A BROTHERLY EXAMINATION, &c.
I have before touched this purpose in the third branch of the third application of my second doctrine; and did, in my sermon in the Abbey church, express my thoughts of it at some length. But as I was then unwilling to fall upon such a controversy so publicly, and especially in a Fast sermon, if that which I intend to examine had not been as publicly and upon the like occasion delivered; so now, in the publishing, I have thought good to open my mind concerning this thing distinctly, and by itself. That which had been too late to be preached after sermon is not too late to be printed after sermon. Others (upon occasion offered) have given their testimony against his doctrine; and I should think myself unfaithful in the trust put upon me, if, upon such an occasion, I should be silent in this business; and I believe no man will think it strange that a piece of this nature and strain get an answer; and I go about it without any disrespect either to the person or parts of my reverend brother. Only I must give a testimony to the truth when I hear it spoken against; and I hope his objections have made no such impression in any man's mind as to make him unwilling to hear an answer. Come we therefore to the particulars.
Four rules were offered by the reverend brother, as tending to unity, and to the healing of the present controversies about church government. But in truth his cure is worse than the disease; and, instead of making any agreement, he is like to have his hand against every man, and every man's hand against him.
The first rule was this, “Establish as few things jure divino as can well be;” [pg 2-003] which is, by interpretation, as little fine gold, and as much dross as can well be. “The words of the Lord are pure words: as silver tried in a furnace of earth, purified seven times,” Psal. xii, 6. What you take from the word of God is fine “gold tried in the fire” (Rev. iii. 18); but an holy thing of man's devising is the dross of silver. Can he not be content to have the dross purged from the silver except the silver itself be cast away? The very contrary rule is more sure and safe; which I prove thus:—
If it be a sin to diminish or take aught from the word of God, insomuch that it is forbidden under pain of taking away a man's part out of the book of life, and out of the holy city; then as many things are to be established jure divino as can well be. But it is a sin to diminish or take aught from the word of God, insomuch that it is forbidden under pain of taking away a man's part out of the book of life, and out of the holy city; therefore as many things are to be established jure divino as can well be.
It must be remembered, withal, 1. That the question is not now, Whether this or that form of church government be jure divino; but, Whether a church government be jure divino; whether Jesus Christ hath thus far revealed his will in his word, that there are to be church-censures, and those to be dispensed by church-officers. The brother is for the negative of this question. 2. Neither is it stood upon by any, so far as I know, that what the Parliament shall establish concerning church government must be established by them jure divino If the Parliament shall, in a [pg 2-004] parliamentary and legislative way, establish that thing which really, and in itself, is agreeable to the word of God, though they do not declare it to be the will of Jesus Christ, I am satisfied, and, I am confident, so are others. This I confess, That it is incumbent to parliament-men, to ministers, and to all other Christians, according to their vocation and interest, to search the Scriptures, and thereby to inform their own and other men's consciences, so as they may do in faith what they do in point of church government, that is, that they may know they are not sinning, but doing the will of God. And it ought to be no prejudice nor exception against a form of church government that many learned and godly divines do assert it from Scripture to be the will of God. And why should jus divinum be such a noli me tangere? The reason was given. “This was the only thing that hindered union in the Assembly (saith he). Two parties came biassed. The reverend commissioners from Scotland were for the jus divinum of the presbyterial, the Independents for the congregational government. How should either move? where should both meet?” If it was thus, how shall he make himself blameless, who made union in the Assembly yet more difficult, because he came biassed a third way, with the Erastian tenets? And where he asketh where the Independents and we should meet, I answer, In holding a church government jure divino, that is, that the pastors and elders ought to suspend or excommunicate (according to the degree of the offence) scandalous sinners. Who can tell but