A Call to Archippus, Questions
Whether you think in your hearts, that the Ministry Quest. 1.that now is, will ever keep up the Power of Godliness? O that we could but charitably believe it! But who can deny his senses! Alas! how should Christ's Kingdom and Interest, and the Power of Holiness be suported by these hands? If Idleness will do it, if Ignorance will do it, if Loosness will do it, if Malice will do it, then these men will bear up the Power of Godliness. Do you not know that too many of them hate it, both name and thing? do not they plainly make it, not the Prize they aim at, but the But they shoot at? These things are a Lamentation, and shall be for a Lamentation. In this we know you are sufficently convinced.
Whether you can see Religion sinking, falling, dying away, and you never put your hands and Quest. 2.shoulders to it, and yet be blameless? Fathers and Brethren, you are the *Josh. 3. 14.shoulders that must bear up the Ark of the Lord. Do not your †1 Sam. 4. 13.hearts tremble for the Ark of GOD? Do you see it falling, and yet withdraw your shoulders, and keep your hands in your bosomes? you would condemn that man deservedly, as void of Christian Charity, yea, common humanity, that should not take up his neighbour, and labour to chafe and rub, and recover him to life when fallen down by you in a swooning Esth. 4. 14.fit. Fathers, where then are your Bowels? where are your Compassions, and your Zeal for the Interest of Christ and Holiness: If you see Religion it self in this swooning fit, and hast not with your utmost help, will the Lord hold you guiltless, if you should altogether hold your peace at such a time as this?
Whether *Pro. 11. 26.there will a blessing follow him that keepeth in his Corn in a time of Famine? Behold Quest. 3.England is crying unto you in her Famine, as Egypt to Joseph, for with you is the store; for the Lord's sake †Gen. 41. 56open the store-houses. Now or never stir up your Gifts, we seem to hear the fainting souls of the forsaken, starving Flocks, comming and crying to you, as they to him, O give us Bread, for why should we dye in thy presence? We seem to see the famishing cheeks approaching you, and calling for relief, expostulating as they, Wherefore should we Gen. 47. 15.dye before thine eyes? Give us Food that we may live and not dye, Gen. 47. 19. For the Lord's sake bear with us to be a little plain with you; Are your souls sensible of the Famine upon the Land, or are they not? if not (as we cannot, we dare not, we do not think so of you Fathers; for we doubt not your Integrity with God) you were, we will not say no Fathers, but not so much as true Children or Members of the Church, having no Natural Affection, no Christian Sympathy. If you are indeed sensible of the Famine, how can you keep in the Corn? Surely the Voyce of God to a withholding-Minister, seems like that, Lam. 2. 20. Arise, Cry out in the Night, in the beginning of the Watches; pour out thine heart like water before the Lord; lift up thine hands towards him for the life of thy young children, that faint for hunger in the top of every street: It grieves us to urge what yet we cannot keep in. Fathers, we reverence you from our hearts, but cannot but set before you the gemitus & suspiria of grieved souls, who seem to cry to you, as Lam. 4. 3. Even the Sea-Monsters draw out the Breasts, they give suck to their young ones; the Daughter of my People is become cruel, like the Ostriches of the Wilderness.
Whether it will not impair the honour of our Quest. 4.Glorious Profession, if the Followers should be of more courage and resolution than their Leaders, and leave their Spiritual Commanders behind? To be plain, the People are willing and forward to venture with you; and to run the resk of it, and shall their Leaders be more backward than they? Were you like to be alone it were more excusable; But they are ready to suffer with you, and run all hazards that may come upon them for their duty in hearing: and shall we only stand back? shall not a willing People, make a willing Ministry? O let the *Judg. 5. 9.Governours of Israel offer themselves willingly amongst the People.
Whether a great part of your Flocks will not be Quest. 5.in extreemest danger to run wild to Seducers, and despisers of Government, †2 Pet. 2. 10.if you do not step in: evident it is that somewhere they must & will hear; and for the formal Pharisees, or prophane Hophnies, these they will never be induced to sit down under. What then wil be the consequence, but that they wil be under strongest temptations, to run to the Tents of Erroneous Teachers, and (to their great peril) lend their ears to the instruction that causeth to er from Prov. 19. 27the words of knowledge. Experience writes a sad Probatum est to what we say in this; of which how mischievous the issue may be, we leave you to consider. Yea, judge your own selves, we beseech you, whether false Teachers will not have a fairer advantage than ever, to get in with our People, and glory over our Ministry and Churches, if they be ready and forward in hazarding themselves among their parties, when ours onelyonly shall decline their Flocks and Labours, as soon as times grow periloas?
