life long no good be done yet you may take that Comfort your Master did Though Israel be not gathered yet shall I be glorious in the Eyes of the Lord. And in the Verse before I have laboured in vain I have spent my strength in naught in vain Yet surely my Judgment is with the Lord and my work with my God God knoweth with what uprightness I have done his work and therefore I know he will Crown me with Glory though my labour hath been lost as to the most part of the People THE SIXTH SERMON THe next sort of Persons in reference to whom Duty lies upon you are Christian Societies Assemblies that profess the Christian Religion and joyn together in the worship of the true God These are called Churches and of these there are two sorts false and true and your duty is to separate from those and hold fellowship with these Three things are required to the constituting of true Churches 1. That the Word of God and Doctrine of Salvation be truly taught in them ye are of the houshold of God and are built upon the Foundation of the Apostles and Prophets upon this Rock this truth confessed by thee I will build my Church the Church is God's Register that keeps his Records faithfully the Pillar and ground of Truth where the Doctrine of the Law and Gospel is truly taught God dwells with that People and Salvation may be there had 2. That there be Pastors and Ministers lawfully called How shall they preach except they be sent pray the Lord of the Harvest that he will send sorth Labourers into his Harvest Christ hath given his Ministry to his own Church 3. That the People receive and embrace the Doctrine and Religion of Christ and submit to and joyn together in the Worship of God Then they that gladly received the Word were Baptized and they continued stedfastly in the Apostles Doctrine and fellowship in breaking of Bread and Prayers Hereby may be discerned which are false Churches and which true The Roman Political Church as the Constitution of it is false and of Man's Invention Obj. They have the Apostles Creed the Books of Canonical Scripture and Baptisme Answ They acknowledge the Creed in profession and word but overthrow much of the sense by their superadded Articles and false expositions They retain the words of Scripture though in much not the sense of the Holy Ghost nor can Baptism though for substance according to the first Institution prove them a true Church more than Circumcision could Samaria to be so or a Seal pulled from the Writing and set to the bare paper A Thief may shew a true Man's Purse but that proves him not to be a true Man and they overthrow inward Baptisme the life of that Sacrament imputed righteousness and holiness which in Gods Church must go together with the outward Element 2dly As Papists they have no true Ministers the Romish Priest as such is no Minister of Christ not only because of the Anti-Christian Doctrines which he teacheth overthrowing the Foundation of the Prophets and Apostles but also in that he offereth Christ a real Sacrifice for quick and dead wherein chiefly stands his Office and because as a Papist-Priest he receives his very Power from the Pope whose Office is not of Christ Qu. Why then should not one Baptized by a Mass Priest be Rebaptized Answ Because the action of a lawful Calling done by one that is not lawfully called is not a nullity the Ministry is lawful though as corrupted by them is bad 3dly Their People oppose God's true Worship and live in palpable Idolatry and profess themselves the Members of a usurping trayterous head the Pope Obj. Anti-Christ sitteth in the Temple of God therefore the Church of Rome is God's Church Answ In the Popish Church there is the hidden Church of God mingled as a little Wheat with much Chaff as a little Gold with much Dross So that though the Church of God be where Anti-Christ sitteth yet the Church whereof he is Head is no Church of God for there are no means there to beget or preserve spiritual life whether we regard Doctrine or Worship To speak plainly it is a part of the Universal Visible Church of Christians so far as they profess Christianity acknowledge Christ their Head but it is the Visible Society of Trayterous Usurpers so far as they profess the Pope to be their Head just as if a Traytor should make himself Deputy of Ireland against the King's will and all the People believe he is so and so profess themselves Subjects to the King as their Soveraign and to him as his Deputy Here it is a true Kingdome as it is still under the King and yet a Kingdom of Traytors or Rebels Secundum quid or so far as they adhere to the Usurping Deputy against the King's command From this Church therefore which is spiritual Babylon the Mother of Harlots and abominations of the Earth no Spouse of Christ but a Strumpet no House of God but an Habitation of Devils once indeed a famous Church but now dead and buryed and as is the Mother so is the Daughters God's People are bound to separate Come out of her my people and yet not from such therein who mean well in the general and secretly discent from her damnable Corruptions is this Obligation of Separation upon you Rom. 18. 