the purging of the church from scandals, and the keeping of the ordinances pure (when it shall be actually seen to be the great thing endeavoured on both sides), may make union between us and the Independents more easy than many imagine. As for his exceptions against us who are commissioners from the church of Scotland, I thank God it is but such, yea, not so much, as the Arminians did object[1330] against the foreign divines who [pg 2-005] came to the Synod of Dort. They complained that those divines were pre-engaged and biassed, in regard of the judgment of those churches from which they came; and that therefore they did not help, but hinder, union in that assembly. And might not the Arians have thus excepted against Alexander, who was engaged against them before he came to the Council of Nice? Might not the Nestorians have made the same exception against Cyril, because he was under an engagement against them before he came to the Council of Ephesus? Nay, had not the Jewish zealots the very same objection to make against Paul and Barnabas, who were engaged, not in the behalf of one nation, but of all the churches of the Gentiles, against the imposition of the Mosaical rites, and had so declared themselves at Antioch before they came to the synod at Jerusalem? Acts xv. 2. It is not faulty to be engaged for the truth, but against the truth. It is not blameworthy, but praiseworthy, to hold fast so much as we have already attained unto. Notwithstanding we, for our part, have also from the beginning professed, “That we are most willing to hear and learn from the word of God what needeth further to be reformed in the church of Scotland.”[1331]
The second rule which was offered in that sermon was this: “Let all precepts, held out as divine institutions, have clear scriptures,” &c.; “Let the Scripture speak expressly,” saith he. I answer: The Scripture speaks in that manner which seemed fittest to the wisdom of God; that is, so as it must cost us much searching of the Scripture, as men search for a hid treasure, before we find out what is the good, and acceptable, and perfect will of God concerning the government of his church. Will any divine in the world deny that it is a divine truth which, by necessary consequence, is drawn from Scripture, as well as that which, in express words and syllables, is written in Scripture? Are not divers articles of our profession,—for instance, the baptism of infants,—necessarily and certainly proved from Scripture, although it makes no express mention thereof in words and syllables? But let us hear what he hath said concerning some scriptures (for he names but two of them) upon which the acts of spiritual or ecclesiastical [pg 2-006] government have been grounded. “That place, 1 Cor. v., takes not hold (saith he) on my conscience for excommunication, and I admire that Matt. xviii. so should upon any.” It is strange that he should superciliously pass them over without respect to so great a cloud of witnesses in all the reformed churches, or without so much as offering any answer at all to the arguments which so many learned and godly divines of old and of late have drawn from these places for excommunication; which, if he had done, he should not want a reply. In the meantime, he intermixeth a politic consideration into this debate of divine right. “I could never yet see (saith he) how two co-ordinate governments, exempt from superiority and inferiority, can be in one state.” I suppose he hath seen the co-ordinate governments of a general and of an admiral; or, if we shall come lower, the government of parents over their children, and masters over their servants, though it fall often out, that he who is subject to one man as his master, is subject to another man as his father. In one ship there may be two co-ordinate governments, the captain governing the soldiers, the master governing the mariners. In these and such like cases you have two co-ordinate governments, when the one governor is not subordinate to the other. There is more subordination in the ministers and other church-officers towards the civil magistrate. For the minister of Christ must be in subjection to the magistrate; and if he be not, he is punishable by the law of the land as well as any other subject. The persons and estates of church-officers, and all that they have in this world, are subject to civil authority. But that which is Christ's, and not ours, the royal prerogative of the King of saints, in governing of his church according to his own will, is not subject to the pleasure of any man living. But the reverend brother might well have spared this. It is not the independency of the church government upon the civil government which he intended to speak against, it is the very thing itself, a church government, as is manifest by his other two rules.
