to be called and brought unto God thereby this in general I presume to terme effectual calling as it stands in opposition to the former call which is not at all effectual and also as this sheweth it self most exactly and prâ—fitably effectual for its most direct and prâ—per end a calling and gathering a people to God Indeed this which I terme effectual calling is twofold it being effectual either onely in common or also in saving effects The first to wit that calling which onely reacheth unto common effects is that by which persons are called out of the world to renounce all false Gods and to professe the true God according to the true Religion and thus to become truely members of the visible Church and of the number of the many called in the Text and therefore I humbly desire that two things may be here noted 1. That though some please to terme this kinde of call partialis it must onely be understood with respeact to that other saving work which belongs to the next branch of the distribution and not at all with respect to the work specified or the calling to be truely members of the visible Church which doubtlesse is perfectly and totally done by the true and genuine efficacy of this which we terme a common call Secondly let it be further noted therefore that when we say this common call is effectual to common effects we mean onely such effects as are common to the Elect and Reprobate but not common to the Church and the world but special and peculiar to the Church alone wherein more are called then are elected The second sort of effectual calling to wit that which worketh saving effects is indeed though not more truely effectually yet more gradually and further if not specifically more effectual then the former for it bringeth men not an ecclesiastical but also to a mystical and saving union with Jesus Christ and by that which is opposed to the common faith which is said to be wrought by the former common call and is usually called justifying or saving faith which is called by those which terme the call partialis vocatio totalis and is as I conceive plainly implied in the chosen in the text fore-cited few are chosen i. e. few are called as Amesius expresseth it according to election The distribution being thus laid two things are briefly to be done in order to a fit application thereof and then I have ended this first Argument 1. To Apologize for this which to some may seeme a new sense of the common distinction of calling into effectual and ineffectual 2. To evince this common call to be truely a call For the first of these the distribution forelaid seeming so rational to my self and so adequate to the meaning if not to the very termes of most Divines I hope little need be said yet 1. I must confesse it is somewhat rare for Divines to terme the common calling effectual calling yet I presume it is as seldome termed ineffectual Trelcatius gives the term efficax onely unto the saving call yet he doth not term the common call opposed by himself in the very same place unto the saving and as he stileth it effectual call in efficax 2. Yea though Trelcatius doth not terme this common call efficax he doth evidently imply that it may be lawfully termed so he tells us that externa vocatio is that quam mediatè Deus efficit Now if this common or external call be that which doth efficere it may doubtlesse be properly said to be effectual yea more Instit p. 114. plainly in another place he teacheth that efficacitas vocationis est duplex una salutaris electorum propria Altera non salutaris sed praevia secundum ordinem communem ad vocatos communiter spectans so that there is an efficacy in the common call which is not saving and therefore this common call is efficax 3. However a Learned Authour of our own viz. Reverend Master Baxter hath authorized
Scholastical Divine Reverend Master Norton of New England These things thus premised the Argument hence is this As the visible Church may be considered to be called out of the world so it may be considered to be a Church of Christ. What hath beene said hath put this out of doubt But the visible Church may be considered to be truely called out of the world without any respect to saving grace Therefore the visible Church may be considered to be truely a Church of Christ without respect to saving grace The minor here which is all that is left questionable is easily evident if we distinguish of the world as we are wont to distinguish of the Church viz. to be visible and invisible the visible world is the world of infidels and such as openly detest the true Messias the invisible world is the world of ungodly which being as tares amidst the what of the godly cannot be discerned by men The first is opposed to the visible Church the latter to the invisible out of the visible world the visible Church is called and out of the invisible world the invisible Church or the Church of the saved is called Againe the visible Church is as truely called out of the visible world of Pagans and Infidels and such as live without the pale of the Church as the Church of the saved is called out of the world of the vngodly doth not the eye of the whole world see this and bear witnesse to it viz. that the visible Church is by the calling of God in this sense effectually in that it is really separated Vocatio communis ab infide litate ad fidem evocat Trel ut supra from and stands in distinction and opposition unto the whole world of Infidels Pagans Turks and Jews and all other societies and parties of men in the world as the called of God his lot and portion and peculiar people all which and a great deale more Master Baxter as well as many others is pleased to acknowledge that the Scriptures attribute to the visible Church CHAP. VI. Arg. From the visible Church in its causes and first as it is of God HItherto of the quid nominis proceed we now to the quid Rei and to seek for that thing and nature and truth of being in the Church which the name we have found doth import I shall put my self and reader into the way of this search by an offer of this general Argument taken from the causes of the visible Church As we may consider the causes of any thing so we may consider the thing it self But we may consider the causes of this Church to be real causes without respect to saving grace Therefore the Church to be truely a Church without respect to saving grace I think the major will not be question'd by any seeing whatsoever any thing is in it self it is the same first in its causes Quicquid est in effectu prae existit in causis Causatum quod ex causa suum esse habet yea the very definition of the effect is that it is but the result or that which hath its very selfe of the cause and depends by its cause and therefore it is called effectum or a thing done or standing as it is by it cause and causalum that is a thing caused that is such a thing as is Causalitas sive causatio est influxus ille seu concursus quo unaquaequc causa in suo genere actu influit in effectum Suarâ—z no more a thing then what it hath from its cause or as it is caused and causality or causation which is but the formal reason of the cause is nothing else but that Influx or concurrence whereby every cause in its own kinde doth actually flow into the effect The minor onely then resteth upon proof viz. That the visible Church may be considered to have its true and real causes without respect to saving grace which I shall labour to maintaine by a particular induction and examination of the several causes of the visible Church in order the efficient the end the matter and form thereof Here now are two things to be joyntly enquired after First what these causes are Secondly whether they may be considered to be real causes of the visible Church without respect to saving grace Let us first then begin to consider the efficient cause of the visible Church thus namely what it is and what kinde of effects it worketh without respect to saving grace 1. The efficient cause of the visible Church is Principal Instrumental The principal efficient of the visible Church is secundum Efficient Constitutionem Ordinationem The principal efficient in the constitution of the Church is God Rom. 2. 29. in the administration or ordination of it is Christ thus God Rom. 12. 5 1 Cor. 3. 11 Col. 1. 18. is properly the authour and Christ is properly the head of the Church The instrumental cause of the Church especially in its constitution Acts 2. 41 2 Pet. 2 23 1 Tim. 2. 15 is the preaching of the word for how can they beleeve in him of whom they have not heard and how can they hear without a preacher this distribution needeth no proof seeing it is generally allowed 2. Let us now come to our task and examine whether these efficient causes may not be considered to have a real influence into the visible Church which yet doth not include saving grace As for the instrument the preaching of the word we need not insist particularly thereupon partly because the instrument is but subordinate to its principal efficient in the same operation and therefore if the work of principal efficient be real so is doubtlesse the same work relating to the instrument of it and partly because the influence of this instrumental cause the preaching of the word into the constitution of the visible Church is reserved to be largely handled in answer to a great objection against cur Churches in England at the latter end of this discourse Therefore we have but two things here before us whether God may be considered to be truely the Authour or Christ to be truely the head of the visible Church without respect to saving grace and of these in order I shall humbly signifie my opinion by forming the same into Arguments The Argument from God as the Authour of the visible Church If God in the constitution of the visible Church by the preaching of the Word may be considered really to effect the same without the bestowing of saving grace then he may without doubt be considered to be the real Authour of the visible Church without respect to saving grace But now God in the constitution of the Church by the preaching of the word may be considered really to effect the same without the bestowing of saving grace Here is nothing to be interposed but these foure things Mr. Perk. speaking of temporal beleevers saith 1. They have knowledg 2. they
other metaphors given him in Scripture to stand in relation to the visible Church without respect to saving grace therefore also under this of a Head The consequence cannot be denied seeing he is still but the same thing the same mediatour and represented under the same offices by all those various metaphors which the Scripture giveth him and therefore there is the same reason for one and all and an equal extent in the meaning and application of them all Now that Christ is considered under all those many other Metaphors given him in Scripture to stand in relation to the visible Church without respect to saving grace appears by induction 1. As he is a King he hath subjects bad and good some to be blessed but some to be cursed at the great day yet both children of the Kingdom 2. As he is a Master he hath some faithful and some slothful yet both his servants 3. An Husbandman that hath tares as well as corne and both in his field chaffe as well a wheat and both in the barne 4. A Fisher that hath fish that is bad as well as good yet both in the net 5. A Vine that hath some branches that bring forth much fruit and yet others that bring forth no fruit and yet both in him John 15. 2 6. A Father that hath rebellicus as well as dutiful children yet both children Isa 1. 2. 7. A House-keeper that hath vessels some to honour some to dishonour yet both vessels and within the house 8. A bride-groom that hath Vrgins to attend him some with oyle in their Lamps and some with none yet both Virgins therefore why not such a head as hath some members sound and others rotten and yet both related that is mystically united to him There are two special objections against this relation of wicked men to Christ which I hold my self bound to labour to salve before I passe on Object 1. The first is taken from the metaphorical termes of body and head and may be formed thus That member which hath not life in it self though it be yet united to the body is not truely a member of that body unde equivocè agunt membra tribui cadaveribus as Shibler saith But wicked men have no life in themselves therefore they are not truely but onely aequivocally members of the body of Christ Answ 1. To the proposition which hath first its proper and secondly its metaphorical sense I allow it in its proper but I deny it in its metaphorical sense or in this rigid application In omni parabola Hoc tenendum est ut utamur parabolis tanquam picta tabella Itaque reprehendenda est illa anxiet as sollicitudoeorum qui in parabolis Christi omnia student resccare ad vivum quod est non interpretari sed vexant Camero praelect in Mat. 18. 8. of it It is a general complaint by those that see how much it is abused That men are apt to receive apprehensions about the mystical union betwixt Christ and his members from the natural union betwixt the natural head and body Certainly a metaphor may be press'd to death so farre as the Scriptures apply this metaphor of head and members to Christ and his Church we may safely venture but further though it may be true it will not bear an argument That I have good ground thus to except against the proposition I leave in one word to the determination of all but Anabaptists for if this be a true proposition that none can be truely a member of the body of Christ that hath not spiritual life in himself then of necessity it followeth that the children of the holiest parents in the world are not to be accounted truely members of the body of Christ from their parents holinesse seeing that is the life that is in the parent and is not inhering in the childe but onely relative to it the childe hath not this life in its self but in another and therefore according to this proposition 't is not a true but onely an aequivocal member of Christ if we but once grant in the sense intended that it is an essential requisite to every member ut vitam habeat in se that it Infantes nati in ecclesia sunt etiam de ecclesia contra anabaplistas Ursin have life in it self and yet we know that it is the general opinion that châ—ldren born in the Church are also of the Church against the Anabaptists Answ 2. But we may let the Metaphor hold if we distinguish of life in the minor which may with favour of my reader be conceived to be such as is a necessary requisite to visible Church-membership or such as is a necessary requisite to saving or if you had rather invisible Church-membership if you please you may call the first an ecclesiastical or political life the last a saving or a spiritual life If the objection meaning in the minor the first of these then I deny it viz. that wicked men have no life in themselves for it is very evident that wicked men have so much life in themselves if any be requisite as is essential to visible Church membership I confesse life is somewhat unusually attributed to wicked men and to ascribe it to them as such is a contradiction seeing quatenus wicked they are dead yet seeing they are to be considered in a double respect 1. As wicked men in nature 2. As holy men in state and condition wicked men inherently holy men adherently wicked men habitually holy men relatively holy by Covenant by separation dedication obligation and profession though they be dead indeed in the first sense why may not they be truely said to be alive in the second if holinesse and life be equivolent here as must needs be granted and this holinesse of separation to God by Covenant and Baptisme and continued profession be a real thing as Camero saith and I think hitherto hath hardly been denied in terminis Such are doubtlesse Christians and not so far alienated from the life of God as the Gentiles or Heathens are they are not now Ephes 4. 18. without Christ or aliens to the Common-wealth of Israel or strangers to the Covenants of promise having no hope or without God Ephes â— 12. in the world which is the Scripture-description of such as are in a Gentile condition viz. out of the verge and pale of the visible Church Yea I have one and he an authour not to be contemned considering what paines he took in the controversie that saith expressely that wicked men are not onely members of the Church in the general but as the Church is the body of Christ and that they have the life of true members in them his words are these Such may be and and are of the visible Church who onely outwardly submit themselves to the true worship of God though they be not true worshippers this profession of the true religion and submission I speak of is all in
great meanes of the former viz. his glory as Szegedine exactly teacheth the end of the Church is the true Finalis causa ecclesiae est verus Dei cultus ordinata enim est ecclesia ad verum Dei cultum ad glorificandum Deum Szeged p. 2â—6 Theol. Instit p. 215. Quae causa finalis ecclesiae verus Dei cultus Bucan de eccl lo. 441. p. 477. worship of God for the Church is ordained for the true worship of God that he might be glorified which Trelcatius hath handsomely couched together saying that the visible Church is instituted ad cultum gloria Dei for the worship of the glory of God now as that which is suborainate hereunto the visible Church is made the seat and subject of all visible administrations whereby also the wicked in the Church may be left without excuse the Elect converted the converted edified the visible Kingdom of the Devil vanquished Christs visible Kingdom advanced and the Nations of the earth openly gained to a visible subjection thereunto in due season Secondly these are the real uses and proper ends of the visible Church For 1. The visible Church as such hath a neer aptnesse and kindlinesse Medium est aptum utile fini in it and is per se and sua natura useful hereunto viz. for the keeping and upholding the glory and worship of God in the world as none will deny seeing God is herein truely owned visibly professed submitted unto obeyed and worshipped according to his will and that with such a smooth and easie tendency as naturally Quod sua natura utile est ad aliquid efficiendum propter illud esse videtur â—ows from the visible Church as such Now it is a maxime that that which is apt of it selfe and according to its own free nature for the effecting of any thing seemeth to have its being for that very thing and by consequence that thing is truely and properly the end thereof 2. The visible Church as such is necessary for the obtaining of these ends without it what glory would redound to God in the world or what worship where else would visible Ordinances be fixt and dispens'd how would the visible Kingdome of Christ be advanc'd the visible Kingdome of Satan subverted How would hypocrites in the Church be inexcusably judged or the Elect be ordinarily saved if there were no visible Church Quod alio quo piam indiget vt acquiratur hujus finis est Sinâ— quo quicquam existere non potest in naturâ id est illi necessarium atque propter illud factum Now the Rule is that that which wants another thing for its own attaining is the end of that other thing but these particulars want the visible Church for their obtaining therefore they are the ends thereof which is evidently grounded by Scaliger upon that necessity that there is of the means in order to the end which is the thing I am urging for saith he that thing is necessary for another when that other cannot exist in nature without it and therefore this was made for that other and consequently that other thing for which this was made is the end thereof Here is a double necessity of the visible Church for the ends specified Necessitas â— Of the means i. e. without which these ends cannot 1. Medii be attained this hath been now spoken to 2. Of the ends i. e. where this means of the visible Church is there these in some true 2. Finis measure do of necessity follow which might serve us another evidence that the ends before are true and proper ends of the visible Church for quo existente necessario prâ—ducitur aliquod bonum hoc est aut videtur esse illius finis 3. God himself hat ordained the visible Church for the ends specified Praecepti vel institutionis therefore 't is yet further necessary for them viz. with a necessity of divine ordination and institution and then there is no ground of doubting left but that they are true and proper ends thereof Hath not God ordained the visible Church to put his name there to be the ground and pillar of his truth that he might have a praise and a name in the Earth and in one word that those that worship him might glorifie his Name Psalme 89. Finis rei est sua operatio Operatio est usus vel actus ad quâ—m ordinatur now if so are not these the ends for which God hath ordained the visible Church the end of a thing is but its operation and operation in this logical sense is but that use or act for which any thing is ordained by God in nature or by God in Scripture the latter of which we are now upon and therefore I shall rather choose to expresse iâ— in the worâ—ds of a Divine lately cited the Church is ordained by God for his true worship that he might Szâ—gid p. 226 be glâ—rified and therefore the end of the Church is the worship of God Thirdly as these are proper ends of the visible Church so the visible Church is truely a means of them and may be so considered without respect unto saving grace for what necessity of saving grace can we imagine to the attaining of the foresaid endâ— the glory of God in his visible worship before the eyes of men much lesse what possible necessity is theâ—e for our having respect unto saving grace when we truely consider thereof doth mens attending upon publick Ordinances essentially depend upon their saving grace or cannot we truely consider thereof but we must suppose the men savingly gracious do not the common effects of the spirit in illuminating conviacing of sinne and of necessity of attending on the means of grace for peace and salvation work men out of conscience to a constant and solemn dependance thereupon and yet none will say that any particular thus expressed doth necessarily suppose a saving work yea the end which is neerest and most generally allowed to the visible Church viz. the worship of the glory of God may doubtlesse be obtained by a great deal lesse viz. by a visible profession of and submission to that way of worship that the Lord hath ordained which doth not of necessity require such a great degree of common grace as before was specified True grace is indeed necessary to work out our own salvation But we are wont to say that gifts which do not necessarily suppose true grace are onely necessary to work on others especially in the way of the worship of God for the advancing of his name and glory thereby to the world 'T is also true that saving grace is necessary to the acceptance of our worship before God I mean to a plenary acceptance for some we read of that found some measure of true acceptance in their serving of the Lord though without saving grace But yet not necessary for the effecting of Gods glory before men that
