The Cure of Church Divisions, Directions to pastors 2 · Direction 11
DIRECT. XI.
Evermore distinguish between the necessary truths and duties, and those which are not of necessity; and between the Tollerable and the intollerable errours: And never think of a Common Unity or Concord, but upon the terms of necessary points, and of the primitive simplicity of doctrine, discipline and worship; and the forbearance of dissenters in tollerable differences.
IF I were to speak but once to the world whilest I lived, this should be my Theam: And yet (for ought that I can perceive by any visible effects) I never spake of any thing with less success. One party writeth copiously of the mischiefs which will …ollow Tolleration. And they say true, i… they mean the tolleration of things intollerable: The other write as copiously of the necessity of Tolleration and Liberty of Conscience: And they say true, if they mean only the Tolleration of things tollerable. But neither of them saith true if they mean universally, and speak in any other sense: There is nothing more plain and sure, than that the tollerating of all errours and faults which conscience may be pretended for, or of none at all, are utterly destructive of Christian and humane peace and safety. He is scarce well in his wits that holdeth either part universally and unlimitedly: For the one would have no Government, and the other would have no subjects to be governed. Seeing therefore bounds and limits there must be, we may reckon them as the third sort of distracted persons, who think that the bounds are so undiscoverable, that the mention of them is in vain; and therefore either All or None must be tollerated according as Rulers are disposed, or their interest seemeth to require: And therefore they say, What points be they that are necessary, and what unnecessary? What errours are tollerable, and what are intollerable? Can you name and number them? Or, who must be the judge? To which I answer.
First, Let it be first supposed that God hath given us a Law to judge by, and then we shall quickly tell you who shall be the Judge (A question which the confused world doth further their confusion by, when they are a thousand times answered past all rational contradiction) Iudgement is private or publick: The judicium privatum discretionis, which is but the guide of rational acts, belongeth to every private man (which none that is a man did ever yet deny) The judicium publicum is either in foro civili determining in order to corporal coaction, and this belongeth only to the Magistrates; Or it is in foro Ecclesiae determining in order to Church-communion or Excommunication; and this belongeth only to the Church; (but under the coactive Government of the Magistrate: the Pastors being the Governors, and the people in part the executioners.) He that requireth more understands not this.
Secondly, And what if ther… be a difficulty what points are necessary and what errours are into…erable? Yet as long as it is certa…n that such a difference there is, and that accordingly men must do; doth it not rather concern both parties to search after it, and practise as far as they can discern, than to cast away Reason, because there is a difficulty in using it aright? Just thus the Papists do with us about the like notion of fundamentals or essentials of Christianity; They call to us for a just enumeration of the fundamentals, and because they find so much difficulty there, as may find words and work for a perverse wrangler, they insult as if they might therefore take either all things or nothing to be essentials, and of necessity: As if Christianity had no constitutive essentiall parts, and so were nothing. And when they have all done they are forced themselves in their writings to distinguish the fundamentals, essentials, and universally necessary points from the rest, (as Dave…p…rt, Costerus, Bellarmine, Holden, &c. do.) And doth it not then concern them as much as us, to know which they be? What if it be a hard thing to enumerate just how many bits a man may eat, and not be a glutton? or how many drops a man may drink and be no drunkard? or just what meats and drinks must be used, to avoid exce…s in quality? or just what sort of stuffes or silks or cloth or fashions may be used without excess in apparel? will you thence infer that men may eat and drink any thing in quantity and quality, or else nothing? or that he may wear any thing, or must go naked? What if you cannot justly enumerate what herbs or roots or drugs are wholsome and what are unwholsome? which purge too much and which too little? Must therefore all be used indifferently or none? If I am not able to enumerate just how many faults or weaknesses may be tollerable in my servants? Must I therefore have none, till I have those that are faultless? or else must I allow them to do any thing that they list? Though just at the verge of evil, even that which is good may be matter of doubt, yet God in Nature and Scripture hath given us sufficient light for an upright, safe & peaceable life.
Thirdly, And if ever Baptism had been well understood, by these objectors, the essentials of Christianity had been understood. Hath not Christ himself determined who they be that shall be admitted into the Church and numbered with Christians, in the very tenor of the Baptismal Covenant? And did not the Church take the Creed to be sufficient for its proper use, which was to be the matter of the Christian profession, as to the Articles of faith to be believed? And yet are we now to seek in the end of the world, what Christianity is, and what are the essentials of our faith, and who is to be received as a professor of Christian…ty.