I come therefore to his next, which is the third rule: “Lay no more burden of government upon the shoulders of ministers than Christ hath plainly laid upon them.” He means none at all, as is manifest not only by his fourth rule, where he saith that [pg 2-007] he finds no institution of other governments beside magistracy, but also by the next words, “The ministers have other work to do (saith he), and such as will take up the whole man.” He might have added this one word more, that without the power of church government, when ministers have done all that ever they can, they shall not keep themselves nor the ordinances from pollution. Before I proceed any farther, let it be remembered, when he excludes ministers from government: First, It is from spiritual or ecclesiastical government, for the question is not of civil government. Secondly, He excludes ruling elders too, and therefore ought to have mentioned them with the ministers as those who are to draw the same yoke together, rather than to tell us of an “innate enmity between the clergy and the laity.” The keeping up of the names of the clergy and laity savoureth more of a domineering power than anything the brother can charge upon presbyteries. It is a point of controversy between Bellarmine[1332] and those that write against him; he holding up, and they crying down those names, because the Christian people are the κλῆρος, the heritage of the Lord as well as the ministers. Thus much by the way of that distinction of names; and, for the thing itself, to object an innate enmity between the ministers of the gospel and those that are not ministers, is no less than a dishonouring and aspersing of the Christian religion. To return, you see his words tend to the taking away of all church government out of the hands of church-officers. Now may we know his reasons? He fetcheth the ground of an argument out of his own heart: “I have a heart (saith he) that knows better how to be governed than govern.” I wish his words might hold true in a sense of pliableness and yielding to government. How he knows to govern I know not; but it should seem in this particular he knows not how to be governed; for after both houses of parliament have concluded “that many particular congregations shall be under one presbyterial government,” he still acknowledgeth no such thing as presbyterial government. I dare be bold to say he is the first divine, in all the Christian world, that ever advised a state to give no government to church-officers, after the state had resolved to establish presbyterian [pg 2-008] government; but let us take the strength of his argument as he pretendeth it. He means not of an humble pliableness and subjection (for that should ease him from his fear of an ambitious ensnarement, and so were contrary to his intention), but of a sinful infirmity and ambition in the heart, which makes it fitter for him and others to be kept under the yoke than to govern. And thus his argumentation runs: “Might I measure others by myself, and I know not why I may not (God fashions men's hearts alike; and as in water face answers face, so the heart of man to man), I ingenuously profess I have a heart that knows better how to be governed than govern,—I fear an ambitious ensnarement, and I have cause,—I see what raised Prelacy and Papacy to such a height,” &c. The two scriptures will not prove what he would. The first of them, Psal. xxxiii. 15, “He fashioneth their hearts alike,” gives him no ground at all, except it be the homonomy of the English word alike, which in this place noteth nothing else but τὸ καθόλου,—all men's hearts are alike in this, that God fashioneth them all, and therefore knoweth them all æque or alike (that is the scope of the place). The Hebrew jachad is used in the same sense, Ezra iv. 3, “We ourselves together will build;”[1333] they mean not they will all build in the like fashion, or in the same manner, but that they will build all of them together, one as well as another; so Psal. ii. 2, “The rulers take counsel together;” Jer. xlvi. 12, “They are fallen both together.” The other place, Prov. xxvii. 19, if you take it word by word as it is in the Hebrew, is thus: “As in water faces to faces; so the heart of man to man.” Our translators add the word answereth, but the Hebrew will suffer the negative reading, As in water faces answer not to faces. The Septuagint reads: “As faces are not like faces, so neither are the hearts of men alike.” The Chaldee paraphrase thus: “As waters and as countenances, which are not like one another, so the hearts of the sons of men are not alike.” Thus doth Mr Cartwright, in his judicious commentary, give the sense: “As in the water face doth not answer fully to face, but in some sort, so there may be a conjecture, but no certain knowledge of the heart of man.” But let the text be read affirmatively, not negatively, what shall be [pg 2-009] the sense? Some take it thus:[1334] A man's heart may be someway seen in his countenance as a face in the water. Others[1335] thus: As a face in the water is various and changeable to him that looketh upon it, so is the heart of man inconstant to a friend that trusteth in him. Others[1336] thus: As a man seeth his own face in the water, so he may see himself in his own heart or conscience. Others[1337] thus: As face answereth face in the water, so