The Cure of Church Divisions, Directions · Direction 55
DIRECT. LV.
When you complain of violence and persecution in others, take heed lest you shew the same inward sin, by Church-persecution and cruelty against them, or any others.
BUt because I know that guilt causeth impatience, and passion disposeth men to mistakes and false reports, before I proceed, I must here foretell you, 1. That I mean not by Separatists all that are so called by interessed injudicious persons: But those 1. that account true Churches of Christ to be no Churches, 2. or that account it unlawful to hold Communion with those Churches, whose communion is not unlawful; because they are faulty, or because they differ from them in some opinions or circumstances of worship: 3. especially if they practise, and perswade others to practise according to these two opinions; of which the first is the higher sort of separation, and the second the lover.
And secondly, That by Church-dividers, I mean both these and all such whose principles and practises are against that love of a Christian as a Christian, and that forbearance of dissenters, which should be exercised to all the members of Christ; and who fly from the ancient simplicity and primitive terms of Church-communion, and adde (as the Papists do) their own little novelties as necessary things.
And those that do causlesly separate from their own lawfully called Pastors; For ubi Episcopus, ibi Ecclesia; where the true Pastor is, there the Church is (what ever place it be that they assemble in) (as Cyprien once said.)
And lastly, those that are of uncharitable, humerous, peevish, contentious and fiery spirits, and will stir up m…tinies and …idings, and causeless divi…ions in any Church where they come. And truly they that think of the present state of Hartford and some other Churcheses in New England, (which I will not here make a Narrative of) me thinks should fear Separations, Schismes or Divisions, from o… in the Churches called Independent, as much as those of a different Discipline do as to theirs: (if not somewhat more, on several accounts.)
Thirdly, And remember that I am not here speaking of any mens former faults, by way of uncharitable bitterness, insulting or reproach; but verily brethren, if we are not impartially willing to know the truth of eve…y side, and of our own selves as well as othe…s, we choose deceit, and resist the light, and provoke God to forsake our understandings. Do we not yet know where Iudgment hath begun, after such plagues and flames, and Church convulsions? And do we not yet know where Repentance must begin? Enquire for good news whence you will, I vvill enquire whether we are awakened to a true Repentance; and by that I will fetch my prognosticks of our f…ture state? Not whether you cry out against other mens sins, but against your own, and that particularly with all their aggravations; and whether Professo…rs of Religiousness do as heartily lament their own notorious publick scandals, as they expect that drunkards and fornicators, and the friends of loosness, should lament theirs! Till we see this, what promise have we of the pardon of our dreadful temporal penalties? (to say nothing of the greater.)
Woe to the Land and People that can multiply sin and cannot Repent! And wo to them that pretend Repentance, and love to be flattered in their sin, and cannot endure to be admonished, but take all the discoveries of their sin to be injurious reproach? among the prophane we take this to be a deadly sign of impenitency? And is it so bad in them, and good in us? It is part of my office to cry with holy Bradford, REPENT O ENGLAND; and to say after Christ, Except ye Repent, ye shall all Perish, And can I call men to Repent, when I must not dare to tell them of what? Nor to mention the sin which is most to be repented of? I use all this preface because I know that Guilt and Impenitency are touchy and tender, and galled, and querulous, and such will bestow the time in backbiting their Monitor, which they should bestow in lamenting their sin. But shall I therefore forbear, and betray their souls, and betray the Land through cowardly silence? Must I shew that I ha…e Professours by not admonishing them, (Lev. 19. 17.) when I must shew that I love the looser sort by my sharp reproofs? Must I not fear them that can kill the body? and must I fear to displease a professed Christian, by calling him to Repentance in a time of Judgments.
Lord, hide not my own miscarriages from my …ight! and suffer me not to take any sin that I have committed to have been my innocency or duty, lest I should dare to father sin on God, and lest I should live and die without Repentance, and lest I should be one that continueth judgments and danger to the Land? stir up some faithful friend to tell me, with convincing evidence, where it is that I have miscarried, that Contrition may prepare me for the peace of remission? O save me from the plague of an impenitent heart, that cannot endure to be told of sin! & from that ungodly folly, which taketh the shame that Repentance casteth upon sin, to be cast upon God and Religion, which bind us to Repentance and Confession!
Nay in this place, I am not mentioning things past, so much to humble you, as necessarily to inform you, of the groundlesness of your present arguings, that you may see the truth.
