Five Disputations of Church Government, Chapter 7
CHAP. VII. Prop. 7. Some things may be lawfully and profitably commanded at one Time and Place, and to one sort of people, that may not at or to another; no nor obeyed, if commanded.
§. 1. THE case is so plain in point of Commanding, that it is past all doubt. Many Accidents may make that destructive at one Time and place, that would be profitable at another. Pauls precepts and pract…ce in becoming all things to all men, do manifest this.
§. 2. *The Pope … King … that … cannot be done without tumult or ….] D…ila p. 1362. an. 1595. So that when he feareth losing by it himself, the good man makes conscience of murdering them that he will c…ll hereticks: but at another time 30000. to be murdered in France in a few daies (D…ila saith 40000.) was a blessed work!The Papists themselves are convinced of this: and therefore sometime granted the Bohemians the use of the cup for the Laity in the Lords Supper: and profess that it is in the Power of the Pope and Council to do the same by other places. Yea when they burn men for the Protestant Religion in one Countrey, they tolerate it in another, for fear of a greater evil. And when they torment men in one age and place for using a Bible in the vulgar tongue, in another place or time, they themselves translate it.
§. 3. It is therefore a very great sin in Governours, unnecessarily to make such things the matter of a common standing Law which is so variable, yea and must be varied according to diversity of times and places: These things should be left to the Prudence of the Governours that are on the place. No wise General will take a Commission for the Command of an Army, if he must be tied up before hand, when to march, and when to stand still, and which way to go, and how to …ight in all the variable Circumstances. Shall Governours pretend to be so much wiser then God, as to make a standing Law for that which God thought best to leave at liberty, to be varied as occasions vary?
§. 4. The English Church Laws do tie the Ministers to a particular habit, and to the particular Chapters of Scripture that we must read: and if the Law-givers had pleased, they might as well have tied us to that particular Text which they will have us preach on, and forbid us to choose a Text as a Chapter: And they might have as well tyed us to particular Psalms in singing, as in Reading. But all this is against the nature of our office, and the good of the Church: And therefore it is not fit matter for a Law. If I know my hearers to be most addicted to Drunkenness, must I be tyed up from Reading or Preaching against that sin, and tyed to Read and Preach only against Covetousness or the like, because it seemeth meet to Governours to tye me to a constant course? If I have a tractable people, it may do them no harm to limit them to this or that gesture, vesture▪ &c. But what if they be prejudiced against a thing that in it self is lawfull, and take it to be a sin, and resolve that they will rather forbear Gods Ordinances then use a thing that their Consciences are against? must I needs exercise or press a Gesture, vesture or such Ceremonie, when I see it tendeth to the destruction of my flock?And therefore when I said before that in case of Necessity I would rather Kneel, then not communicate, yet I now add that I would for all that rather be imprisoned or otherwise persecuted, then cast out of the Churches Communion all that dare not kneel or conform in such a circumstance: And yet this were Ministers then commanded on great penalties to do. Must I needs deny the Lords Supper to all my flock, if they dare not receive it in this or that gesture (let it be sitting or kneeling,) and all because I am commanded to do so?
§. 5. Suppose it here granted that the thing being lawfull, it is the peoples sinful weakness that causeth them to refuse it; and that the power commanding me no otherwise to deliver it, is such as in things lawful I am bound to obey▪ yet is it not a thing lawfull to punish the peoples infirmity in a circumstance so severely as with an excommunication, or a denying them the communion of the Church in the Lords supper. In such a case my first duty is, to tell the Magistrate that such a Law is sinfully cruel and destructive to the Churches peace. If that will not prevail with him to repeal or suspend such an unrighteous law, my next duty is, yet to perswade the people to obey him: (for we suppose the gesture or ceremony commanded now to be lawfull:) But if I can neither prevail with the Magistrate to forbear his imposition, nor with the people to obey him; my next duty is to forbear the execution of his unrighteous penalty: I dare not be his executioner, in excluding all Christs servants from his house or holy Communion, that dare not do every circumstantial action that is imposed on them: For the penalty is flat contrary to the Commands of Christ. Yet would I not resist the Magistrate, but lay down my office,☜ if the Churches necessity did not forbid me to lay it down: but if it did, I would do my office, and suffer what the Magistrate should inflict upon me.
§. 6. And indeed, I might else be obliged by a Magistrate to excommunicate or deny Communion to all Christians within my reach: For all Christians are imperfect; and there is not one but is liable to error in a greater matter then a gesture or circumstance, such as we have now before us: no nor one but doth actually err in as great a matter: and therefore one as well as another, on this account may be cast out: But Christ would not have this dealing in his Church.
§. 7. How tender are his own expressions, his practise and his laws towards those that are infirm! He came to preach the Gospel to the poor, and heal the broken-hearted, and lay upon them an easier yoak and lighter burden. He will not break the bruised Reed,Luke 4.18. Matth. 11.28. Matth. 12.20. Isa. 42.2, 3. & 40.11. Mat. 18.6. Luke 17 2. Rom. 14.1. & 15.1, 2. & 14.13, 15, 20, 21, 23. nor quench the smoaking fl…x: he carryeth the Lambs in his arms, and gently driveth those with young: The little ones that believe in him must not be offended: It were better for him … offendeth one of them (by injurious persecution) that a milstone were hanged about his neck, and that he were cast into the sea: Him that is weak (even) in in the Faith, we must receive (and therefore must not cast him out that doubteth of a ceremony.) And they that are strong must bear with the infirmities of the weak, and not to please our selves, but every one to please his neighbour for his good to edification. No man should put a stumbling block, or occasion to fall in his brothers way. If we grieve our brother by our meats (or other indifferent things) we walk uncharitably: we must not for such things destroy them that are the work of God, and for whom Christ died. It is good neither to eat flesh, nor to drink wine, or any thing whereby he stumbleth or is offended, or is made weak. He that doubteth is condemned if he eat, because he eateth not of faith. And we must not be too forward in damning men for a morsel of bread, or a garment, or a gesture.