4. Much less ought you to separate from Churches which have made separation from Rome as the reformed Protestant Churches in France Germany and other Countreys and these of Great Britain and Ireland have done in whose Congregations is found truth of Doctrine a lawful Ministry and a People professing the true Religion submitting to and joyning together in the true Worship of God I am not ignorant that many of you whose Habitation I question not but the Lord is who have your Habitations in all the several Countries of this Kingdom have drunkin a deep prejudice against all the Parochical Congregations whereof you are legal Members and where all you were baptized and thereby were made the Members of Christ the Children of God and Heires of his Kingdome I fear some of you will startle at these expressions found in the Common-Prayer-Book But if you consult the Holy Scripture you will finde them warranted in a Sacramental sense and your prejudice hath so far wrought upon you that you have forsaken the assembling of your selves together with your Neighbours in the publick Meeting Places I know with whom I am dealing Persons that have a comfortable assurance that they dwell in God and therefore are willing to hear any thing that may tend to the increase of their comfort and unwilling to retain any errour in their judgments or practice that may defile and dishonour their dwelling place or cause it to be evil spoken of by them that are without whose mouthes you know your absenting your selves from all the Solemn Assemblies open wide to cast a scandal upon your
wills the reformation whereof is the absolute and adaequate end of all punishments and of the exercise of all Political Power but punishments were never ordained for the information of the understanding To return to satisfie the Objection It is not necessarily nor generally true of all Members of the Visible Church that they be called by the word if this be granted which cannot be denyed that as among the Jewes Men were incorporated into the Church by Circumcision so they are under the Gospel by Baptisme Col. 2. 11 12. and that as in those times many for by-ends and through fear joyned themselves to the Church Est 8. 17. so it may be and hath been under the Gospel Obj. But the greatest part of our people are ignorant and unsanctified yea prophane Persons Answ Ignorant and prophane Persons have alway been in the Church It was so in the Church's Infancy and so in her perpetual growth and so shall be to the end of the World at least till Christ come the second time but these are not of the Church which hath its denomination of the better part Obj. But open and prophane Persons are not cast out Answ The Law takes Order they shall be The fault is in the Governors We are not no Church or a false one because such are suffered 1 Cor. 5. Rev. 2. Obj. But we want the Form of a true Church Viz. a Covenant Answ It appeares not in the Apostles times any thing more was required to make Church-members of the Church-Universal than assenting to Evangelical truths embracing and professing Christian Religion and receiving Baptisme wherein all in our Church enter into a Solemn Covenant and confirm it when they come to years of understanding And moreover to settle them in particular Church-order the Apostle made Bishops or Elders over them in every Church Acts 14. 23. and required the People to obey them hear and honour them 1 Thes 5. 12 13. Heb. 13. 7. 17. 24. 1 Tim. 5. 17. And those that consented to this and did so were Members of that particular Church so that we confess as a Man cannot be a Member of the Universal Church if at age without his own consent so neither can he be of a particular Church however he may be antecedently obliged to consent But that this consent was wont to be signified by any express Covenant between the Pastors and the Flocks no Scripture mentioneth It is consent signified only which God requireth But whether this consent be signified 1. By the Peoples Election of the Pastors 2. Or by a Covenant 3. Or by lifting up the hands or any such sign 4. Or only by constant attendance with the Church on all God's Ordinances there God hath no where determined save only as circumstances may make one of these more fit than another and so oblige us to it in prudence And he which maketh Duties which God hath not made is a maker of superstition and a false Teacher or Speaker of God and his Lawes and addeth to them As to that you say you cannot joyn with our Congregations because they stand under a Devilish Anti-christian Government and the Worship in them by a number of Common-prayers is a devised Worship All that I desire of you is only this that laying aside passion you will but pause and ponder what is alledged to give satisfaction to this Objection which may cool at least the fierceness of your Spirits and abate that desperate prejudice you have conceived against the Government and Worship established in these Churches Touching the exercise of Ecclesiastical Government in general you know it is not of absolute necessity to the Constitution of a Church and as to the Government of the Churches by Bishops speaking of it only as they are Superiour to Presbyters without medling with the extent of their Diocesses c. when you finde so much written with so much confidence that Episcopacy is the true ancient Apostolical Government of the Christian Church That it was received in profession and practice in all Ages and is so far Divine that Bishops were in the very time of the Apostles that they were ordained and appointed by the Apostles