the Church and Covenant in which and indeed God himself to whom he is borne as to his earthly parent 4. Therefore the children are said to be holy themselves as well as their parents 1 Cor. 7. 14. that is federally and that which is a reason of this foederal holinesse is equally a reason of their foederal faith 5. Indeed nor we nor our children have any right in Abrahams Covenant but as we and they are Abrahams children he is the great root and we and ours branches upon him now none are Abrahams children but beleevers he is the father of the faithful therefore our children being children of Abraham are beleevers as we are 6. Therefore children may be known as Christ himself intimates to believe in his Name i. e. by their being born within the Church Mat. 18. 6 7. or else they could not be received or offended as such as Christ supposeth 7. Lastly none but an Anabaptist will deny our children to be both of the Church and the subject of their own Church-membership and therefore to be sealed such in themselves and not onely in their parent by baptisme and consequently the Camero distinguisheth of real holinesse one sort consists in the bare relation of the person c. as Mr. Blake notes Seals 150 subjects of their own faith seeing baptism is also a seal of the righteousness of faith 2. Neither let any reply that this is not a real because it is a relatiue faith for even therefore it is real real being opposed here to that which is either false or not at all and not unto relative is not a childe a son really because relatively 2. That must needs be real in it self which hath real effects but this relative faith hath real effects hereby we are borne to God and Tametsi relatio est Ens debilis entitatis tamen est magnae efficaciae in the Covenant hereby we have a right to baptisme and all other Ordinances so far as we are capable of them being members of the visible Church and body of Christ and all these really and truely so 3. Now that this foederal faith differs from that which justifieth The Church in dispensing looketh into visibility of interest in the Covenant to guide her nor is the saving interest of the persons her rule c. Cobbet cited by Blake Seals p. 124. and saveth which is necessarily a quality of the person so justified or saved or at least that we need not respect the saving grace of the childe whom upon this foederal and relative consideration we are about to receive and admit to Baptisme I think none but an Anabaptist will stick to question 2. Habitual or qualitative faith may be considered also to be a true faith when not saving both as it is an historical and as it is a temporary faith as Divines distinguish Both which viz. the historical and temporary faith are distinguished from justifying and saving faith generally by most Protestant Assensus ille generalis quem poutisicii fidem statuunt non est fides i. e. justificans quia ipsis fatentibus potest esse sine ulla vita Am. Med. p 8 Virtutis activae quantitas ex quantitatis effectu cognosci debet Trel Inst Theol. p. 114 Divines yea those which hold as the Papists generally do that historical faith doth justifie even they do yet grant that there is an historical faith in some degree and acts thereof that is not saving which is most apparent in the other viz. temporary faith which is doubtlesse a higher degree of faith if there be a difference and evidently includes a dogmatical faith within it for this being but temporary cannot be saving Now that both these are real though not saving appears by the truth of their effects an Historical faith doth generally produce a temporary faith wherein there is still more or lesse of an Applicative faith though never so much as a justifying faith Sometimetimes this temporary faith sheweth it self by a strong application bringing its subject truely to answer though Efficacitas vocationis est interna cum tanguntur intellectus voluntas Tre. Inst 114. Ex modo vocandi non ex effectu vocationis Inst Theol. but in part the call of God which renders him really though but commonly called yet not outwardly but in a very deep measure inwardly called for as Trelcatius hath most accurately noted this common calling is termed external onely with respect to the manner of calling and not with respect to the effect of the call this common call being as truely though not so throughly an inward call as that which is saving for it reacheth the minde and produceth its change truely there by bringing it to see danger and vanitie in the wayes of sinne and to judge the wayes of grace and holinesse better and safer it toucheth and turneth the will also to perfer and choose and accordingly to apply it self to the true Religion it unlocks interrupts and partially awakens the deepest part and secretest closet of the soul the conscience by convincing it of sinne and the wrath and terrours of the Lord accompanying sin by perswading it of a necessity of repentance unto life of beleeving to the saving of the soul of mortification of sinne and of becoming a new creature by letting in the flashes of hell for duties omitted and evils practiced and allowed against light and truth imprisoned this makes a change and disturbance in the passions quencheth love to the world breaketh or at least disorders and shakes the quiet hope joy and delight in sinne c. and on the other side draweth it into a good compliance with better ways makes it to attend on the word gladly to receive it with joy to yeeld some outward conformity to the will of God and even to taste of the powers of the world to come and not onely to deserve the title of beleever but even of one sanctified with the blood of the Covenant and yet all the while but such as is but for a while and therefore not justifying or saving faith as sadly appears Heb. 6. and Heb. 10. Therefore is but deservedly stiled by Matthew and Mark 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 temporary Object I cannot foresee what can possibly interrupt us by way of objection here unlesse it be said that real faith is taken aequivocè and though an historical and temporary faith are real in their kinde yet is not these but a justifying and saving faith which is to be understood in the definition when the Church is defined societ as fidelium Answ But even this was prevented for though Ames doth evidently mean a faith which justifieth or saveth yet it hath appeared the Scripture doth not in the former instances wherein persons that are evidently denied to have this justifying saving faith are yet as evidently allowed to have real faith and that such as interests in visible Church-membership 1. None according to Scripture are denyed to be
members of the Church but infidels but neither temporary beleevers nor foederal as before can ever from the Scripture be proved either to be infidels or savingly beleevers 2. Foederal faith is not justifying or in Wallaeus his word doth not justifie the childe yet this entitles the childe to visible Church membership and by this to wit foederal faith all that are borne in the Church are entitled and stand possessed of the said membership and this is the very state and case of most of the people of God in England and that which answereth our own case might give satisfaction without further enquiry 3. Yet if not a dogmatical faith a faith lesse then justifying or a temporary faith or a common faith which so farre draweth the person beleeving and to own and apply himself by desire of and submission unto Baptisme to the true Religion though it work not so deep as was before explained is sufficient to admit an adult heathen as more largely anon into communion with the Church as easily appears in Simon who had no more in the Eunuch who professed no more and in the stony ground which hereby stood in a due possession of this communion till in the time of temptation it fell away CHAP. XIII Touching Communion in the Ordinances of God and the place it hath in the definition of the Church WE now proceeed to the second great specialty observable in the definitions of the visible Church taken from its chief office and employment viz. communion in the Ordinances and worship of God Here though I do not altogether exclude the qualifications spoken to yet I shall humbly offer whether communion in the worship and Ordinances of God be not fitter to define the visible Church by then the former qualifications thereof Cons 1. Such as lay most weight upon the former qualifications of faith calling and profession in their definitions of the visible Church do yet ever adde more then a touch of this holy exercise and communion of it to the perfecting of their said definitions as will appeare expresly anon Amesius himself adds unto his societas fidelium ad communionem sanctorum constanter inter se Med. p. 168. exercendum Cons 2. These qualifications seeme fitter to define the Church as invisible by seeing they also are invisible indeed Ames defineth the Church to be coetus vocatorum but he evidently intends Vid. Med. cap. 31. 7. p. 162 the mystical or invisible Church it is a most usual thing for Divines to define the mystical by which they intend the Church of the saved after this manner viz by some occult invisible quality of faith love calling or the like whereas the defining of the Church from its outward acts and exercises in the worship of God is without some shew of exactnesse to define the Church as visible from something visible Cons 3. If the visible Church should take its definition rather from the said qualifications then from its communion in Ordinances then would the Church be rather known from the evidence of these qualifications then from its communion in Ordinances for that which flows most immediately from the essence of a thing into our apprehension and knowledge cannot but be reckoned the most essential and therfore the best mark of that thing But the Church on the contrary hath been ever better knowne and distinguished by the Ordinances wherein it communicates then from any personal qualities whatsoever 1. Therefore the truth of the Ordinances and the truth of the faith which is professed hath been ever respected and looked upon as an essential mark and indeed the onely essential mark of the true visible Church while personal qualities have beene ever reckoned among the seperable adjuncts thereof 2. Indeed purity of life and evidences of saving grace I humbly conceive are rather the purity of single members but the purity of Ordinances the purity of the Church as such so that the purer the Ordinances the purer the Church c. contra As even all our Divines do argue upon the Marks of the Church against the Papist and as is most punctually and fully asserted by the Irish confession Artic. 58. But particular and visible Churches of those that make a profession of the faith and live under the outward meanes of salvation be many in number wherein the more or lesse sincerely according to Christs institution the Word of God is taught not practiced and the Sacraments are administred not received and the authority of the keys is used not obeyed the more or lesse pure are such Churches to be accounted Cons 4. The Church is rather and better distinguished from O holy Socrates O holy Plato O devilish Christian O wicked Protestant Woods Serm. p. 49 its opposite viz. the world by its fellowship in Ordinances then by the evidence of inward qualities or saving grace any other way therefore its definition should rather be taken from thence 1. Many Christians are not so civil as some Heathens and many Heathens are not so profane as some Christians yet no Heathens do attend the Ordinances of God as Christians do in their solemn assemblies 2. As Heathens taken in a large sense for all infidels do openly oppose the true religion so Christians do more openly own and maintain the same in these their solemne meetings and properly publick assembles particular persons stand in most direct opposition to infidels not by their own private calling faith or profession but by their relation to these bodies and Assembles of Gods people and the communion thereof in the worship of God in publick 3. Therefore therein also the Church is most exposed to the malice of those that seek her life and thirst to destroy her very being in the world not so much in her righteousnesse towards men or in her private enjoying or separate professing the faith of Christ as in her publick and valiant owning and serving her Lord in the wayes and Ordinances of divine worship as it were to the worlds and the God of the worlds defiance for fear of whom they flinched Heb. 10. and forsock the assembling of themselves together with the Church Cons 5. This further appears if we well consider the onely way that God himself hath generally if not ever taken directly and judicially to un-church a people namely by removing his Ordinances and not his graces their faith calling or profession from them Look over all the books and works of God and see whether this can be questioned the very people that murthered Christ yet to them belongs the promise Acts 2. and they are the seed of the Covenant chap. 3. and so continue notwithstanding this height of all impiety untill the Ministry and Ordinances are turned from them to the Gentiles Acts ult 't is granted that such desperate wickednesse doth not onely deserve that God should spew a people out but also it doth violently provoke him to it yea it is threatned with it Rev. 3. 16. Yet observe they are to be
spewed out of his mouth his word is to be removed from them for how did those Asian Churches cease to be so but by the Lords performance of that other threatning in order unto this viz. removing his Candlestick out of their place Revel 2. 5. Cons 6. Yea a people have no other way to unchurch themselves but by their voluntary breaking of their communion in the Ordinances of God by heresie poysoning them and thus making them die and cease to be Gods Ordinances or schisme directly rejecting them or by the perfection of both in a total Apostasie But though wickednesse did ever unchurch a people demeritoriè it never yet did unchurch a people formaliter vel effectivè as will appear more anone Yea though Heresie be indeed a renouncing the faith and schisme a renouncing the profession of the faith yet at present I conceive that heresie doth properly and strictly unchurch as it denieth the faith not as it is the faith of Christ but as it is the foundation of this communion in the Word and Sacraments Being built upon the foundation of the Prophets and Apostles and accordingly schisme doth stictly unchurch as it breaks off this communion and not as it ceaseth the profession of the faith Therefore breaking off from this communion is most exactly and properly termed schisme or a renting of the Church and ungodlinesse of heart or life and indeed a ceasing to professe the faith as such is not so properly or stictly schysme Cons 7. These qualifications faith holinesse calling and profession may all be found where there is no instituted or formed Church and consequently to our congregational brethrens principles who as Master Cotton in the name of his brethren phraseth it say that the universal visible Church is a Chimaera where there is no formed visible Church wherein Ames is so expresse Fideles non constituant ecclesiam particularem nisi speciali Med. p. 167. vinculo inter se conjungantur which onely renders them capable of this communion the Jewish Church being dissolved the Elect that were saved were not of themselves a formed instituted Church but must therefore be added to the Gentile-Churches i. e. Congregations Therefore these personal qualifications are not so fitted to the definition of the visible Church as communion in the Ordinances of God for wheresoever this is fixed and settled there is undoubtedly a true visible Church this communion supposeth the called beleevers professors on the one side and the officers or dispensers of the Ordinances on the other side and plainly expresseth or signifieth to us the essence or truth of the visible Church by the formal actions of it Now that I may yet be more free from exception and more truely understood I shall here recollect and subjoyne what hath beene already in a scattered way hinted about these two great considerable in a few brief concessions and propositions Prop. 1. I grant that these personal qualifications are necessarily supposed in this communion in Ordinances in the senses before given of them the persons thus communicating are such as are called thereunto such as professe the faith therein and such as are presumed to beleeve what they thus professe or at least not to deny or renounce it Prop. 2. These qualifications are therefore necessary conditions of Church members or of such particular persons as assemble themselves with the Church in this worship of God or as Ames most Med. p. 163 accurately forma vocatorum the forme of the called not of the Church Prop. 3. Therefore these qualifications are rather to be reduced to the matter of the Church then to the forme Prop. 4. I grant therefore that they fitly serve to expresse the qualification of the matter of the Church in the definition thereof as I conceive Amesius and others mean whose definitions of the visible Church are usually begun thus a company of beleevers c. or of the called c. or of such as profess the faith or the true Religion Prop. 5. Yet I humbly conceive the maine distingushing part of the definition of the visible Church lieth in the communion of Ordinances for the reasons above specified this being as was said the formal action of it immediately springing from its forme and essence viz. society or community which is the next great particular in the definition of the Church and now at hand to be considered Onely by the way let this be concluded with the easie notice that my designe is yet going on seeing none can doubt but if persons void of saving grace may be truely considered to have faith calling and profession as before they may much easier also be considered to partake of the outward communion of the Church in the worship and Ordinances of God and therefore so far none can hinder the definition of the Church to be applicable therunto without respect to saving grace CHAP. XIV Touching that State of the Church whereby it is capable of communion in Ordinances viz. Community THe last great particular that claimeth a place in the definition of the Church is that proper condition or state thereof that only renders it capable of the exercise of this employment comes now to be handled This I presume will be generally consented unto to be a company community or society as it strictly intends communion in the worship of God wherein I humbly conceive is contained 1. Many particular persons or men in the kinde not sex or age 1. Many coetus requirit decem 2. Many men for other creatures below man are not capable of making a society it being a political and therefore a rational state and Angels are almost as much above it society being a state of discourse and so most properly belonging to discoursive creatures viz. men according to that of the Grammarian coetus requirit decem homines this is supposed in a society Cod. 2. The union of these men by some kinde of bond or other whereby they are embodied and made an habitual assembly a fixed society this is expressed 3. Actual communion in the Ordinances of God this is intended Coetus or societas here is therefore to be taken in a moral or political sense from corporations or companies of trade So 1. 'T is orderly not tumultuons 2. 'T is fixed not occasional 3. 'T is habitual not onely actual 4. It hath officers belonging to an orderly and fix'd society of this nature 5. Therefore lastly 't is a society of Christians governed by the Minister or Ministers of the Gospel as we still finde it to be in Scripture I shall crave leave to explicate my self herein a little further by a few propositions Prop. 1. This community is of necessity required in the true or false definition of the visible Church Prop. 2. This community doth directly immediately and formally Foederata ifla conjunctio tantum constituit ecclesiam quotenus spectat ad communionem sanctorum exercendam Am. Med 169. intend communion Communion is the most
in Ordinances so Mr. Hudson the visible Church saith he is a company of people called or separated by God from Idols to the true Religion and yeelding professed subjection to that call and more plainly Wollebius the visible Church is a company of persons commonly called as well Elect as reprobate But no Authour that I have yet met withal did ever define the Church without specifying and expressing this society or community one way or other Apollonius begins his definition with societas the Leiden Professors with coetus So Wallebius Trelcatius Ames and Augustine with unitas of English men Bradshaw saith the Churches of Christ are holy assemblies Dayrel saith a particular visible Church is a company c. so Hudson the visible Church is a company c. And Arnobius upon the 19 Arti a Congregation of faithful people Therefore it is likely that the unity or society of the Church deserveth the first and the highest place in the definition thereof Lastly therefore I shall conclude my selfe in those expresse Fideles non constituunt ecclesiam particularem quamvis simul plures in codem loco conveniant aut vivant nisi speciali vinculo inter se conjugantur Med. p. 169. Vinculum hoc est foedus c. Ibid. words of Amesius that neither the faithful or many faithful or many faithful meeting together or living in one place do thereby constitute a particular Church without they be further joyned together by some special bond among themselvs and I shall not fear to adde with him that this bond is a Covenant and that this covenant ought to be such as he there defineth it viz. that whereby the faithful oblige themselves particularly to performe all those duties both towards God and mutually towards each other which respect the Condition and Edification of the Church Yet give me leave to explain my self in a few particulars touching this bond or Covenant and I shall hasten to the conclusion of this last particular 1. I grant this bond or covenant may be lawfully expressed at the first constitution of a particular Church because it rationally agreeth with the nature of such a society 2. I further grant that the expresse bond being a prudential thing may be so much the neerer to necessity by how much the more prudence dictates it to be of use and discovers more evident occasion thereof accidentally occurring at the constitution of such a Church 3. Yet I must interpose against the necessity thereof in its own nature because we finde not any such command in Scripture nor any such practice in the primitive Churches 4. Neither may the want much lesse the absence thereof by any means be hence interpreted to the questioning of the truth of such Churches as have the Word and Sacraments purely or but truly administred and constantly attended upon for who can deny but that these are infallible marks yea essential notes of a true Church besides it is apparent even thereby that there is an implicit bond or covenant wherein to such a people are not onely taken with God but mutuo inter se mutually with one another seeing as the prophet queries how can two walk together unlesse they be agreed which two of the most eminent Dr. Ames and Mr. Hooker as well as moderate Congregational men have under their hands acknowledged to be all that 's necessary to the truth of a visible Church in this respect 5. Therefore we must with them conclude that the form consisteth not in a Covenant as expressed for then where that was wanting the Church could not exist but as a Covenant or mutual bond so far as it is necessarily supposed in the nature of such a society or community 6. Although I have before granted that either an expresse or implicite covenanting to performe the duties of Church members is a necessary duty binding all that are admitted into such a relation Yet I must still deny it to be of such absolute necessity as that the non-real and actual intention in a particular person so to covenant and oblige himselfe should exclude the reality of his visible Church-membership provided his desire to be admitted be real and sincere The reality of his desire of admission is essential to his very admission but the reality of his actual purpose to performe all the duties to which he is obliged by his admission is onely essential to his safe admission the first is necessary for his being the last for his well-being in this state of the Church membership Indeed he is passively bound by the command of God as also by his relation to this society of the Church both actively Persons may be passively bound when they do not actively binde themselves and actually to oblige himself unto the said duties yet if by reason of the Churches carelesnesse he is not put upon it or by reason of his ignorance of this his duty or his unwillingnesse to engage at present so farre in it he shall not thus oblige himself he is not thereby presently disobliged from his duty by the nullity of this his Relation or visible Church membership 7. This actual obliging himself in truth to performe all the duties There is a necessary duty a necessary condition of a Church-member is therefore a necessary duty accompanying his admission but no necessary condition thereof or without which he cannot be admitted And this I would conceive to be the meaning of Ames his words before noted viz. the bond without which the faithful do not constitute a particular Church is a Covenant vel expressum vel implicitum which implicitum I humbly conceive must necessarily An implicit Covenant opposed to an expresse and an actual covenanting An actual conanting is either vocal or mental We covenant consequentially or vertually what neither expressely nor actually be opposed both to expressum and to actuale and his meaning is or should be that neither an expresse that is a vocal nor yet an actual whether vocal or mental Covenant is a condition so necessary as without which the faithful cannot constitute a Church but a conjunction so far foederata as his phrase is as is necessary to communion which doth implicitely i. e. consequentially though not expressely and vertually though not actually also bind the faithful i. e. all the members of the Church particulatim to the performance of all those duties which the nature of so holy a society calls them unto For I readily grant that though particular persons do not actually either in their words or thoughts oblige themselves so largely yet by their very desire of admission into the Church if admitted they do by consequence and vertue thereof oblige themselves unto all those duties that the state into which they desire to be and are accordingly admitted doth necessarily and naturally We binde our selves vertually to more when we yeeld to be admitted sometimes then we that are admitted think of or intend put them upon so