Whether you will not put a reproach into the Quest. 6.mouths of our Adversaries, and give them occasion to speak evil of our Office, when you shall be found to give over the Work, as soon as ever the Pay doth cease? Our hearts do honour you, but there be that reproach you as Hirelings, which they now strengthen themselves in, and more confidently and colourably than ever, perswade others off; (first) Because you give over the Work as soon as ever the Maintenance do fail. (Secondly) Because (they say) you flee as soon as the Woolf doth approach, and will not bide by the Sheep, when your liberty and outward comfort is thereby like to be in danger. Will you not care that the Ministry be not blamed, and study to roul off so colourable an occasion of reproach? shall 2 Cor. 6. 3.we suffer the world to think that the spring of all our Motion, the oyl to our Wheels, the wind in our Sailes was nothing but outward Advantage?
Whether you had your Commission, Office and Quest. 7.Authority from the Magistrate, and your Power in, and relation to the Church, be of a Civil Stamp? We know the Magistrate doth not pretend to this: And if none but Christ did, nor could Commissionate you, can any but He discharge you? or can the Relation between the Church and you (if Divine and Spiritual) cease upon the interposition of a Power meerly Political, which is toto genere distinct? If the Magistrate did not constitute and cause this Relation, how can he make it to cease? or take away what (confessedly) he cannot give? were not this to make it to be at the Magistrates pleasure whether Christ shall have any Ministry or no? any Service or no? whether there shall be any Preaching or not? and so indeed, whether God shall have any Church or no? And if the Magistrate cannot make your Relation to the Church to cease, how can he make the Duty of that Relation to cease? sith the shadow doth not more naturally and necessarily follow the substance, than the Duty doth the Relation. In a word; Will it be a sufficient Answer, at God's Righteous Judgement, when the Lord shall ask us why we did not preach the Gospel as he had bid us? to say, Lord, it was because the Magistrate did forbid us. God is our Record in Heaven, that we are of those that do unfeignedly fear the Lord, and honour the King; to whom we shall ever yeeld obedience in licitis, deny submission in nullis. Only we are afraid, that it will not be sufficient in that dreadful day, to produce the Magistrates Warrant for our discharge, when directly contradicting the tremendous Charge of our Lord Jesus Christ, who shall judge both quick and dead at his appearing. We verily fear, the Magistrates Dispensation will not be allowed before his Tribunal; and then what a sorry case were we in, should we desist thereupon from our work?
Whether God hath forsaken those of his Ministers, that have set to their work, since the day of Quest. 8.that fatal stroke? or, whether he hath not owned them by his Assistance, Presence, Approbation, and the ample Testimonies of his Favour, & honoured his Name and Gospel by their Labours, Tryals, Imprisonments, and Sufferings whatever, that they have endured? Hath the Gospel lost ground by them? It may be enquired, Whether there be any place for Repentance in their prisons, (where they have time enough to reflect upon their actions and correct what was amiss) or whether they are not for ever settled, strengthened, and doubly confirmed in their resolutions, by their Prisoncomforts and encouragments? and whom should we believe in this, sooner then those that have tryed the worst?
There is another Question, that we fear to put to Quest. 9.you, But will rather let the Apostle himself ask you, 1 John 3. 16, 17, 18. Whoso hath the worlds goods (and we add, much more, whoso hath the heavenly Goods to dispence) and seeth his Brother (much more his distressed Mother) hath need, and shutteth up his Bowels of compassion from him, How dwelleth the Love of God in him?
