“Now when all this was finished [the revival under Hezekiah in Jerusalem], all Israel that were present went out to the cities of Judah and brake the images in pieces and cut down the groves, and threw down the high places and the altars out of all Judah and Benjamin, in Ephraim also and Manasseh, until they had utterly destroyed them all.”
2 Chron. 31:1
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.
Subsections
Reformation & Conditional Conformity
When Impurities can’t be Reformed
.
.
Order of Contents
Caution & Restraints in 15
According to Place & Calling 5
Accommodation Consistent with 16+
Latin 1
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Articles
See also ‘Expositions of the Lord’s Prayer’ on Petitions 1-3.
.
1500’s
Bucer, Martin – ch. 15, ‘How Salutary it is for All Men to Have the Kingdom of Christ Firmly Restored Among Them & How Necessary it is for Salvation that Every Christian, According to his Place in the Body of Christ and the Gifts he has Received from Him, Aim & Work Toward this with Deepest Concern’ in On the Reign of Christ tr. Satre & Pauck in Melanchthon & Bucer in The Library of Christian Classics, vol. 19 (1550; 1557; London: SCM Press LTD, 1969), bk. 1, pp. 259-66
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1600’s
English Partially Conforming Puritans – pt. 1, Objection 5, pp. 233-40 in A Refutation of the Errors of Separatists (1604; RBO, 2025)
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2000’s
Fentiman, Travis – “Extended Editor’s Introduction” in English Puritans, A Refutation of the Errors of Separatists (1604; RBO, 2025)
“Separatism & Reforming the Church” 51-52
4. “White Towers & Unifying Christ’s Church” 160-89
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Books
1500’s
Bucer, Martin – On the Reign of Christ tr. Satre & Pauck in Melanchthon & Bucer in The Library of Christian Classics, vol. 19 (London: SCM Press LTD, 1969), pp. 153-394 ToC
Calvin, John
The Necessity of Reforming the Church in Tracts Relating to the Reformation tr. Beveridge (Edinburgh: Calvin Translation Society, 1844-1851), vol. 1, pp. 123-236
The True Method of Reforming the Church in Tracts Relating to the Reformation tr. Beveridge (Edinburgh: Calvin Translation Society, 1844-1851), vol. 2, pp. 240-358
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1600’s
Sprint, John – A True, Modest & Just Defence of the Petition for Reformation, exhibited to the King’s most excellent Maiesty… (Leiden, 1618) 240 pp. ToC
Sprint was a pious English minister. In ‘The Defense of the Petition for Reformation’, Sprint answers six plausible pragmatic objections to making reformation. The rest of the book argues for many specific practices needing reform, along puritan lines.
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Quotes
Order of
Rutherford
Baxter
Tallents
Fentiman
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1600’s
Samuel Rutherford
Lex Rex... (1644; Edinburgh: Ogle, 1843), p. 32
“We have no new calves, new altars, new feasts, but profess, and really do hazard life and estate to put away the Prelate’s calves, images, tree-worship, altar-worship, saints, feast-days, idolatry, masses; and nothing is said here but Jesuits, and Canaanites, and Baalites, might say (though falsely) against the reformation of Josiah. Truth and purity of worship this year is new in relation to idolatry last year, but it is simpliciter older.”
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Richard Baxter
The Cure of Church Divisions… (London, 1670), pt. 1, Direction 57, ‘Yet let not any here cheat you by overdoing, nor mere names and titles of unity deceive you instead of the thing itself…’, pp. 273
“And where greater unity is most desirable, it must first be considered how much of it is possible, or to be hoped for, and next, what are the proper means to attain it.
For first, the medicining of all incurable disease, especially with violent physic, is not the way to make it better, but to exasperate it and hasten death, when a palliate and patience might do better. It is very desirable that all the king’s subjects were strong and beautiful and ingenuous and learned, but it is not to be hoped: But that they may be all loyal and honest in their dealing with others may be well endeavored.
And secondly, a wrong kind of medicine will much more hasten and ascertain death than to let the disease alone to nature: It is desirable that all the kings subjects be as is said, both wise and learned, yea and perfect in honesty and piety without fault: But if you make a law that for the honor of unity, all that are not learned and perfect in virtue shall be fined, imprisoned or banished, the king nor his subjects will be but little beholden to you for their unity. So one language is very desirable to the world: But first it is not attainable and secondly a law to punish all that speak another language is not the way to procure it; but to set them together by the ears: you must appoint parents and school-masters to teach them all one language by degrees, and keep them to their duties and remove impediments, and thus stay the time; and what cannot this way be attained must not be expected in this world.
…
It is very desirable that all Christians were perfect in knowledge, gifts and graces, and consequently that there were no different opinions, nor no different forms or modes of worship, but that all were equal to the wisest and to the most sober, pious, zealous and sincere. But if a law be made that none shall be endured in any kingdom that are not of this temperament and stature, the subjects of all princes may soon be numbered.
Set parents, school-masters and ministers at work, to make men wiser, and drive them on to diligence in their duty and restrain men from hindering them, and from intolerable wickedness and sin, and patiently expect the success of this: And what this will not do, expect not.”
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1700’s
Francis Tallents
A Short History of Schism: for the Promoting of Christian Moderation & the Communion of Saints (London: Parkhurst, 1705), p. 115 Tallents (1619–1708) was a non-conforming English presbyterian minister.
“You’ll say the rulers and the generality of the country are to reform it. True, but ’tis usually the knowledge and zeal of holy people, who by their words and doings and sufferings put the rulers upon casting evils out of their kingdoms and churches. [2 Chron. 29:34; 35:15]”
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2000’s
Travis Fentiman
“…it is hoped the understanding put forth in our authors’ book below will contribute to greater unity amidst Christ’s fragmented Church today as Christians everywhere seek to do all by Christ’s Spirit to the glory of God, according to his Word.¹
¹ All [persons] working towards a common goal, as understood by them, is precisely the way the nature of things must and will fall out according to how God has created persons in reality. That is the best case scenario in any situation and de facto how the covenanting trajectory played out in Scotland: McDougall, Covenants & Covenanters, pp. 200, 211–12.
Top-down or exclusive interpretations of such things [as man-composed covenants] will always fail as they go against God-ordained nature, as will all man-composed covenants held up as a standard. That is why Jesus taught his disciples to pray according to the whole will of God: “Hallowed by thy Name; thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth…” (Mt. 6:9–10)”
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On Caution & Restraints in Reforming in Ordinary Circumstances, in doing so far as Peace & Order allows according to One’s Calling, without Public Disturbance or Schism
See also ‘Positive Commands Are Not to be Done at All Times & Circumstances’, ‘Priority of Not Doing what is Forbidden Over Keeping what is Commanded’, ‘When Impurities in Worship cannot be Reformed’ and ‘On Occasional & Partial Conformity without Sin, or Moderate Puritanism’.