Fourthly, Note also that I lay not any miscarriages on any whole parties, (Anabaptists or others.) For I have found that all parties of Christians indeed have some good, experienced, sober, charitable persons, and some self-conceited and contentious novices, (1 Tim. 3. 6.) But I speak only of the persons that were guilty and no more.
Fifthly, Lastly, remember that while I seem to compare the faults of one sort of persons, with anothers, it is none of my intent to equal them; much less to equal the state of the several sorts of Offenders as to the rest of their lives: But only to mention so much of the similitude, as is nenessary to represent things truly and impartially to your view.
Read on now with these Memento's in your eye: And if after so plain a premonition you will venture to charge me with that which I disclaim, do it at your own peril; I stand or fall to the judgment of God, and look for a better reward than the hypocrites, which is to have the good opinion of men, be they professours of piety, or profane. And with me, by Gods grace, it shall hereafter be accounted a small thing (to the hindering of my fidelity to Christ and mens souls) to be judged of men, 1 Cor. 4. 3.
And if there should be any Pastors of the Churches, who instead of concurring, to heal the flocks of these dividing principles, shall rather joyn with backbiters, and encourage them in their misreports and slanders, because it tendeth to the supposed interest of their party or themselves. Let them prepare to answer such unfaithfulness to their consciences which will shortly be awakened, and to the great Shepherd of the Flock who is at the door, and who told even the Devils agents, that a House or Kingdom divided against it self, cannot stand, but is brought to nought! Math. 12. (If alas, alas, experience hath not yet, not yet, not yet, done enough to teach them this!)
For my part I have had humane applause enough: I'le value that Vanity as dying men do. And temptations to man pleasing from covetousness I have none: For I have nothing of worldly gain or expectations which I should fear to lose, to tempt me to betray my conscience or the truth by silence.
But (mark and remember brethren, what I say to you,) whosoever is of your mind at present, P…sterity will say as I have told you: And though wrong ways seem fit or necessary for some present exigence, or j…bb, vet nothing but Truth, and Integrity, and Charity … Concord, will do the main work, and hold … to the last.
The …oresight of impatient guilt, & censure having caused me here to give you this premonition (besides what is in the Epistle) now Reader, go on.
O the deceitfulness of the heart of man! Little do many real Separatists, who cry out against the spirit of persecution, suspect that the same spirit is in them! whence is persecution, but from thinking ill of others, & abhorring them, or not loving them? And do not you do so by those whom you causlesly separate from? you will say, that though you think them not to be true Christians, yet you love them as men, and wish their good: And so will those say by you, whom you call your Persecutors: Though they think you to be proud and humerous, and disobedient; yet they say they love you as men, and do but correct you to cure your self-willedness and humour, and to do you good, and to preserve the publick peace. They think you to be bad, and therefore imprison you: you think them to be bad, and therefore avoid Communion with them. They think you so bad as to be unworthy of civil liberty, and priviledges: you think them so bad as to be unworthy of Church priviledges and liberties. They think you unworthy to be suffered in the land perhaps. And you think them unworthy to be suffered in the Churches. They cry against you, Away with them they are schismatical or heretical: you cry against them, Away with them, they are prophane!
Obj. But they who would not give us … lilerties, do more against us, than we would do against them.
Answ. I pray you think on that again. First, Is not the priviledge of the Church, …ette… than the priviledges of the Commonwealth? as the soul is better than the body? Secondly, Is it not a deeper accusation to charge one to be ungodly and prophane, than to charge him only to be schismatical?
Obj. But charity must not be blind: They are prophane: I charge them truly: …ut I am not schismatical or heretical; but they accuse me falsly.
Answ. You say so, and they say the same of you. They say that you are schismatical, but they are not proph…ne. Now how shall a stander by know which of you is in the right? Doubtless by the witnesses and evidences: They try you in some Court or before some Magistrate before they punish you. You never try them, … hear them speak for themselves, nor examine … witness publickly against them, …or allow them any Church-justice, but avoid their Communion upon reports or pretense of private kn…wledge. They judge you personally one by one: You condemn whole P…rishes in the …mp, …: They condemn you as for a … cr…me: But you condemn them without charging any one crime upon them, because they have not yet given you a satisfying proof of their godliness; They say, we prove you guilty: You say, you have … proved your selves innocent. It a … on the high way, and you and another were both charged with the robbery; and to the other it is said, I prove by witness that thou didst rob me; And to you it is said, Do thou bring sufficient proof that thou didst not rob me? Would you not think that you had the more injustice?