§. 8. Moreover, the Ministry hath a certain end, to which all our administrations are Means: even the saving of our flock, and the Pleasing of God thereby: And if Magistrates will commands us to order but a lawful Circumstance so as shall not only cross, but destroy these ends, we must as soon leave our M…nstry as obey him: Our Power is given us to Edification and not to Destruction: Not only those things that of themselves destroy, but those that are like to be the occasions of such an event, through the infirmity of the people, must be by us avoided. To command us a way of M…nistration that shall (though but accidentally) damn men, and that unnecessarily, is to destroy our office, by destroying the end, which is mens salvation. If men will destroy themselves by the only means of salvation (Christ and the Gospel) this will not excuse us from preaching that Gospel: but if men will destroy themselves by a Ceremony, or unnecessary circumstance, I will take it out of their way if I can. It is a Lawfull thing for all sick people in England to eat of one pa…ticular dish of meat, as well as on others: But if the Law-givers command that all Physicians shall give no man Physick that will not be tyed only to such or such a dish, I would not be a Physician, if I must obey that command; what if my Patient have a weak stomack and cannot eat of that dish, or be peevish, and will not? must I therefore be guilty of his death by denying him my necessary help, because the Magistrate forbiddeth me? He may as well forbid us all to visit the sick, or relieve the poor, or cloath the naked, if he can but find the least infirmity that they are guilty of. And I think that Christ will not take it for an excuse in judgement if any man say [Lord, I would have relieved them, cloathed them, healed them, but that the Magistrate forbad me; and I thought it the part of a seditious rebell not to obey my governors.] Yet I should much less desire to be in that Ministers case (whose labours are necessary to the Church) that had no better an excuse for his denying to preach the Gospel, or to admit the servants of Christ to holy Communion, then that the Magistrate forbade him: Our Ministration is a work of Charity, to be exercised upon voluntary receivers: And if a Magistrate have power to forbid us to preach or grant the Sacraments and Communion of the Church to any that wear not black or blew, or white or red, or that kneel not at the Sacrament, or such like, then may he as well or much better forbid us to give alms to any that wear not a horn on their backs, and an iron ring about their arms as Bedlam… do: No Magistrate can dispence with Charity, especially in so great a case as mens salvation: no more then the Pope can dispence with Oaths and Covenants.
§. 9. We have therefore▪ the use of our Reason left us to weigh the tendency of a Magistrates commands, even where the act commanded is in it self indifferent: For the Magistrates Power, and the Ministers, are from one Fountain, and are but Means to one and the same end: And neither of them hath any power to destroy that end: And therefore if by accident, through the weakness of my flock, the observation of a trivial circumstance would undo them, I would not use it, no not in obedience to the Magistrate: but would resolve with Paul never to eat flesh while I live rather then to offend or destroy my brother. But if I find by the weighing of all accidents, that my obedience will do no such hurt to the Church and Souls of men, but as much good as my not obeying, then (in such indifferent cases) I would readily obey: But otherwise I would appeal to God, and bear the Magistrates persecution. No means can be justly pleaded against the end (and least of all, a bare ceremony.) For it is no Means when it destroyeth the end.
§. 10. On this account it is that it hath alwaies by wise men been reckoned a tyrannical unreasonable thing, to impose all the same ceremonies and circumstances upon all places as upon some; and it hath been judged necessary that every Church have their liberty to …iffer in such indifferent things, and that it hath been taken for a wise mans duty, to conform his practice in such indifferent circumstances, to the several Churches with which he shall have communion, as Ambrose professeth he would do, and would have others do the same.
§. 11. If any think (as too many do) that such a diversity of circumstances is a disorder and confusion, and not to be endured, I shall further tell these men anon, that their opinion for an hypocritical unity and uniformity, is the true bane of Christian unity and uniformity, and that which hath brought the confusion and bloody wars into the Christian world, and that our eyes have seen, and our ears have heard of: And it were as wise an objection for them, if they should charge us in Britanie with Confusion, and drive us to a separation or division, because the Scots wear blew caps, and the English hats: or because some English wear white hats and some black; and so of other circumstances.
§. 12. Did I live in France or other Popish Countries, or had lived in England at the abolition of Popery, I should have thought it my duty in many indifferent circumstances to accommodate my self to the good of those with whom I did converse; which yet in another Countrey, or at another time, when those things were as offensive as then they were esteemed, I durst not have so done. And therefore our Common Prayer-Book it self with its Ceremonies might be then commendable, in many particulars, which now are reformable. And so in Ethiopia, Greece, or Spain, those things would be very laudable, that are now in England deservedly vituperable. And several Ceremonies in the primitive times had such occasions and concomitants, that made them tolerable that now seem less tolerable: The case is not the same, though the Materials be the same.