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Order of Contents
Articles 5
Quotes 10
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Articles
1600’s
English Partially Conforming Puritans – pt. 1, Objection 5, pp. 234-37 in A Refutation of the Errors of Separatists (1604; RBO, 2025)
Davenant, John – Question 12, ‘The People may not Attempt a Reformation in the Church Against the Consent of the Magistrate’ in The Determinations, or Resolutions of Certain Theological Questions tr. Josiah Allport (1634; 1846) bound after Davenant, A Treatise on Justification, or the Disputatio de Justitia... tr. Allport (1631; London, 1846), vol. 2, pp. 279-83
“1. That by Divine as well as by human right the supreme Magistrate himself is appointed for managing business of this kind. In the Scriptures, 1 Kings 15 and 17, it is the express eulogy of the good kings that they “took away” the high places and removed the “idols”; on the contrary it is the perpetual stigma of the bad ones that they did not take away, did not remove them; 2 Kings 18 and 23… Hence it is evident from whom God expects the Reformation of the Church and of Religion…
2. Secondly, as the authority of reforming the Church is imposed upon kings, so it is removed from the people. For where a vocation is wanting [lacking], although the thing which is done, considered in itself, be laudable, yet there i blame attaching to the agent, on account of the defect of a lawful power. To offer sacrifices to God was in itself pious and religious; but in Saul, who had no call to this office, it was impious and sacrilegious; (1 Sam. 13:13)…
Search the sacred Scriptures, you will find the people of God everywhere blamed because they worshipped the golden calves… but never censured by any prophet becaue they did not remove idolatry by force of arms, against the will of their kings. That this work, consequently, does not belong to the people, the prophets have taught by this their silence on the subject…
Thirdly… 1… But what then [it may be asked] are those duties?… To beware of bowing down before idols; to avoid heresies, not to extirpate them by force of arms; to bewail the corruptions of the Church, not to remove them; in one word, to endure the severest punishments inflicted by the Magistrate rather than to desert the true religion; not to force the Magistrate to introduce true religion (1 Kings 19; Eze. 9)… ‘Religion certainly should be defended by all private individuals, though not by slaying, but by dying; not by severity, but by patience; not by wickedness, but by faith,’ as Lactantius has admirably said, Institutes 5.20.
2. Moreover, it is not allowable in the people when the magistrate refuses it, to put their hand to this business… For he who undertakes to reform religion when the magistrate is reluctant, first dethrones the magistrate himelf, tramples upon him, and must necessarily reduce him to the common level… cursed are they who stir up rebellion under the cloak of these things. It is a maxim of lawyers… ‘an equal has no power over his equal’: how much less inferior over superior…
I thus sum up all: Equity does not allow it; necessity does not require it; utility does not advise it: therefore, it is unlawful for the people, againt the consent of the Magistrate, to attempt the Reformation of the Church.”
Hutcheson, George – p. 133 in Robert Wodrow, The History of the Sufferings of the Church of Scotland from the Restoration to the Revolution (Glasgow: Blackie, 1832), vol. 2
Hutcheson (1615-1674) was a major Scottish theologian and author of commentaries on John and the Minor Prophets, amongst other works. This was in the context of accepting the first indulgence (1669) after the Great Ejection of ministers in 1662, due the imposed oath unto King Charles II, which some interpreted as Erastian.
Hutcheson was chosen as a leader of Scottish ministers to give their terms of acceptance, by way of a certain explanatory declaration, to this first indulgence. The terms of that indulgence are on pp. 130-31.
The indulgence did not involve committing formally to erroneous principles, but only a practical restriction, on whatever principles persons might comply with it, about two main things. An orderly minister may receive a vacant church if he be wiling to (1) “take collation” with a bishop (apparently meaning consult with him). Under this cirucmstance the ministers could have their own presbyteries and synods. (2) Not keep conventicles (field meetings) out of bounds or countenance such.
Church government has always been held by reformed theology to be a secondary teaching, and some ministers held that episcopacy by an ecclesiastical (not divine) right was lawful or tolerable. Hutcheson, in his representative acceptance speech (or explanatory declaration), affirms divine right Church government and does not compromise any formal, Scriptural principle, nor does he promise obedience to the bishops.
Hutcheson: “We having received our ministry from Jesus Christ, with full prescriptions from him for regulating us therein, must in the discharge thereof be countable to Him: and as there can be nothing more desirable or refreshing to us upon earth, than to have free liberty of the exercise of our ministry, under the protection of lawful authority the excellent ordinance of God, and to us most dear and precious; so we purpose and resolve to behave ourselves in the discharge of the ministry, with that wisdom and prudence which becomes faithful ministers of Jesus Christ, and to demean ourselves towards lawful authority, notwithstanding of our known judgments in church affairs, as well becomes loyal subjects, and that from a principle of conscience.” – p. 133
Pages 133-34 lists the names of the 42 ministers that indulged at that time.
Can a minister forfeit some practical liberty for a time, even indefinitely, for the sake of the higher, long-term good of survival and the exercise of the spiritual ministry to souls, knowing that the whole affair is likely temporal, till liberty can be regained in one way or another? That is a legitimate ethical principle, which is often used rightly by the persecuted Church throughout the world.
Baxter, Richard – The Cure of Church Divisions… (London, 1670), pt. 1
Long, Thomas – Misericordiam Volo: or the Pharisees’ Lesson, showing the Impiety & Unreasonableness of contending for Outward Forms & Ceremonies to the Violation of Obedience, Charity & the Public Peace 52 pp. in The Character of a Separatist, or Sensuality the Ground of Separation... (London: Kettilby, 1677)
“Let none of us be like the proud and hypocritical Pharisees, who thought to cloke their real impieties in neglecting works of mercy and peace by a pretence of zeal for the minute circumstances of external worship and discipline; but let us offer to God the sacrifices of a humble and contrite heart, and ‘not forget to do good and communicate, for with such sacrifices God is well pleased,’ (Heb. 13:16) and then He will accept our praises, and answer our prayers with a Misericordiam volo: ‘I will have mercy upon you, and heal your land.'”
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Quotes
Order of
Walsingham
Puritan Ministers
Charles I
Aberdeen Doctors
Gillespie
Not Gillespie
Bolton
Diodati
Baxter
Conformist Ministers
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1500’s
Francis Walsingham
Letter to Monsier Critoy, in Gilbert Burnet, The History of the Reformation of the Church of England 2nd ed. (London: T.H., 1683), vol. 2, pt. 2, bk. 3, pp. 418-20 Walsingham (c. 1532 – 1590) was principal secretary to Queen Elizabeth I of England from 1573 till his death.
“I find her Majesty’s [Queen Elizabeth I’s] proceedings to have been grounded upon two principles.
The one, that consciences are not to be forced, but to be won and reduced by force of truth, with the aid of time, and use of all good means of instruction and persuasion.
The other, that causes of consciences when they exceed their bounds, and grow to be matter of faction, loose their nature, and that soveriegn princes ought distinctly to punish their practices and contempt, though colored with the pretence of conscience and religion.
According to these principles, her majesty at her coming to the crown, utterly disliking the tyranny of Rome, which had used by terror and rigor to settle commandments of men’s faiths and consciences. Though as a princess of great wisdom and magnanimity, she suffered but the exercise of one religion; yet her proceedings towards the Papists, was with great lenity: expecting the good effects which time might work in them…
her Majesty not liking to make windows into men’s hearts and secret thoughts, except the abundance of them did overflow into overt and express acts or affirmations, tempered her law so…
and that… the humors of most Papists were altered, and that they were no more Papists in conscience, and of softness, but Papists in faction: Then were there new laws made for the punishment of such as should submit themselves to such reconcilements, or renunciation of obedience…
For the other party, which have been offensive to the State, though in another degree, which named themselves Reformers, and we commonly call ‘Puritans,’ this has been the proceeding towards them:
A great while, when they inveighed against such abuses in the Church as pluralities [of benefices], non-residence [of ministers] and the like, their zeal was not condemned, only their violence was sometime censured. When they refused the use of some ceremonies and rites, as superstitious, they were tolerated with much connivancy and gentleness; yea, when they called in question the superiority of bishops, and pretended to a democracy into the Church [many were congregationalists]; yet their propositions were here considered, and by contrary writings debated and discussed.
Yet all this while, it was perceived that their course was dangerous and very popular: as because Papistry was odious, therefore it was ever in their mouths that they sought to purge the Church from the relics of Papistry; a thing acceptable to the people, who love ever to run from one extreme to another.
Because multitude of rogues and poverty was an eye-sore, and a dislike to every man; therefore they put into the people’s head that if discipline were planted, there should be no vagabonds nor beggars, a thing very plausible: and in like manner they promised the people many of the impossible wonders of their discipline; besides, they opened to the people a way to government by their consistory and presbytery [through ruling elders]; a thing, though in consequence no less prejudicial to the liberties of private men, than to the sovereignty of princes; yet in first show very popular.
