The reverend brother replieth: 1. “The best reformed church that ever was went this way; I mean the church of Israel.”
Ans. 1. Is the church of Israel one of the reformed churches which the covenant speaks of? 2. Was the church of Israel better reformed than the apostolical churches? Why then calls he it the best reformed church that ever was? 3. That in the Jewish church there was a church government distinct from civil government, and church censures distinct from civil punishments, is the opinion of many who have taken great pains in the searching of the Jewish antiquities; and it may be he shall hear it ere long further proved, both from Scripture and from the very Talmudical writers.
2. “I desire (saith he) the Commissioner to give an instance in the New Testament [pg 3-030] of such a distinction (civil and church government) where the state was Christian.”
Ans. I desire him to give an instance in the New Testament of these three things, and then he will answer himself. 1. Where was the state Christian? 2. Where had the ministry a doctrinal power in a Christian state? 3. Where doth the New Testament hold out that a church government distinct from civil government may be where the state is not Christian, and yet may not be where the state is Christian? Shall the church's liberties be diminished, or rather increased, where the state is Christian?
In the third and fourth place, the brother tells us of the opinions of Gualther, Bulhager, Erastus, Aretius. The question is of the examples of churches, not of the opinions of men. But what of the men? As for that pestilence that walketh in darkness through London and Westminster, Liastus' book against Beza, let him make of it what he can, it shall have an antidote by and by. In the meanwhile, he may take notice, that, in the close of the sixth book, Erastus casts down that which he hath built, just as Bellarmine did, in the close of his five books of justification. But as for the other three named by the brother, they are ours, not his, in this present controversy. Gualther[1340] expounds 1 Cor. v. all along of excommunication, and of the necessity of church discipline; insomuch that he expounds the very delivering to Satan (the phrase most controverted by Erastus and his followers) of excommunication, and the not eating with the scandalous (ver 9-11) [pg 3-031] he takes also to import excommunication. He thinks also that ministers shall labour to little purpose except they have a power of government. Bullinger is most plain for excommunication, as a spiritual censure ordained by Christ, and so he understands Matt. xviv. 17.
Aretius holds[1341] that God was the author of excommunication in the Old Testament, and Christ in the New. And now are these three Mr Coleman's way? Or doth not his doctrine flatly contradict theirs? Peradventure he will say, Yet there is no excommunication in the church of Zurich, where those divines lived, nor any suspension of scandalous sinners from the sacrament. I answer, This cannot infringe what I hold, that the example of the best reformed churches maketh for us and against him; for, 1. The book written by Lavater, another of the Zurich divines, de Ritibus et Institutis Ecclesioe Tigurinoe, tells us of divers things in that church which will make the brother easily to acknowledge that it is not the best reformed church, such as festival days, cap. 8, that upon the Lord's days, before the third bell, it is published and made known to the people, if there be any houses, fields, or lands, to be sold, cap. 9. They have no fasts indicted, cap. 9, nor psalms sung in the church, cap. 10. Responsories in their Litany at the sacrament, the deacon upon the right hand saith one thing, the deacon upon the left hand saith another thing, the pastor a third thing, cap. 13. 2. Yet the church of Zurich hath some corrective church government besides that which is civil or temporal, for the same book, cap. 23, tells us, that in their synods, any minister who is found scandalous or profane in his life, is censured with deposition from his office, ab oficio deponitur. Then follows, finita censura, singuli decani, &c. Here is a synodical censure, which I find also in Wolphius,[1342] a professor of Zurich, and the book before cited, cap. 24,[1343] tells us of some [pg 3-032] corrective power committed to pastors and elders, which elders are distinguished from the magistrates. 3. The Zurich divines themselves looked upon excommunication as that which was wanting through the injury of the times; the thing having been so horribly abused in Popery, and the present licentiousness abounding among people, did hinder the erecting of that part of the church discipline at that time. But they still pleaded the thing to be held forth in Scripture, and were but expecting better times for restoring and settling of excommunication, which they did approve in Geneva, and in other reformed churches, who had received it. I give you their own words for the warrant of what I say.[1344]
I have been the longer upon this point as being the chief objection which can be made by Mr Coleman concerning that clause in the covenant, “The example of the best reformed churches.”
He hath only one thing more, which may well pass for a paradox. He will take an instance, forsooth, from Geneva itself, though presbyterian in practice. And why? Because in the Geneva Annotations upon Matt. ix. 16, it said, that “the external discipline is to be fitted to the capacity of the church.” “This is no Scotland presbytery,” saith the brother. Nay, Sir, nor yet Geneva presbytery; for it doth not at all concern presbytery. It is spoken in reference to the choosing of fit and convenient times for fasting and humiliation,—that as Christ did not, at that time, tie his disciples to fasting, it being unsuitable to that present time; so other like circumstances of God's worship, which are not at all determined to [pg 3-033] the word, are to be accommodated to emergent occasions, and to the church's condition for the time, which both Scotland and Geneva, and other reformed churches do.
If I have now more fully and convincingly spoken to that point of the covenant, let the brother blame himself that put me to it.
The Lord guide his people in a right way, and rebuke the spirit of error and division, and give us all more of his Spirit, to lead us into all truth, and into all self-denial, and grant that none of his servants be found unwilling to have the Lord Jesus Christ to reign over them in all his ordinances!