sometimes fit and sometimes not fit when the Church is an actual meeting and not fit when she hath adjourned to another time Therefore this definition a society called out of the world to the worship of the true God being fit to expresse the nature both of the universal and the particular visible Church and that at all times and states thereof it may I think be yeelded to be a proper definition thereof Now to draw up this discourse I shall onely further intimate that the definition of the visible Church may be truely considered to be such and truely applicable to the visible Church without any respect to saving grace as appears to the very first glance of our observation from the definition fix'd upon viz. that it is a society of men called â—ut of the world to the worship of God who will be so ventrous as to question either the fitness of this definition or its applicablenesse to the visible Church without respect to saving grace For 1. All the parts that are either essential or necessary or fit for this definition of the Church have appeared before to be thus truely applicable thereunto without respect to saving grace therefore the whole is so likewise 2. All particular definitions now mentioned except one are to be truely considered without respect to saving grace without any colour of question much lesse controversie and that one viz of Ames is nothing against us seeing Ames his judgement is for us and himself alloweth such persons a place in the Church as he will not allow if we understand him any place in the definition of the Church as before is noted 3. Therefore these very Authours take occasion to acquaint us that the Church which they thus define containeth Hypocrites as well as the Elect and that with the joint consent of the reformed Divines which I doubt not abundantly to make to appear when we speak upon the head of humane Testimony CHAP. XVI Objections answered and the true sense of the reformed Divines considered who say the invisible Church is onely the true Church BEfore we passe on to that way of arguing termed inartificial namely from authority we think fit to consider a few objections which may be called artificial and leave the other Objections which arise from Scripture and the judgement of the Church to be handled I think more methodically after my arguments thence The first and indeed the onely considerable objection against me is this Object 'T is confest that there is but one true Church 't is also confest that the invisible Church is one true Church but now the Church invisible cannot be considered to be truely such without respect to saving grace therefore neither the Church visible Answ I answer that in general this argument is justly exceptible against because before it reacheth the conclusion of my opponent it evidently concludeth that which I presume himself renounceth viz. that the visible Church is in no respect at all either with or without saving grace to be truely a Church of Christ that this is the first conclusion of the argument is most obvious from the two first propositions 1. 'T is said there is but one true 2. The invisible is one true Church What now doth force it self from hence but therefore the visible is no visible Church somewhat a strange conclusion unknown I think to all the ages of the Church before us and such as imposed upon the providence of God to have entrusted this whole worship and Ordinances in the hands of a false Church 2. Hereby also we have a quick dispatch of the present controversie for what need we reach any further after the thing before us viz. whether the visible Church may be considered to be truely a Church of Christ without this respect to saving grace if it be first concluded that there is no visible Church at all 3. But more directly I answer by denying at least one of these things either 1. That the one true Church is the Church invisible Or 2. That though the one true Church be invisible yea and this invisible Church cannot be considered to be truely such without respect to saving grace yet it followeth not that the visible Church may not be considered to be truely a Church of Christ without respect to saving grace 1. I might deny with fairnesse enough that the one true Church is properly the Church invisible until my arguments above for the contrary are answered till when the present objection can challenge no answer 2. But here I shall rather deny the consequence and that though I grant the invisible Church to be the onely true Church and that this cannot be truely considered as such without respect to saving grace yet the visible Church is a true Church and may be considered to be truely such without respect to saving grace the reason is because these attributes of visible and invisible though they are given to the same subject the Church yet in diverse respects which appears by this argument if they are to be taken in the same respect and visibility be as none will deny an inseperable adjunct of the Church then there is no invisible Church for to say as Ames saith the Church never ceaseth to be visible and there is an invisible Church if visible and invisible here be to be taken in the same respect is a plaine contradiction now the consideration of the divers respect wherein the same Church is said to be visible and invisible detects the fallacy of the former Argument thus the Church with respect to its saving faith and to those persons that have this saving faith is said to be invisible this faith being not seen and these persons not to be certainly known And againe the same Church with respect to its profession and the persons therein that own the same in the eyes of the world is truely said to be visible So that though there be but one Church there is a Church invisible and a Church visible And again though this Church as invisible cannot be considered to be truely such without respect to saving grace seeing it is therefore said to be invisible because of its saving grace and the subjects thereof cannot be seen or certainly known by men yet this Church in its visible consideration or as it is the visible Church may be considered to be truely such without respect to saving grace seeing that which renders it thus visible hath no necessary dependance upon saving grace as Reverend Hudson saith well the Church is considered to be visible and invisible à duplici modo communionis externae internae visible with respect to its external way of communion which doth not suppose saving grace and invisible with regard to its internal way of communion which doth suppose saving grace This is doubtlesse the plaine sense of the reformed Protestant Churches as is clearly stated by that eminent patron thereof Med. p. 165 Dr. Ames his words are known The Militant Church
are called that neither now have nor ever shall have saving grace and consequently that give no evidence thereof but of this frequently heretofore if it be said that they seemed to have saving grace that 's nothing for our saviour saw that they indeed had none and yet the same time when he makes a discovery of that he saith not that they seeme to be but that they are called q. d. these many seem to be elected but indeed some of them are not elected they are onely called for many are called but few chosen 3. A child of God a child of the Covenant a childe of the Kingdom are all of them titles in Scripture equivalent to a Church-member but all these are ascribed in Scripture to such as the Scripture it self witnesseth to have had no evidence at least of saving grace 1. The title of being a childe of God is Rom. 9. 4. given to such as had no evidence of saving grace viz. to Israelites who by that most dreadful scandal of crucifying Christ and persisting therein without repentance and with a continued obstinate gain-saying and persecuting the Gospel did bring so great heavinesse and continual sorrow to Pauls heart as we read ver 2. to whom yet saith the same Paul pertaineth the Adoption as ver 4. 2. The title of being a childe of the Covenant is also given to the same wicked Israelites Acts 3. 25. ye are the children of the Covenant which God made with our fathers saying unto Abraham and in thy seed shall all the Nations of the earth be blessed Rom. 9. 4. Yea unto them belonged the Covenants that implies that they were not onely borne in them but intrusted with the keeping of them viz. with the giving of the Law as there it followeth Rom. 9. 4. Yea their very breaking of Covenant is an evident As they are charged Deut. 31. 16 17. signe of both 1. That they were in it a propositione secundi adjacentis ad propositionem primi adjacentis valet argumentum 2. That they had no evidence at least of saving grace for unlesse men were in Covenant how could they break it and if men do break Covenant where is their evidence of saving grace seeing men are charged in Scripture to violate the covenant onely by grosse and notorious scandals which are utterly inconsistent with such evidence viz. idolatry Deut 31. 20. rebellion Ezra 17. 15 c. 3. The title of being a childe of the Kingdome Matth. 8. 12. given to such as have no saving grace for Christ himselfe there assures us that some of the children of the Kingdome must go accursed into hell but certainly never any that hath the least degree of saving grace shall go thus accursed into Hell 4. Being in the field of Christ the barne of Christ the net of Christ is in Scripture equivalent to visible Church-membership for the Kingdome of heaven is compared in Scripture to all these and to be in the Kingdome of Heaven and a Church-member are in the Scripture of equal latitude But now the same Scriptures which compare the Kingdome of heaven or the Church of God to a field barne floore and net do fully attribute a place in them all to such as have no saving grace there are tares in this field chaffe in this barn-floore and bad fish in this net of Christ 5. Being in Christ is doubtlesse equivalent unto Church-membership But the Scripture and Christ himself therein acknowledgeth some persons to be in him that yet it witnesseth at the same time to have no truth of saving grace John 15. 2. Every branch in me that beareth not fruit Some branches are such as beare no fruit but must be burned as verse 6. yet even these are owned by Christ to be branches and branches in himself I have read a bad answer somewhere unto this that the words in me are to be understood last and that the sense of the words are but thus every branch that beareth not in me which is said not to imply the branches being in Christ at all but onely to intend its bearing no fruit in Christ but the very look of the text shames it For 1. Wherefore is it called a branch but with relation to the Vine mentioned ver 1. which was as 't is said Christ himself I am the Vine ye are the branches and every branch c. 2. If we should read the words as this objection requires then it follows that some may bring forth fruit and yet be out of Christ contrary to the words following without 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or out of or severed from me ye can do nothing 3. But from what shall these branches be cut if they be not upon the Vine or whence shall they be taken away by the Father or out of what shall he be cast forth as a branch v. 6. 4. And lastly what congruity is there in the following caution if a man abide not in me if such cannot be branches in him that may prove fruitlesse or Apostates and be cast forth wither and be burned 6. Disciple in Scripture is a title equivalent to visible Church-member But the Scripture doth reckon some to be disciples whom it self also testifieth to have had no saving grace John 6. 66. From that time many of his Disciples went back and walked no more after him now let it be supposed that by their apostacy it being indeed total and final they now ceased to be disciples yet this onely evidenceth for the time past that they never had any true grace howbeit they were then disciples unless they had gone on they could not have gone back and so long as they went on they were disciples not those that seemed but those that were disciples went back and though now they are discovered never to have had any saving grace yet it is still acknowledged that they were disciples 7. To be a vessel in the house of God is more and therefore indeed implies a being in the house of God or a Church-member but the Scripture 2 Tim. 2. 20. ascribes this title of being a vessel in the house of God to some whom it also witnesseth to have Rom. 9 had no saving grace for it saith there are vessels of dishonour and therefore of wrath fitted to destruction in the house of God as Hymeneus and Philetus were sad instances 8. To be within to be of Israel and to be of the house of Israel are equivalent to Church-membership but the Scripture attributes all these to such as it also testifieth to have had no saving grace or at least no evidence thereof 1. The Scripture 1 Cor. 5. acknowledgeth the incestuous person to have been within when it putteth him upon the Churches judgement who hath not to do with them who are without and yet by laying so heavy a charge of incest upon him it doth plainly evidence that he had then no evidence at least of saving grace 2. The Scripture Rom. 9. 6. affirmeth some to
above all the nations that are upon the earth And to anticipate any that should restraine and limit this Covenant-holinesse consistent with actuai wickednesse to the time of the Law The Apostle Peter hath taken the very same passage and made its application to the times of the Gospel 2 Peter 2. 9. If yet any possible scruple remaine seriously weigh that method of reasoning God is pleased with in Psalm 50. 7. God threatens there to testifie against Israel a sufficient note of Israels wickednesse yet in the same verse God owneth Israel a competent token of Israles holinesse but how dâ—th God own wicked Israel not in Covenant yea doubtlesse in both the maine parts thereof thou art my people and I am thy God hear O my people and I will speak O Israel and I will testifie against thee I am God even thy God here is sufficient doubtlesse infinitely to supersede what can lawfully be argued against the possibility of a wicked Israelite his being in Covenant from v. 16 17. so much insisted on 3. Therefore nothing is more trite in reformed Writers especially against the Anabaptist then the distinction of persons holy vel actu vel orasione professione debita holinesse real and relative habitual and imputed foederal and inherent who generally acknowledge that some persons are holy in a relative foederal and imputed sense and by profession obligation separation and calling that are not holy really as it stands opposed to relatively actually personally or inherently who are yet onely called to be Saints taking the word called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 ut sint sancti as Paraeus Aretius and divers others do in which sense Master Baxters words are ordinarily quoted That there are His Rest p. 105 many Saints or sanctified men that shall never come to Heaven who are onely Saints by their separation from paganisme into the fellowship of the visible Church Whence also Chamier proportionably reasons quomodo Paulus dicebat Romae i. e. omnes sui temporis Judaeos esse sanctos quod eorum Truncus i. e. Abraham sanctos fuisset 4. We need not trouble our selves to prove particularly that the judgement of the reformed Churches is that foederal holinesse doth proceed into the Adult estate seeing those Churches viz. of New England which alone are capable of suspition in this controversie have expressely declared for it or at least very strongly Mr. Cottons way of the Church of New England pag. 51. intimated in these words those say they that are baptized in any Church may by vertue of this former interest require the Supper in that Church if there be no impediment in regard of their unfitnesse to examine themselves Which yet Master Baxter hath somwhat more clearly for saith he their being baptized persons if at age or members of the universal Church into which it is that they are baptized is a sufficient evidence of their interest to the Supper till they do by heresie His Rest p. 104 or scandal blot that evidence which assureth us to be the confident issue of much doubting dispute and study of the Scriptures 5. Yea that prudent Ordinance called confirmation though of singular use in the hurch if well managed and that onely thing that seemeth against us in this part of dispute it being looked upon as a mean of passing from the Infant to the Adult estate yet it is most evident this did not intend to exclude those that were found ignorant and wanted a fit and ready answer at their examination presently out of the Church or on the other side to admit the rest upon a new account into Church-membership they being sufficiently so before for they stiled this exercise not an admission but a confirmation or if in any respect it was an admission the term thereof was only into the company of adult Church-members or to some higher priviledge of the visible Church viz. the Supper and not at all to the state or society of Church-members as such Neither did such examinants intend at least a direct search for evidence of grace but competency of knowledge or at utmost a renuing of that covenant or promise personally and actively which before in their infancy they were only passively and in their sureties bound unto Which promise having for the object of it repentance and obedience and being for the nature of it a promise that is respecting the future and being made for something yet to be doth rather suppose that as yet they have not repented nor entred upon a course of new obedience and consequently are not yet supposed to have any saving grace though thought fit upon such a promise to pass by confirmation of their examinants out of their Infant into their Adult estate 6. If those that do not render this answer of a good conscience are no longer within the Church I demand whether they were truely members of the Church in their state of Infancy or onely seemingly so 1. If it be replied that they were onely seemingly so then Infants interest in the Church by foederal holinesse is not a real interest which is plainly Anabaptistical or at least but dependently and upon the supposition of future saving grace which is absurd and plainly against the Scripture For after heaven had reveal'd that Ishmael was none of the seed of the promise of salvation with Isaac and that to Abraham Vid. Gen. 17 himself he is yet by vertue of his relative foederal holinesse from his fathers family and in plaine obedience to Gods command circumcised by Abraham the mark and token of the Covenant of God And the bond woman and her sonne who indeed was Ishmael are clearly intimated to be within Gal. 4. 30. where they are charged to be cast out Where also the Apostle assures us that this history of Ishmael and Isaac was allegâ—rical and served to conclude that even in the dayes of the Gospel to the end of the world there should be Ishmaels as well as Isaac's in the visible Church the Apostle arguing v. 29. from then to now 2. Againe if it be said that such were really visible members before in their infant estate but now they wanting that which their Adult estate requires to continue this their membership they cease to be any longer so I then must demand whether they cease to be so on course and by any thing which flowes from the nature of such a state or whether they cease or rather are made to cease to be so by violent censure or Excommunication 1. If the first be chosen viz. that they cease to be any longer members of themselves without any censure of the Church 1. I humbly conceive here is a new way of loosing Church-membership viz. by ignorance wickednesse c. unknowne to the Scripture or any age of any Church before 2. Then Ideots and distracted persons cease to be members of the visible Church at their Adult estate 3. What shadow of Scripture or reason is there that ignorance for which