Nevertheless this, except it were in some few that entered into extreme contempt, was born with, because they pretended in dutiful manner to make propositions, and to leave it to the providence of God, and the authority of the magistrate.
But now of later years, when there issued from them that affirmed the consent of the magistrate was not to be attended; when under pretense of a confession, to avoid slander and imputations, they combined themselves by classes and subscriptions, when they descended into that vile and base means of defacing the government of the Church, by ridiculous pasquils [works of satire], when they begun to make many subjects in doubt to take oaths, which is one of the fundamental parts of justice in this land, and in all places; when they began both to vaunt of their strength and number of their partisans and followers, and to use cominations [threatenings] that their cause would prevail, through uproar and violence, then it appeared to be no more zeal, no more conscience, but mere faction and division: and therefore though the State were compelled to hold somewhat a harder hand to retrain them than before, yet was it with as great moderation, as the peace of the State or Church could permit.
And therefore, sir, to conclude, consider uprightly of these matters, and you shall see her Majesty is no more a temporizer in religion: It is not the success abroad, nor the change of servants here at home, can alter her; only as the things themselves alter, she applied her religious wisdom to methods correspondent unto them; still retaining the two rules before mentioned, in dealing tenderly with consciences, and yet in discovering faction from conscience, and softness from singularity.”
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1600’s
Partially Conforming Anglican Puritans
A Refutation of the Errors of Separatists (1604; 1644; RBO, 2025)
pt. 1, pp. 234-37
“Fourthly, though not only the right means had been used to convict us, but they had also so far prevailed with us that in judgment we saw the truth (which they say is not practiced amongst us) and in heart did affect it, yet would this sufficiently clear us from the crime of willful obstinacy: that we have not power without the consent and permission of Christian magistrates (under whom we live, by whose means we enjoy so many great benefits and whom if we should thus far provoke we should evidently hazard the loss of those things wherein the very life and being of a visible Church consists) either to remove the corruptions that remain amongst us or to establish those Church orders which we lack.
For although we doubt not but the whole truth of Christ’s doctrine may be lawfully taught (though all the magistrates in the world gainsay it) and practiced also so far forth by every Christian as the bounds of his particular calling permits, and that it is the magistrate’s principal honor in the sight of God and man to yield and submit himself to the instructions, reproofs and censures of the Church so far forth as they are agreeable to the Word of God, who is Lord of lords and King of kings: yet we cannot see good reason to persuade us that the Church ought or may either pull down corrupt Church government or erect the right discipline, not only without, but contrary to the liking of Christian magistrates. Thus much we find in the Word of God:
First, that in those public reformations of the Church which the Word commends, the Christian and godly princes were ever the principal actors.
Secondly, that for the lack of public reformation the magistrate is everywhere blamed and nowhere the Church for ought we can find: oft are the priests and people blamed for erecting and practicing idolatry, but never for that they plucked it not down when their princes had set them up. Neither can we find whether ever the Church under a Christian magistrate was by any prophet either commanded to deal otherwise than by persuasion in public reformation when the magistrate neglected it or was reproved for the contrary.
To that which they were wont to say: Then the apostles were much to blame, who in erecting the Church government never waited for, nor sought the magistrates’ leave and good liking. We answer:
First, that though without the magistrates’ leave they did it, yet not contrary to his liking, or when he opposed his authority directly and inhibited it, they never erected the discipline when there was so direct an opposition made against it by the civil magistrates.
Secondly, if it could be proved that the apostles did so then, yet would it not follow that we also may do so now, for neither was the heathen magistrate altogether so much to be respected by the Church as the Christian magistrate is [1 Tim. 6:2]; neither have our ministers and people now so full and absolute a power to pull down and set up orders in the Church as the apostles (those wise master-builders) had.”
.
pt. 3, p. 278
Secondly, our people deserve not to be blamed for that they erect not the discipline, for:
“They [the people in the Church of England] esteem both our Prince to be a most lawful and a Christian magistrate, and our ministers to be true Ministers of Christ… They are justly afraid that by enterprising a public reformation, not only without, but contrary to the direction and liking of them who by God’s Word ought to have, if not the only, yet the principal hand, in that work, they should highly offend God.
2. They cannot find any warrant in holy Scripture for them that are private members of the Church to erect the [Church] discipline, no not though the magistrate and ministers who should deal in this work were altogether profane and ungodly; in dividing the land of Canaan, which was a type of Heaven and of the Church under the Gospel, and in all the Church causes that were dealt in under the government of Joshua, which was a type of Christ’s government (Josh. 19:51; 21:1; 22:14); neither private persons, nor the whole multitude had the managing of matters, but the people did all by the elders and chief fathers, which also was commanded (Num. 34:16, 28): So in public Church causes under the Gospel, the Lord has ordained certain special men chosen out from among the people by their consent to rule and govern the rest (1 Tim. 5:17; 4:14).
And where God has sanctified and separated a special sort of men to any office, or the administration thereunto belonging, there has He restrained all others that are not of the same sort from doing the actions properly belonging to that office, as may well appear by comparing these places of holy Scripture together (Num. 4:15 with the 1 Chron 13:7, 10; Num. 4:20 with 1 Sam. 6:19; Num. 16:40; 3:10; Heb. 5:4 with 2 Chron. 26:16, 19; Acts 14:23).
Therefore also we see the faithful at Lystra, Iconium and Antioch had no elders till the apostles by their consent ordained them: No more had they at Crete till Titus was sent to that purpose. [Tit. 1:5]”
.
Conclusion, 296
“Touching the magistrate’s authority, besides that by the whole tenor of their writings it appears they [Separatists] hold that the people may take in hand the public reformation of the Church and erect the whole discipline not only without, but contrary to the Christian magistrate’s liking and consent.”
.
On King of England, Charles I
Thomas Long, ‘The Preface concerning the Ceremonies of the Church’ in Misericordiam Volo: or the Pharisees’ Lesson, showing the Impiety & Unreasonableness of contending for Outward Forms & Ceremonies to the Violation of Obedience, Charity & the Public Peace in The Character of a Separatist, or Sensuality the Ground of Separation... (London: Kettilby, 1677)
“And the Royal Martyr [King Charles I] was so tender of their [the ceremonies’] reputation that in his answer to the Parliament’s remonstrance, he promises to reform the ceremonies with these cautions:
1. That the reformation were pursued with such modesty and submission that the quiet of the kingdom were not disturbed;
2. Nor the decency and comeliness of God’s service discountenanced;
3. Nor the pious, sober and devout actions of those reverend persons who were the first laborers in the blessed Reformation be scandalized and defamed.”
.
Scottish Aberdeen Doctors
Duplies of the Ministers & Professors of Aberdeen to Second Answers of some Reverend Brethren, concerning the Late [National] Covenant (Aberdeen: Raban, 1638), p. 11
“5. Whereas ye [David Dickson and Alexander Henderson] alledge, that if some members of this Kirk had not cared more kindly in this time of common danger than others have done, the whole body had been ere now dangerously, if not desperately, diseased.
We answer that we most heartily wish, any disease of this Church, to be timeously prevented and cured. But withal we wish this to bee done without a rupture, and such a dangerous division: chiefly seeing our Church is not infected with any such errors, nor is in such dangers as may give just occasion of so fearful a division: which in itself is a sore disease, and from which in holy Scripture we are often and very earnestly dehorted.
Dionysius Bishop of Alexandria, in his Epistle to Novatus, recorded by Eusebius, Histories, bk. 6, ch. 45, worthily says:
‘You ought rather to have suffered anything whatsoever for avoiding of cutting asunder the Kirk of God: and martyrdom for keeping the Kirk from schism is no less glorious than which is suffered for not committing idolatry. And in my opinion also it is greater: for in suffering martyrdom for not committing idolatry, a man suffers for one, even for his own soul; but here a man suffers martyrdom for the whole Kirk.'”
.