Whether you will be able comfortably to answer Quest. 10.the Lord, when He shall put to any of you this Interrogatory, With whom hast thou left those few 1 Sam. 17. 28.Sheep in the Wilderness? O that you would but consider with whom you have left them! Is it not manifestly and mostly with [Blind-Guides] with Spiteful Shepherds, or rather Wolves in Shepherds cloathing? with [Cruel Fathers] that *Mat. 7. 9, 10.that give stones instead of bread, and Scorpions for Fish? with [Violent Watchmen] that when the distressed Spouse hath come to seek her Beloved, have woundded her, and smitten her, and took away her vail? Cant. 5. 6, 7.Shall not our hearts melt, to think of leaving the steerage of our Vessels in such unskilful hands, or with such selfish Pilots, as look no further then their own Cabbin? or sensual Shepherds, that feed themselves, and not the Flocks? or Physicians, that have themselves the Plague sores running upon them? May we not say unto our neighbour, Go Prov. 3. 28.away and come again when we have it by us, and shall we deny our People our care and over-sight, when their cries, or at least their wants, do call so loudly for it? Have we gained many to the profession of the Gospel, and begotten many of them in truth unto Christ, and now shall we leave them to sink or swim, when no man careth for their souls? Is this our tenderness to the *Heb. 13.Children that God hath given us? Is this like Timothy †Phil. 2. 20.naturally to care sor their state? Is *1 Thess. 2. 7, 11.this to cherish them as a Nurse cherisheth her Children? Is this, like Paul, †Phil. 2. 17.to be ready to he offered up, upon the service of their Faith, and *Acts 20. 24not account our lives dear unto us so we may finish our course with joy; and the Ministry we have recerved, to testify the Gospel of the Grace of God? Fathers and Brethren, it grieveth us, that you who are Worthies should be compared to the unnatural among the Birds, †Job 39. 14, 15, 16.which leaveth her Eggs in the earth, and forgeteth that the feet may crush them, or that the Wild Beasts may break them, she is hardned against her young ones, as though they were not hers.
—pudet haec opprobia nobis
Et dici potuisse, et non potuisse refelli.
Whether your Prayers and good wishes for Quest. 11.your People, while you draw not forth your *Isa. 58. 10.souls to the hungry, be not like their cold Alms, †Jam. 2. 15, 16, 17.that if a Brother or Sister be naked and destitute of daily food, do only say unto them, Depart in peace, be you warmed and filled, notwithstanding not giving them those things, which are needful to the Body?
Whether you can, without highest Injustice, Quest. 12.yea (we would tremble to speak it) without most dreadful Sacriledge, withhold the Churches Goods when she is ready to perish for want? Fathers and Brethren, who ever say their tongues are their own, yours are not: *1 Cor. 3. 22.you are the Churches, a part of her legal Dowry, you are her most proper Goods, her most rightful Claim, †Eph. 4. 11, 12, 13.given her by Christ himself, yea given to her for ever, for her use. Your Gifts, your Graces, all you Talents, they are unquestionably Church Goods, a publick Stock, for common use, in which all may claim a share. You are *Rom. 1. 14.debtors to all. And have you forgotten the charge of the Lord, Prov. 3. 27. Withhold not good from them to whom it is due, when it is in the power of thine hand to do it.
Whether it be not better to Glorify God by a Quest. 13.Prison (if that you fear should come upon you) than to be an Offence and Stumbling-Block by sitting still? Consider we beseech you, what are we for, but our Maker's Ends? what are we good for, for what do we serve, but only for his Pleasure? better we had no being, than not to be for Him. Better we were without liberty, than that it should not serve Him. What a small thing is Riches or Poverty; Sickness or Health; Liberty or Bonds, unless in order to his Glory? Let us but live in the power of this acknowledged Principle, That it is our business and our blessedness to glorifie God, and all will be set at rights. If that be true, then that is the best condition, wherein we may best glorifie God, and the happiness of every estate, is to be esteemed, according to the order and reference that it hath to this end. Now then, let God glorifie himself in us, and it cannot but be well. What should you then do but set to the Work? For either God will preserve your Liberties, and then you will wonderfully glorifie him by your acting and venturing your selves for him; or else he will send you to Prison, and then you will more glorifie him by suffering, lying there as the Publick Hostages of the Churches, and Witnesses of God's Truth; Besides that it may render you the more serviceable in your Generation all your dayes after. But how little is God glorified by you either way, while you sit still? Or, are you not rather an Offence, and a grief to the spirits of the Godly, weakning the hands of your Active Brethren, and wounding the spirits of your dear People? Who can see others at work, and partake of strangers labours, when you their Shepherds give over your care for their souls?
