Justification of Separation from the Church of England, Treatise · Section 88 – Section 89
Your 4. Reason to prove that the profession of the mayn truth before layd down is of force to make a true Christian, is, that byMr B. it the man so professing doth differ from Iewes, Turks, Pagans, & Papists.
He doth in deed, for he is so much worse then they, by his verballAnsw. profession of the truth, taking Gods name in vayn, and dishonouring it farr more then the other. 1 Tim. 5. 8. Isa. 52. 5. Rom. 2. 24. And what matter is it from whom he differs, that differs not from, but is one of the men of the world, a lim of Sathan, and an habitation of his spirit?
Lastly, … fire it may be considered, whether you be not a partiall, and … judge▪ betwixt the Papists, and your selves. They for shutting … their works, at a third or fourth hand, with faith in the …f salvation, must be judged …se matter, and their errour against the … of faith in the Sonne of God, and destroying it, & against he truth of the gospel, bycause it is against the sacrifice of Christs Preisthood: and yet you, though you yoak Antichrist with Christ, and the Popes Canons with Christs Testament, in the spirituall government of the soules, and bodyes of his people, and so sin against the scepter of his kingdome, must be reputed true matter; your errour no way against the nature of faith, or truth of the gospell; as though true faith did not as well apprehend Christ a King, as a Prophet, in the cause of salvation, though not in the act of iustification: and as though the order which Christ hath left, in the Evangelists, Actes, and Epistles to Timothy, and Titus, for the gathering, and government of his Church, were not as well a part of the gospel, and so the obiect of faith as any other portion of it. Yea to conclude, I tell you Mr B. and not I but the holy Ghost (and I pray you consider it well) that a lewd cō versation and evill conscience is as damnable a sin▪ and as directly against the nature of faith in the sonne of God, and the truth of the gospel, and doth as plainly destroy faith, and prejudice salvation, as any duplicate page duplicate page eyther Popish, or other haeresy in the world. Luk. 24. 47. 1 Cor. 5. 11. Gal. 5. 19. 20. 21. Ephe. 5. 5. 6. 1 Tim. 1. 19. & 5. 8. 1 Ioh. 1. 6. But graunt (as you would have it) that profession in word with an apparant denyall of the same in deed, made a true Christian, or true matter of the Church, and that the Apostles built the Lords house of such stones, (which for me to graunt were both solly, and impiety, as it is in you to affirm it) yet would it no way advantage you, nor iustify your Church. For the profession, by which the Apostles, and Apostolike Churches received mē bers, was voluntary, and personall, freely made by the particular persons which ioyned themselves vntounto the Lord, as the scriptures by you quoted prove, as every one that readeth them, may see: but where was or is any such personall, and particular profession vsed or required of any men, or women, in the replanting of your Church after Popery? A man may go out of these countryes wher I now live, as many do, and hyre a house in any parrish of the land; …e is by the right of his house, or f…rm, a member of the pa…rish Church, where he dwels, yea though he have been nousled vp all his life lōg in Popery, or Atheism, & though he were formerly neyther of any Church, or religion. Yea though he should professe that he did not look to be saved by Christ onelyonly, and alone, but by his good meanings, and well doings: yet if he will come, & hear divine service he is matter, true as steel for your Church: yea be he of the Kings naturall subiectes, he shall, by order of law, be made true matter of the Church, whether he will or no.
And what profession of faith in this very case of salvation, the body of your Church makes, or would make, if men freely spake their thoughts, a Minister of good note amongst your selves shall testify out of his own experience. The person is “Pag 218.Mr Nichols, who in his Plea of the innocent, expresly affirms, that conferring with the particular persons in his parish, (after he had preached some good space amongst them) about the meanes of salvation, of 400 cō municants he scarce found one, but that thought, and professed, a man might be saved by his own w…ll doing, and tha… he trusted he did so love, that by Gods grace he should obteyn everlasting l…se, by serving God, and good prayers. Now how do these agree together? Mr B: sayth that all professe salvation by Christ onelyonly, and alone: Mr Nichols on the cōtrary affirms out of his own experience, that not one of 400 so thinks, and professes. And if he, and all the ministers in England should deny it, we out selves by our own experience know what the fayth, and perswasion of the multitude in most places is.