George Gillespie
A Treatise of Miscellany Questions (Edinburgh, 1649), ch. 10, pp. 129-30
“Melchior Adamus, both in the life of Carolostadius and in the life of Luther, observes the great evil which grew out of Luther’s dislike of Carolostadius, his strictness, zeal, and forwardness, in abolishing auricular confession, and difference of meats and casting out images out of churches, at which things Luther was the more offended, because done by Carolostadius in Wittenbreg during Luthers absence and without his knowledge and counsel.
Luther did also allege that Carolostadius, his strictness and zeal in these lesser things, hindered and retarded the Reformation in more substantial points of doctrine. However the story notes that hence was the first rise of that deplorable Sacramentarian controversy [about the Lord’s Supper between the Lutherans and Reformed], which has ever since made so great a rupture in Germany.”
.
Not Gillespie
Intro
The following quote comes from what has been argued to be an anonymous work of George Gillespie, but the person speaking in the dialogue below presents the outlook(s) Gillespie is seeking to counter. Gillespie’s response (through the “Divine” speaking) on this point is unsatisfactory in numerous ways.
.
A Late Dialogue betwixt a Civilian & a Divine concerning the Present Condition of the Church of England… (London: 1644), p. 9
“Civilian:
I do fully agree with you if all this be understood of the fundamentals of Faith and religion, and the power of godliness. But if so be, you mean of the government and discipline of the Church, then you make mountains of mole-hills, and put Hercules’s shoe upon an infant’s foot, whiles you hold that God is not pleased, and that the Kingdom cannot be blessed, unless the order and discipline of the Church be established so and so as you would have it.”
.
Samuel Bolton
The Arraignment of Error… (London: Miller, 1646), p. 311
“And thus I have showed you what materials our brethren will afford us to this building [of Church government], which I could for my own part rather be content to sit down withal, than by raising it higher, but heighten our confusion, run the mischief of division among ourselves, than which no penal evil can be sadder and more uncomfortable. I wish we might all remember the apostle’s rule, Phil. 3:15-16…”
.
Giovanni Diodati d. 1649
Letter to the Westminster Assembly, in Dr. Parr’s[?] appendix to the Life of Archbishop Ussher, Letter 12, p. 14, as quoted in Robert Burscough, A Vindication of a Discourse of Schism… (Exeter: Farley, 1701), Preface, p. vi
“[About the Church of England:] She is the very eye of all the Churches, the peculiar of Christ, the refuge of the afflicted, the arsenal of the weak, the storehouse of the poor, the standard of better hope…
[Diodati laments that] in the civil wars this illustrious fold of Christ should be torn in pieces, not by wild beasts indeed; and plundered, though not by robbers; but by the sheep themselves enraged against one another: A thing without example, and never heard of before in the Reformed Churches.
We are all struck with horror when we hear of the battles that are fought by the people against their king; by brethren against brethren; by children against their parents; and by the flock of Christ against one another, and against the shepherds themselves.”
.
Richard Baxter
The Saints’ Everlasting Rest (London: White, 1650), ‘To my dearly beloved friends’
“6. Above all, see that you be followers of peace and unity, both in the Church and among your selves. Remember what I taught you on Heb. 12:14, he that is not a son of peace is not a son of God. All other sins destroy the Church consequentially, but division and separation demolish it directly.
Building the Church is but an orderly joining of the materials; and what then is disjoining, but pulling down? Many doctrinal differences must be tolerated in a Church: And why? but for unity and peace? Therefore disunion and separation is utterly intolerable.
Believe not those to be the Church’s friends that would cure and reform her by cutting her throat. Those that say, ‘No truth must be concealed for peace,’ have usually as little of the one as the other. Study Gal. 2:2; Rom. 14:1, etc. Acts 21:24, 26; 1 Tim 1:4 and 6:4; Tit. 3:8-9.
I hope sad experience speaks this lesson to your very hearts, if I should say nothing. Do not your hearts bleed to look upon the state of England? and to think how few towns or cities there be (where is any forwardness in religion) that are not cut into shreds and crumbled as to dust by separations and divisions? To think what a wound we have hereby given to the very Christian name? How we have hardened the ignorant? Confirmed the Papists? And are ourselves become the scorn of our enemies and the grief of our friends? And how many of our dearest, best esteemed friends are fain to notorious pride or impiety? yea, some to be worse then open infidels? These are pillars of salt; see that you remember them. You are yet eminent for your unity, steadfastness, and godliness; hold fast that you have, that no man take your crown from you…
If there be erroneous practices in the Church, keep yourselves innocent with moderation and peace: Do your best to reform them and rather remove your dwellings if you cannot live innocently, than rend the Church. It must be no small error that must force a separation…
You know I never conformed to the use of mystical, symbolical rites myself (but only to the determination of circumstantials necessary in genere) and yet I ever loved a godly, peaceable Conformist better than a turbulent, non-conformist.
I yet differ from many in several doctrines of greater moment than baptism… and yet if I should zealously press my judgment on others, and seek to make a party for it, and disturb the peace of the Church, and separate from my brethren, I should fear lest I should prove a firebrand in Hell for being a firebrand in the Church. And for all the interest I have in your judgments and affections, I here charge you that if God should give me up to any factious Church-rending course (against which I daily pray) that you forsake me and follow me not a step.”
.
Conformist London Ministers
A Collection of Cases & other Discourses lately written to recover Dissenters to the communion of the Church of England by some Divines of the City of London (London, 1685), vol. 1
tract 1, ‘A Persuasive to Communion with the Church of England’
p. 4
“These that are already come in [to share in prayer and the Lord’s Supper with Church of England assemblies] will not stand in need of any farther persuasion, but only that they would continue constant in that communion they have now embraced. For if they should leave us again, and return to their separate assemblies, they would seem by this to condemn themselves.
For if it were lawful for them to communicate with us once, it must be lawful for them to do so still; and they will not refuse to submit to authority in all things that may lawfully be done. I cannot therefore see how they can avoid being self-condemned, if they should forsake our communion; for if they judge it unlawful, they sinned wilfully when they entered into it; if they think it lawful, they would then sin in withdrawing from it; since it is enjoined by that power which they confess they are bound to obey in lawful things.”
.
pp. 42-43
“They might sooner hope for it from his Majesty’s wonted and often experienced clemency, when they shall make it appear that their dissent is modest and humble, and such as has no other but a religious design in it: Than when they assume a high degree of confidence, and think to extort indulgencies by clamors and discontents, and resolve to assemble openly in opposition to a royal command; as if it were a piece of Christian fortitude to outbrave Authority. These are but ill methods of courting the favor of a prince. But I hope for the future we shall all, upon all occasions, behave ourselves as becomes good ubjects, and sober Christians, and make no disturbances, neither on a civil nor ecclesiastical account.
Let it pity us at last to see the ghastly wounds that are still renewed by the continuance of our divisions. Let us have some compassion on a bleeding Church that is ready to faint, and in eminent danger of being made a prey to her enemies, by the unnatural heats and animosities of those that should upport and defend her. Why should we leave her thus desolate and forlorn, when her present exigencies require our most cordial assistance?…
May the wisdom of Heaven make all wicked purposes unsuccessful; and the blessed Spirit of Love heal all our breaches, and prosper the charitable endeavours of those that follow after peace.”
.
John Williams, ‘The Non-Conformists’ Plea for Lay-Communion with the Church of England’, pp. 12-36 Williams (d. 1709), pp. 12, 35-37
“What opinion the sober and eminent non-conformists have of communion with the Church of England. And they generally hold…
7. They grant that it is a duty to join with a defective and faulty worship where we can have no better… Now in what cases this is to be presumed that we can have no better, he [Richard Baxter] shows:
1. When it is so by a necessity arising from divine providence;
2. A necessity proceeding from human laws which forbid it;
3. A necessity from the injury done to the public [by scandal]; and
4. When it is to our own greater hindrance than help, as when we must use none or do worse.
In these and the like cases it becomes a duty, and what is otherwise lawful, is thereby made necessary. And he that cannot join with a purer worship than what is publicly established, [1.] without the breach of human laws, or the disturbance of the public peace, or dividing the Church of God, or [2.] the bringing danger upon himself, is as much (where any of these or the like reasons are) restrained from so doing, as if it did proceed from natural or providential necessity; that is, the [latter] one he cannot do physically and naturally; the other [former one] he cannot do morally, honestly, and prudently.
