The papists’ question to the protestant, viz., where was your church before Luther? is thus well answered, to wit, that since the apostacy, truth and the holy city, according to the prophecy, Rev. xi. and xiii., have been trodden under foot, and the whole earth hath wondered after the beast: yet God hath stirred up witnesses to prophesy in sackcloth against the beast, during his forty-two months’ reign: yet those witnesses have in their times, more or less submitted to anti-christ and his church, worship, ministry, &c.,[251] and so consequently have been ignorant of the true Christ, that is, Christ taken for the church in the true profession of that holy way of worship, which he himself at first appointed.
CHAP. XIII.
Mr. Cotton. “Secondly, we deny that it is necessary to church fellowship, that is, so necessary that without it a church cannot be, that the members admitted thereunto should all of them see and expressly bewail all the pollutions which they have been defiled with in the former church fellowship, ministry, worship, government, &c., if they see and bewail so much of their former pollutions, as did enthral them to anti-christ so as to separate them from Christ, and be ready in preparation of heart, as they shall see more light, so to hate more and more every false way; we conceive it is as much as is necessarily required to separate them from anti-christ, and to fellowship with Christ and his churches. The church of Christ admitted many thousand Jews that believed on the name of Christ, although they were still zealous of the law, and saw not the beggarly emptiness of Moses’s ceremonies, Acts xxi. 20; and the apostle Paul directeth the Romans to receive such unto them as are weak in the faith, and see not their liberty from the servile difference of meats and days, but still lie under the bondage of the law; yea, he wisheth them to receive such upon this ground, because Christ hath received them, Rom. xiv. 1 to the 6th.”
“Say not, there is not the like danger of lying under bondage to Moses as to anti-christ: for even the bondage under Moses was such, as if continued in after instruction and conviction, would separate them from Christ, Gal. v. 2, and bondage under anti-christ could do no more.”
Answ. Here I desire three things may be observed:—
Mr. Cotton confessing the true and false constitution of the church.
First, Mr. Cotton’s own confession of that twofold church estate, worship, &c., the former false, or else why to be so bewailed and forsaken? the second true, to be embraced and submitted to.
Mr. Cotton confessing to hold what he censureth in the answerer.
Secondly, his own confession of that which a little before he would make so odious in me to hold, viz., that God’s people may be so far enthralled to anti-christ, as to separate them from Christ: for, saith he, “If they see and bewail so much of their former pollutions, as did enthral them to anti-christ, so as to separate them from Christ.”[252]