he that looketh for a friendly affection from others, must show it in himself. It will never be proved that any such thing is intended in that place as may warrant this argumentation. There is a particular corruption in one man's heart—for instance, ambition—which makes him unfit to be trusted with government; therefore the same corruption is in all other men's hearts; even as the face in the water answereth the face out of the water so just, that there is not a spot or blemish in the one but it is in the other. I am sure Paul taught us not so when he said, “In lowliness of mind let each esteem other better than themselves,” Phil. ii. 3. Nay, the brother himself hath taken off the edge of his own argument (if it had any) in his epistle printed before his sermon, where, speaking of his brethren, from whose judgment he dissenteth in point of government, he hath these words: “Whose wisdom and humility (I speak it confidently) may safely be trusted with as large a share of government as they themselves desire.” Well, but suppose now the same corruption to be in other men's hearts, that they are in great danger of an ambitious ensnarement if they be trusted with government, is this corruption only in the hearts of ministers, or is it in the hearts of all other men? I suppose he will say, in all men's hearts, and then his argument will conclude against all civil government. Last of all, Admit that there be just fears of abusing the power and government ecclesiastical,—let the persons to be intrusted with it be examined, and the power itself bounded according to the strictest rules of Christ. Let abuses be prevented, reformed, corrected. The abuse cannot take away the use where the thing itself is necessary. Why might he not have satisfied himself without speaking against the [pg 2-010] thing itself? Once, indeed, he seemeth to recoil, and saith, “Only I would have it so bounded, that it might be said, Hitherto shalt thou come, and here shalt thou stay thy proud waves,” yet by and by he passeth his own bounds, and totally renounceth the government to the civil power, which I shall speak to anon. But I must first ask, Whence is this fear of the proud swelling waves of presbyterial government? Where have they done hurt? Was it upon the coast of France, or upon the coast of Holland, or upon the coast of Scotland, or where was it? Or was it the dashing upon terra in cognita? He that would forewarn men to beware of presbyterial usurpations (for so the brother speaking to the present controversy about church government must be apprehended), and to make good what he saith falls upon the stories of Pope Paul V., and of the Bishop of Canterbury, is not a little wide from the mark. I should have expected some examples of evils and mischiefs which presbyterial government hath brought upon other reformed churches.
Well, the reverend brother hath not done, but he proceedeth thus: “It was the king of Sodom's speech to Abraham, ‘Give me the persons, take thou the goods;’ so say I, Give us doctrine, take you the government: as is said, Right Honourable, give me leave to make this request in the behalf of the ministry. Give us two things and we shall do well: 1. Give us learning; and, 2. Give us a competency.”
This calls to mind a story which Clemens Alexandrinus tells us:[1338] When one had painted Helena with much gold, Apolles, looking upon it, “Friend (saith he), when you could not make her fair, you have made her rich.” Learning and competency do enrich. The Jesuits have enough of both, but that which maketh a visible ministerial church to be “beautiful as Tizrah, comely as Jerusalem,” that which maketh fair the outward face of a church, is government and discipline, the removing of scandals, the preserving of the ordinances from pollution. He had spoken more for the honour of God and for the power of godliness, if he had said this in the behalf of the ministry: It were better for us to want competency and helps to learning, than to partake with other men's sins, by admitting the scandalous and profane to the Lord's table. His way, which [pg 2-011] he adviseth, will perhaps “get us an able ministry, and procure us honour enough,” as he speaketh; but, sure, it can neither preserve the purity, nor advance the power of religion, because it putteth no black mark upon profaneness and scandal in church-members more than in any others. The king of Sodom's speech cannot serve his turn except it be turned over, and then it will serve him as just as anything, thus: Give us the goods, take you the persons (or the souls, as the Hebrew and the Chaldee hath it); “Give us a competency,” saith he,—here he asketh the goods,—“take you the government,”—here he quitteth the persons or souls to be governed only by the civil power. However, as at that time Abraham would take nothing that was not his own, insomuch as he answereth the king of Sodom: “I will not take from a thread even to a shoe-latchet, and that I will not take anything that is thine,” Gen. xiv. 23; so this Parliament, I trust, shall be so counselled and guided of the Lord, that they will leave to the church what is the church's, or rather to Christ what is Christ's. And as Abraham had lift up his hand to the most high God to do that (ver. 32), so have the Honourable Houses, with hands lift up to the most high God, promised to do this.