Having thus far stated the case, and showed that it’s universally owned by those that dissent from the Church of England that communion in a worship not essentially defective and corrupted is lawful; and that it’s a received opinion that where better is not to be had, it’s a duty; and that better is not to had where it is not to be had lawfully.”
.
On Making Reformation according to One’s Place & Calling, even Possibly Without or Against the Will of Higher Authorities in Extraordinary Circumstances
Order of
Articles 2
Quotes 5
.
Articles
1600’s
Polanus, Amandus – cols. 3707–8 of Syntagma, vol. 2, bk. 9, ch. 1
.
2000’s
Fentiman, Travis – pt. 1, Objection 5, pp. 235-37 editorial footnote 624 at the end in English Puritans, A Refutation of the Errors of Separatists (1604; RBO, 2025)
.
Quotes
Order of
Henderson
Rutherford
Westminster
Baxter
Fentiman
.
1600’s
On Alexander Henderson
Anthony Ascham, The Bounds & Bonds of Public Obedience, or a Vindication of our Lawful Submission to the Present Government… (London, 1649), p. 60 This was more than likely written by Ascham despite it being attributed to Rouse.
“Mr. [Alexander] Henderson in his Newcastle conference, with the king, pp. 24-25, says that the reforming power is in kings and princes; Quibus deficientibus [by deficiencies] it comes to the inferior magistrates; quibus deficientibus it descends to the gross of the people, but yet supposing still (as he says) that they be all of them rightly informed.”
.
Samuel Rutherford
Lex Rex... (1644; Edinburgh: Ogle, 1843)
“32. They [presbyterians] hold (I believe with warrant of God’s Word) if the king refuse to reform religion, the inferior judges, and assembly of godly pastors and other church-officers may reform; if the king will not kiss the Son, and do his duty in purging the House of the Lord, may not Elijah and the people do their duty and cast out Baal’s priests [1 Kings 18:19-24, 30, 37-40]. Reformation of religion is a personal act that belongs to all, even to any one private person according to his place.
33. They may swear a covenant without the king, if he refuse, and build the Lord’s house (2 Chron. 15:9) themselves, and relieve and defend one another when they are oppressed. For my acts and duties of defending myself and the oppressed do not tie my conscience conditionally, so the king consent, but absolutely, as all duties of the law of nature do (Jer. 22:3; Prov. 24:11; Isa. 58:6; 1:17).
34. The Popish Prelate [John Maxwell] condemns our reformation because it was done against the will of our popish queen. This shows what estimation he has of popery and how he abhors protestant religion.”
.
“If the parliament should have been corrupted by fair hopes (as in our age we have seen the like) the people did well to resist the Prelate’s obtruding the Mass Book, when the lords of the council pressed it, against all law of God and man, upon the kingdom of Scotland [1637]; and, therefore, it is denied that the acts of parliament are irrevocable.”
.
p. 55 rt col – 56 lt col bot
“As the king is obliged to God for the maintenance of true religion, so are the people and princes no less in their place obliged to maintain true religion; for the people are rebuked because they burn incense in all high places, 2 Kings 17:11; 2 Chron. 33:17; Hos. 4:13. And the reason why the high places are not taken away is given in 2 Chron. 20:33, for as yet the people “had not prepared their heart unto the God of their fathers;”
but you will reply, elicit acts of maintenance of true religion are commanded to the people, and that the places prove; but the question is de actibus imperatis, ‘of commanded acts’ of religion, sure none but the magistrate is to command others to worship God according to his Word.
I answer, in ordinary only, magistrates (not the king only but all the princes of the land) and judges are to maintain religion by their commandments (Dt. 1:16; 2 Chron. 1:2; Dt. 16:19; Eccl. 5:8; Hab. 1:4; Mic. 3:9; Zech. 7:9; Hos. 5:10-11), and to take care of religion; but when the judges decline from God’s way and corrupt the law, we find the people punished and rebuked for it: Jer. 15:4, “And I will cause them to be removed to all kingdoms of the earth, because of Manasseh, the son of Hezekiah king of Judah, for that which he did in Jerusalem;” 1 Sam. 12:24-25, “Only fear the Lord; but if ye shall still do wickedly, ye shall be consumed, both ye and your king.”
And this case, I grant, is extraordinary; yet so, as Junius Brutus proves well and strongly, that religion is not given only to the king, that he only should keep it, but to all the inferior judges and people also in their kind; but because the estates never gave the king power to corrupt religion, and press a false and idolatrous worship upon them, therefore when the king defends not true religion, but presses upon the people a false and idolatrous religion, in that they are not under the king, but are presumed to have no king, eatenus, ‘so far,’ and are presumed to have the power in themselves, as if they had not appointed any king at all;
as if we presume the body had given to the right hand a power to ward off strokes and to defend the body; if the right hand should by a palsy, or some other disease, become impotent, and be withered up, when ill is coming on the body, it is presumed that the power of defence is recurred to the left hand and to the rest of the body to defend itself in this case as if the body had no right hand and had never communicated any power to the right hand. So if an incorporation accused of treason, and in danger of the sentence of death, shall appoint a lawyer to advocate their cause, and to give in their just defences to the judge, if their advocate be stricken with dumbness, because they have lost their legal and representative tongue, none can say that this incorporation has lost the tongues that nature has given them, so as by nature’s law they may not plead in their own just and lawful defence, as if they had never appointed the foresaid lawyer to plead for them.
The king, as a man, is not more obliged to the public and regal defence of the true religion than any other man of the land; but he is made by God and the people king for the church and people of God’s sake, that he may defend true religion for the behalf and salvation of all. If therefore he defend not religion for the salvation of the souls of all in his public and royal way, it is presumed as undeniable that the people of God, who by the law of nature are to care for their own souls, are to defend in their way true religion, which so nearly concerns them and their eternal happiness.”
.
#99
“7. That what is forbidden or commanded to ourselves, we are bound, according to our places, to endeavour that it may be avoided or performed by others, according to the duty of their places.[a]
[a] Exod. 20:10. Lev. 19:17. Gen. 18:19. Josh. 24:15. Deut. 6:6,7.
8. That in what is commanded to others, we are bound, according to our places and callings, to be helpful to them;[b] and to take heed of partaking with others in what is forbidden them.[c]
[b] 2 Cor. 1:24.
[c] 1 Tim. 5:22. Eph. 5:11.”
.
#108
“The duties required in the second commandment are the receiving, observing, and keeping pure and entire, all such religious worship and ordinances as God hath instituted in his word;[o]… the disapproving, detesting, opposing, all false worship;[y] and, according to each one’s place and calling, removing it, and all monuments of idolatry.[z]
[o] Deut. 32:46,47. Matt. 28:20. Acts 2:42. 1 Tim. 6:13,14.
[y] Acts 17:16,17. Ps. 16:4.
[z] Deut. 7:5. Isa. 30:22.”
.
#127
“The honour which inferiors owe to their superiors is… willing obedience to their lawful commands and counsels;[q]…
[q] Eph. 6:1,2,5-7. 1 Pet. 2:13,14. Rom. 13:1-5. Heb. 13:17. Prov. 4:3,4. Prov. 23:22. Exod. 18:19,24.”
.
