church, constituted by rules of their own devising. For if it be the Lord's Table, they are to keep it free, to be approached upon the Lord's terms, and not their own. In the mean time, what higher invasion can there be of Christ's rights? and since the Christian church became so overwise above what is written, in framing new doctrines and rules of worship, how miserably it hath languished, and been torn in pieces, they cannot be ignorant who have read any thing of the history of it."*

(4.) Such were the prevailing sentiment among the INDEPENDENTS. Let us now turn again to the PRESBYTERIANS; and see how the communion of the church appears under the irradiation of their "burning and shining lights."

Dr. MANTON protests against "the breaking off church-fellowship and communion, and making rents in the body of Christ because of difference of opinion in smaller matters, when we agree in the more weighty things. We are to walk together as far as we are agreed. Phil. iii. 16. and externals wherein we differ, lying far from the heart of religion, are nothing to faith and the new creature, wherein we agree. Gal. v. 6. and vi. 15.

* Howe's sermon, entitled "Peace, God's blessing," Works, Vol. ii. p. 274.

The most weight should be pitched upon the fundamentals and essentials of religion: and where there is an agreement in these, private differences in smaller matters should not make us break off from one another."*

What these "smaller matters" are, which according to this admirable divine, should be no impediment to church-communion, his own words indicate; they are all things which cannot be ranked among the essentials of Christianity; whether they be matters of discipline or worship, of government or doctrine. That his language is not stretched, by this interpretation, beyond its true meaning, he has himself decided. "The only lawful grounds of separation," says he, 66 are three. 1. Intolerable persecution. 2. Damnable heresy. 3. Gross idolatry."+ Every thing else is tolerable, and to be tolerated rather than burst the bands of church-fellowship.

Mr. RICHARD VINES, a member of the Assembly, and "a very learned and excellent divine,"‡ in his "Treatise of the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper," has a chapter upon the following question, "Whether a godly man lawfully may or ought to

* MANTON on JUDE. p. 164. Lond. 1658. 4to.

+ lb. p. 496. In the margin he adds. "Under this head,” (Intolerarable Persecution) "is comprised sinful excommunication." Let them mark that whom it concerns,

‡ NEAL, Vol. ii. p. 86.

stand as a member of, and hold communion in the ordinances of God with, such a congregation as is mixt, as they call it ; that is, where men visibly scandalous in life and conversation are mingled with the good in the participation and use of divine ordinances? Or, whether this mixture of heterogeneals do not pollute the ordinances and the communion to the godly, so as they are concerned to separate from such communion?"

The chapter is too long to be inserted entire : a specimen shall suffice.

"The church may be corrupted many ways in doctrine, ordinances, worship; and this I account the worst, because it is the corruption of the best, as the corruption of blood that runs through all the body, the poisoning of springs and rivers that run through a nation, is worse than a sore finger in the body, or a field of thistles in the nation. And there are degrees of this corruption, the doctrine in some remote points, hay and stubble upon the foundation; the worship in some rituals or rites of men's invention or custom. How many Scripture churches do ye find thus corrupted, and yet no separation of Christ from the Jewish church, nor any command to the godly of Corinth, (in the provinces of Galatia,) or those of Asia, in the Revelation; I must in such case avoid the corruption, hold the communion: hear them in Mo

ses' chair, and yet beware of their leaven. But if corruptions invade the fundamentals, the foundation of doctrine is destroyed, the worship is become idolatrous, the leprosy is gotten into the walls and substance of the house and which is above all, if the church impose such laws of their communion, as there is necessity of doing or approving things unlawful, or I am ruined or undone, then must I either break with God or men, and in that case, come out of Babylon. The churches of Protestants so separated from them of Rome; it was a necessary and just separation, the laws of their communion were ruinous to the soul, if we held it; to the body and life, if we held it not.

In sum then, and in conclusion of this part about doctrine and worship, which is but upon the by to the question. If a corrupt church, as Israel was, have their ordinances according to the pattern in the Mount: if it may be said, as Peter to Christ, John vi. 68. when some disciples separated themselves, Thou hast the words of eternal life; if, as Christ said in matters of worship, John iv. Salvation is of the Jews; then, as he said, Whither shall we go? Why do we separate? And yet I would not be mistaken by the simplest man, as if I accounted it separation, if a Christian hear a sermon, or receive the sacrament in another

congregation. For he that takes a meal at another table, does not thereby separate from his own house. Or if a Christian, at liberty to dispose his dwelling, shall remove and sit down under more fruitful ordinances; I account not this secession a separation, no more than if being sickly, and having not health in the city, he remove his seat into the country for purer air, because in so doing he removes from the city, but renounces not his freedom therein; nor disclaims, in like proportion, the communion of the church."*

RICHARD BAXTER thus writes: "I do not lay so great a stress upon the external modes and forms of worship as many young professors do. I have suspected myself, as perhaps the reader may do, that this is from a cooling and declining from my former zeal, (though the truth is, I never much complied with men of that mind.) But I find that Judgment and Charity are the causes of it, as far as I am able to discover. I cannot be so narrow in my principles of church-communion as many are; that are so much for a liturgy, or so much against it, so much for ceremonies, or so much against them, that they can hold communion with no church that is not of their mind

* Chap. xx. p. 205, 206. Lond. 1660. 4to.