A

WEAPON SALVE

FOR THE

CHURCH'S WOUNDS;

OR THE

DIVINE RIGHT

OF

PARTICULAR FORMS OF CHURCH GOVERNMENT;

DISCUSSED AND EXAMINED ACCORDING TO THE PRINCIPLES OF THE LAW
OF NATURE, THE POSITIVE LAWS OF GOD, THE PRACTICE OF
THE APOSTLES, AND THE PRIMITIVE CHURCH, AND

THE JUDGMENT OF REFORMED DIVINES.

WHEREBY A FOUNDATION IS LAID FOR THE CHURCH'S PEACE, AND THE
ACCOMMODATION OF OUR PRESENT DIFFERENCES.

HUMBLY TENDERED TO CONSIDERATION.

BY

EDWARD STILLINGFLEET,

RECTOR OF SUTTON IN BEDFORDSHIRE.

THE SECOND EDITION;*

WITH

AN APPENDIX

CONCERNING THE

POWER OF EXCOMMUNICATION

IN A

CHRISTIAN CHURCH..

"Let your moderation be known unto all men, the Lord is at hand." Phil. iv. 5. "Si ad decidendas hodiernas controversias-jus divinium à positivo seu ecclesiastico candide separaretur; non videretur de iis quæ sunt absolutè necessaria, inter pios aut moderatos viros longa aut acris contentio usura." Casaub. ep. ad Card. Perron. "Multum refert ad retinendum Ecclesiarum pacem, inter ea quæ jure divino præcepta sunt, et quæ non sunt, accuraté distinguere." Grot. de Imper. sum. Potestat. circa Sacra. cap. 11.

PHILADELPHIA:

M. SORIN, 91 NORTH SECOND STREET.

1842.

* This was published at London, A. D. 1662.

TRANSLATION OF THE LATIN QUOTATIONS ON THE

TITLE PAGE.

"If in order to decide the controversies of the present times, that law which is Divine, should be impartially separated from that which is dogmatic and ecclesiastical, it is evident that contests relative to things essential, would not be either long or keen, amongst candid and pious men." Isaac Casaub. ep. ad Card. Perron.

"To preserve the peace of Churches, it is of great consequence accurately to distinguish be. tween those precepts which are Divine, and those which are not." Grot. de Imper. sum. Potestat. circa Sacra. cap. 11.

THE

PREFACE TO THE READER.

I WRITE not to increase the controversies of the times, nor to foment the differences that are among us; the former are by far too many, the other too great already. My only design is to allay the heat, and abate the fury of that ignis sacer, ("holy fire,") or erysipelas of contention, which hath risen in the face of our church, by the overflowing of that bilious humour, which yet appears to have too great predominancy in the spirits of men. And although, with the poor Persian, I can only bring a handful of water, yet that may be my just apology, that it is for the quenching of those flames in the church, which have caused the bells of Aaron to jingle so much, that it seems to be a work of the greatest difficulty to make them tuneable. And were this an age wherein anything might be wondered at, it would be matter of deserved admiration, to hear the noise of those axes and hammers so much about the temple, and that after these nigh twenty years of carving and hewing, we are so rude and unpolished still, and so far from being cemented together in the unity of the spirit and the bond of peace. May we not justly fear that voice, migremus hinc, "let us go hence," when we see the vail of the temple so rent asunder, and the church itself made a partition wall to divide the members of it? And since the wise and gracious God hath been pleased, in such an almost miraculous manner, so lately to abate the land-flood of our civil intestine divisions, how strange must it seem, if our sacred contentions, (if contentions may be called sacred,) like the waters of the sanctuary, should rise from the ankle to the knee, till at last they may grow impassable. Must ONLY the fire of our unchristian animosities be like that of the temple, which was never to be extinguished? However, I am sure, it is such a one as was never kindled from Heaven, nor blown