Richard Baxter
The Nonconformists’ Plea for Peace, or an Account of their Judgment in Certain Things in which they are Misunderstood… (London, 1679), sect. 6
pp. 51-52
““XXXVII… It is no schism to preach and gather churches, and elect and ordain pastors and assemble for God’s worship against the laws and will of heathen, Mahometan or infidel princes that forbid it. For thus did the Christians for 300 years [in the Early Church]. And if there be the same cause and need, it is no more schism to do it against the laws and will of a Christian prince, because:
1. Christ’s laws are equally obligatory,
2. Souls [are] equally precious,
3. The gospel and God’s worship equally necessary,
4. And his Christianity enables him not to do more hurt than a pagan may do, but more good.
If therefore, either out of ungodly enmity to his own profession or for fear of displeasing his wicked or infidel subjects, he should forbid Christian churches, he is not to be therein obeyed.
XXXVIII… If a prince (heathen, infidel or Christian) forbid God’s commanded worship and any commanded part of the pastor’s office (as in Papists’ kingdoms, prayer in a known tongue and the cup in the Lord’s Supper is forbidden, and as they say, all preaching save the reading of liturgies and homilies is forbidden in Moscovy [Russia], and as the use of the keys is elsewhere forbidden), it is no schism to disobey such laws (what prudence may pro hic et nunc [‘for here and now’] require of any single person, we now determine not).”
.
pp. 84-85
“L… The indispensible Law of Nature obliges every man according to his place and calling, his ability, and his opportunities, to do his best to propagate Christ’s gospel and to save mens souls, as much and more than to feed men’s bodies and save their lives…
And we did not receive this calling to be altered or forborn at the will of man, but to be performed according to the Word of God: Men being not the makers of the office, nor of God’s Law under which we execute it, nor the donors or limiters of the power, but only… the governors of us in the exercise of it, according to God’s laws, by which they may punish us for mal-administration, but cannot dissolve the Law’s obligation to those that are indeed commanded by it.”
.
2000’s
Travis Fentiman
in English Puritans, A Refutation of the Errors of Separatists (1604; RBO, 2025), pt. 1, Objection 5, p. 237 editorial footnote 624 at the end
“Note in relation to non-conformity: as the power of eliciting religious acts extends further than the power of publicly commanding religious acts with due authority, so in resistance to public authorities, one might elicit such acts (and that with others consenting of their own will) where one might not publicly command and enforce such acts over others.”
.
.
Accommodation while Working towards the Goal is Consistent with Reformation & Covenants
See also ‘Reformation & Conditional Conformity’, ‘Reforming Church Ordinances’, ‘On Passive Obedience’ and ‘On Material Cooperation with Evil’, as well as ‘All Vows are Qualified’ and ‘Vows can Never Bind Beyond God’s Law’.
.
Order of Contents
Article 1
Book 1
Quotes 15
Declining State of Church 1
.
Article
2000’s
Fentiman, Travis – A Defense of the Majority Opinion in the Free Church of Scotland on Covenanting, 36 points, 135 paragraphs, with a select annotated bibliography
This is an extensive articulation and defense of the majority historic view on the Solemn League and Covenant (1643), argued from Scripture, history and the reformation in Scotland.
.
Book
1600’s
English Puritans – A Refutation of the Errors of Separatists (1604; RBO, 2025) 300 pp. with an Extended Intro by Travis Fentiman: “Defending the Lawfulness of Partial-Conformity in Worship & Church Government (including under Civil Impositions) from Scripture, Westminster & the Scottish Indulgence Controversy, contra George Gillespie, while Driving against Denominationalism, for the Unifying of Christ’s Church”
While the whole book and Extended Introduction argue for accommodation generally, on “accommodation” expressly, see pp. 52-54.
That covenanting is consistent with accommodation, see “Covenanting”, pp. 118-31.
.
Quotes
Order of
Perkins
Puritan Ministers
Sprint
Ames
Gillespie
Coleman
Westminster
Bolton
London Presbyterians
Honyman
Baxter
Owen
Corbet
London Ministers
Church of Scotland
Fentiman
.
1600’s
William Perkins
Cases of Conscience (d. 1602; Cambridge. 1606), bk. 3, ch. 2, pp. 480-85
VIII Rule. We must give place to the sway of the times wherein we live so far forth as may stand with keeping faith and a good conscience. We may not be temporizers and change our religion with the times, but yet we may and must give place to times as we give place to the stream, so that it be done with keeping of true religion and good conscience. This rule was practiced by Paul, Acts 28:11, who, living among the heathen, was constrained to speak as they; and therefore he says that he departed in a ship to Rome whose badge was Castor and Pollux, Acts 19:10.
Again, he was three years in Ephesus, an idolatrous place, where the great goddess Diana was worshipped; yet in all that time he contained himself and spake nothing in particular against Diana, but on∣y in general against false gods, saying that ‘they be no gods that are made with hands,’ v. 26. Nay, Alexander could not charge him with this, that he had in all that while blasphemed their goddess Diana. Paul therefore was feign to yield to the sway of those times that so he might do some good in Ephesus by his ministry. Whereas, if he had spoken against Diana directly, it had not been possible for him to have done that good by preaching which otherwise he did. Again, in the primitive Church, the apostles for the weakness of the Jews, did yield to the use of circumcision and permitted abstinence from blood and that which was strangled, etc. so far forth as it stood with pure religion and good conscience: and if they had not so done they should not have won the Jews to the faith as they did.
IX Rule. If we cannot do the good things that we desire in that exquisite manner that we would, we must content ourselves with the mean; and in things which are good, and to be done, it is the safest course to satisfy ourselves in doing the less, least in venturing to do the more, which cannot be, we grow to the extremity, and so fail or offend in our action. It is a good and wise counsel of the Preacher to this purpose, Eccl. 7:16, ‘Be not just overmuch:’ and his meaning may be this; Be not too strict or curious in effecting that which thou intendest, exactly, when thou canst not; but rest contented in this, that thou hast done thine endeavor; and take to the less when the greater cannot be effected.
In some countries Popish images erected in Churches do stand undefaced. The good desire of the people is that they may be pulled down, but this cannot be brought to pass. What then are they to do in this case? They must not grow to extremity and pull them down themselves, but they must entreat the lawful magistrate for their removal and pray to God that He may be moved so to do; and in the meantime, rest content with that [which] they have done and wait the magistrates’ pleasure. In the judicial law, by reason of the hardness of the Jews’ hearts, sundry sins could not utterly be taken away, as divorcements, polygamy, usury. Hereupon the Lord makes a law of toleration, without approbation, and did not remove them quite away, for that was not possible in regard of man for the time; but [He] restrained the evil that could not be quite off and abolished otherwise. And herein appeared the great wisdom of God in making a law not to allow of, nor yet utterly to take away, but to moderate the practice of these sins in the Jews, for the hardness of their hearts.
In like manner, in this our land there is the practice of usury, a sin that cannot, nor ever shall be rooted out utterly. For this cause the States of this [English] kingdom have out of their wisdom provided a Law for the toleration thereof after a sort, and that upon special cause. For if the magistrate should have enacted a Law utterly to abolish it, it would before this (in likelihood) have grown to great extremity. The same was the practice of the apostles in their times, who yielded to bear with the use of circumcision for a time when they could not otherwise utterly cut it off.”
.
Partially Conforming English Puritan Ministers
A Refutation of the Errors of Separatists (1604; 1644; RBO, 2025), pt. 2, Answer 3, pp. 263-68
“First, that so long as the Christian magistrate [in England] requires we should yield obedience to the bishops (and that with this limitation, viz. only in things lawful and honest), we think it not unlawful for us to give obedience to them in those things they do by civil authority, though neither themselves, nor the magistrate might well require us to do [those things], for even our Saviour Himself yielded obedience to Caesar in such a thing wherein Caesar could not lawfully exact obedience of Him [Mt. 17:25-27].