non profecto veniet Antichristus ex Judais quod quidam credunt neque ex Turcis sed ex Christianis Naogeorge in loc Hereticks that were never of the Church in the Apostles sense were yet of the Church in the first sense numero nomine titulo ex Apostalorum societate Christianorum and thus Christiani as Bullinger saith Christiani olim fuerant quos hic vocavit Antichristus they were Apostolorum discipuli though ficti and fratres though subdoli and falsi as Naogeorge saith but thus as before was noted the Text concerneth not our question at all 2. Yet I grant that some of these Hereticks might formerly have owned the true Religion without these Heresies or any purpose and designe to promote the same or themselves by them but that they came on as in our age men usually do thereto by degrees and that though they were not of the Church in the Apostles sense yet they were of the Church according to the second branch of the distinction before explained viz. of the Church of the called though not of the Elect. Tertii vivam habent fidei radicem ac suae Adoptionis Testimonium penitus fixum in cordibus gerunt de his loquitur Jobannes cum impossibile esse dicit ab ecclesia alienari Calv. in loc Therefore the Apostle meaneth that these Hereticks did make it appeare by their departure from the Church upon so damnable an occasion that they were never of the Church to be saved or elected to salvation though yet they were once of the visible so ciety of Christians or of the visible Church from which otherwise they could not have departed and that really though not effectually finally fully or savingly they were not of us saith Oecumenius that is of the lot of them which are saved yet they were truely of us as Augustine fully and clearly distinguisheth the place his words are these such as will not tarry in the Church but finally forsake it to the end in the prescience of God and respect of the small benefit they shall have by their temporal and small abode there be not of or in the Church though according to this present state they are truely members thereof which words are quoted and sealed to by Fulk against the Rhemists in Vindication of the Protestant judgement aspersed by the Papists as more fully anon in this point those other words of Augustine used by Fulk upon this Text likewise are yet more clear these men therefore were of the many that were called but of the few that are chosen they were not And this double sense of being of the Church at which some seeme to be offended is clearly grounded upon the Scripture those that are of the visible Church and not of the invisible are as well said to be of Israel though not Israel by Paul to the Chap. 9. 6 Romans as those are here said to be of us that are of the Church invisible also Therefore I conclude with Fields apt and pertinent words by that which hath been said that none but the Elect are of the Of the Church p 14 Church in that principal and high degree before mentioned we may easily understand the Truth of their meaning who say that hypocrites wicâ—â—d men and cast awayes are in but not of the Church Object 6. The titles that are proper to the savingly beleeving as Saints Gods children people c. are communicated by Scripture to all Church-members therefore all Church-members are by Scripture supposed to be truely and savingly beleeving and those that are not savingly qualified are but equivocally so called by Scripture Answ To take it for granted that such titles as these are proper in Scripture to such onely as savingly beleeve is too plainly to begge the thing in question or rather that which hath been wholly put beyond all question by the Scripture it selfe before Had not we already found the holy Ghost almost throughout the Scriptures when he doth not onely suppose but expresly charge a people to be notoriously wicked to own such a people at the same time and in the same place to be Gods people children holy c. this might have seem'd a plausible and handsome argument but seeing it is indeed thus a very easie reply may serve it until our former arguments from Scripture against it are answered How such titles as these became so generally received as proper and peculiar to such onely as savingly believe I dare not presume to guesse however give me leave to fear that the too frequent restrain'd or ambiguous application thereof shall I say unadvisedly from our pulpits hath had some influence into that sad and schismatical perswasion and errour of the Anabaptist as well as others CHAP. XXI The Authority of the Church searched after and first in Augustines age LEt us now at length descend from the consideration of Divine authority to that which is called Humane and from the Scripture to the Church But if we would indeed discerne the clear and distinct opinion of the Church in this famous controversie we need not be so much busied in drawing consequences or offering snatches from what she hath scattered by her worthy hands up and down upon other occasions but rather seriously to fix and ponder upon what she hath delivered about it when called by some eminent and special providence to speak punctually to it Before this controverting age of ours there have been three remarkable periods of special occasion exacting the sentence and judgement of the Church in the present case upon all which we now proceed briefly to examine what judgement she hath made The first eminent occasion hereof was urged by the Donatists Aug. Tom. 7. Gram. l. 2. c. 3. 4 there was indeed as Austine observeth some slight motion of it by some Schismaticks in Cyprians age before but Donatus was the first great stickler in it who held that none but the godly were true members of the visible Church the very point I humbly conceive that we have all this while been arguing against but was this indeed the opinion of the Donatists if St. August may be believed doubtlesse it was illud ostendere tentaverunt inquit August Donatistae prolatis multis testimoniis Divinarum Scripturarum Aug. Tom. 7. Col. cum Donatistis quod ecclesia Dei non cum Malorum hominum commixtione futura praedicta sit though driven by dispute at length they evaded by limitting their opinion to openly wicked as Augustine testifieth also Malos in ecclesia permixtos esse confessi sunt Donatistae sed occultos eos esse dixerunt Now this worthy mouth and champion of the Church in his age hath noted this opinion as an errour and therefore not his own opinion and as an errour of this sect of the Donatists and therefore not the opinion of the true Catholick Church of God in his time as abundantly appears by his set and purposed large disputation in most of his volumes
they say that wicked men are not of the Church that they are not of the Church so fully effectually and savingly as the righteous and elect are not but that they are so really Therefore there is plaine Scripture ground to distinguish of being of the Church viz. savingly as they that fell away 1 Joh. 2. 12. were not 2. In a visible outward and common sense as those were Rom. 9. 6. that were of Israel to whom belonged the Covenants and glory of the visible Church though they were not Israel to whom belonged the absolute promise of salvation But to silence all possible objections I shall now undertake to conclude from several principles undoubtedly owned by all the Churches in all ages that they have ever denied saving grace to be essential to visible Church-membership and consequently must needs have ever held that wicked persons may be of the visible Church and that really and not equivocally onely if it be opposed to really Arg. 1. To believe that relative holinesse is really sufficient Fidelibus sunt annumerandi tanquam ecclesiae membra fidelium corum liberi qui sunt in ecclesia 1 Cor. 7. 14. participes enim ejusdem foederis ejusdem professionis cum suis parentibus Medul Am. p. 168 169 to interest in visible Church-membership is to believe also that saving grace doth not onely do so unlesse relative holinesse and saving grace be all one a Paradox that no Protestant asserts but the Church hath ever beleeved that relative holinesse giveth real interest to visible Church-membership For first she never doubted but that children borne within the visible Church were really in Covenant and Church-members Nor secondly that their title thereto is founded not upon personal much lesse saving grace but upon parental or relative holinesse Arg. 2. The constant unscrupled practice of baptizing the children of all such as remaine within the pale of the Church can truely proceed from no other principle but this viz. that Church-membership may be really considered without respect to saving grace this is demonstrated by two considerations 1. That it was never the practice of any Church constantly and ordinarily i. e. without the Adoption of such children unto Christian Parents to baptize the children of Pagans or of such as are no Church members 2 That it cannot be imagined by any that are serious in the case that all that are within the pale of the Church make evidence satisfactory of saving Epist 12. Infantes pontificiorum similium possunt baptizari quia non sunt plane alicni a foederi professiâ—ne Am. de consic p. 248 grace But now it cannot be denied me that such hath been the constant unscrupled practice of the Churches of Christ in all ages viz. to baptize the children of all such as lived within the pale of the Church Indeed Calvine writes against the baptizing of the children of the Papists But 1. Papists live not within the pale of our reformed Church 2. And his reason given against it is not because the Papists have no grace or because they are hypocrites but because they want sound doctrine and are judged Hereticks Yet 3. The ecclesiastical Colledge of Geneva plainly Against Knox p. 88 tell us that wheresoever the profession of Christianity hath not utterly perished and been extinct Infants are beguiled of their right if the common seale be denied them I confesse that Amesius Hildersham and some others haply would have us put a difference in sealing the children of the wicked i. e. such as do apertè in the face of the world violate the Covenant But 1. They never questioned the right of Ab allis piis eorum educatio suscipiatur Qui foedus Dei Aperte violuat corum infantes cum aliquo discrimiâ—e debent he doth not say non debent Baptizari de consc Am. p. 247. Distinctio debet ad conectionem malorum ibid. such children to Baptisme 2. Nor denied the actual administration thereof unto such wholly onely in prudence urged the great use of Sponsores viz. godly persons to undertake for children in such a case 3. This reacheth not our case for the reason hereof was not because they had no saving grace but because their open wickednesse was a present blot and scandal to Religion for which they ought by this suspending the seale from their children to be made ashamed and brought to repentance 4. However this is but the judgement of particular men and contrary to the judgment and practice of the Churches in general as our present argument extends it self yea howsoever our Congregational brethren have of late taken up the contrary Master Rutherford hath noted that Best a famous Brownist denied baptisme to belong to the children of the excommunicate onely which yet he doubtlesse did not because such were supposed to have no grace but because they were by the sentence of excommunication cast out of the Churches clearly yeelding that the children of all Church-members are to be baptized Yea though our Congregational brethren are yet so charitable as to allow our Churches to be true Churches and yet so severe to deny our Infants the first seal we suppose this is not because they judge us all to be void of saving grace or out of the general Covenant of God but as Master Cotton Master Norton c. affirme because we are not within their ecclesiastical particular Covenant and that in their practice in their own Congregations they are more favourable to the Infants borne therein and their application of the seals is as large as their Church and Covenant Arg. 3. Those that in their constant course of preaching still supposed that men might violate their Covenant with God cannot but be thought to hold that men may be truely in Covenant with God and consequently in the Church without saving grace especially considering 1. That if men do break Covenant with God it is by great and notorious wickednesse 2. That to men who are now the Judges such as are guilty of notorious wickednesse and do as Ames expresseth it Aperte violari foedus Dei give no evidence of saving grace and lastly that as it was before observed men cannot break that bond they are not under or violate that Covenant in which they cannot be said to be But now none can have the least ground of doubting whether such hath not been the constant course of proaching yea and writing too by the whole cloud of the men of God in all ages that hath the least communion or converse therewith Arg. 4. Those that hold that notoriously scandalous persons are within until they be censured and cast out must needs be granted to hold also that persons void of saving grace may be real members of the visible Church that is de facto if not de jure the reason is because one that appeareth notoriously scandalous appears thereby to have no sincere or saving grace and according to the rule esse apparere sunt equipollentia in
wrong if she judge such as are not scandalous she erreth because such deserve it not if she judge such as are scandalous she erreth also because hereby she judgeth them to be within who have no evidence under their notorious scandal of their being within but indeed strong evidence to the Contrary If she judge such as are not scandalous she really wrongs the party if she judge those that are scandalous she visibly wrongs a higher Judge who hath pleased to reserve to his own prerogative to judge them that are without 2. This Doctrine involveth our interest in and dispensation of the Sacraments also in inextricable difficulties and doubtings First the Sacrament of Baptisme is thus involved children have their right unto it either in themselves or in their parents that is either from their own personal holinesse The contrary tenet viz. that no professor can be a member without saving grace will draw unavoiddifficulties with it and give such advantages to the enemies of Gods grace and the dispensation of his Ordinances that they will hardly be regained laying a corner-stone to build up the wretched doctrine of the Anabaptists Mr. Hook survey p. 37 38. or from their parents holinesse derived unto them by relation Now if the first be said it will follow from this doctrine 1. That we are to baptize them onely upon evidence of their saving faith 2. This being impossible we should ever discover before years of discretion it follows that we cannot regularly baptize an Infant 3. Yea no childe can then in his infancy be known to be a disciple to belong to Christ to be a Church-member to be borne to God c. all which are not so much obscured by Anabaptisme as clear'd by Scripture 4. Or at least the childe being baptised in its infancy upon charitable hopes if afterwards by a wicked and lewd conversation it appeare to the Church to have had no saving grace at the time of its baptisme it clearly followeth that upon the discovery of its after conversion it ought to be rebaptized for if none but such as are savingly converted enter into Covenant then none but such as are savingly converted ought to be sealed in Covenant and a seal set without a Covenant is of no effect and every one that enters Covenant ought to have the seale of initiation affixed to it 5. Nay grace I see not but according to the tenour of this doctrine that so often as a man may fall by scandal from the evidence of his saving grace and consequently thereby declare to the eye of the Church that he was never really within the Covenant or the Church and giveth penitential satisfaction for the same whereby in the judgement of the Church he entreth Covenant even so oft he must be re-baptized though it be seventy times seven 2. Againe if the childes right to baptisme depend upon the saving grace or holinesse of the parent then such as is the evidence of the parents saving grace such is the evidence of the childes being lawfully and effectually baptized so that Secondly if the parent apostatize to heresie blasphemy or any other kind of notorious profanenesse or if the parent never had any evidence at all of saving grace so farre as men may charitably judge which is all the rule the case and the present opinion will admit the childes baptisme is forthwith null Then Thirdly what remaineth but that such children when at yeares of discretion must give their own consent in person and be re-baptized or else depend in an Heathenish state of waiting for their parents returne to be re-baptized with them But Fourthly I cannot see how any one that stands baptized upon his parents account can ever be fully perswaded that he is truely baptized because he cannot be certaine of his parents Election or saving vocation so that the whole generation of Christians who stand in their baptisme by their foederal bolinesse are hereby necessarily left in doubt whether they be Christians or Heathens And lastly is not this a faire step and temptation to Anabaptisme yea truely it puts us upon a necessity of it for unlesse all our Ancestours since the first entrance of our stock into Christianity have beene really godly at the very time of their childes baptisme a thing incredible our own baptisme is unavoidably nul for where the reason and ground of Baptisme is wanting there Baptisme is invalid but according to this doctrine where saving grace is wanting in the parent the reason and ground of Baptism is wanting therefore whensoever any of our Ancestors were baptiz'd in the time of their parents unregeneracy then that persons baptisme was no baptisme but a seal set to a blanck Again the childe of a Beleever hath no next right to baptisme unlesse the parent be also a baptized-beleever therefore though the next in the line of succession unto him that through want of saving grace first rendred his childs sealing invalid were truely a Saint yet he was not a baptized Saint and consequently could not entitle his childe to baptisme much lesse can this childe unbaptized entitle the next or that the next until we descend to our own case 2. Again our interest in the Sacrament of the Supper is alike obscure and intricate by the just consequences of this doctrine For 1. Unlesse I am well satisfied of two things whereof one is very difficult and the other impossible viz. my own and my parents sincerity I may not venture to receive this Sacrament I must be satisfied of my parents sincerity otherwise I cannot know my selfe really baptized and consequently I cannot know my remote right for one that is not really baptized hath no right to the Supper of the Lord and then I must be satisfied of my own sincerity otherwise I cannot know my next right to the Supper or indeed my being lawfully i. e. really baptized either and must with all doubting Christians be deterred therefrom though the Scripture assures us to the contrary viz. that if we judge our selves if we finde our sins though we cannot find our graces if we judg not justifie or acquit our selves we shall not be judged as unworthy receivers of the Lord as those were 1 Cor. 11. 30 31 32. 2. This must needs involve the Administrator also in hazards doubtings and even necessity of sinning which I rather commend to the consideration of my Reader in the words of Reverend Mr. Baxter then my own and with which I shall conclude what hath been but rudely delivered upon this question that the end may crown the work his words are these then no Minister can groundedly administer the Sacraments to any man but to himself because he can be certaine of no mans justification being not certain of the sincerity of their faith and if he should adventure to administer upon probabilities or charitable conjectures then should he be guilty of profaneing the Ordinances and every time he mistaketh he should set the seal of God to a lie
quis Christianam fidem se amplecti profiteatur ecclesiae per Baptismum inseri â—oget B. z. other Religions and expressed desire to be united to the Christian Church by baptism is with a professed subjection to the wayes and Ordinances of Jesus Christ the onely necessary requisite to constitute a Heathen a member of the visible Church and to give him title to the badge thereof viz. Baptisme I grant this must be serious otherwise it cannot give a real right yet I meane such a seriousnesse as may consist without saving grace and might otherwise be expressed by truth or earnestnesse as opposed to dissembling deceit designe or hypocrisie as before is explained Now if this embracing Religion and desire of baptisme be thus serious I presume such a one hath a real right in the Church and baptisme and may be lawfully admitted thereunto by the Church without further scrutiny or examination after such or such a measure of knowledge or holinesse or the inward saving condition of the party and this I hold upon the following reasons added to what hath been formerly urged Reas 1. Heathens may be lawfully received by the Church now upon the same moral conditions that the proselytes were in the time of the Law and that both by parity and identity of reason for Heathens embracing the Christian Religion now are as really made proselytes into the Jewish Church I meane the same Church which was then Jewish but now is Christian as the ancient proselytes were then for though the Church be changed in its outward dispensation and Ordinances it is still the same in its subjects and Covenant as appeares undeniably against the Anabaptist from Romans 11. Ephes 3. 6 c. But now the Jewish ancient proselytes were received and accordingly circumcised by the Church upon such a single disowning all false religions and adhering to the true with a desire to adjoyne themselves to the people and worship of the true God Therefore upon the same terms supplying what is necessarily to be supplied touching the Messias now come may Christ an proselytes be lawfully admitted into the Christian flock and number and be baptized Reas 2. That which is sufficient to make a disciple is sufficient to make a visible Church-member and to give claime to baptisme as Master Cotton and others reason well from Matth. 28. 18. Now an expressed desire to be admitted into the Schoole with a proffer to submit to the Rules and Laws thereof and to be taught and ruled accordingly is sufficient the party being thus received to disciple or make one a Schollar or a member of the School without the addition of such qualities or measures of learning or aptnesse thereunto Therefore a single desire to be joyned to the School of Christ and a professed subjection as Mr. Hudson speaks to the government thereof without any further evidence is sufficient to entitle a person to this disciple-ship and to warrant his reception and sealing by the Church Reason 3. Some Scripture admit into the Church upon as low termes as these viz. upon a general desire of baptisme and to submit to the wayes of the Lord in communion with his Church as might be instanced in all the examples of Johns Baptisme with that of the multitude Acts 2. of whom it is said that they gladly received the Word and were baptized Therefore persons may be lawfully admitted upon as low and easie termes still For 1. what was done in such cases in the Word may be lawfully done still for nothing was done unlawfully then and what was done then was written there for our imitation and learning 2. Though some other Scripture should require more then this viz. upon some consideration yet reason will prompt us to look for the minimum quod sic what may lawfully be done in such places as require least seeing every place and instance in Scripture requireth sufficient Reas 4. A profession that Jesus Christ is the Sonne of God with a desire to be united to the Christians communion by Baptisme rendred the Eunuch worthy to be admitted into the Church and baptized therefore so much doth others also What Philip required more in his question matters not if his answer had not been satisfactory doubtlesse he had not been baptized Reas 5. He that embraceth the Catholick faith or doctrine partaketh of the essence of the entitive Church and he that submitteth himself to baptisme and ecclesiastick communion partaketh of the essence of the organical Church therefore he that embraceth the one and submitteth to the other hath all that is essential to a visible Church-member Reas 6. Those lastly that require more viz. seem to require performance of the condition of the Covenant in order to entring Covenant but this is some-what strange The condition of the Covenant is twofold 1. In order to covenanting which is a promise or engaging to performe the termes or conditions of the Covenant now to be entred upon performance of which the reward covenanted for depends 2. The other condition is in order therefore to the obtaining this reward promised upon such condition which is the actual performance of the conditon engaged unto upon entring Covenant Vid. Blakes Seals Hystorical faith may be in reprobates both within the Church and also in such as be without the Church as Turks believe there is a God that Christ was born of a Virgin the resurrection of the dead c. yea the devils have it 1 Joh. 2. 19 Rogers of faith p. 6. The first is necessary to entrance into Covenant the last to the partaking of the benefit thereof As it is with men a servant enters Covenant by undertaking and promising to do his Master his work but obtaineth his reward or wages alone by doing what he hath thus undertaken Yet with leave of that Reverend man this engaging to perform the condition of the Covenant is I conceive more then a bare historical or dogmatical faith for there is something of application in that faith that doth not only beleeve but embrace the truth and the true Religion and make application to the Church for admission and baptisme However I humbly conceive though more then a bare histostorical faith should be requisite yet lesse then a faith that justifieth I do not say lesse then the profession thereof may truely entitle to visible Church-membership and consequently to Baptisme as hath been shewn CHAP. XXIX What is requisite to evidence a persons interest in the visible Church by men Quest THe second question to be answered is What is requisite to evidence a person to be a member of the visible Church to others or how may we know a person to be a member of the visible Church or what doth render Church-membership visible Answ 1. I answer first that that which evidenceth a persons interest in the essence of the visible Church doth even thereby evidence his visible Church-membership for what can better evince a members union with the body then its partaking
