we do willingly stoop, in a sweet Christian freedom; abhorring and reproving, and therefore, notwithstanding our personal communion, avoiding all abominations.

Sep.-" And, in these two last respects principally, your Babylonish confusion of all sorts of people in the body of your Church without separation, and your Babylonish bondage under your spiritual lords the Prelates, we account you Babylon, and fly from you."

In these two respects, therefore, of our confusion and bondage, we have well seen in this discourse, how justly your Sion accounts us Babylon. Since it is apparent, for the one, that here is neither confusion, nor Babylonish, nor without separation: for the other, no bondage, no servility; our Prelates being our fathers, not our masters'; and if Lords for their external dignity, yet not Lords of our Faith.

And, if both these your respects were so; yet, so long as we do inviolably hold the foundation, both directly and by necessary sequel, any Railer may term us, but no Separatist shall prove us, Babylon.

You may fly, whether you list: would God, yet further; unless you had more love!

SECT. 51.

The View of the Sins and Disorders of others, whereupon objected, and how far it should affect us.

Sep." Master H., having formerly expostulated with us our supposed impiety in forsaking a Ceremonious Babylon in England, proceeds, in the next place, to lay down our madness in choosing a Substantial Babylon in Amsterdam: and, if it be so found by due trial as he suggesteth, it is hard to say, whether our impiety or madness be the greater."

I NEED no better analyser, than yourself; save that you do not only resolve my parts, but add more: whereas, every motion hath a double term; from whence, and whither: both these could not but fall into our discourse.

Having, therefore, formerly expostulated with you for your (since you will so term it) impiety, in forsaking a Ceremonious Babylon of your own making in England; I thought it not unfit to compare your choice with your refusal; England, with Amsterdam, which it pleaseth you to entitle a Substantial Ba

Amari parens et Episcopus debet, non timeri. Hier. ad Theophilum.

VOL. X.

H

bylon. Impiety and Madness are titles of your own choice: let your guiltiness be your own accuser.

The truth is, my charity and your uncharitableness have caused us to mistake each other.

My charity thus. Hearing, both at Middleburgh and here, that certain companies from the parts of Nottingham and Lincoln, whose harbinger had been newly in Zealand before me, meant to retire themselves to Amsterdam, for their full liberty, not for the full approbation of your Church; not favouring your main opinions, but emulating your freedom in too much hate of our ceremonies, and too much accordance to some grounds of your hatred: I hoped you had been one of their guides; both because Lincolnshire was your country, and Master Smith your oracle and general. Not daring, therefore, to charge you with perfect Brownism, what could I think might be a greater motive to this your supposed change, than the view of our, so oft proclaimed, wickedness, and the hope of less cause of offence in those foreign parts? This I urged; fearing to go deeper, than I might be sure to warrant.

Now comes my charitable Answerer, and imputes this easiness of my challenge to my ignorance: and, therefore, will needs persuade his Christian Reader, that I knew nothing of the First Separation, because I objected so little to the Second. Sep.-"Belike Master H. thinks we gather Churches here by town-rows, as they do in England; and that all within the Parish Procession are of the same Church. Wherefore else tells he us of Jews, Arians, and Anabaptists; with whom we have nothing common, but the streets and market-place? It is the condition of the Church, to live in the world, and to have civil society with the men of this world; 1 Cor. v. 10. John xvii. 11. But what is this to that spiritual communion of the Saints, in the fellowship of the Gospel, wherein they are separated and sanctified from the world unto the Lord? John xvii. 16. 1 Cor. i. 2. 2 Cor. vi. 17, 18."

Ir were strange, if I should think you gather Churches there by town-rows, as we in England; who know that some one prison might hold all your refined flock. You gathered here by hedge-rows: but there, it is easier to tell how you divide, than how you gather.

Let your Church be an entire body, enjoying her own spiritual communion; yet, if it be not a corrosive to your heart to converse in the same streets, and to be ranged in the same town-rows with Jews, Arians, Anabaptists, &c. you are no whit of kin to him, that vexed his righteous soul with the uncleannesses of foul Sodom. That good man had nothing but civil society with those impure neighbours: he differed from them

in religion, in practice: yet could he not so carelessly turn off this torment. His house was God's Church; wherein they had the spiritual communion of the Saints: yet, while the city was so unclean, his heart was unquiet.

Separation from the world how required.

We may, you grant, have civil society with ill men; spiritual communion, only with Saints: those must be accounted the World; these only, the Church. Your own allegations shall condemn you. They are not of the world, saith Christ, as I am not of the world; John xvii. 16. Both Christ and they were parts of the Jewish Church: the Jewish Church was not so sanctified, but the most were extremely unclean: therefore, we may be parts of a Visible Unsanctified Church, and yet be separate from the World.

St. Paul writes to his Corinthians, sanctified in Christ, Saints by calling: 1 Cor. i. 2:-True: but, not long after, he can say, Ye are yet carnal; 1 Cor. iii. 3. In his Second Epistle, Come out, saith he, from among them: but from whom? from Infidels, by profession; not corrupted Christians.

SECT. 52.

The Nearness of the State and Church, and the great
Errors found by the Separatists in the French
and Dutch Churches.

