TO
ALL AND EVERY ONE
IN THE
REFORMED CHURCHES
OF
SCOTLAND, ENGLAND, AND IRELAND,
WHO
LOVE THE LORD JESUS, AND MEAN TO ADHERE UNTO THE REFORMATION OF RELIGION.
GRACE, MERCY, AND PEACE, FROM GOD OUR FATHER,
AND FROM
THE LORD JESUS CHRIST.
AUTHOR'S PREFACE
As Satan's malice, and man's wickedness, cease not to molest the thrice happy estate of the church of Christ, so hath the eternal council of the only wise God predetermined the coming of offences, persecutions, heresies, schisms and divisions, that professors may be proved before they be as approved and made manifest, 1 Cor. xi. 19. And hence “It must needs be that offences come,” Matt. xviii. 17; neither hath the church ever enjoyed both purity and peace any long time together. But whiles the church of God, thus disquieted, at well with dangerous alterations, as with doleful altercations, is presented in the theatre of this world, and crieth out to beholders, “Have ye no regard, all ye that pass by!” Lam. i. 12. A pity it is to see the crooked and sinistrous courses of the greatest part, every man moving his period within the enormous confines of his own exorbitant desires; the atheistical nullisidian, nothing regardeth the assoiling of ecclesiastical controversies,—he is of Gallio's humour, Acts xviii. 17, and cares for none of those things; the sensual Epicurean and riotous ruffian (go church matters as they will) eats and drinks, and takes his pleasure; the cynical critic spueth out bitter aspersions, gibeth and justleth at everything that can be said or done in the cause of religion; the acenical jester playeth fast and loose, and can utter anything in sport, but nothing in earnest; the avaricious worldling hath no tune but Give, give, and no anthem pleaseth him but Have, have; the aspiring Diotrephes puffeth down every course which cannot puff up; the lofty favourite taketh the pattern of his religion from the court iconography, and if the court swim, he cares not though the church sink; the subdulous Machiavillian accounteth the show of religion profitable, but the substance of it troublesome: he studieth not the oracles of God but the principles of Satanical guile, which be learneth so well that he may go to the devil to be bishopped; the turn-coat temporiser wags with every wind, and (like Diogenes turning about the mouth of his voluble hogshead, after the course of the sun) wheresoever the bright beams of coruscant authority do shine and cherish, thither followeth and sitteth he; the gnathonic parasite sweareth to all that his benefactor holdeth; the mercenary pensioner will bow before he break; he [pg 1-iv] who only studieth to have the praise of some witty invention, cannot strike upon another anvil; the silly idiot (with Absolom's two hundred, 2 Sam. xv. 11,) goeth, in the simplicity of his heart, after his perverse leaders; the lapped Nicodemite holds it enough to yield some secret assent to the truth, though neither his profession nor his practice testify so much; he whose mind is possessed with prejudicate opinions against the truth, when convincing light is holden forth to him, looketh asquint, and therefore goeth awry; the pragmatical adiaphorist, with his span-broad faith and ell-broad conscience, doth no small harm—the poor pandect of his plagiary profession in matters of faith reckoneth little for all, and in matters of practice all for little. Shortly, if an expurgatory index were compiled of those, and all other sorts of men, who either through their careless and neutral on looking, make no help to the troubled and disquieted church of Christ, or through their nocent accession and overthwart intermeddling, work out her greater harm, alas! how few feeling members were there to be found behind who truly lay to heart her estate and condition? Nevertheless, in the worst times, either of raging persecution or prevailing defection, as God Almighty hath ever hitherto, so both now, and to the end, he will reserve to himself a remnant according to the election of grace, who cleave to his blessed truth and to the purity of his holy worship, and are grieved for the affliction of Joseph, as being themselves also in the body, in confidence whereof I take boldness to stir you up at this time, by putting you in remembrance. If you would be rightly informed of the present estate of the reformed churches, you must not acquiesce in the pargetting verdict of those who are wealthy and well at ease, and mounted aloft upon the uncogged wheels of prosperous fortune (as they call it). Those whom the love of the world hath not enhanced to the serving of the time can give you the soundest judgment. It is noted of Dionysius Hallicarnasseus[10] (who was never advanced to magistracy in the Roman republic) that he hath written far more truly of the Romans than Fabius, Salustius, or Cato, who flourished among them with riches and honours.