with the essence thereof 2. Againe that which evidenceth a persons communion in the essential and formal actions of the Church doth also thereby evidence such a persons interest in the essence of or his essential union with the Church for nothing can have or carry a stronger tincture of the essence of any thing then the formal or essential actions thereof which immediately flow from it 3. Then further the essence of the visible Church hath beene found to consist in community respecting communion in Gods truth and Ordinances and the formal actions of this community have been found to be this communion 4. Now that person that appears to have communion with the Church in Doctrine and worship or in the truth and Ordinances of Jesus appears to partake of the essential actions and consequently of the essence of the visible Church 5. These premises thus laid I found my answer upon them to the question thus that therefore that person that doth not plainly renounce the truth and openly submitteth unto and ordinarily attendeth upon the Ordinances of divine worship whatsoever evil qualities he may otherwise bear doth thus appear to be really a member of the visible Church Indeed were saving grace of the essence of the visible Church a person could not appear to be a member thereof without the evidences of saving grace but seeing we have found that it is not we adde whatsoever evil qualities he may otherwise beare As a man living within such a dominion and was either borne there or else is known to be naturalized and made free according to the Laws thereof though he be a great offender and highly obnoxious to Law and punishment yet if he renounce not his subjection or declare not against the government is notwithstanding known to be a member of that body politick or a lawful subject of that dominion Or as in the natural body a member remaining in union with the body and in communion with it in its essential actions though it be a diseased or wounded or leprous member yet is known and granted to be a real member So a man that stands in relation to the Church and ordinarily attends upon the Ordinances thereof and doth not renounce the doctrine of the Gospel though he be a wicked and rotten member is yet hereby evidenced to be really a member of the mystical visible body the Church for this sufficiently evidenceth that common faith which though it avail not to justication yet is found effectual so far as to constitute or interesse in visible Church-membership Obj. It may be hence urged that then children cannot be known to be Church-members and consequently cannot be members of the visible Church Answ May not a childe be known to be a member of the Common-wealth by its being borne therein and doth not the Scripture intimate as much concerning a childe born in Zion it shall be said that this man was borne there q. d. that this man is known to be a member of Citizen of the City or Church of the living God because he was borne there or by Birth-priviledge or being born free 2. Children have visible communion with the Church in their parents profession as Ames teacheth sunt participes ejusdem profesfessions c. 3. They have some visible communion with the Church in their own persons also in that first Ordinance of Christ of which they are capable and thus being entred they remain in the Churches communion so far thereby until they shall be capable of enjoying more Object 2. However it may be said that the excommunicate are thus excluded Answ Not so for though the excommunicate should have no actual communion with the Church yet they have a fundamental and habitual communion with it as a palsie member is yet a real member and may be truely said to have an habitual communion with the body though at present its actual partaking of the animal influence be denied or suspended or as a man out-lawd may be said to have a remoter right fundamentally in the Law of the Land though he have no present actual benefit thereby which indeed the violence of discipline and not the nature of such a condition hath brought him unto But secondly there is notwithstanding some secret actual communion betwixt the body and a palsey member and the Common-wealth and a person out-law'd and likewise betwixt the excommunicate and the Church which may also be known for that the palsey member hath some influence from the body appears by its warmth that the person out-law'd hath some benefit by the Laws appears in that they secure his life it being murther to kill him and that the excommunicate have some fellowship with the Church appears in that they are within the care thereof and under the Ordinance of God appointed for salvation and not for destruction and is to be dealt withal as a brother 3. The excommunicate lastly I mean such onely as are not heretical have communion with the Church in preparatione animi and in their desires which is onely suspended for their good a while with hopes of repentance and satisfaction and thereupon re-admission as the palsie member in the disposition or preparation of nature is ready as it were to receive the suspended influence from the body again viz. upon the unlocking and opening of obstructions which a member wholly cut off or dead hath not CHAP. XXX What it is that doth wholly put a man out of the Church and first that it is not ignorance WE proceed Lastly having shewn what is requisite to constitute and evidence visible Church-membership to enquire into the meanes and ways of dissolving it and the question is What is that which wholly dismembers or cutteth off from the visible Church Hereunto I answer Negatively and Positively Ans 1. Neg. First I assert that the want of such a competent measure of knowledge as every one ought to have which is commonly termed ignorance doth not simply or of it selfe wholly cut off from the visible Church and the Reasons hereof are Reas 1. Because such a knowledge doth not go into the essence of the visible Church which we have found to consist in society or community Reas 2. Because evidence or appearance of knowledge is not a necessary or essential requisite to discover Church-membership for then none might take another for a member of the Church before he is satisfied of his knowledge which would be a strange thing therefore ignorance or the want of such knowledge doth not signifie one no Church-member the consequence is built upon the common rule eadem est ratio contrariorum Reas 3. Because the Scripture doth not assert it which alone hath authority from God to satisfie us in this point the Scripture doth often charge the members of the Church with ignorance but doth never either say that ignorant persons cannot be Church-members or that ignorance doth cast men out of the Church or indeed so much that ignorant persons ought meerly for their
ignorance to be excommunicated In the time of the Law we read that Israel doth not know my people have no understanding but where is it said that because they do not know they are not Israel or because they have no understanding they are none of my people Under the Gospel we read also that some were so ignorant that they did not discern the body of the Lord in the Sacrament and that to some of them the Gospel was hid of whom indeed it addeth that they eat and drink their own damnation and that they are likely at least to perish but it is not said that they thus put themselves out of the Church or that they are no Church-members yea doth it not rather acknowledge even these as well as the rest to be members when the whole are called the body 1 Cor. 12. 13. and saluted under the title of the Church 1 Cor. 1. 1. The Apostle tells us also of some Christian Hebrews that had need notwithstanding all their meanes that one should teach them again what are the very Oracles of God wherein they are at once charged both with ignorance and scandal yet addeth nothing of their being declared to be no longer members of the Church but rather the contrary calling them yet Babes yea and at the very same time when Laodicea is charged with blindnesse she is also acknowledged to be a Church by Christ for heaven now let us take heed of judging without Gods Law Reas 4. Lastly if knowledge as such be a necessary condition to visible Church-membership then no ignorant person could be a Curch-member for none can be a member without that which is necessarily required thereunto but all will grant except Anabaptists that some ignorant persons viz. children c. may be and actually are Church-members therefore also none meerly for their ignorance are no Church-members for then every such one would be equally excluded according to the Rule a quatenus adde omni valet Argumentum Object But children stand in the visible Church in their Parents right who are supposed to have knowledge Answ 1. An Infants right in the Church may be considered three wayes 1. In its rise or ground 2. In its conveyance 3. In its receptaculum or seat as it is granted conveyed and seated it is granted principally by the free grace of God whose promise is freely made both to us and our seed it is indeed conveyed to such and such infants by the meanes of their parents and their Christianity and thus the promise is first to us and then to our seed But lastly it must needs be seated in the childe it self who is a Church-member as well as his parent therefore the promise is to our seed as well as to us and to our seed distinct to us the promise is to you and to your children and accordingly the seal also 2. That the Infants right is seated in it self though it be derived from its parents further appears thus 1. Because otherwise the childe should have no right at all for the accident doth inhaerere in subjecto to the very being of it as such and if the right of the childe which is the accident be not in the childe who is the subject of it it is indeed no where nothing at all Possession may be in another for my use 2. A right to the same thing lying yet in common and not actually divided to the partners may be seated in two or more howbeit every one of these partners cannot be said to have a right to the whole if it be divisible but rather in it 3. A right may be transferred from one to another yet when the right is thus transferred it now resideth no longer in him that before had it but as we use to say the property is altered 4. Right may be seated in one for anothers use as it is in some cases or persons of trust Yet it still remaines a contradiction to say that ones right is seated in another and 't is as much as to say that one hath a right and yet he hath none for meum and tuum cannot be separated from me te and mine belongs to none but my selfe 2. As persons are sealed so they have a right in the Church But children are sealed i. e. baptized in their own persons therefore their right is seated also in their own persons 3. Children have lawful possession in their own persons therefore the right by which they thus possesse is seated in their own persons Calvin speaking the reformed sense saith Dicimus ccclesiae filios nasci ab utero reputari in Christi membris for nothing can legitmate possession and make it lawful but a right seated in the possessour That children have lawful possession of membership in their own persons is denied by none but Anabaptists seeing according to Scripture they are generally allowed to be disciples in Covenant to belong to Christ and the Kingdome of God and to be borne to him all which are equivalent to visible Church-membership 4. If the childe had no right but in its parent it should have no possession but in its parent and the parents Church-membership and seal of baptism should be sufficient for himself and his child but this is absurd Ergo Object 2. But the greater objection cometh now to be removed it lieth thus Consent is required in adult persons for their being in Covenant with God but knowledge is required to consent therefore knowledge is requisite for an adult persons being in Covenant and consequently in the Church Answ Neither of these propositions may safely passe without exception or at least distinction upon them First therefore we distinguish of consent as requisite to covenanting and thus answer to the first proposition And secondly of knowledge as requisite to consent and thus answer to the latter proposition Thirdly of an adult persons being in Covenant which may be helpful also in answer to the whole Consent is positive or negative knowledge is implicite or explicite and this againe is clear or cloudy full or but in part and being in Covenant as it is said of adult persons is either such as they received in their Infant state or such as they received after they were in years according to these distinctions I apply my answer thus 1. A Positive consent is an expressed or professed consent and this I affirme to be necessary in any that would enter Covenant with God or his Church at the adult estate so far there is no controversie especially if we note the things to be thus consented unto to be but entring into Gods Covenant and among his Covenant people to be baptized and to submit unto the Laws and Ordinances thereof in general 2. Yet I humbly conceive a negative consent which is but non-actual dissent or a non-renouncing of the Gospel c. to be sufficient to continue such in Covenant as before were admitted whether in their infant or adult estate Though we grant
that their non dissenting or rather nonwilful with-drawing from the Church of God is an evident token to men of their positive consent and that men are haply upon that account reckoned members of the Church As in the Common-wealth a person that desires to become a member or a subject thereof must necessarily expresse his desire of it and consequently his consent unto it with his submission to the Laws and government of that Common-wealth yet one that was borne free as also the former after his freedome is granted him his consent may not be questioned much lesse his freedom or interest in the Nation while he remaineth quiet and peaceable and breaketh not himself off therefrom by defiance or open rebellion And that thus it is in the Church also is plaine from Scripture the great and infallible Charter of the Churches freedome In the time of the Law it was requisite that proselytes were expresly to consent as Hamor and Shechem said onely let us consent unto them viz. to be circumcised and they will dwell with us i. e. own us as one people with themselves yet persons that were Gen. 34. 23 borne Israelites were to be circumcised by Gods command though without their own and against their parents will and both these as also the proselytes were for ever after to be reckoned in Covenant without any further scrutiny so long as That is the command was in force and such children had a right though the parents did not circumcise them they did not bewray themselves by open apostasie and now in the times of the Gospel we use to urge against the Anabaptist that both the subjects and conditions of the Covenant are still the same now as then the Gentiles being now ingraffed into the same stock and baptisme succeding in the roome and use of circumcision Therefore it is worth our observation that Gods Covenant-people in the time of the Law were not onely admitted without any respect to their voluntary consent or knowledge but commanded to renue their Covenant in such a manner as that they that Deut. 29 11 12 15 2 Chro. 15. 9 12 Jer. 34. 10. were absent and not in place to expresse their consent were included in those that were present I say to renue their Covenant for doubtless they were Gods Covenant-people before neither can any possibly imagine that such as did not expresly consent to this present act did cease from the number of Gods Covenant-people thence-forward 3. Though a clear and distinct knowledge of the conditions be requisite to interesse in the benefits of the Covenant yet a general cloudy and partial knowledge is sufficient to enstate a man and to continue him in the Covenant of God viz. some general and dark apprehensions of the true Messias of the true God opposed to the false that God is to be worshipped by all his people c. is such as I mean and no more can be supposed to have been in those three thousand Acts 2. in the Jailour Simon Magus or the Eunuch himself when they were received by the Gospel-Church and baptized We have the reason given Deut. 29. 18. why the people were to enter i. e. to renue their Covenant viz. that such among them as were idolatrous might be discovered plainly intimating that those who did so far consent as that they might appear thereby to be no idolaters which required onely a general knowledge and owning of the Lord were not to be distinguished in much lesse cut from the Covenant people of God This might suffice us yet we have four advantages more to add with which I shall end this answer 1. It is not said nor to be thought that all those that were guilty of idolatry and thus found out did presently cease to be of the Church 2. Though such an explicite general knowltdg to be a necessary condition of admitting into the Church adult persons yet this reacheth not our common case viz. the continuance of persons within the Church who were born there and sealed in infancy 3. A search after either their knowledge or consent in order to their continuance in Covenant who break not out into open rebellion against the same hath no footing at all in Scripture or Antiquity 4. Especially seeing that such do usually make a real profession of their consent by their ordinary attending upon the Ordinances of divine service which for ought I yet see may passe for an explicite consent among men seeing it is real and actual though not vocal which consent none can deny to be given by those that have a very inconsiderable measure of knowledge as daily experience witnesseth CHAP. XXXI Wickednesse doth not put a man out of the visible Church IGnorance hath already appeared in sufficient we proceed to enquire what profanenesse or wickednesse hath to cut a man off from the Church A person may be thought to be cut off from the Church either de jure or de facto or in plainer termes meritoriously or effectively in the former of these respects a man is said to be cut from the Church most improperly for unlesse desert or fault and punishment be all one a person that onely deserveth to be cut off and is not actually and really proceeded against can onely properly be said not to be cut off as yet I apply my answer thus That seeing a profane or wicked person before the censure of the Church be pass'd upon him can onely be said to deserve and not yet to suffer it I conclude that profanenesse or wickednesse doth not properly i. e. formally effectively or actually cut off from the Church After all that hath already evinced the truth hereof I might adde one argument ad hominem whatsoever genius attendeth my Opponent If it be thought that saving grace be essentially requisite to membership then the profane or wicked whose case is now a trying is either such a one as hath the seed of God abiding in him under all his wickednesse as it was in David or else he is wholly without grace as Judas was if he be supposed to have any measure of saving grace then he can never lose it for saving grace cannot be lost and if Church membership essentially depend upon that saving grace which he hath and cannot lose certainly his wickednesse cannot cut off this his membership nor indeed any thing else it is little lesse then a contradiction to affirme a particular after a general denial that cannot possibly admit an exception and if it be first said that a man can never lose that which entitles to membership there is no room left to affirm afterwards that wickeduesse cutteth it off Again if such a profane and wicked person be supposed to have no true grace then if grace be of the essence of the Church he was never truely of the Church and consequently not at all capable of being dismemembered therefrom either by wickedness or any thing else seeing one cannot lose that which he never