Obj. But of all men living no man can think that a persecutor is godly and fit for Church-communion.
Ansu. Either of these answers may stop your mouths, First, What is that to the whole Parishes whose communion you avoid, who never persecuted you? Did all the Ministers and common people persecute you?
Secondly, Was it no persecution when many Anabaptists and Separatists made such work in England, Scotland and Ireland in Cromwels time and after as they did? When so many were turned out of the Universities for not engaging? and so many out of the Ministry? and so many out of the Magistracy & Corporation priviledges? And when an Ordinance was made to cast out all Ministers who would not pray for the success of their Wars against Scotland, or that would not give God thanks for their Victories. When I have heard them profess that they believed that there were many thousand godly men, that were killed at Dunbar (to instance in no other;) and yet we were all by their Ordinance to be cast out, that would not give God thanks for this? And the execution of it was much threatned, though they did it not. And what more harsh kind of persecution could there be, than to force men to go hypocritically to God against their consciences, and take on them to beg for the success of a war which they judged unlawful, and to return him a publick counterfeit thanks for blood-shed; yea for the blood of thousands; and the blood of confessed godly men: When the crime which they would have forced us to (had we been so ductile as to obey them) was no less than publick hypocrisie and owning such blood-gailtiness; and the penalty no less than separation from our flocks and publick maintenance (though not silencing.)
I speak not any of this to trample upon those whom God in justice hath cast down. (A thing which I so abhorred that I have avoided it to the great displeasure of others) But if you are of the mind, either that Gods justice should not be observed or justified; or that you should not be called to repentance; or that you should be suffered quietly to forget your sin, and die impenitently; or that the nation should forget the effects of religious pride and faction, and so lose the warning which they have had from God at so dear a rate, and be tempted again into the same sin and calamity, for fear of offending the ears of the guilty; I am in all this as far from your minds, as I was in the acting of these crimes: And can no more consent to you, than I should have done to have had all the Israelites murmurings, idolatry and unbelief; and the sins of Noah, Lot, David, Solomon, Peter, &c. forgotten, and the history of them never mentioned in the Bible.
But (I pray you mark it) the way of God is to shame the sinner, how good soever in other respects that the sin may have the greater shame, and Religion may not be shamed as if it allowed men to sin, nor God the Author of Religion be dishonoured; nor others be without the warning. But the way of the devil is, To hide or justifie the sin, as if it were for fear of disparaging the goodness of the persons that committed it; that so be may thereby dishonour Religion and Godliness it self, and make men believe that it is but a cover for any wickedness, and as consistent with it as a looser life is; and that he may keep the sinner from repenting, and blot out the memory of that warning which should have preserved afterages from the like falls.
Scripture shameth the Professours (though a David, Solomon, Peter, Noah, or Lot) that the Religion professed may not be shamed but vindicated. Satan would preserve the honour of the Prof…ss…urs, that the Religion prosessed may bear the shame; and so it may fall on God himself. When God turneth Lots wife into a Pillar of Salt, Satan is willing to seem so tender of the honour of the godly, as to take it down, that it may be forgotten. God saith to the Israelites, that when those that pass by shall ask why hath God done all this great …vil against this people, the posterity shall recount their ancestors sins, and say, Because they sinned against the Lord their God, &c. But Satan could find in his heart to pretend more tenderness of the names and honour of the Church, so he might but undo the present age by impeni…ency, and after ages by taking Gods publick warnings from before their eyes. On these terms he will be all for the honour of professours.
But God will make men more tender of his honour and less tender of our own, and more willing openly to take shame to our selves to vindicate the honour of Religion, before he will give us a … discharge.
It is the nature of true Repentance, to cry out as publickly as we can to all the world, and be glad to leave it upon record [It was not God or Religion that ever encouraged me to these sins; but it was my own doing: Religion is clear but I am guilty.] Pardon this long excursion on this subject. And if you cannot bear it, I cannot help that. I made not the sore, nor galled place which is so tender. I only mind you, in answer to your objection, that Faction and opinions will raise persecutions, and have done, even by such as you, yet do not separate from. I know none of you that separate from the Anabaptists and Separatists who were the authors of these aforesaid persecutions, nor do I urge you to it. Therefore do but impartially judge of the sin.
