The Unreasonableness of Separation, Part 2 · Section 9
Sect. 9. But while you plead for this liberty of the Peoples Separating upon their Iudgment of their Ministers Abilities and Fitness, you can never secure them from Separation from any Church or Ministers whatsoever. And no setled Church in the World could ever subsist long, without infinite disorder and confusion, if this were allow'd. For Mr. B. thinks them uncapable of the Ministerial Office in the Peoples Judgment.
1. Who have not tolerable Ministerial Knowledge,Answ. p. 50. or utterance.
2. Who are Heretical.
3. Who malignantly oppose serious Religion as Hypocrisie, or a needless thing.
4. Who by their wicked lives do more hurt than they do good. From such, saith he, St. Paul bids turn away.
And of all these things the People are to be Iudges; and so may Separate, (1.) When they are unsatisfied about the Ministerial Knowledge or utterance of their Ministers. As for their Vtterance; we may allow them to be Judges of that; but I never heard before, that St. Paul did bid People turn away from their Ministers, if their Vtterance were not thought to be tolerable. For he intimates, that some complained of his utterance and had him in contempt for it. But as to Abilities and Knowledge fit for Ministers, Are not the People admirable Judges? How few, how very few, even of those of the people who pretend most to Knowledge in Religion, have any tolerable understanding of the true principles, and right notion of it? I do not speak only of Artificers and Tradesmen; but of those of better education, who either by prejudices, or want of due application of their minds to such things, are subject to great mistakes about Religion, and yet may be very good men: If such as these, are so unfit to Judge of Ministerial Knowledge, and the Doctrines of Religion, What shall we say to the common sort of raw, and injudicious Professors of Religion? Mr. B's. experience in the World is not so little, as not to know and be sensible of the truth of this, among the People most apt to divide and Separate. Is it not then a strange thing he should thus subject the Judgment of Ministerial Knowledge to such a Company of Triers as these? But suppose they do allow their Ministers to pass for men of tolerable abilities, and reasonable good utterance, there is a harder task yet behind, and that is, to approve themselves to the People to be Sound and Orthodox; For, saith Mr. B. (2) If they be Heretical, they may without sin separate from them. But how shall a Man escape being thought Heretical by the People, if they have a mind to make him so; i.e. if he crosseth their humor, and delivers such Doctrine as doth not please them; for that is generally their Standard for Heresie? And they cannot well have any other; unless you will suppose all the People to be learned Divines, and every Man obliged to read and understand Epiphanius and Binius: and then perhaps they may be competent Iudges of Heresie, and come at last to be even with the Divines for having been their Judges so long in that matter. Let us now suppose a Person of great value and esteem among them for his other Ministerial Abilities, should happen to be thought unsound in the Point of Iustification, and to draw too near to the Papists in it; and this not only be said by the common People, but they are abetted and encouraged in it, by the greatest part of their Teachers, who tell them, this is a Fundamental point, Articulus stantis & cadentis Ecclesiae; that they had as good give up the Cause of Reformation, as yield in that matter, as some have said; I would fain know in this Case, whether upon Mr. B's. Principles, the People are not bound to Separate from such a Man, notwithstanding his other Abilities?
The like may happen as to many other Doctrines, which the People are as incompetent Iudges of, as they are in this matter. Let us yet suppose that such a Man may pass for sound in the main among the People; what shall we say to him, if under pretence of Curing Divisions he exposes good People, and lays open with great freedom and plainness their Factious, Turbulent, Censorious, Vngovernable humor; not omitting their Injudiciousness, but forgetting all the while that these same injudicious People (with all their other faults) were once his Electors, and are still his Iudges; suppose, that he tells the World, That for their Ignorance, Injudiciousness, Pride and Self-conceitedness, they are their grief and their shame; that they are endanger'd by Divisions, principally because the selfconceited part of the Religious People will not be ruled by their Pastors; that it is they that tempt the Papists to use Fire and Faggot that will not be ruled, nor kept in Concord by the wisest, and holiest, and most self-denying Ministers upon earth. Notwithstanding all these very kind words of themselves, Do not we think such People would call all this Reviling, and Reproaching the People of God, and say, That such men do malignantly oppose serious godliness as Hypocrisie; and let their lives be what they will, they do more hurt than good; and therefore by Mr. B's own Rules, they are bound to Seprate from the Wisest, the Holiest, the most Self-denying Ministers upon earth. Which I think is sufficient for the present to shew the mischievous consequence of putting so great a power of Judgment, and Separation upon it into the hands of the People.