As for the excommunication and suspensions, and such other censures as are merely ecclesiastical? We answer: As the true Church of God which from the Lord Jesus has received these keys of the Kingdom of Heaven did, though unadvisedly and unlawfully, deliver them over into the hands of the bishops: And the bishops being preachers of the Word, though they should not have this power wholly committed unto them, yet are they capable of it. We see not how it should be utterly unlawful to reverence and yield to the censures of Christ’s Church being exercised and administered even by them, unless we will say that the Church presently looses her right and power to censure offenders when she commits it unto any such men as unto whom of right either not at all, or not of right, only it belongs.
Secondly, now as we may lawfully yield some obedience to the bishops in these things, so we may lawfully bind ourselves by oath to do it: if our oaths be required of us by the Christian Magistrate’s authority, especially seeing we do by oath binde ourselves to obey in regard of the civil authority which is committed to them by the Christian magistrate.
Thirdly, For our going to their Courts, this we answer. That see∣ing we doe testifie in our callings, our dislike to the vile, and odious cor∣ruptions of their Courts; And doe also utterly refuse to yeeld obedience to any o• their unlawfull decrees, we cannot justly bee condemned for appearing intheir Courts, or any other place whereunto we are by His Majesties authoritie summoned. And whereas the persons before whom wee appeare are judged usually corrupt, and enemies to that Re∣formation which wee desire, and some of them also, such as (being no ministers themselves) do by all meanes seeke the disgrace of our calling, and the utter discoutagement of such Christians, as in whom they per∣ceive any sparkes of true zeale) wee account this our appeating at their Courts, not onely for an abridgment of our libertie, but also for such a burthen, as wee have just cause to groane under, and to pray, that God would in His good time, move His Majesties heart, to eate us of it. And yet as the Apostle being free was content, for the Churches sake, not onely to become bound, in serving it with the labour of his hands, but also, by subjecting himselse to those Ceremonies, which in Christ were abolished, so may, and ought we for the Churches sake, to beare this burden, rather than to forsake, or refuse the ministerie, when the Lord hath called, and fitted us unto it.
For our yielding to the suspensions and deprivations, we answer:
That so long as the bishops suspend and deprive according to the Law of the land, we account of the action herein, as of the act of the Church, which we may and ought to reverence and yield unto; if they do otherwise, we have liberty given us by the Law to appeal from them.
If it be said that the Church is not to be obeyed when it suspends and deprives us for such causes as we in our consciences know to be insufficient, we answer that it lies in them to depose that may ordaine, and they may shut that may open. And that as he may with a good conscience execute a ministry by the ordination and calling of the Church who is privy to himself of some unfitness (if the Church will press him to it), so may he who is privy to himself of no fault that deserves deprivation, cease from the execution of his ministry when he is pressed thereunto by the Church.
And if a guiltless person put out of his charge by the Church’s authority may yet continue in it, what proceedings can there be against guilty persons who in their owne conceit are always guiltless, or will at least pretend so to be, seeing they also will be ready always to object against the Church’s judgment that they are called of God and may not therefore give over the execution of their ministery at the will of man.
And yet admitting it were merely unlawful upon any respect to yield any new obedience at all to the censures of the bishops, yet how will it follow that this our unlawful yielding has force sufficient to make us (ipso facto) no true ministers, unless you will say that the high priests who were in Christ’s time, that took and left their offices at the will of tyrants and heathen princes,¹ were therefore not to be accounted priests…
¹ [Lk. 3:2; Jn. 18:13; Acts 4:6; Josephus, Antiquities, bk. 18, ch. 2, sect. 1-2; ch. 4, sect. 3; ch. 5, sect. 3; bk. 20, ch. 1, sect. 3; ch. 5, sect. 2; ch. 8, sect. 5, 8, 11; ch. 9, sect. 1-4, 7; ch. 10; Jewish War, bk. 4, ch. 3, sect. 6; ch. 4, sect. 4]
The speech of the apostles, which they are wont to object against us in this case [Acts 5:29, ‘We ought to obey God rather than man’], may easily appeare how unskilfully. It is alleged to them that will consider these three differences between their case and ours:
First, they that inhibited the apostles were known and professed enemies to the Gospel.
Secondly, the apostles were charged not to teach in the name of Christ, nor to publish any part of the doctrine of the Gospel, which commandment might more hardly be yeelded unto than this of our bishops, who though they cannot endure them which teach that part of the truth that concerns the good government and reformation of the Church, yet are they not only content that the Gospel should be preached, but are also preachers of it themselves.
Thirdly, the apostles received not their calling and authority from men, nor by the hands of men, but immediately from God Himself; and therefore also might not be restrained or deposed by men; whereas we, though we exercise a function whereof God is the author, and we are also called of God to it, yet are we called and ordeined by the hand and ministery of men, and may therefore by men be also deposed and restrained from the exercise of our ministry.”
.
John Sprint
Cassander Anglicanus, showing the Necessity of Conformity to the Prescribed Ceremonies of our Church in Case of Deprivation (London: Bill, 1623), ‘Reformed Practices’
pp. 121-22
“That there are many things which are not to be approved in the Church, which are not worthy of contention; Calvin, Epistle 51, fol. 100.
…
That many things must of us be tolerated which is not in our power to reform; Calvin, Epistle 148, fol. 254.
That albeit men must endeavor to purge the Church of corruptions which sprung up out of superstition, yet this exception must go along, that certain things although they be not to be approved, yet must be born with all; Calvin, Epistle 305, fol. 504, to John Knox.
That some rites and ceremonies, albeit not necessary are yet to be tolerated, or born withall for concord’s sake; Beza, Epistle 8, fol. 70.
That as the manners of doting parents, so the customs of our unadvised country must be endured: yea the servitude which is without impiety, and that in matters of lesser nature (in the Church) must be borne withall; Harmony of Confessions §11, fol. 860; Melancthon, Concil. Thelog., pt. 2, fol. 107; and that there is ever some kind of servitude of the Church, more mild somewhere, somewhere more hard: howbeit more or less, there is ever some; Melanchthon, ibid., fol. 92.”
.
pp. 163-65
“Because, where the doctrine itself is sound and pure, and the ceremonies used to a civil honesty and decency, the inconveniences are rather to be passed by in silence than that by occasion of them men should proceed to contentions and more grievous tumults; Calvin, Epistle 303, fol. 497.
Because, albeit these things be not to be approved, yet, sometimes these indifferent things, howsoever offensive and burdensome, are to be born withal, so far forth (quoad aliter non liceat) as conveniently we cannot do otherwise, lest if men contend about them more bitterly then they ought, it be both an hinderance to the progress of the Gospel, and the things which in their own nature are indifferent, be taught by our vehement contention to be plainly wicked; which two points do bring with them most grievous inconveniences; P. Martyr to [John] Hooper, Common Places, folio 1086.
And therefore these things which the pastors cannot change, they should rather bear withal, than by forsaking the Church for that cause they should give occasion for far greater and more dangerous mischiefs unto Satan, who seeks nothing else; Beza, Epistle 12, fol. 99.”
.
pp. 165-68
“Because it may be thought expedient that these things for a time be borne withal; for it may perhaps produce this effect, that these contentions may be avoided, by the which contentions there is great peril, lest greater and far more important benefits be hindered; and lest the minds of men be at the first beginning turned from the Gospel, as we see it come to pass; Martyr. ibid., fol. 1085.
…
Because if some things in their nature indifferent be imposed it is not meet too eagerly to contend about such matters; especially when as we see those magistrates by whom the light of the Gospel is much furthered in England, and by whose authority it may much more be furthered, to oppose themselves against us; Peter Martyr, ibid., fol. 1085, to Hooper.”
.
p. 172
“Because there is some burthensome servitude in every Church: in some more mild, in others more hard; and the sorrows of such servitude and burdens should be comforted by the brethren and not increased by their condemnation, so long as the foundation is retained; Melanchthon, Consil. pt. 2, fol. 92.”