After that it pleased God, by the light of his glorious gospel, to dispel the more than cimmerian darkness of antichristianism, and, by the antidote of reformation, to avoid the poison of Popery; forasmuch as in England and Ireland, every noisome weed which God's hand had never planted was not pulled up, therefore we now see the faces of those churches overgrown with the repullulating twigs and sprigs of popish superstition. Mr Sprint acknowledgeth the Reformation of England to have been defective, and saith, “It is easy to imagine of what difficulty it was to reform all things at the first, where the most part of the privy council, of the nobility, bishops, judges, gentry, and people, were open or close Papists, where few or none of any countenance stood for religion at the first, but the Protector and Cranmer.”[11] The church of Scotland was blessed with a more glorious and perfect reformation than any of our neighbour churches. The doctrine, discipline, regiment, and policy established here by ecclesiastical and civil laws, and sworn and subscribed unto by the king's majesty and several presbyteries and parish churches of the land, as it had the applause of foreign divines; so was it in all points agreeable unto the word, neither could the most rigid Aristarchus of these times challenge any irregularity of the same. But now, alas! even this church, which was once so great a praise in the earth is deeply corrupted, and hath “turned aside quickly out of the way,” Exod. xxxii. 8. So that this is the Lord's controversy against Scotland. “I had planted thee a noble vine, wholly a right seed? How then art thou turned into the degenerate plant of a strange vine unto me?” Jer. ii. 21.
It is not this day feared, but felt, that the rotten dregs of Popery, which were never purged away from England and Ireland and having once been spued out with detestation, are licked up again in Scotland, prove to be the unhappy occasions of a woeful recidivation. Neither is there need of Lyncean eyes, for if we be not poreblind, it cannot be hid from us. What doleful and disastrous mutation (to be bewailed with tears of blood) hath happened to the church and spouse of Christ in these dominions? Her comely countenance is miscoloured with the fading lustre of the mother of harlots, her shamefaced forehead hath received the mark of the beast, her lovely locks are frizled with the crisping pins of antichristian fashions, her chaste ears are made to listen to the friends of the great whore, who bring the bewitching doctrine of enchanting traditions, her dove eyes look pleasantly upon the well attired harlot, her sweet voice is mumming and muttering some missal and magical liturgies, her fair neck beareth the halter like to kens of her former captivity, even a burdensome chain of superfluous and superstitious ceremonies, her undefiled garments are stained with the meritricious bravery of Babylonish ornaments, and with the symbolising badges of conformity with Rome, her harmless hands reach brick and mortar to the building of Babel, her beautiful feet with shoes are all besmeared, whilst they return apace in the way of Egypt, and wade the ingruent brooks of Popery. Oh! transformed virgin, whether is thy beauty gone from thee? Oh! forlorn prince's daughter, how art thou not ashamed to look thy Lord in the face? Oh! thou best beloved among women, what hast thou to do with the inveigling appurtenances and habilement of Babylon the whore?—But among such things as have been the accursed means of the church's desolation, which peradventure might [pg 1-vi] seem to some of you to have least harm or evil in them, are the ceremonies of kneeling in the act of receiving the Lord's supper, cross in baptism, bishopping, holidays, &c., which are pressed under the name of things indifferent; yet if you survey the sundry inconveniences and grievous consequences of the same, you will think far otherwise. The vain shows and shadows of these ceremonies have hid and obscured the substance of religion; the true life of godliness is smothered down and suppressed by the burden of these human inventions, for their sakes, many, who are both faithful servants to Christ and loyal subjects to the king, are evil spoken of, mocked, reproached, menanced, molested; for their sakes Christian brethren are offended, and the weak are greatly scandalised; for their sakes the most powerful and painful ministers in the land are either thrust out, or threatened to be thrust out from their callings; for their sakes the best qualified and most hopeful expectants are debarred from entering into the ministry; for their sakes the seminaries of learning are so corrupted, that few or no good plants can come forth from thence, for their sakes many are admitted into the sacred ministry, who are either popish and Arminianised, who minister to the flock poison instead of food; or silly ignorants, who can dispense no wholesome food to the hungry; or else vicious in their lives, who draw many with them into the dangerous precipice of soul perdition; or, lastly, so earthly minded, that they favour only the things of this earth, not the things of the Spirit of God, who feed themselves, but not the flock, and to whom the Great Shepherd of the sheep wilt say, “The diseased have ye not strengthened, neither have ye healed that which was sick, neither have ye bound up that which was broken, neither have ye brought again that which was driven away, neither have ye sought that which was lost,” Ezek. xxxiv. 4. Simple ones, who have some taste and relish of popish superstition (for many such there be in the land), do suck from the intoxicated drugs of conformity, the softer milk which makes them grow in error. And who can be ignorant what a large spread Popery, Arminianism and reconciliation with Rome, have taken among the arch urgers of the ceremonies? What marvel that Papists clap their hands! for they see the day coming which they wish for. Woe to thee, O land, which bears professed Papists and avouched Atheists, but cannot bear them who desire to “abstain from all appearance of evil,” 1 Thes. v. 22, for truth and equity are fallen in thee, and “he that departeth from evil maketh himself a prey,” Isa. lix. 14, 15.