Now for your further reasoning, that bycause a Bishop, or two, published this, and some other mayn truthes vntounto the world, with the approbation of the Parliament, and Convocation house, and that some preachers here, & there do so teach, therefore all the land so professeth, (where many thowsands do not so much as vnderstād it) what can be imagined more vayn? Can men professe the truth they know no…? What is this, but the Papists implicit faith, when men beleiv, as the Church beleiveth, though they know not what it is? yea and worse then it also, for as we see, and know infinite multitudes beleive, and vponupon occasion professe the contrary. But most vayn of all is it to affirm, that bycause a few godly martyrs have sealed vp this, & the like truthes with their blood, that therefore they that murdered them, professe the same truth, & are true Christiās without any other change wrought in them for the most part, then by the Magistrates sword, and authority. You affirm by way of answer pag. 249. of your second book, that the Magistrates compulsion vntounto goodnes is no hurt vntounto it, neyther makes men vnholy, or lesse good, if they have goodnes in them. As it is not simply true you affirm, that the compulsion of men to the faith, doth not hurt it; for if the causing the truth to be blasphemed be to hurt it, then the cōpelling of apparant wicked persōs to professe the same, hurts it, as it doth both them, and the Church whereof they are; so if the body of the land in the beginning of the Queens reign, were good, and holy at all, the magistrates compulsion wrought it in men, & made them of persequuting Idolaters, true Christians: for other mean… intervening, or cōming betwixt their professiō of the masse, & of the gospell, had they none, saving the Magistrates authority.
But here I am by necessity, and in respect of the present matter in hand, drawn into Mr B. 2. book: and a great benefit were it to me, if there I might find him, (though in both vnfound) yet one, and the same. But a great trouble it is to walk with a drunken man, and to be bound to follow him in all his vaga…ies: so is it to deal with an adversary light headed, & dizzy with wrath, vanity, and errour, whom a man must follow in all his staggerings, and reelings to, and fro, and in all the forwards, and backwards that he makes, oft times going, and vngoing again the same bypathes. There is no one thing wherevpon Mr B: labours more in his former book, and for which he brings more reasons, and scriptures, and those often repeated, then to prove the Church of Englād, or rather such particular Churches, as have the word preached in them, to be truely gathered after the suppressing of Popery, and by the order of the Apostolick Churches: both in respect of separation from Idolatours, and Antichristian Papists, pag. 108▪ as also by profession of the mayn truth, and sum of the Gospell, wherein they differed from Iewes, Turks, and Pagans, as no matter; and also from Papists as false matter of the Church. pag 111. 112. 113. 116. And therefore having proved by a multitude of scriptures that the Apostolick Churches were gathered by free profession of fayth, he concludes thus of them, and of his own Church, †pag. 113.such as make this profession, are true matter, and so are wee: for we all professe this fayth &c. But now, as though he had eyther forgotten what he wrote before, or cared not how he crossed himselfe, so he might oppose vsus, against whom he hath vowed such vtter emnity▪ he suckes in his former breath, and eats the words he had formerly vttered, peremptorily affirming in hispag. 146. …4…. 246. 2. book, that in the reformation of a Church after Popery, there is not required any such profession, nor yet the word of God to go before their reformation, but that the feare of the Magistrates sword is sufficient to recover them, and to setle the people in order to the worship of God. The ground vponupon which he builds this his new, and crosse opinion, is, the practise of Asa, Ezechias, Iosias and Nehemiah, godly Kings, and Princes of Iudah, in the reformation of that Church, after her Apostacy, in the dayes of vngodly, & Idolatrous Kings: & therevpon, taking it for graunted, that the catholique visible Ch: of Rome (as it is called) now is, and that the national Church of England in Queen Maries dayes and before, when Popery reigned, was, in the same estate with Iudah in her apostacy, he concludes thence, that as the Magistrates then without any voluntary profession, did by force, bring the people of the Iewes back from Idolatry to the true service of God, so might King Edward, and Queen Elizabeth by force, bring back the people of England into covenant with God, to be his true Church, without any such profession of fayth, as in the first planting of Churches, is required. We will then consider of this poynt at large, as being both weighty in it self, and having many others depending vponupon it.