thus excommunicate hath yet both habitual and actual communion in part with the Church either of which is far more then a bare conditionall or potential communion with it and therefore participateth of the essence and ceaseth not wholly to be a member thereof 1. An excommunicate person hath habitual communion with the Church which is real and more then potential though he Habitual should have actual communion this hath largely appeared before for his communion is onely suspended upon expectation of satisfaction and he hath it in desire and in the preparation of mind and the seal of the Covenant viz. baptisme is yet in force upon him 2. Yea such an excommunicate person hath actual commmunion with the Church in many though not all her Ordinances Actual 1. As before in the ordinance of Baptisme 2. In the prayers of the Church which are or ought to be made for him as a person in some relation as a brother to them which he may claime at least if he may not heare 3. In the counsel and exhortations of the Church which doubtlesse is an Ordinance Heb. 11. 25. and to be performed to the excommunicate count him not as an enemy but admonish him as a brother 4. In the Ordinance of excommunication also which is acknowledged to be appointed and ought to be executed as a medicine to heal and not alwayes as a sword wholly to cut off a diseased member the Excommunicate are thereby under the meanes of cure 〈◊〉 1. Cor. 5. the meanes of salvation which no one wholly out of the Church is Yea some conceive that the excommunicate have an actual right in all Ordinances but the Supper and the politick acts of the Niddui Church Niddui among the Jews which is thought to answer to our lesser degree of excommunication did not exclude a man from the Temple as the Talmudists say though according to Drusius he might not come into the Synagogue whence haply Vid. Gillesp Aarons rod. that forme of speech casting out of the Synagogue in Scripture Yet Joh. Coch. thinks that an excommunicate person was not altogether cast out of the Synagogue neither but was permitted to heare and in other things was separate which yet hath some colour from that proverb of the Jews that he that was under Cherem or the greater excommunication non docet non docetur and by this he was distinguished by those under Niddui intimating that such though they might not teach yet they might be taught otherwise there appears to be no difference betwixt them herein That which favours this opinion amongst us is that other Ordinances may be dispensed to Heathens and Publicans a Publican may come into the Temple to pray and an Heathen came into the Church at Corinth to heare and a person thus excommunicate is but an Heathen or a Publican but enough of this I presume not to determine any thing in so nice a Controversie I crave onely leave to conclude that if the excommunicate heare onely as a Heathen and pray onely as a Publican then not as a Church-member which serveth to cut this Observation wholly off from the present question and to break short off the thread of my answer hereto CHAP. XXXIII What doth wholly cut a man off from the visible Church first on Gods part HItherto we have answered negatively and laboured to shew that ignorance wickednesse and excommunication viz. the lesser doth not wholly root up visible Church-membership come we now to give our positive answer and to shew what doth The person that is the subject of this sad change may be considered The person cut off is passive or active in it to be passive in it onely and to be cut off or active also and to cut himself off from the Church If we look upon him as passive in it I mean in the punishment not in the sinne the agent can be none in a strict and principal When the man is passive God is the agent properly sense but God for as the Husband is said most properly to give the wife a bill of divorce though others viz. the administers of the Law be subservient also so God alone hath this prerogative to admit into and cast out of his own Church though the discipline of the Church be used by God therein therefore we are taught by Divines that when the key of the Church erreth God doth not binde in heaven and consequently men are not really bound at all 1. But God may be considered to give this bill of utter divorce two wayes first mediately by the hand of the Church in her God doth divorce 1. Mediately by the Church highest act of punishment if such a one there be called Anathema Maranatha which God doth either by ratifying in heaven what is done accordingly on earth when the Church dares arise to so great and dreadful a judgement as it is said she did against Julian and doth not misapply it or else by putting forth such a judicial sentence against a person known to himself to have sinned the unpardonable sinne though not to the Church as a dismal addition and not onely a ratification of the Churches lesser censure Secondly sometimes God doth put in his own hand and sickle and wholly cut off persons and Churches more immedialy i. e. without 2. Immediately two wayes the meanes or mediation of the Church and that two ways 1. By the stroke of natural death whereby a person if wicked is in 1. By death heavy judgement wholly cut from the Church in all respects but if godly in much mercy wholly cut off from the Church in our present respect viz. as militant to be joyned to Jerusalem above in the glory and triumphs thereof for ever 2. By removing his Ordinances 2. By removing the candlesticks the onely means of Church-communion from the place where such a person or people who have not hearts or fruits answerable do inhabite for otherwise though the Gospel be removed yet if a mans heart be to it indeed he hath habitual communion with all other Churches and power to joyne himselfe to any true Church in the world and to claime actual communion with it as none can doubt though his own former Congregation be dissolved Just thus it was with the ancient Church of the Jews God after many warnings and threatnings when she had stoned the servants and killed the heire and yet still refused her own mercies scorning to be wash'd in the blood her selfe had shed or healed by the wounds she had made God at length giveth commission to his servants in the Gospel and lo they turne to the Gentiles and carry away the light and glory of Israel the golden candlestick of the Gospel and the Where God utterly taking away the means of his Word and worship Acts 15. 46 hath apparently given the bill of divorce Isa 50 1 then are we not to acknowledge any Church at all at this day in Jerusalem
once the holy City but where these meanes are yet continued we are to acknowledge a Church of Christ Rev. 2. 12 13. more or lesse corrupt according to the gâ—eater or lesse abuse of Gods Word and worship Bish Usher sum of Divin p. 398. Church along with them Yet observe though the rest were blinded the Elect were saved many of the former Church of the Jews now dissolved joyned themselves unto the Gospel-Churches which indeed were the same for substance and differ'd onely by a new administration of Ordinances with their own Church before Now of any other way wherein God doth directly and formally reject or divorce a person or people besides these I think we read not in Scripture CHAP. XXXIV How a man may cut himself off from the visible Church viz. by Heresie and Schisme THe destruction of man is of himself not onely meritoriously but sometimes efficiently and so in order thereunto is his cutting himself from the Church of God the meanes of his salvation That it is so is not doubted our question is how it cometh to passe The visible Church is usually considered in an entitive or organical apacity accordingly it is said to be endued with two properties profession of the faith as entitive and communion in worship as organical respective hereunto a man may violate his right in the Church and dismember himself 1. By Heresie denying the faith he cutteth himself from the Church entitive 2. By Schisme renting himself from its comunion in worship he breaks himself off from the Church organical so that my general answer here is that a person may wholly cut himself from the visible Church by two means viz. Heresie and Schisme by the first he goes off the foundation which lies in doctrine by the last he forsakes the fellowship which lieth in worship of these a little more distinctly 1. Heresie cutteth off from the Church as it breaketh the great Haeresis opponitur fidei schisma charitati Ames bond of the Churches union viz. faith and as it necessarily carrieth with it a want of that historical faith which hath the doctrine of faith for its object and which none do doubt to be an essential requisite to a true Church-member Therefore the Jews Buxtor Lex Cald. Talm. Rab. p. 195 held that an heretical Israelite had no communion with the Church of Israel and why but because communion supposeth union and union with Israel or the true Church is lost with faith they also held as Master Selden noteth that an Israelite turning an Heretick i. e. denying any of the thirteen fundamental Articles to be as an Heathen man and did therefore permit a Jew to lend De jure Nat. gent. l. 6. c. 10 him upon usury as to an Heathen and why but because he had renounced the Law which chiefly if not onely differr'd a Jew from an Heathen Not that every errour is so dangerous for every errour is not heresie nor yet every heresie onely such as is so general and desperate as that it takes one wholly off from the maine doctrine of Christ his Prophets and Apostles the doctrinal foundation Eph. 2. ult of the Church It hath beene a very ancient controversie in the Church whether Heresie doth wholly cut off from the Church or not upon which counsels have contradicted and contra-decreed The Africane Bishops in the Council of Carthage held that heresie As Mr. Hooker observeth out of Fortunat. secundin Hieron did put out of the Church which opinion was afterwards condemned in the Council of Nice even by the chiefest of the authors thereof themselves Mr. Hooker who enclined to the negative seems to plead for the fathers so farre as they appear on the contrary side If the Ecclesias pol. p. 87. fathers saith he do any where as oftentimes they do make the true visible Church of Christ and heretical companies opposite they are to be construed as separating hereticks not altogether from the company of Beleevers but from the fellowship of sound Beleevers However I presume the controversie may be easily ended viz. by parting stakes and allowing some truth on both sides 't is true that Hereticks are of the Church and it may be true that Hereticks are not of the Church there is a latitude in heresie Thus the Ancient fathers held for their opinion was that that heresie which did not deny the Trinity did not wholly cut off from the church Paget some heresie which absolutely denieth some particular fundamental truth and taketh up some one or few stones thereof is consistent with Church-interest and other heresie which raseth up the very foundation of Religion denying most or the most chief if not all of the Articles of our Christian faith is inconsistent therewith Object But it should seem then that Heresie doth not un-Church for if denying of some particular fundamental truth do not then heresie properly doth not for that is properly heresie and that which raseth up the foundation of Religion seems more then heresie and may be Apostacy Answ A falling from the faith is indeed Scripture-Apostacy though I humbly conceive that that expression as it stands in that place of Scripture intends as well a falling from the companies of the faithful by schisme as a falling from the doctrine of faith by heresie and indeed both these viz. perfect heresie and perfect schisme make proper Apostacy as Reverend Hudson observeth for a man to remove out of the Church Catholick either entitive by disclaiming the doctrine and faith of Christ which is heresie or organical by refusing to joyne to any Christian society which is schisme is a great sin and Apostacy 2. But I conclude though a man deny not all the maine Articles The difference betwixt heresie and infidelity and apostacy the two latter are the denying or renouncing the whole faith of Christ but the former of any one single part of it Han. paraen p. 64. of Christianity without which he is not properly an Apostate in the sense of Divines yet by denying many or most of the chief fundamentals whereby he may fitly be said to teare up the foundation though he do not take up every stone thereof a man may cut himself off from the Church the pillar of truth 3. Besides doth not Apostacy imply the height of Schisme as well as Heresie can a person be properly said to be an Apostate if we speak as others do that yet remaineth in the communion of Ordinances why then may not a person that renounceth all the Articles of the Christian faith if he yet refuse not communion Ita ut hereticus quis possit esse non schismaticus Ames in Ordinances be rather said to be an Heretick then an Apostate But I dispute not for words be it granted me that such a renouncing of the Christian faith without any personal separation from the Church is sufficient to cut a man off there-from it will not trouble me to
from our first constitution is vanish'd for now the fault it seemeth is found in something that hath happened since which also ought to be made to appear 1. To be truely charged upon our Churches And Secondly sufficient to destroy them otherwise our Churches being thus confessed to be truely and rightly constitute at first and nothing being found to destroy their being or truth since it cannot be denied but that they are true Churches still Let it be therefore briefly examined what they severally alledge against us Obj. 1. The Papists object that our schisme from the Church of Papists Rome hath destroyed our Church Answ But this will never serve their turne without the proof of two things which are never to be proved 1. That the Church of England was guilty of Schisme by renouncing obedience to the Church of Rome For 1. England was never an obliged member of that particular Church of Rome but a Sister Church unto it Secondly as we and Rome were both members of the Catholick Church we never separated from Rome onely in those things wherein Rome first separated from God truth and us 2. That Schisme meerly of it self without heresie is sufficient to destroy a Church which the Scriptures never affirmed and which they know that the Ancient fathers ever denied Object The Anabaptists object that though we were lawfully baptized at first yet our present members are not and where Anabaptists there is no true baptisme there is no true Church Answ But there are three rotten pillars to uphold this argument which cannot support themselves 1. That Infant-baptisme is no lawful baptisme which they themselves now see that they cannot evidence and are therefore now weary of the point and onely labour to prove the lawfulnesse of beleevers baptisme 2. That Infant-Baptisme may not be true and effectual baptisme though they could possibly prove it to be unlawful and that we should not have been baptized till years of discretion fieri non debuit factum valet is sometimes a good Rule an errour in a circumstance doth not null the action persons baptized with water in infancy and with the holy Ghost since who dare say they are not baptized 3. That Baptisme is of the essence of Church-membership Learned Master John Goodwin hath written a Treatise on purpose upon this subject shewing by many arguments that supposing Baptisme not lawfully administred to Infants yet this is no just ground of separation from such Churches as do baptize infants and one hath made an attempt to answer them but with very unhappy successe Whether Infant-Baptisme hath plaine Scripture proof or not 't is both certaine and plaine in Scripture that the children of Lamb. Church-members are born in the Church and Covenant of God But from what Scripture can it be inferr'd that one that is borne in Covenant ceaseth to be so if not Baptised I know not I grant that the admission of persons not borne in the Church ought to be solemnized with Baptisme yet I conceive that Baptisme is the seal and badge of this his admission rather then essential to it and that he is a member indeed and before God by his sincere embracing the Christian Religion in his heart though not baptized though his submission to Baptisme be a necessary expression of his Christian profession for the Churches satisfaction and yet I conceive there is much difference betwixt the cases of such persons and of those that are borne in the Church and that this difference is clearly revealed in the Scriptures of both Testaments Object There is but one thing that hath any colour of bjection in Scripture against it that the person not circumcised should be cut off from the people and that he had broken the Covenant of God Gen. 17. 14. But this is easily removed for both his sin and punishment plainly intimate such a persons interest in the Covenant 1. He hath broken my Covenant that was his sinne of which he had not been capable had he not been in Covenant and therefore a person refusing circumcision was in Covenant 2. His punishment was to be cut off from the people which also intimates that at present he was among Gods people and to be punished with that punishment which was peculiar unto them it matters not what was meant by this cutting off for whether it was by death or excommunication we can thence onely argue desert of the like punishment in the like case and not that such a person is not yet in Covenant before this punishment is inflicted which is onely due unto him for breaking the Covenant in refusing the seale of the Covenant which he could neither have beene guilty of nor had any right unto unlesse he had been in Covenant Certainly therefore faith and not Circumcision or Baptisme is that which enters a man into Covenant with his seed we say Baptisme is the Seal of the Covenant and the badg of Christianity yea the Anabaptists and we are agreed in this that Baptisme is to be administred onely to such as are in Covenant already and consequently that persons are in Covenant before they have right to Baptism and therefore baptisme is not of the essence of the Cevenant or Church Object The Brownist supposing the destruction of our Churches Of Brownists in Queen Maries dayes thus objecteth The true Church is gathered by the preaching of the Word but the Churches of England were called onely by Queen Eliza's command and not by the preaching of the Word therefore they are no true Churches Answ This is the Goliah-objection yet with no great difficulty vanquished for 1. It cannot be proved that we wholly lost the being of a Church by the Marian persecution The Fundamental points touching God Christ Scriptures Ordinances did still shine through that red vaile at least they were never covered much lesse lost in that Popish Rabble which God most graciously and suddenly cleansed by the means of that happy succeeding Queen so that it was rather a reformation then a constitution of a Church which we then received and the Queen did no more in putting for her entrusted power for recovery of our former purer Religion then what other Scripture-Princes had done before her with applause from heaven The people in Josiahs time were farre more Idolatrous then in Queen Maries the like might be observed of Hezekiahs time see how Ahaz and Amon left them 2 Chron. 28. 2 3 4. and 23. and 33. 2 3 4 5 9. yet we find that these Princes compelled all that were found in Israel to serve the Lord their God as it is said of Josiah 2 Chron. 34. 33. who commanded the people to serve the Lord 2 King 23. 21. and Hezekiah with his Parliament made a decree requiring the people from Dan to Beersheba to return againe unto the Lord God of Abraham whom they had forsaken 2 Chron. 30. 56. Now who will say that Israel was not a people of the Lord because thus reduced againe
determine or remove 2. Yea he seems indeed to speak ouly in the case of Bastardy which case is clearly distinguished by Casnists from cases of other notorious scandals who yet do generally grant that in such a case the illegitimate childe should be baptized upon certain conditions and consequently question not their right but only ptopose a prudential creditable and fit way means and manner for the application of Baptisme to them in such unclean cases 3. Yea once more we may truly observe that this worthy man Mr. Hildersham in the place infisted on did mixtly at least intend the debarring such wicked Parents from the Supper of the Lord which course if well proceeded in would I think wholly remove all the foresaid inconveniences For were the Parents justly censured for their personal wickednesse by being debarred from the Supper of the Lord what contempt of Worship prophaning of Ordinances or offence to any could possibly arise from a just dispensing to such their children their right in in Baptisme who ought not to suffer so great a losse for their Parents fault Again if I should adde that the children of persons excommunicate Children of excommunicate persons ought to be baptized 't is well known that many learned men would bear me out Certainly if the Parents in this state of censure are united to the Church and have the seal of Baptism in its force upon them I see not but their children have yet a right unto Baptism not to be violared For what is it that entitles the childe to the seal but its being borne in Covenant and what is the meanes of this but the Parents foederal holinesse and Baptismal state But praeteritis hic etiam illis quae alibi sunt disputata I shall say only this that either the excommunicate Parent is in Covenant or not If he be in Covenant then his childe hath right to Baptisme if he be not then upon his repentance he ought to be re-baptized for if the Covenant-interest of an excommunicate person be wholly voided then is the seal of the Covenant broken and must upon renewing of Covenant by repentance be anew affix'd by a rebaptization without any colourable contradiction that I yet can hear of Lastly it will easily follow that then the children of such as The children of such as ought not to be admitted to the Supper ought not to communicate in the Supper may have right to baptisme because wicked persons and persons de jure excommunicated and persons actually excommunicate ought not to be admitted to the Supper and yet the children of all such being the children of parents in Covenant ought not be de denied the seal of the Covenant viz. Baptisme CHAP. XXXVII Concerning private accession or coming to the Sacrament SECT I. The Introduction MY principle now leads me into a large field made by some a common by others I think a too to narrow and strict inclosure viz. Communion in the Sacrament of the Lords Supper I am conscious that seeing so many and various ways herein I may easily misse the right however I shall go as near as I can in the middle path that may be the rightest seeing as vice lieth in the extreams of vertue so errour in the extreams of truth and as we use to say of persons fallen out there is usually a fault on both sides it may be also the nearest way to my wished end of peace and unity for so is the middle by rules of Geometry and I doubt not of the the safety of it remembring that of the Poet in Medio tutissimus That which my principle helps me to infer here is 1. Concerning the terms of accession or ones own private coming to receive the Sacrament 2. Concerning the termes of admission or the Churches publick receiving persons to this communion for as Reverend Vrsin saith these are two questions Who ought to come to the Sacrament and who ought to be admitted though I cannot discern so great a difference betwixt them as some do First touching the private accession or liberty to come to receive or to offer ones selfe to this communion I reason thus If union with the Church dependeth upon saving grace then a right to communion in general with it and consequently to the Supper doth not for communion is founded in union as it is in natural and politick bodies Whence may flow these two Positions irresistibly 1. That such as are of the foundation of the Church or Church-members have a fundamental right and title to all the priviledges that belong to the Church as such 2. That all Church-members may lawfully proceed by vertue of this fundamental right to actual communion with the Church in the Sacrament of the Supper unlesse some special prohibition in the word doth limit it Hence arise two great and famous points of Controversie 1. Whether there be any such command in Scripture forbidding some Church-members to come to this Sacrament 2. If there be whether this condition without which Church-members are forbidden to come to the Sacrament it be saving grace or not SECT II. Whether there be any prohibition of persons within the Church from the Sacrament UPon the first of these I affirme that there is such a command in Scripture forbidding some Church-members to receive the Sacrament 2. I affirme that this command is to be drawn from 1 Corinth 11. 28. Let a man examine himselfe 1. That there is such a command forbidding or charging There is a prohibition of som persons something upon Church-members as conditional to their coming to the Sacrament and consequently rendring the right which persons have to the Sacrament by vertue of bare or single Church-membership but a mediate right and the command obliging Church-members as onely such but a mediate or a conditional command I affirm upon these reasons Reas 1. For if the command obliging all the circumcised to eat the passeover was not absolute but upon a supposition or condition of their cleannesse what reason can be given why this command obliging the baptized to communion in the Supper should be so absolute as to admit of no condition at all Is not the Supper the Christian Passeover as Baptisme is the Christian Circumcision at least is not the Supper as holy as the Passeover is not the Gospel-dispensation as strict as the legal is not the Supper at as great a distance from Baptisme as the passeover from circumcision however if these will not be yeelded unto I am sure that this will force its way that no reason can possibly be given why the command for the Supper should be more absolute then that of the Passeover 1. 'T is nothing here whether the legally unclean onely were forbidden the Passeover For 1. The legally uncleane were circumcised 2. The legally unclean were prohibited the Passeover 3. Therefore some circumcised persons were prohibited the Passeover 2. Neither is it our question whether those that were forbidden the Passeover were equally forbidden all other