Whether by this Recess you do not neglect the fairest opportunity that ever you had, or may have, Quest. 14.in all your lives, to honour the God that sent you, to save sinners, build up Saints, and everlastingly to vindicate the Reputation of Christ's Ministry, and further your own Peace and Comfort here, and Glory hereafter? Never had you so clear and so loud a Call to hazard your selves for God, and thereby to prove your integrity before him, and resolution for him, and to give publick Testimony of your Zeal, and the ardour of your Love to his Name, as now. Never had you such an open and effectual door for the doing good to souls, whether for Conversion or Edification. Now the hearts of the People cleave to you more than ever, if you lose them not by your own neglect. Now they see the difference between the Precious and the Vile; between the Hay and Stubble of the present materials, and the Gold and Silver that you did build with; between the burning and shining Lights, and the stinking and loathsome Snuffs. O how erect are their ears! and their hearts long, and their mouths water (as we say) and their souls wait for your words. We seem to see the thronging croud, the willing people, *Pro. 8. 34.watching at the gates of Wisdom, waiting at the posts of her doors, looking when you will speak, that they might be refreshed; when your †Job 29. 21, 22.words will distill as the dew, and drop as the showers *Deut. 32. 2upon the mowen grass, or parched ground. We see them gathering about you, and saying with them, †Act. 10. 33Behold, we are all here ready to hear all things that are commanded you of God. Now may the Messenger of the Lord indeed say, They *Job 29. 23.waited for me as the rain, and they opened their mouths wide as for the latter rain. How hungry are their souls? how do they hang upon your lips? how far will they travel? how early will they rise? how hard will they venture (expertis credite, glory be to God, we speak what we know) to get a wholsome meal, to enjoy God in the pure and powerful Administration of his Ordinances. Verily the Field is even white to the Harvest. O how great is the pitty, that at such a time you should have your hands out, and not thrust in your Sickle. The People seem ready to catch at your words, as Benhadads servants, as soon as they dropped from 1. Kings 20. 33.the mouth of the King of Israel.
If you think it would not be so with you, we fear it is either, first, for want of experience, because you have not tryed; or, secondly, (if we may presume to be so plain) through the neglect of too many, who are otherwise Worthies, but have here through their own supineness, suffered the affections of People to dye, and the coal of Religious Zeal to go out, for want of blowing. But if they will but blow up this sacred Fire out of the Ashes, and lay the Coals together, and give their People to taste of the pure Milk of the Word, we miss our mark, if they want an encouraging Auditory, unless where Religion, in the most professing times, hath been a stranger. Awake then, for now is the time for you to settle your selves for ever in the Affections of your People. Now you may prove your love to them, as you never could before, by hazarding your selves for their good. Now you may prove their love to your Ministry, and to the Wayes of God, as never you could till now.
Do you say, This is a carnal Argument?
We answer, 'Tis true, he is but an Hypocrite, that Quest. Answ.looks no higher than the approbation of men, yea the best of men; But yet we add, that the Affections of God's People, is a very choice and special Mercy. He that hath their hearts, shall have their prayers; and is that a little thing? But these are little, to that we would especially answer, and that is; He that hath the Peoples Esteem and Affections, for the Lord's sake, hath the directest way in the world to their hearts, and the fairest advantage possible to serve God's Interest upon them, and further his Work in them, which every gracious Minister must needs value above all this worlds goods, as that upon which the success of his Ministry, for winning and furthering souls, doth wonderfully depend.
Once again; Never had you such an opportunity in your lives, fore ver to put to silence the slanderous tongues of Seducers, as now; they have vilified you as Hirelings, Flesh-pleasers, that will go no further in Religion than will stand with your own Advantage: O now or never confute them. What a loude refutation of their callumnies would your engaging to purpose in the work of God be at such a time as this? All sorts of men have been ready to take up prejudices against us, as Self-seekers, and such as looked little further than their Maintenance. Now pluck up these prejudices by the roots: now shew you can serve the Lord for nought. What lewd lyes will all these imputations appear to be, if the Lord stir you up to holy an activity? We can but touch upon your own advantage, as indeed, we cannot dwell upon any thing, having so much to say in a little. When had you such an advantage to get setled Assurance and Peace as now? You can tell us better then our selves, (who yet blessed be God, speak what we have seen and felt) that the most self-denying services are the best evidences, and so bring in greatest comforts. When was there such a time to lay up treasure in Heaven as now? You know the massyest Crown is for them that endure the hardest service.
But we see there are many Lions in the way. The flesh is loth to labour (much more to suffer) but cryes, Master spare thy Self, and will find an hundred Arguments to turn off a costly and hazardous duty. We dispair the work will be done without removing the prejudices, and therefore shall not dissemble the difficulties and objections that be in the way.