themselves That there was an approved succession of them in the Apostolical Churches That in all the following Ages all the Churches in the World were governed by them for more than Fifteen Hundred Yeares without any opposition save by the Arrian Aerius who was therefore cryed down as an Heretick by the ancient Fathers That the first reformed Protestant Churches cast not off Episcopacy with any aversness to the Order as appeares by the History of the Augustane confession to which Calvin himself signed That some of those Churches are governed by Superintendents the same with Bishops That there was long since a challenge made to them that have aversness to the degree or order in these words We require you to finde out but one Church upon the Face of the Earth that hath not been ordered by Episcopal Regiment which to this Day as they say is not answered These allegations may me-thinks so far allay your heat as to restrain your thoughts and Tongues from passing so sore a censure upon the Government that it is Devilish and Antichristian till you can solidly absolve all these Arguments though notwithstanding all that hath been said you are perswaded that another Church Government may be better And that there is no cause why you should refuse communion with these Churches upon this account because Bishops are chief Rulers there Touching the devised Worship objected do but ruminate upon what you have frequently heard and read and you will see little reason to condemn stinted Prayers because invented and devised by Men. For how many inventions of Men are there of the same nature in God's worship which you approve of namely set-formes of Catechising studyed Sermons Interpretations of Scripture division of it into Chapters and Verses Contents of Chapters Marginal references putting Psalms into Meeter with a multitude more True it is invented or devised worship is unlawful yet it is lawful to serve God in a Form of words devised For the Form is not worship but the Prayer tendered in that Form And therefore they do not well that say a stinted Form of Prayer is a means of Divine Worship not ordained of God and that there is no warrant for it in the Word of God For God's Word warrants things not only by special Institution as all substantial means of Worship and by necessary consequence so the Translation of the Scripture is warranted because it must be read to edification and edifie it cannot unless it be understood but also by the Light of Nature and Reason according to the general Rules of Scripture And thus accidental means of Gods Worship which are only circumstances of the Celebration as time places order method phrase and sorme of words in the administration of holy things of God yea Pulpit to preach in and Bells to call
his glory It is the guise and property of too many of you that think you are assured you are the Lords to question whether others be so that dissent from you Yea to pass sentence against some of them as out of God for no other reason but because they are not of your mind and way and to say of them that its love of the World or fear of trouble or some other by-respect and base end that keeps them from embraceing these Gospel-truths which you hold and whereof they have had sufficient conviction or if indeed they see them not to be such that it is because the God of this World hath blinded their Eyes Nor least of all can you bring your hearts to look upon or love as Brethren these who have been of the same mind and way with you and are apostatized from their principles and practices Turn-Coat-Rogues Have patience and ponder with your selves what rashness you discover in censuring any Man to be Godless because he sees not those truths which you think you do and they may clearly see to be revealed and commanded by God Barnabas was a good Man and full of the Holy Ghost and Faith and yet he could not see that that Paul saw Viz. That it was lawfull and fit for them to converse with the Gentiles even in the presence of the Jewes God bestowes his gifts on his Servants in different measures and degrees None that sees the truth in all things but in some points he is ignorant and erreth Setting aside the Prophets and Apostles who were infallibly guided in penning the Scripture Who almost of all the ancient Fathers but held some gross Errour Justin Martyr besides that he was a millinary held that it was the Angels that begat those Gyants Athenagoras that the Souls of those Gyants were Devils Ireneus that man was not created perfect Clemens Alexandrinus that none were saved by Christ before his Incarnation Tertullian that God was corporeal that Montanus was the Paraclete that a Christian falling twice after Baptism was damned Origen understood much of the Scripture allegorically Hierom that Angels were many Ages before the World that there is no sin in Infants or not deserving punishment Ambrose that the Gospel was preached to Devils Chrysostom that the Fathers were in Hell before Christ that we are justified by works Augustine's Book of retractations witnesseth his manifold Errours for a long time Luther the great Reformer held consubstantiation Not only particular persons but whole Counsels and Churches have erred The reasons of this proneness in Men to erre are 1. Truth is but one Errour manifold there is but one right many by-paths 2. The Seeds of all