flie unto in extraordinary cases of Apostasie or secret idolatry heresie c. answerable to the way of God as it is descried in the Old Testament in his dealing with his people the Jews then and as these means are opposed to the ordinary means of reforming and bettering our people viz. doctrine worship and discipline and not according to the notion or practice of those that require these things as ordinary conditions of Church-communion or familiar instances of trying the peoples sincerity to God or affections to us our too much valued private designes of advancing godlinesse and Reformation with the hazard of peace unity love to prejudice schisme and irreparable breaches and desolations Thirdsy I should with all my might emprove these means in great hopes of attaining the end of Reformation proposed were such use of them generally agreed upon and back'd with civil authority Otherwise if some few only make the enterprize this means of Reformation will be found to prove effectual for further breaches and divisions only and end in destruction and to attempt a general and extraordinary remedy in this case without civil influence might shew our zeal I think more then prudence Fourthly above all I must stick at this last exception that the end of our calling our people to renew their covenant and to professe their faith be not to discerne who are in covenant and who not as some presse it or who are to be admitted to the Table of the Lord and who not as others but probable Reformation of the people indeed It is not within the power of Prudence to propose such ends to such means nor indeed according to her good nature which strives to better all but abhorres to injure any for that 's no prudence but carnal reason that would go to good in the way of evil or forgetteth love and violateth right upon the fairest pretence in the world Have such baptized persons as appear to be knowing and free of scandal a right in Covenant and a just claim to this seal thereof or not if not it behoveth us to shew their barâ—e in Scripture and to make our exception against their claim and not to call them to further conditions not owned by Scripture But if then how can prudence that orders and rules in things adiapharous and indifferent only deny that which is justly claim'd and so necessary God hath already determined what is just and necessaâ—y and men have not to do to alter this upon any pretence of prudence Why should we fear the event of justice as the end of just wayes fâ—at Justitia ruat Coelum Fourthly there are many that make particular examination in point of knowledge a necessary antecedent to admission to the Sacrament and the peoples submission thereunto a necessary and indispensable condition of their right in the Sacrament in the Court of the Church But this is also too rigid for moderate Presbyterian principles we read not of any such condition of admission to the Supper in the Scriptures but rather that some viz. the disciples were admitted without it by Christ himself and those many in Acts 2. by his Apostles Indeed the satisfaction of the Church touching their knowledge that would receive may be thought necessary and by consequence some means or other for this satisfaction as more at large anon but that this particular way of examination is the sole meanes of this satisfaction or the necessary meanes thereof or the necessary condition of admission to the Sacrament I despair to see evinced yea I am bold to conclude that if satisfaction of knowledge be the onely end of examination that this end may be obtained without this meanes and consequently this meanes is not absolutely necessary for this end and therefore submission to this meanes is not absolutely necessary in order to the peoples admission to the Sacrament Lastly neither is an incapacity to improve this Sacrament the sole or immediate ground of the Churches denying this Sacrament Nor an incapacity to improve the Sament to any of her members I grant that none are to be denied it but those that appear to be thus incapable yet their incapacity is but the remote ground thereof may be thought to be the ground or reason of our rule for suspention or the word of prohibition in Scripture but this word of prohibition in Scripture is the next ground of suspension we put away persons from this communion who are uncapable of improving not directly and properly because they are incapable but because the word prohibites persons incapable from it For if the word should admit such as are incapable whose deed should reject them if God allow them to partake what man dare deny them if Religion command them to receive what reason grounded upon any unfitnesse shall forbid them or what prudence reason or Religion can there be in pretence of pleasing God by crossing his Will or what pretence of charity justice or fidelity in a Steward will colour his denying any of the servants the right his Master hath given him or forbidding the duty which his master requires of him I need not make Application Besides the word of prohibition in Scripture which is next to be sought for doth not leave it at large to prudence to judge what is an incapacity to improve the Sacrament and what not but determines and fixeth us to a certaine kinde of incapacity viz. whereby we discerne not the Lords body or such as consisteth not with self-examination as anone will appear therefore the work of prudence herein is yet more narrow Prudence may not plead thus such persons are uncapable of improving the Supper therefore they ought not to receive it nor thus the word forbiddeth persons uncapable to receive therefore persons uncapable ought not to be admitted onely thus the word forbiddeth persons thus and thus uncapable or uncapable in such and such respects therefore such uncapable persons ought not to receive and consequently they appearing such not to be admitted and this and no other I take to be the sense of that very worthy and learned man that hath treated excellently upon this Mr. Blak seals particular The positive grounds of denying the Supper Having found the former grounds too weak to beare up The positive grounds of denying the Sacrament c. the practice of denying the Sacrament to Church-members we proceed to fix it upon a firmer foundation viz. the Word of God Now I know no other Scripture so apt to warrant us in this practice as that which prohibites some Church-members to receive the Sacrament which hath been found in 1 Cor. 11. 28. Let a man examine himself and so let him eat So that our ground for denying the Sacrament c. lieth fairly and directly thus such persons as do not examine themselves ought not to receive and consequently deserve not to be admitted to that which they ought not to have neither have they any wrong done them if men deny them what
well as of particulars and we conceive that the edification of the whole is more fairly aimed at by requiring this general conference though with the present denial of the Supper to some few that may be worthy then by giving the same to such with the hazard of all order and discipline 2. Yet if this conference be scrupled at with seeming seriousnesse there is as before provision made for the admission of such as are unsuspected without it but more plainly though such upon the foresaid gounds as also because of that liberty the Church hath for the choice of fit and convenient seasons may be kept off a while yet I conceive if they make a modest and not a turbulent or scandalous claime they may not be totally or finally meerly for want of submitting to conference of which they may also shew their reasons be cut off or denied the Sacrament prudence may a while with-hold possession but it cannot for ever dispose of right And now I hope reasonable men will at least be favourable in their censures of us and our intentions if not satisfied with our processes Our most ingenious candid Countrey-man I am sure is not at much distance with me though the gulph betwixt us were somewhat greater then thus it is with whose words I shall conclude and yeeld the end of this digression If there were saith he no other gulph betwixt us but the necessity we plead but the conveniency of examination of our knowledge in order to Mr. Morris p. 78. our Admission to the Sacrament we might sooner come together CHAP. XL. We may not proceed against wicked brethren but by discipline and censures HItherto of our Churches and Sacraments some few inferences more added touching discipline and censures will put a speedy period to the whole Touching censures I inferre from my great Proposition thus If saving grace go not into the essence of the visible Church but wicked persons and such as as have no evidence of saving grace may be truely members of the visible Church Then 1. We may not proceed against wicked Church-members but by discipline or censure 2. Nor reckon them without until they are made such by censure or cast out 3. We are bound to proceed against all such wicked Church-members in a course of censure Of these in their order 1. We may not proceed against wicked Church-members but by What order hath God left in his Church to keep his Ordinances from contempt R. The unruly should be admonished the obstinate excommunicated the penitent after their fall restored and comforted Hier catech p. 87. censure Supposing that we have finished our discourse of the Churches proceedings against the ignorant which is not by censure and that we are now considering the Churches way of proceeding against the wicked as such or for their wickedness or their wicked conversation the ground of this inference is very plaine for wicked persons being supposed to be Church-members at least till cast out and therefore to be dealt with onely as such they are not to be proceeded against but by censure for this reason because the way and the onely way that Christ hath appointed and allowed to his Church to proceed in against all her members in point of conversation is the way of censure or discipline which I presume did never yet receive a question much lesse contradiction from any sober or learned man and which is abundantly testified unto by the universal practice of all the Churches of all the several modes and formes of Churches in the world for what Churches did ever proceed against any member of her own for scandal or wickednesse in any other way but the way of discipline or censure or what other way can there be imagined or ventured on to be asserted Quest But what is meant by censure Answ Censure here is not taken in the large and broad sense of it but in its strict and ecclesiastical sense or as it is peculiar to the Churches jurisdiction and properly termed Church-censure and it may be defined thus Church-censure is an instrument of discipline whereby personal Censure defined Application of the Will of God is made for the removing of scandals It is an Instrument of discipline for Ames teacheth discipline is personalis applicatio per censuras In preaching of the Word the Will of God is really applied but yet generally or indefinitely c. not personally in administring the Sacraments the will of God is personally applied also yet by seals but now the Wil of God in the exercise of discipline is applied by censures The subject both of the scandal and of the censure must of necessity be in ecclesia or within or a brother if thy brother Mat. 18. 15. and consequently the party offended and censuring must be a brother too The sinne of a brother qua scandalous or offensive is the onely ground reason and object of this censure offend thee or sinne against thee Mat. 18. 15. Now there is no other course left by Christ for brethren or Church-members or the Church as such to recover satisfaction from a brother but this way of personal applying the will of Christ unto him as Ames expresseth it but by censures But to make this more evident and to cut the remaining work The parts of censure short let us consider this discipline or censure in its parts which as Aimes hath laid the division for us are these two fraternal correption or admonition and excommunication Admonition is taken simply and largely for a moral duty as Admonition twofold simple and respective it is pressed Levit. 19. 17. and in many other Scriptures or respectively to excommunication or discipline and limited or restrained to the Church and grounded upon the positive precept of Christ Matth. 18. 15 16 17. the first is indeed a personal application of the will of Christ but no Church-censure the last is the first personal application of the Will of Christ by censure or the first act or kinde of Church-censure Give me leave to note the difference here which I conceive Simple admonition no Chuâ—ch-censure may be of use a little plainer the first simple large and moral admonition cannot well be called a Church-censure or any part of Christian discipline 1. Because we stand obliged to it by the Law of nature but so we are not to any part of Christian-discipline as such 2. Therefore all mankinde are bound unto it though none but the Church have to do with Ecclesiastical discipline Yet I humbly conceive that this absolute and moral duty of Yet it hath its use in the Church for sins of infirmity which Church censuremedleth not with admonition hath its use in the Church also viz. for sinnes of infirmity and sinnes of a weaker and more inconsiderable offensivenesse then to be proceeded against by discipline unlesse grosse obstinacy be also added which obstinacy is then the scandal and the object of censure rather then the
sinne it self persisted in My reason for this is 1. Because most if not all Divines deny discipline to have to do with sinnes of infirmimity Quale sit pecca tum quod postulat usum hujus disciplinae R. Non infirmitates illae quae sunt omnium ferè Christianorum communes Istarum enim singularis curatio emendatio neque expectari potest neque ab iis exegi qui iisdem aut similibus subjiciuntur Am. de consc p. 251 252. and yet I think none of them will deny but that we are bound to watch over one another and thereby to labour to help onward the great work of mortification even of the least sinne by kindly admonition and provocation 2. Because if every sin of infirmity should be the object of admonition as a part of Church-discipline we should do almost nothing but persecute each other with renewed daily endlesse and remedilesse troubles for all are guilty of such sinnes and we must judge of obstinacy in sinne especially by continuance in it and such sinnes are defined to be quotidianae incursionis and there is no possibility of being throughly purged from them in this world and therefore if such sinnes be the object of censure we must unavoidably be continually following one another in the steps of admonition to excommunication as obstinate sinners Yet no doubt there is such a censure as admonition peculiar Admonition respective to the Church and a part of its discipline and indeed the first part of it and which we now intend which is though not so large as the former yet objectively as large as discipline and no Medul p. 203 larger adhiberi debet in omni peccato cui disciplinae medela convenit as Ames This admonition I terme respective unto excommunication not because it is in order to it or if as Ames denieth well the proper end of admonition were ut aditas inde fiat ad excommunicationem but rather ut excommunicandi necessitas si fieri pâ—ssit antevertatur or otherwise indeed as our Saviour Mat. 18. directeth that processe may be made to excommunication This being a proper part of discipline is to level at greater sins then sinnes of infirmity namely such as have a mark upon them This censuâ—e aimeth at greater sins in Scripture sinnes wasting the conscience defiling the life having a manifest aptnesse in them to scandalize Religion or to induce the brethren to sinne or sorrow and therefore such as is proper to deal with wicked and scandalous brethren withal of whom we are now debating But to conclude wicked Church-members are not to be proceeded Without admonition no proceeding against the scandalous against without this first part of Church-censure or denied any part of Church communion for his scandal or wickednesse for this would be to execute before sentence yea or conviction or hearing I doubt not to assert that no Church-member is to be put out of any part of Church communion for scandal without some degree of that censure called excommunication as may appear by and by and again that no part or degree of excommunication may proceed against any Church-member without previous admonition Correctio scandali ab admonitione semper incipere debet Am. cons p. 252. Indicatio culpa primum est medium emendationis râ—sipiscentiae genuina causa ibid. He may be a brother and yet scandalous if he be an offensive scandalous brother he must be admonished first that if possible he may be sâ—ved from greater shame and be still retained in Church-communion this is the patience forbearance tendernesse and care required by the Gospel towards scandalous brethren for the repentance and recovery of our brother is the proper end of all discipline and shewing of the fault is the first meanes and the genuine cause of repentance and recovery from it I grant that this admonition ought to answer the publick or private nature of the scandal by being also private or publick yet still admonition is necessary private admonition and its processes being grounded and regulated Mat. 18. 15 16. and publick admonition 1 Tim. 5. 20. Yea is there any case when admonition is not seasonable and not in prudence to be performed I shall assume that in the same case excommunication is to be forborne if the party have not admonish'd before for still the conclusion is that no person is to be proceeded against for scandal but this is to begin with admonition The other part of ecclesiastical discipline is called excommunication Excommunication whereby upon a brothers obstinate persisting in his wickednesse after due admonition the wicked person is put away from among us and cast out of communion with the Church Now for ought I can finde in this case of scandal there is no other remedy left us in Scripture after the performance of due admonition but this of excommunication that which some term suspension and many think most properly viz. the holding the suspected or accused person in suspense until he is tried cannot be reasonably termed a censure or penalty no more then the securing of a suspected felon to the day of hearing who may be innocent Besides others are ready to say that such persons under such suspension ought not to be debarred of any priviledge till sentenced guilty by excommunication The Scripture is plaine 1 Cor. 5. and in diverse other places that the way of proceeding against scandalous and wicked persons in the Church is to put them away from among us by an ecclesiastical judgement v. 12 13. and we read in Scripture of no other and this we call excommunication Obj. But thus you deny suspension of scandalous persons from the Sacrament Answ Yea as distinct from excommunication but not as a part or degree of it and so indeed this kinde of suspension or abstension hath been alwayes called viz. pars vel gradus excommunicationis and excommunicatio minor 't is agreeable saith Ames Medul p. â—03 when the thing will suffer delay both to Scripture and reason ut primo inchoetur that at first excommunication may be begun by suspension or abstention from the Supper and such like Church priviledges which is wont to be called excommunicatio minor the lesser excommunication though note he adds in isto tamen grada non est sub sistendum c. Suspension was termed a part a beginning a degree of excommunication and the lesser excommunication without doubt because otherwise it hath no footing in Scripture or Antiquity 'T is known to be a famous question not yet clearly determined whether in the ancient Churches any persons were ever kept from the Supper alone for scandal and admitted to all or any other Ordinances save onely the penitents who were first excommunicated I confesse methinks I have reason to incline to the negative Yet give me leave to adde that I see not but that the same reason upon which the ancients received the excommunicate in again by degrees will equally