But this is a subject more largely to be handled if Rulers will permit it: And in the mean time because it is not the Magistrates but the Pastors that I am now speaking to, I shall pretermit the most which is to be said, and only acquaint you in the conclusion, that one of these following wayes must be chosen.
I. Either to tollerate all men to do what they wil, which they will make a matter of conscience or religion; And then some, may offer their children in sacrifice to the devil, and some may think they do God service in killing his servants; …nd some may think it their duty to perswade people that there is no God nor life to come, nor duty, nor sin; but all things are left to our own wills as lawless.
Secondly, Or else you must tollerate no errour or fault in religion; And then you must advise what measure of penalty you will inflict. If but a little, then you tollerate the errour still: For they that err will err still; and they that conscienciously pray as Daniel did, Dan. 6. or forbear to obey the King as the three Confessours did. Dan. 3. will do so still, for all your penalty; And so there is no cure, but a tolleration still.
But if you inflict upon them, banishment, or death, you must resolve that the King shall dwel alone, and have no subjects, and so be no King; nor have any servant, and so be no Masters; nor endure so much as a wife, and so be no husband; and if he have children must use them as K. Philip of Spain did his eldest son Prince Charles, and so be no Father. It can be no less than this at last.
Or if you will imprison them, every subject must be in prison, and then who shall be the Jaylor, and who shall find them food?
Thirdly, Or else you must deal partially and unjustly, and condemn one while you acquit another, for the same fault; or condemn one sort of errours, while you allow to tollerate others as great: As if all were to be punished who believe not Christs descent into Hell, while all are tollerated, who deny the rest of the Articles of the Creed.
Fourthly, Or else you must make sure that all the Kings subjects shall be born under the same Planets, and of the same parents, and have the same temperament and complexion, and the same teachers, and company, and all hear the same words, and all see the same objects, and all have the same callings, employments, interests, passions, temptations, advantages, and the same degree of natural capacity, and of grace: That so there may be no difference or defect in their apprehensions.
Fifthly, or else you must …istinguish and say, that some are tollerable and shall be tollerated, and some errours ar… intollerable and shall not be tollerated (in the tongue I mean; for you must tollerate them in the mind whether you will or not) And then you will find a necessity of discerning as well as you can, the tollerable from the intollerable.
And if so, for Christs sake and his Churches sake and your own sake, bethink you whether Christ be not the King of his Church, and whether he hath given his Church no Laws for its Constitution and Administration? By which we must try who are to be the members of himself and his Church, and to have Communion with himself and one another? and who are to be rejected and avoided? And whether the Holy Ghost i… not the Author of the Church-establishment in the Scriptures? And whether we can expect more infallible deciders of such cases, than Christ, and his Spirit and Apostles? And whether the Church be not the same thing now as then, and and its universal constitution and necessary administration the same? And whether the primitive Church or ours be the purer and more exemplary? And whether it would do Kings and Kingdomes and the souls of men any dangerous hurt, to have all Christians hold their Union and Communion just on the same terms as they did under Peter and Paul and all the Apostles? Or at least whether it be worthy all the calamitous divisions in Christendome, and the blood of the many hundred thousands that have for conscience sake been shed, and the enduring of the outcries of the imprisoned and banished, and their prayers to heaven for deliverance from mens hands, and the leaving of such a name on record to posterity, as is usually left in History on the authors of such sufferings; besides the present regret of mind, in the calamities of others, and the sad divisions and destruction of Charity, which cometh hereupon; I say whether it be worth the suffering of all this (and O how small a part is this) and all to keep our Churches from the primitive simplicity, and from the same way and Communion which Peter and Paul and the Churches of their times, established and practised? Shall we speak so highly of Christ and his Apostles and the sacred Scriptures, and yet think all this blood and misery, division and distraction, worthy to be endured, rather than our Union and Communion should be held on the terms which they did appoint and practise? or rather than such terms should be tolerated among us? I know what is said against all this; But this is no place to answer all that is said by such as cannot see how to answer themselves in so clear a case.