Obj. But it is one thing to persecute for particular opinions and interests (as almost all parties have sometimes done) and another thing to perse…nte for Godliness it selfe.
Answ. I confess it is, and the difference between these two is very great. But I pray you consider, first, that they are but few, perhaps not one, of all that you separate from, that ever persecuted you any way at all: Nor can you prove that ever they so much as allowed of it.
Secondly, That they whom you and I do suffer by, do not believe that they persecute us for Godliness, but think that here the case is more defensible than yours was. For you had no just authority over us: When the Anabapt…sts did pull down the Ministers they pull'd down the Magistrates too; And therefore it was a perscution of equals, without authority; But those that we Ministers suffer by now are our lawful Rulers, who have made Laws to require us to subscribe, and say and swear and do the things which we do not? And therefore they think that we suffer but for a different opinion joyned with disobedience. It is not all men whom they forbid to preach, but us who dissent and do not obey them: It is not all men that are godly whom they imprison; but those that meet to worship God in a place and manner differing from theirs, and forbidden by them. So that how can you say that this is not for differing opinions.
Obj. But we forbid not them to hold their own Church-communion, though we separate from them, we never denied them the liberty of their consciences.
Answ. Some of your judgement denied many of them much of that liberty which consisteth in worshipping of God in their own way, when you were in power. But suppose they had not, it is but another way of uncharitableness: The vice expressed seemeth to be the same. For you condemn them as unfit for Christian-Communion, and therefore you exclude them from yours: And you take their Church-communion among themselves, to be but a prophanation of holy things: which maketh them the more impious, and therefore the more odious: And you tolerate it in them as you tolerate mens folly and madness, or leprosie or plague, because you cannot cure it. And I pray you judge whether there be any more Christian Love in this kind of dealing, than there is in that which you call persecution? Or at least, whe…her it proceed not from the same uncharitableness? I suppose you to be spiritual and not carnal persons, at least in profession and therefore that you are not so tender of the flesh, as to take its suffering to be any great matter to you, in comparison of any of the sufferings of the soul. When you refuse Communion with men, as judging them unfit for fellowship with the visible Churches of Christ, you judge them the visible members of the devil, and condemn them to the loss of the greatest priviledges on earth, and to be left out with the dogs, with Publicans and Heathens: Though you think that you have no more to do your selves in the execution of this sentence, but to separate from them, yet you declare that you think that all others should do the same: So that your tolerating their Communion among themselves, is no great signification of your charity.
The sum of all that I say to you is this: It is but one and the same sin in the Persecutor and the Divider or Separatist, which causeth the one to smite their brethren, and the other to excommunicate them: the one to cast them into prisons as Schismaticks, and the other to cast them out of the Church as prophane: the one to account them intollerable in the land, and the o…her to account them intollerable in the Church: the one to say. Away with them they are contumacious; and the other to say, Away with them they are ungodly. The inward thoughts of both is the same, that those whom they smite or separate from, are bad and unlovely and unfit for any better usage. When Love which thinketh no evil till it is necessitated, and believeth all things which are at all credible, and hopeth all things which are not desperate, and covereth sins instead of condemning without proof, would equally cure them both.
And let me yet conclude with this double protestation against the carping slanderer who useth to falsifie mens words. First, That I intend not in all this any flattery of the ungodly, or making them better than they are, or forbearing plain reproof or Church-discipline, nor any unlawful communion with the wicked, nor countenancing them in any of their sins, nor neglecting to call them to repentance.
Secondly, That while I here name persecution, my purpose is not to mark out any persons or party above others, or determine who they be that are the persecutors: But only to detect the deceitfulness of our hearts when we most complain of it; and to shew that wherever that sin is indeed, it cometh but from the same principle as sinful separation doth: even from the death of Love to others.
Thirdly, and I add, that though I here aggravate the persecution of unjust excommunications or separations, as robbing men of the priviledge of Christians, yet leaving them the common liberties of men and subjects; it is none of my purpose to equal this absolutely with that destroying cruelty, which leaveth them neither; and will not suffer them to enjoy so much liberty, as Heathens and Infidels may enjoy, or as Paul had under such. Act. 28. ult.