warrant the casting the excommunicate out by degrees and prudence encouraged by general Scriptures doth doubtlesse prescribe and urge this as well as that yea and with better advantage Whereupon though not so early may I not say as wisely the Church afterwards took up this course of mercy and gentlenesse patience and forbearance in ejecting and indeed abated of the former rigour severity and zeal in readmitting by such slow degrees and who doubts but that the Gospel being so rich in mercy and forbearance and the Ministry standing in his stead who hath all fulnesse of grace and every Ordinance being a mean of salvation our liberty is broader and our errour lesse in the wayes of indulgency and clemency then of judgement and punishment the rule of mercy exceeded is but an errour of charity whereas excesse in justice proceeds into injury and cruelty But however that be concluded this sufficeth my present purpose if such suspention be not lawful then excommunication in whole is necessary for the rejecting a scandalous person from Church-priviledges and if it be lawful yet excommunication is still necessary hereunto seeing such suspension is nothing save onely as it is a part and beginning of excommunication and hath no warrant but in those Scriptures where excommunication is founded and is indeed excommunication and every person rejected regularly from the Supper stands excommunicate though but in part Hence will easily flow some seasonable intimations which I crave leave to note only 1. It hence then follows that we in our Churches may not reject any of our brethren from any part of our Church-communion for their conversation-sake if they be not liable to censure that is as before we explained if they be not guilty of some great sin and persist therein with obstinacy we are taught even from New-England that they proceed not to censure but in case of known offence and such offence as cannot be healed without censure and what Church among the very Brownists and Anabaptists proceeds by any other rule Let us impartially reckon of scandal and censure with the Scriprure either in the Old or New Testament and I presume this matter is ended we must not proceed to so high a censure as Excommunication upon stricter termes then the Scripture doth nor take scandal as deserving so high a censure in a stricter sense then the Scripture doth 2. Then to reckon any of our members among dogges and swine before they have been duly admonished if not excommunicated is rash judgement 3. Our provoking the Gommunicants when the fault is not known save privately to make publick exceptions against the lives or actions of any that deserve admission to the Sacrament and not rather to put them upon their proper duty of private admonition and correption seemeth to crosse our Saviours directions Matth. 15. 5. in this case CHAP. XLI We may not account the members of our Congregations to be without until they are cast out THe second inference touching Censures is this if wicked men be indeed consistent with visible Church-membership then we may not reckon any member of our Congregations to be without though wicked and scandalous until he is made such by Church-censure and cast out The reason of this connexion is evident for our Congregations are true Churches And secondly the members of true Churches are to be accounted to be within and not without until they are excommunicated or cast out notwithstanding their scandal The incestuous person is an invincible instance here 't is known that he was very scandalous yer 't is plain he was still within and accordingly liable to the Churches judgement until cast out Yea 3. Without hesitancy I assert that there is no way or means or remedy to be found in Scripture or in the practice or judgement of any Church of casting out scandalous persons from Church-communion or interest but the censure of excommunication But these things have I hope been demonstrated before I shall therefore here only adde my wonder at those that allow our Congregations to be true Churches and yet not only reckon of but even deal with many yea most of the members of such Congregations as heathens before any censure have passed from the Church upon them an easie way I confesse to cut off the trouble of duty in Admonition and Excommunication But I fear not so easie a way of satisfying conscience or quitting our selves to our Master in the day of our account O that men would seriously consider what Word of God or Church of Christ will owne such practice at that great day and yet is it not a general miscarriage the Loâ—d awaken us to see that there is no other way for scandalous members to become Mat. 18. as heathens but by not hearing the Church which presupposeth admonition CHAP. XLII We are bound to proceed against scandalous persons within our Congregations by way of Censure LAstly if wickednesse or scandal render not the members of our Congregations to be no Church-members then are we not bound to proceed against the scandalous in our congregations by way of censure this is indeed the hardest task but yet it is not a clear duty and the great and likeliest remedy of reforming the scandalous and preserving the rest from leaven and destruction If persons be scandalous and within what can free them from Ecclesiastical censure or excuse us from judging them with it do not ye judge them that are within i. e. quatenus within and consequently all that are within is not Christs discipline as extensive as his Church or is there any room in his house not under his keyes any Schollar in his School not under his Rod or any subject in his Kingdome not under his power where then is his glory Yea do not those forcible and plain commands Tell thy brother of his fault and if he hear thee not tell the Church and if he hear not the Church let him be to thee as an heathen and a publican an heretick after the first and second admonition reject In the Name of the Lord Jesus deliver such an one unto Satan Put away from among your selves that wicked person c. do not these direct and pressing commands convince reprove rebuke exhort both Ministers and people as with thunder and lightning doth not the rod of severer discipline in the ancient Churches in more perillous times lash our fearfulnesse lazinesse unbelief and neglects herein The good Lord spare and pardon yet shame us and rowse us to our duty that we may no longer conferre with that flesh and blood that cannot enter into the Kingdome of heaven tbat the Ministry may effectually quicken the people to a regular course of admonition and proceed with them to an high censure upon just complaints of such as are found obstinate Certainly this is the remedy appointed by Christ for a Reformation and while this way is obstructed either by us or our people it is no great wonder if mens devices though never so
Supper will appear from the following passages which he transcribeth also out of Dionysius Areopagita Albaspinaeus and the Apology of the Waldenses pag. 21 22. 4. Though I must confesse I think the ancients sometimes at least if not ordinarily meant something more viz. a perfection of grace as well as Church-priviledge by that perfection which was usually attributed by them to confirmation for saith Cyprian p. 20. cited by our Authour such as are baptized in the Church are offered to the Overseers of the Church that by our prayer and imposition of hands they may receive the holy Ghost and be consummate through the gifts thereof by the Lords seal tum demum saith he in another place plenè sanctificari that 's the grace and esse filii Dei that 's the priviledge possunt si Sacramento utroque nascantur and yet more fully to our purpose it is also necessary saith he for him that is baptized to be anointed that the chrysme being received he may be the annoited of God i. e. perfectly a Christian as it is gloss'd and have in him the grace of Christ Yet here again we may distinguish and with ease and passe over Perfection of the membâ—r and of the membership any objection hence to be raised for there is a perfection of the member and a perfection of the membership I grant confirmation may serve to perfect the member but deny it any hand in perfecting the membership viz. the persons relation to or interest in the Church which I beleeve the ancients never intended a plaister applied to a weak part or member of our bodies may be said to strengthen or perfect the member but it hath no influence at all upon its membership in which it stood as firmly by its union with the body though but a feeble and weak member as the strongest part of the body a childe may be made by good education a more perfect childe but that addes nothing to his filiation child-ship or relation to his Parents or Family This is excellently illustrated by our authours own glosse upon p. 55. the words of Paraeus in Heb. 6. 2. Infantes Christianorum jure promissionis baptizabantur in infantia pueritiam egressi impositione manuum in ecclesiam adultorum recipiebantur not saith our Author hereupon that these were two distinct Churches for they did both concur according to their several capacities to the mâ—king up of one but rather two distinct formes or classes of persons in one and the same Church So that as Schollars of the lowest forme are as truely and compleatly members of the Schoole as those of the highest so those The lowest forme of Schollaâ—s is in the School that are baptized and not confirmed are as truely and perfectly members of the Church as those that are confirmed and invested with all Church-priviledges This is also pâ—ainly intimated in the very word confirmation The word confirmation câ—rrieâ—h so much Priscis temporibus impoâ—itione manuum baptismum confirmaâ—i solebat Walf Sâ—rab â—eb eccl c. 26. we would not confirme the catechumens in a state without the Church neither in a state of half Church-membership their very being to be confirm'd implies they are fully in the estate already This Ordinance was of old therefore thought to confirm Baptism or the state wherinto we are baptized or as the Waldenses it was in fidei confirmationem ad stabilitatem Militiamque fidei whereupon the Catechumens were admitted indeed to higher priviledge or forme in the Church but not into any new Church-state onely they were confirmed therein wherein they were perfectly before though as Ames clearly to the point of infants non adeo perfesta sunt membra ecclesiae ut possunt admitti ad omnia ejus privilegia participanda Secondly I think it will hence follow that a persons first foederal right and Covenant-relation to the Church doth not dissolve A persons first foederal right not dissolved for want of confiâ—mation upon his conviction of grosse ignorance when he comes to be confirmed for if onely by this federal right a person stand in his Church-state during his infancy and if when at the adult estate he give not satisfaction to the Church by personal profession by reason of ignorance though confirmation be justly denyed him he is to continue in the same condition he was before then the want of giving satisfaction to the Church for confirmation doth not destroy federal right or make invalid that first way of right he had in the Church by means of being born of beleeving parents Doubtlesse the Church is bound to require and every childe of the Church to render an account when duely called of their knowledge faith and conversation yet I bumbly conceive that where a satisfactory account is not obtained as the Church-state of such a person is not lost so the way and mean of this interest is not changed though I conceive that such a ones personal profession in his general owning the true faith and usual attending Gods publick worship doth super-adde a kinde of new right and mingle it with such a persons former right had by his birth-priviledge We do not imagine that the former right which a person who is now deservedly confirmed had in the Church by birth-priviledge is wholly lost or made void by confirmation but rather confirmed to him his baptism and consequently his first right to baptism viz One that is confirmed doth not thereby lose his former way of right in the Church his birth priviledg being confirmed to him and nothing taken away from him thereby only he hath now a double right in the Church and Covenant or rather a right therin two ways and both acknowledged by the Church through foederal faith at baptism through personal faith at a confirmation so much rather that right which a person not confirm'd and so not owned by the Church upon personal profession hath still in the Church must needs be his birth-right or that which he had by birth-priviledge or at least that is not lost and another way of right introduced by his not being confirmed as a person that is borne a member of a family or a Common-wealth continueth to be such while this his relation remaines upon the account of his birth-right onely or not so properly any other ways I am confident we read not of one person eâ—ther in Scripture or We â—ead of none in Scrâ—ptâ—â—e or antâ—quity that thus lost his birth-right Antiquity that lost his Birth-right in the Church any other way then by heresie schisme or the perfection of both Apostasie I think few will add excommunication Object If any should imagine that the birth-right of such is lost I think it must be upon this ground because the childe has no right but in his parent but at the adult estate children are to be admitted upon their own account as distinct to their parents Answ But the whole reason is peccant these two propositions 1. That foederal holinesse to which we were borne proceeds
therefore as Peresius saith when opportunity is offered and consequently not necessary if no opportunity be offered or it cannot be had Object But if confirmation be a necessary ingredient to a proxime right in the Lords Supper how can it be supplied or how can a person have such a right without it Answ Therefore it may be remembred that confirmation or examination giveth no right at all to the person it Confirmation giveth no right onely evidenceth and confirmeth his former right and lets him into possession by admission to the Sacrament the person if self-examined hath right according to the word before confirmation 1 Cor. 11. 28. and by confirmation or approving of the Church hath indeed that which is called an Ecclesiastical right yet very improperly it being onely an evidencing and testifying of the former right which before he had as to God and conscience now in the Court of the Church for no man can convey a title to Gods Ordinances We must hold the distinction betwixt the means of conveying aright which here is self examination and the meanes of discovering this right and giving possession which is Church-examination approbation or if you will confirmation which I conceive is necessary to be submitted to by the people when it is required but not any necessary ingredient into any thing of their right or title to any Ordinance Confirmation when it is required is necessary to possession but not to right in the Lords Supper but when not required necessary to neither for if the Ministers neglect their duty in not â—equiring the people to be confirmed there is no reason the people should be kept from the Sacrament which is doubtlesse a clearer duty and a better meanes of the peoples confirmation then that which hath appropriated the name thereof 2. Secondly I conceive confirmation or examination is not so necessary when the end is attained before without it When the end is otherwise attained Discipline is no farther a duty then it is a meanes and meanes as such are onely necessary for the attaining their ends therefore where the end is attained unto there is no doubt lesse need of the meanes thus where a discovery of a persons grace and knowledge and fitnesse for the Sacrament the ends of confirmation is attained as it sometimes is by other meanes there I conceive that confirmation is not absolutely necessary to the letting in of a person to possesse his right in the Lords Supper it being no more required for the said ends then any other meanes conducing thereunto onely as it is a better meanes and in it selfe more likely and apt to obtaine them 3. Thirdly I conceive that confirmation not absolutely When likely to do hurt necessary to be used but may and ought to be dispensed with when the putting it in practice is likely to do more hurt then good viz. when upon a serious consideration of the peoples jealousies prejudices or any other kinde of distempers upon them it is rationally judged that seeming new and great and solemne undertaking will rather make some violent disturbance rupture or schisme among them and alienate their hearts and persons further from us then any way better reform or order them The Churches in Switzerland see much in that of Augustine that sometimes the wickednesse of the people is such that they are not fit for discipline and Augustine thought the Apostle saw the same in the Church of Corinth God grant we may not too soone have cause of the same complaint in England especially as to so solemne an Ordinance of discipline and so little as yet understood by the people as confirmation is where a medicine is like to do good 't is folly to omit it but where it is likely to hurt 't is folly I think to apply it especially after we have tried somewhat already of a very like nature to the same sore with but indifferent or bad successe Object But it may be said that if confirmation be required by God in Scripture it may in no case be dispensed with Answ I think the rule holdeth not to any part of discipline as discipline opposed to doctrine and worship a reproving our brother or telling him his fault is more clearly commanded then confirmation yet in some cases this is to be dispensed with Matth. 6. 7. 2. But secondly confirmation as now desired I think is not to Confirmation not expresse in Scripture or ancient churches as now desired be found in any expresse command or example in Scripture or indeed the ancient Churches Confirmation may bee lookt on in three special periods First as it was in the times of the Apostles Secondly as it was in the times next the Apostles 3. As in times nearer to us 1. First in the times of the Apostles I do yet beleeve Confirmation as used by Apostles that confirmation was nothing else but imposition of hands with prayer on persons without exacting any Covenanting or profession of the faith in order thereunto that they might receive the extraordinary gifts of the holy Ghost Thus the holy Ghost himselfe hath interpreted it in Acts 19. verse 6. when Paul had laid his hands upon them the holy Ghost came on them and they spake with tongues and prophesied and why it should not be thus understood whatsoever a learned man conceiveth to the contrary in chap. 8. 17. I see no reason considering the phraze verse 16. as yet the holy Ghost was fallen upon none but them a phraze I think peculiar to the extraordinary descentions of him in those dayes as also that had been onely to have strangthened them in the truth against persecution as Simon could hardly or not so easily have seene that so presently as v. 18. so would he scarcely have thought it worth his money wherewith he thought to have purchased that gift of God verse 19 20. In this extraordinary sense of the holy Ghost I am also apt to conceive of imposition of hands Heb. 6. 2. with great respect to that most ingenious and elegant glosse of the Reveverend authour of the first Epistle to the exercitation yea from this very Text I humbly conceive the Ancients took their usual formes of speech of enlightening and receiving the holy Ghost referring the first to baptisme and the last to laying on of hands and truely methinks this same reference is even percevable in the Text it selfe being vid. Heb. 6. 2 4 once enlightened seeming to relate to Baptismes and being made partakers of the holy Ghost to laying on of hands 2. Secondly if we look upon laying on of hands as it was used Confirmation as used in times next the Apostles in the times next and immediately after the Apostles or as soone as we reade of its use in the Churches after the times of the Apostles we finde not that I can yet discerne any examinations or confessions immediately preceding it or coming between baptisme and it we do not finde that children were called at ripenesse of age
to ratifie what had been promised by the susseptors on their behalf at their infant-baptisme we do not finde that children borne in the Church and baptized in infancy were after baptisme stiled catechumeni or confirmed when they came to yeares of discretion to answer for themselves much lesse in that great and solemne way wherein we are now desirous to do it Onely this we finde that generally such as were baptised were confirmed immediately after their baptisme in which confirmation the party was presumed to receive the holy Ghost by prayer and imposition of the hands of the Bishop all which is most easie to evidence The Bishop onely might lay on hands in this work they thought because none but the Apostles did Igitur hoc erat in Apostolis singulare unde praecipuos non alios videmus hoc facere Chrysost in Art 8. 14. who therefore came down to Samaria on purpose to confirme Philips converts Acts 8 14 15 16. they presumed the receiving the holy Ghost thereupon Impositionis manuum per quam creditur spiritus sanctus acâ—â—pi posse I conceive because so did those upon whom the Apostles laid their hands this they did immediately after baptisme too or as soon as they could conveniently it may be in allusion to the instance of our Saviour upon whom as soon as he came out of the water the text notes the holy Ghost descended Mat. 3. Exindè egressi de lavacro perungimur benedicta unctione c. Teâ—t lib. de baptismo Ita vocat Augustinus Sanctum dicit Chrismatis Sacramentum ut baptismus quia ipsi erat annexum Riveâ—us Ceremoniam confirmandi veteri ecclesiae per plura secula fuisse ceremonialem ritum baptismi non peâ—uliare per se Sacramentum Amesius Tam certum est unum idemquo Sacramentum fuisse reputatum ut effecti Baptismi Chrys matis promiscuè describuntur Chamier panstrat de Sacrament c. 11. s 3. l. 4. as also to those a Apostolical Intergatory's Act. 19. 2 3 4 5 6 to which they soone added the unction in allusion as Tertullian notes to the oile wherewith the Priesthood in the old discipline were wont to be anointed Wherefore methinks Rivet and Ames and Chamier had great reason to judge as they did viz. that the laying on of hands in the ancient Churches was not an Ordinance much lesse a Sacrament distinct from Baptisme but a thing annex'd unto it especially for that nothing of so great a moment as Baptisme is might be done in the Church whether by such as had power to do it or such as had none without the consent and hand of the Bishop for the ratifying of baptisme in case it was dispensed by such as had no power and otherwise for the unity of the Church the honour of its Government and the giving as before the Holy Ghost as History notes Now if I do understand my authour he will hardly allow of any thing in these primitive practices save the ceremony of imposition of hands it self 1. For the laying on of hands now in order to the giving of the Holy Ghost in the first extraordinary way according to the manner of Apostles of Christ in Scripture our Authour hath given his sense of it in these words This expression saith he of giving and receiving the holy Ghost was still continued and made use of because the Apostles by imposition of hands did conferre the Holy Ghost which though none after their time did or could do c. 2. And for the practice of the Churches afterwards confirming even Infants immediately after Baptisme confirming the Adult without exacting any new confessions in order thereunto restraining the work of confirmation onely to the Bishops or making confirmation onely a Ceremonial right of Baptisme as Ames affirmes the Churches of old did for many ages together indeed I know not which part here mentioned either our Authour or any other late Patron of this excellent Ordinance of confirmation would adhere unto or not reject 3. Lastly let us briefly consider confirmation as used or rather desired by the Churches of Christ of later yeares and we may yet more easily perceive both its great unlikenesse to that of old and its great aptnesse and likelinesse to prove if fixed upon its right basis and intended to its just ends a most excellent and profitable right of the Churches of Christ in the later ages Confirmation in this moderne sense pardon the expression Waldenses Calvina Chemnitins Bullinger Pareus Three special ends of confirmation seems to be desired for three most special ends and uses all which may seeme to be carried in the very word it selfe namely that the baptisme the graces and lastly the proxime right of the party in the Eucharist might hereby be confirmed and is principally intended for such as being baptized in their infancy not excluding others and being grown to years of discretion in the Church are competentes or desire to be partakers 1. To confirm baptisme with the Church in the Eucharist or any other high priviledge hitherto denied them 1. First such are therefore now to be called to confirme openly and in their own persons that which their susseptors engaged for them at their first infant-baptisme according to our own Lyturgy noted by our Authour Confirmation saith it ought to be observed because when children come to riper age and shall learne what and how great things their undertakers did in their name promise in baptisme they themselves ipsi proprio ore proprio concensu publice eadem agnoscant Vel rata habeant a Erasmus phraze is confirment they themselves should openly and with their own mouth and consent acknowledge and confirme the same upon this now I conceive confirmation may be rightly said to confirme baptimse this act of confirmation is properly the parties own act 2. Secondly another great end and use of confirmation to 2. To confirm grace such is that by meanes of this solemne profession together with the publick earnest prayers of the Church the graces of the peâ—son may be strengthened and confirmed or that he Fieret publica precatio pro illis pueris ut Deut Confirmare dignaretur may receive the grace of confirmation let there saith Clemnitius be publick prayer made for the children that are confirm'd that God by his holy spirit would vouchsafe to guide preserve and confirme them in this profession therefore the Waldenses appoint confirmation to be done in stabilitatem confirmationem fidei Now this is Gods act properly as the first was the parties own 3. The third and last great use of this Ordinance is to declare To confirm right in the Supper and confirme the parties proxime and immediate right in the Lords Supper c. which the party had before indeed by inward qualifications or at least appeared so to have by a good profession this now is more properly the Churches act and that which me thinks is a great deale more intended by those that strive