These are the best wares which the big hulk of conformity, favoured with the prosperous gale of mighty authority, hath imported amongst us, and whilst our opposites so quiverly go about to spread the bad wares of these encumbering inconveniences, is it time for as luskishly to sit still and to be silent? “Woe unto us, for the day goeth away, for the shadows of the evening are stretched out,” Jer. vi. 4.
Moreover, besides the prevailing inconveniency of the controverted ceremonies, the unlawfulness of them is also plainly evinced in this ensuing dispute by such convincing arguments, as, being duly pondered in the equal balance of an attentive mind, shall, by God's grace, afford satisfaction to so many as purpose to buy the truth, and not to sell it. Wherefore, referring to the dispute the points themselves which are questioned, I am in this place to beseech you all by the mercies of God, that, remembering the words of the Lord, “Them that honour me I will honour, and they that despise me shalt be lightly esteemed,” 1 Sam. ii. 30, remembering, [pg 1-vii] also, the curse and condemnation of Meroz, which came not to help the Lord against the mighty, Judg. v. 23, of the nobles of Tekoa, who put not their necks to the work of the Lord, Neh. iii. 5 and, shortly, of all such as have no courage for the truth, Jer. ix. 3, but seek their own things, not the things which are Jesus Christ's, Phil. ii. 21, and, finally, taking to heart how the Lord Jesus, when he cometh in the glory of his Father with his holy angels, Mark viii. 38, will be ashamed of every one who hath been ashamed of him and his words in the midst of a sinful and crooked generation, you would, with a holy zeal and invincible courage, against all contrary error, superstition, and abuse whatsoever, set yourselves both to speak and do, and likewise (having a calling) to suffer for the truth of Christ and for the purity of his worship, being in nothing terrified by your adversaries, Phil. i. 28, 1 Pet. iii. 14, which, that ye may the better perform, I commend to your thoughts these wholesome admonitions which follow—
I. When you see so much diversity both of opinion and practice in things pertaining to religion, the rather ye ought to give all diligence for trying the things which are different, Phil. i. 10. If you judge us before you hear us, then do you contrary to the very law of nature and nations, John vii. 51, Acts v. 16. Neither will it help you at your reckoning to say, We believed our spiritual guides, our prelates and preachers, whom God had set over us. Nay, what if your guides be blind? then they not only fall in the ditch themselves, but you with them, Matth. iv. 14. Our Master would not have the Jews to rest upon the testimony of John Baptist himself, but would have them to search the Scriptures, John v. 33, 34, 39, by which touch stone the Bereans tried the Apostle's own doctrine, and are commended for so doing, Acts xvii. 11. But as we wish you not to condemn our cause without examining the same by the Word, so neither do we desire you blindly to follow us in adhering unto it, for what if your seeing guides be taken from you? How, then, shall you see to keep out of the ditch? We would neither have you to fight for us nor against us, like the blind sword players, Andabatæ, a people who were said to fight with their eyes closed. Consider, therefore, what we say, and the Lord give you understanding in all things, 2 Tim. ii. 7.