Errours are naturally in all Mens hearts 3. Errour hath usually on it the Vizard of truth 4. The understandings of the strongest Christians are so weak that it is easie for them to mistake 5. Satan and his Instruments are full of subtilty and cunning craftiness 6. God suffers Errours to spring up in his Church to punish the wicked and for tryal of his own and for cleering of truth Contraries opposed mutually argue each other This consideration should teach you not to be insolent in censuring and not to be stiff in your own Opinions or perswasions Others may be in the right and you in the wrong And if you be in the truth Love them not ye less that erre from it in infirmity but pitty them more and pray for them and though you know it to be passion or prejudice that hath blinded their judgments a greater infirmity than simple ignorance yet believe they may be godly Men for all that and if they be so you are bound to love and reverence them how much soever they differ in Judgement from you And if Men that are as practically godly as your selves hold those to be truths which you hold to be errours seek not to draw them over to you but let them quietly enjoy themselves take the blessed Apostles advice I press toward the mark Let us therefore as many as be thus perfect be thus minded and if any thing be otherwise minded God shall reveal this unto you Nevertheless whereto we have already attained Let us walk by the same Rule Let us mind the same thing So far as you freely can joyn with your dissenting brethren in Duties of Divine Worship And let not them that are without have occasion to say you are of several Religions or to call you by several Names any longer But rather to wonder at your mutual love and peaceable and quiet spirits free from any appearance of raising contention either in Church or State They that do so having the Brand of graceless Men set upon them by the Holy Ghost Now I beseech you Brethren mark them that cause Divisions and Offences contrary to the Doctrine which ye have learned and avoid them for they that are such serve not the Lord Jesus Christ but their own Belly and by good words and fair speeches deceive the hearts of the simple Every Man that dwells in God is of a peaceable disposition quiet in the Land As for them that you call Apostates consider that their Apostacy is not from any fundamental point in Religion or substantial worship of God And that love of their callings and the works thereof and of their Peoples Souls and Conscience of obeying the Magistrate in all things not expresly forbidden in the Scripture might move them to do what they have done and charity binds you to make the best construction Finally In reference to those that are of your own mind and way Let brotherly love continue And abound yet more and more in knowledge and in all judgment rejoycing and weeping together and laying out your selves in a special manner in a faithful employment of God's gifts for the good one of another in things temporal Gal. 6. 10. Heb. 13. 16. 2 Cor. 8. 9. Psal 112. 5. and in spirituals by example Rom. 15. 1 2. 1 Cor. 10. 33. by admonition 1 Thes 5. 14. Heb. 3. 13. Prov. 10. 21. by consolation 2 Cor. 1. 4. Esay 54. Prov. 25. 25. Rom. 1. 12. and by prayer Eph. 6. 16. Jam. 5. 15 16. John 16. 24. By thus doing you shall improve that branch of the Communion of Saints which you have among your selves and be the fitter to improve that which you have together with Christ by the Spirit in respect both of substance and Offices and Virtues THE SEVENTH SERMON THere remaineth yet very much of Duty to be performed by and to be pressed upon you whose habitation the Lord is and who know him to be so And first upon the account of the properties of this House wherein you dwell The first whereof is height And the first duty upon this account is to lift up your hearts and voices as high as may be in praises and prayers 1. In praises acknowledge your selves bound to acknowledge 1. As all other
People together are warranted If all such means of worship must be ordered by special Institution or they shall be unlawful God must upon the matter have no Worship at all from us in the meanes which he himself hath ordained because it is impossible to use these meanes and not to do many things which he hath not instituted To return to Prayer that a true Prayer may be made to God in a Set form cannot be denyed because things agreeable to God's will may be disposed therein as in the Lord's Prayer and it 's possible for the heart and affections to go along with it and faith and other graces to be exercised in it But you question whether Ministers may read in the Congregation prescribed Formes of Prayer imposed Admit it were unlawful for them to do it yet it is warrantable for you to be present at such Prayers because all Prayers wherein you joyn are stinted to you and you are tyed to the forme of words uttered by him that prayes nor is a holy good prayer made evil to him that hears it for the possibility aforesaid Obj. But the Prayers in the English Liturgy are Formes neither holy nor good for the Book it self is an Idolatrous Book the Mass in English Answ This is as true that light is darkness and white black Consider what is the matter of the Popish Mass prayers in an unknown Tongue to Saints departed and to feigned Saints receiving