That Iudah was at the first, and so continued (by vertue of the Lords Covenant with her forefathers, on his part faythfully remembred, and kept, though by her oft tymes broken) the true Church of God, and †Rom. 11. 16. 20.holy in the root, till she was broken of for vnbeleif, after the death, resurrection, and ascension of Christ, fully published, and confirmed by the Apostles, I graunt with him: but the same or the like things, of the Church of Rome or of England in the respects layd down, may I not acknowledg. That there was at Rome a true Church *Rom. 1. … 7.beloved of God, called saynts by giving obedience vntounto the fayth, is apparant: but that eyther the city, or Church of Rome, consisting of many cities, and countryes, was ever within the Lords covenant, and holy in the root, as Iudah was, may I neyther acknowledg, neyther can he possibly prove. So for England, I wil not deny, but there were at the first true Churches planted in it, by the preaching of the gospell, and obedience of fayth; and these as the other Churches in every nation, though “Ioh. 15. 19. and 17. 14. 15. 16.in the world, yet not of it, but chosen out of it, and hated by it: †Act. 10. 35.men fearing God, and working righteousnes, and so being accepted of God, in what nation soever: *ch. 20. …8purchased with the blood of Christ, and so made his flock: “1 Cor. 1. 2saynts by calling, and sanctifyed in Christ Iesus, and calling vponupon the name of the Lord Iesus Christ in every place: such were †Act. 9. 31the Churches in Iud…a, Galily, and Samaria; *Gal. 1. …. …1.the Churches in Galatia; “Rev. 1. ….the 7 Churches in Asia: and of such people, gathered into so many distinct assemblyes, ech entyre in her self having peculiar †Act. 14. 23. and 20. 17. 28. Iob. 1. 1.Bishops or Elders set over her▪ for her feeding, by doctrine, and government, did those particular Churches consist: they thus separated from the rest both Iewes, and Gentiles in every nation, whether more, or lesse, were that chosen generation, that royall Preisthood, that holy nation, and purchased people of the Lord. But1 Th. …. 12. Tit. 1. …. that ever the whole nation, and all the Kings naturall subiects in it, should have been within the covenant of the Lord, & entituled by the word of the Lord, to the seals of the covenant, and all the other holy things depending vponupon it, is a popular, and popish fantasy, as ever came into mans brayn: requyring a new-found land of Canaan, for a seat of this national Church, wherein no vncircumcised person may dwel; and a new old testament, for the policy, and government of the same. And lastly it makes all one, them that Christ hath chosen out of the world, and the world; them that fear God, & work righteousnes, and whom he accepteth in every nation, and the nation it self: the beloved of God at Rome, and the sanctifyed in Christ Iesus at Corinth, with the City of Rome, and of Corinth: then which what confusion can be greater?
But to admit that for truth, which you so take, namely that Rome in the sence, wherein we speak sometymes was the true Church of God, as Iudah: and more specially, that the English nation was, as the nation of the Iewes, and all, and every person in it▪ high, and low, received into covenant with the Lord, to be his people, and that he might be their God: yet can it not be sayd of Rome, that she stil remayns the true Church of God, as Iudah did in her defection: but on the contrary, as she brake her covenant with God, advancing by degrees †… Th. 2. 3 4.that man of syn, the sonne of perdition, and adversary, Antichrist, till he was exalted into the throne of Christ: and that *v. 7.mistery of godlynes, in, and according to which, that Church was planted at the first, degenerated into the mistery of iniquity: so did… Tim. 3. 16. the Lord, for her adulteryes (wherein she was incorrigible) when they were come to the height, break the covenant on his part and gave her, as an harlot, a bill of divorce and put her away, and her daughter Engl. with her amongst the rest.
Now for the more full clearing of this truth, I wil in the first place answer such reasons as Mr B. brings against it: and that done, lay down certayn arguments to disprove his Popish plea for that Romish Synagogue.
OnelyOnly in the mean whyle I wish him to consider, that, if Mr …m. deserve so severe a censure, as he layes vponupon him, pag. 281. of this book, for some favourable affirmations touching some things, … persons in Rome, he himselfe is much more blame worthy, that both professeth and pleadeth her the true Church of Christ, and in the covenant of grace, and salvation: then which what greater and more notable plea can be made for her? Nay if it be probable, that he, which pleads for Rome, as Mr Smith doth, will in tyme▪ become …n love with it, and sit downe a blind Papist, it is necessary, that he which thinks it a true Church, return vntounto it, from which he hath wickedly schismed, as all men do that separate from the true Church of Christ, for any corruptions whatsoever. Here I do also entreat the prudent Reader to beare it in mynd that the constitution of England cannot be iustifyed, nor she proved to be rightly gathered, but with the defence of Rome, yea of †Rev. 1…. 2 4.that great, and purpled whore to be the true spouse of the Lord Iesus.
The Reasons by which Mr B. would prove Rome a true Church, are by him reckoned five in number; we wil consider of them in order.
The first is taken from the first planting of that Church in S. Pauls I.tyme, by vertue of which former calling, and constitution (sayth he) Rome Mr B.still remaynes the Lords people, as Israel did in the wildernes, notwithstanding her idolatry.
I do answer first, that Rome (as we now consider of it) was neverAnsw. the Lords called nor under his covenant, though a Church, or assembly in that city (or it may be more then one) of saynts, were, and secondly, that though she were, yet is the covenant broken through her fornications, and impenitency in them, both on her part, and the Lords visibly, and she devorced long a goe, and her daughters in, and with her.