Sep.-"We, indeed, have much wickedness in the City where we live; you, in the Church. But, in earnest, do you imagine we account the Kingdom of England, Babylon; or the City of Amsterdam, Sion? It is the Church of England, or State Ecclesiastical, which we account Babylon; and from which we withdraw in spiritual communion: but, for the Commonwealth and Kingdom, as we honour it above all the States in the world, so would we thankfully embrace the meanest corner in it, at the extremest conditions of any people in the Kingdom.”

THE Church and State, if they be two, yet they are twins! and that so, as either's evil proves mutual. The sins of the City not reformed, blemish the Church: where the Church hath power and in a sort comprehends the State, she cannot wash her hands of tolerated disorders in the Commonwealth. Hence is my comparison of the Church (if you could have seen it, not the Kingdom) of England, with that of Amsterdam.

I doubt not, but you could be content to sing the old song, of us, Bona terra, mala gens. Our land you could like well, if you might be lords alone. Thanks he to God, it likes not you;

and justly thinks the meanest corner too good for so mutinous a generation. When it is weary of peace, it will recal you. You, that neither in prison, nor on the seas, nor in the coasts of Virginia, nor in your way, nor in Netherland, could live in peace; what shall we hope of your ease at home? Where ye are, all you thankful tenants cannot, in a powerful Christian State, move God to distinguish betwixt the known sins of the City and the Church.

excuse.

How oft hath our Gracious Sovereign, and how importunately, been solicited for a Toleration of Religions? It is pity, that the Papists hired not your advocation; who, in this point, are those true Cassanders, which Reverend Calvin long since confuted. Their wishes, herein, are yours; to our shame and their His Christian heart held that toleration unchristian and intolerable, which you either neglect or magnify. Good Constantine winked at it, in his beginning'; but, as David at the house of Zeruiah. Succeeding times found these Canaanites to be pricks and thorns; and, therefore, both by mulets and banishments sought either their yieldance or avoidance. If your Magistrates, having once given their names to the Church, endeavour not to purge this Augean Stable; how can you prefer their communion to ours?

But howsoever now, lest we should think your landlords have too just cause to pack you away for wranglers, you turn over all the blame from the Church to the City: yet your Pastor and Church have so found the City in the Church, and branded it with so black marks, as that all your smooth extenuations cannot make it less Babylon than the Church of England. Behold, now, by your own confessions, either Amsterdam shall be, or England shall not be, Babylon.

These Eleven Crimes you have found and proclaimed, in those Dutch and French Churches".

First, That the assemblies are so contrived, that the whole Church comes not together in one: so that the Ministers cannot, together with the flock, sanctify the Lord's Day; the presence of the members of the Church cannot be known; and, finally, no public action, whether excommunication or any other, can rightly be performed. Could you say worse of us? Where neither sabbath can be rightly sanctified, nor presence or absence known, nor any holy action rightly performed, what can there be but mere confusion?

Secondly, That they baptize the seed of them, who are no members of any Visible Church: of whom, moreover, they have not care as of members; neither admit their parents to

Cassand. de Offic. Boni Viri. Bellar. de Laicis.

Euseb. in Vità Const.

Fr. Johns. Articles against the French and Dutch Churches.

the Lord's Supper. Mere Babylonism, and sin in constitution; yea, the same, that makes us no Church! For, what separation can there be, in such admittance? what other, but a sinful commixture? How is the Church of Amsterdam now gathered from the World?

Thirdly, That, in the public worship of God, they have devised and used another Form of Prayer, besides that, which Christ our Lord hath prescribed, Matt. vi. reading out of a book certain prayers, invented and imposed by man. Behold here our fellow-idolaters! And, as follows, a daily sacrifice of a set Service-Book, which, instead of the sweet incense of spiritual prayers, is offered to God: very swine's-flesh! a new portuise! and an equal participation, with us, of the curse of addition to the Word*!

Fourthly, That rule and commandment of Christ, Matt. xviii. 15. they neither observe, nor suffer rightly to be observed among them. How oft have you said, that there can be no sound Church without this course, because no separation! Behold the main blemish of England, in the face of Amsterdam!

Fifthly, That they worship God in the idol temples of Antichrist so the wine is marred with the vessel; their service, abomination, with ours: neither do these antichristian stones want all glorious ornaments of the Romish Harlot; yet more.

Sixthly, that their Ministers have their set maintenance, after another manner than Christ hath ordained: and that also such, as by which any ministry at all, whether Popish or other, might be maintained; either tythes, or as ill. Behold one of the main arguments, whereby our Ministry is condemned as false and antichristian, falling heavy upon our neighbours!

Seventhly, That their Elders change yearly, and do not continue in their office, according to the doctrine of the Apostles and practice of the Primitive Church. What can our Church have worse, than false governors? Both annual and perpetual they cannot be. What is, if not this, a wrong in constitution?

Eighthly, That they celebrate marriage in the church, as if it were a part of the Ecclesiastical Administration. A foul shame and sin! and what better than our Third Sacrament? Ninthly, That they use a new censure of suspension, which Christ hath not appointed. No less than English presump

tion!

Tenthly, That they observe days and times; consecrating certain days in the year to the Nativity, Resurrection, Ascension of Christ. Behold their calendar as truly possessed: two commandments solemnly broken at once; and we not idolaters alone!

* Barr. against Gyff.