the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper in one kind an unbloody sacrifice offered up for quick and dead the real Presence satisfaction for Venial sins temporal penance for mortal sins blotting out the Second Commandment or confounding it with the First c. Blackness and Darkness and what is the matter of our English Liturgy reading the Holy Scriptures in a known Tongue the calling upon God in the mediation of Christ and not upon Angels and Saints for the living and not for the dead the administration of the Holy Supper in both kinds singing of David's Psalms c. all White and Light Obj. But sundry of the Prayers are found word for word in the Mass-Book Ans So may a true Man's goods be found in a Thieves Den and the goods of the Church may be in the possession of Antichrist an Usurper which goods she may lawfully require and take back again not as borrowed from him but as due to her self being the rich Legacies which Christ bequeathed to his Church which Anti-christ had seized upon the Good therefore in the Mass Book belonged not to Anti-christ but the foul gross Errours which are purged out of ours Obj. But there are foul errours and gross corruptions in our Liturgy which are not purged out Ans Admit there be or were yet there are no Fundamental Errours nor any that bordereth thereupon objected The corruptions objected are misapplications of Scriptures frequent repetition of the same things disordered Prayers and Responsories breaking Petitions asunder c. No errours that concern the main grounds or chief heads of Christianity but faults that may be tolerated and for which a Christian hath no cause to separate Suppose a Teacher misalledge a Text of Scripture or that something be amiss in his Prayer when he exerciseth his own gifts is this a ground sufficient to separate from the Ordinance of God or reject the good for that which is amiss Nor is there any doctrinal passage in any of the Prayers that may not bear a good construction and so Amen may be said to it Charity binds us to take every thing in the best sense nor can you think it pleasing to God for some evil that may be fastned upon some passages to with-draw communion especially when communion may be had without approving of any of the errours or corruptions though we do not for their sakes with draw from the communion of the Churches while they are exercised Obj. But most of the Ministers that officiate in these Congregations are either blind or superstitious or prophane or idle or Drunkards or Whore-masters and they that are not of this last Tribe are most of them Apostates from their Principles and therefore we cannot bring our hearts to hear any of them pray read or preach Answ You may finde as bad as any of these in the Church of Israel and as many for the space of Ground before our Saviour's time and in his Dayes and in the Apostolical Churches and yet you do not finde any of the People to have forsaken the publick Ordinances of God How far the charge is true or false I shall not now meddle In some Countreys I am sure that there are many sober godly Orthodox able Preachers yet in possession of the publick places And if you know any Countrey where it is worse consider if Christ himself did not joyn with worse O that I could perswade with you to lay sadly to heart the greatness of the sin of Divisions and the grievousness of the punishment threatned against it and that hath been executed for it and that the Leaders and Encouragers of private Christians to make this sinful separation would read oft and meditate much upon St. Judes Epistle to v. 20. And that the multitudes that are willing to be led by them would follow the prescription of the meanes here to preserve or recover themselves from this seduction v. 20 21. And that both would leave off their reviling the Government Ecclesiastical and the Ministers that conform and peaceably and submissively behave themselves by the example of Michael who though an Arch-Angel and contending in a just cause and disputing in an Argument wherein he was very knowing did not durst not bring a railing accusation though his adversary was the Devil But committed the cause to God saying The Lord rebuke Thee Though Quakers who pretend to follow no other Rule save the Light within them use ordinarily such railing and reviling Language yet let no such word ever be heard to Proceed out of your Mouths who profess to follow and walk exactly according to the written Word of God The last sort of Persons are those of your own House Fellow-members of the same Family and your Fellow-commoners your duty in reference to these is manifold I shall earnestly commend this one namely to live in Unity with them to move you effectually hereunto behold how good and how pleasant it is for Brethren to dwell in unity together It is like the precious Oyntment upon the Head that ran down upon the Beard even Aaron's Beard that went down to the Skirts of his Garments as the Dew of Hermon and as the Dew that descended upon the Mountain of Zion For the Lord commanded the blessing for evermore Psal 133. a Song of Degrees purposely pend for the knitting together the Hearts of God's People in the blessed band of Unity Emphatically propounding both the profit and pleasure redounding there-from Behold a matter worth the marking how good in regard of profit and how pleasant in regard of delight