.
pp. 173-74
“4. Zepperus, On the Sacraments, ch. 13, fol. 324-26, 228
1. The furious clamors and persecutions of the Papists did not permit this reformation of ceremonies at the first: which were so violent and bloody, that it gave small or no leisure to the teachers and lights of the Church, neither was it safe for them to bend their care or cogitations this way.
2. The people were so drowned in the deep darkeness and idolatry of the Papacy that the amendment of ceremonies, and of external worship could not in those beginnings be undertaken. It was necessary to use doctrine, and to instruct the people of sundry and horrible errors, idolatry, superstitions and abuses, which the whole Papacy and Popish ceremonies have in their departure, that so all those ugly things might first bee removed out of their minds, before they were removed from their sight. That which is not the work of one year, but a task of long season: For as ceremonies which are visible things and apprehended by the eyes do more affect and move than the invisible doctrine; So the people did closely stick to their accustomed ceremonies, and opposed themselves vehemently against the reformation of them: Even as we see at this day to come to pass, when as yet sound doctrine has prevailed and flourished for above these 80 years.
3. The Church in Popery was nothing else but a sick body: In which from the sole of the foot to the crown of the head, there was nothing sound and entire: Wherefore at the first beginning of reformation that whole chaos and abomination of error, and of Popish idolatry could not suddenly be perceived, but use and experience did daily manifest and teach every day more, than at the first.”
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p. 188
“Calvin: In the English Liturgy as you [the English exiles at Frankford] do describe unto me, I spy out many tolerabiles ineptias, ‘tolerable unfit things:’ By which two words I express thus much, that there was not that purity which were to be wished, which errors could not immediately the first day be corrected (Cum nulla subesset manifesta impietas ferenda ad tempus fuisse). Seeing there was therein contained no manifest impiety, these things should have been born withal for a time; Epistle 200, fol. 336.”
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p. 196
“Zanchi: In things indifferent something is to be yielded to the weaker, and that for a time; namely, until they be taught the truth. For if after that the truth is sufficiently and clearly laide abroad unto them so as being convicted they have nothing more what they may object and yet will notwithstanding stick in doubt; sure their infirmity is not to be nourished by their dissembling with them or winking at them. For this is rather strong obstinacy then weakness; Of Redemption, ch. 17, fol. 493.”
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William Ames
A Fresh Suit Against Human Ceremonies in God’s Worship… (Amsterdam: Thorp, 1633), ch. 1, section 17, p. 82
“As if occasional accommodation were all one with imposition, or voluntary joining in action for the good that is in it, were always a certain argument of holding that opinion which others do affix unto it.”
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George Gillespie
Wholesome Severity Reconciled with Christian Liberty (London, 1645)
pp. 36-37
“There is also a great difference between toleration and accommodation. By accommodation I understand an agreement of dissenters with the rest of the Church in practical conclusions, so that if any difference be, it is in their principles, not in their practices, and so not obvious, apparent and scandalous to people.
I had rather go two miles in an accommodation (yea as many as the word of God will suffer me) than one mile in toleration. For in that way there is no schism, no rent in Israel, but ‘the Lord one, and his name one.’
In this way [of toleration] there is temple against temple, and altar against altar, Manasseh against Ephraim, and Ephraim against Manasseh, and they both against Judah: a misery from which the Lord deliver us.
I do not deny, but if a safe and happy accommodation is impossible, such a toleration as I have formerly spoken of, is not to be disallowed. But the accommodation is a more excellent way, and that which is to be rather embraced, yea endeavored for and followed after, according to the apostle’s rule (which Isidorua Pelusiota did long since observe to be the best and happiest way of putting an end to divisions and dissensions in the Church).
Let us therefore as many as be perfect be thus minded: and if in anything ye be otherwise minded, God shall reveal even this unto you. Nevertheless whereto we have already attained, let us walk by the same rule, let us mind the same thing (Phil 3:15-16).”
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“Let us hear no more paraenetics for toleration or liberty of conscience: but as many as you will for a just and merciful accommodation… If you be the sons of peace, you shall be characterized by this shibboleth, you will call for accommodation, not for toleration; for one way, not for two. ‘Let there be no strife between us and you, for we be brethren: and is not the Canaanite and the Perizzite yet in the land?’ (Gen. 13:7-8) O let it not be told in Gath, nor published in the streets of Ashkelon, Let it not be said, that there can be no unity in the Church without prelacy.
…
It shall be no grief of heart to you afterward that you have pleased others as well as yourselves, and have stretched your principles for an accommodation in Church government as well as in worship, and that for the Church’s peace and edification; and that the ears of our common enemies may tingle (Act. 9:31) when it shall be said, ‘The Churches of Christ… have rest, and are edified, and walking in the fear of the Lord, and in the joy of the Holy Ghost are multiplied.’
Alas, how shall our divisions and contentions hinder the preaching and learning of Christ, and the edifying one another in love! Is Christ divided? says the apostle. There is but one Christ, yea the Head and the Body makes one Christ, so that you cannot divide the Body without dividing Christ.
Is there so much as a seam in all Christ’s garment? Is it not woven throughout from the top to the bottom? Will you have one half of Israel to follow Tibni, and another half to follow Omri? O brethren, we shall be one in heaven, let us pack up differences in this place of our pilgrimage the best way we can.
…
Brethren, it is not impossible, pray for it, endeavor it, press hard toward the mark of accommodation. How much better is it that you be one with the other Reformed Churches, though somewhat straitened and bound up, than to be divided though at full liberty and elbow-room?”
…
I am persuaded if there were but a right understanding one of another’s intentions, the accommodation I speak of would not be difficult. Brethren, if you will not hearken to wholesome counsel, you shall be the more inexcusable… Therefore love the truth and peace, Yea, seek peace and pursue it.
Consider what I say. The Lord guid your feet in the way of peace. And O that God would put it in your hearts to cry down toleration and to cry up accommodation!”
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Thomas Coleman
Hopes Deferred & Dashed, Observed in a Sermon to the Honourable House of Commons (London: Meredith, 1645), p. 24 Coleman is here advising the English House of Commons on setting up Church government (which would include public worship).
“Hold out the practice, but not the ground: It will
gather more, nay all, that hold it not unlawful; men differently principled may meet in one practice.”
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Westminster Assembly, English House of Commons & Independent Westminster Divines
“…the aforesaid honorable committee appointed by an order of the honorable House of Commons, to find out ways of accommodating different judgments in the [Westminster] Assembly, the sub-committee of divines, consisting of two of us [congregationalists] and four others, appointed by that honorable committee to prepare ways and propositions of accommodation, brought in the main and most of what practically we desired, and we therein added,
‘That if such a liberty shall seem in the wisdom of this honorable committee to be so prejudicial to the peace of the Church as not to be permitted, we humbly desire, the doctrinal principles wherein we differ about Church-government may be taken into serious consideration and some other way of accommodation in practice thought upon, as shall seem fit to this honorable committee:’
and this was presented to that honorable committee and those twelve of the Assembly, to be transmitted…”
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Westminster Scottish Commissioners
Kirsteen M. MacKenzie, The Solemn League & Covenant of the Three Kingdoms & the Cromwellian Union, 1643–1663 (Routledge, 2018), ch. 1, pp. 37–38
“Much has been made by historians of the Scots ‘forcing’ their austere brand of religion upon their English brethren. However, it is clear that Scottish commissioners were aware their role was limited to advising only and that the construction of the Church rested with English members of the Assembly. Indeed, the Westminster Assembly did invite the Scottish commissioners to become full members of the Assembly, an invitation which the Scots declined, thereby recognising and respecting England’s right to define its own church government…
The Scots fully encouraged the English to set up a Classical Presbytery based on English tradition and encouraged compromise [or rather a principled accommodation to the Independents]. In response to [the Independent] Philip Nye’s sharp accusation that the Scots had ‘given’ the Assembly a whole system of church government, the Scottish members responded that ‘we were well content the Assembly should take their own order, and not tie themselves to ours.’”
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Samuel Bolton
The Arraignment of Error (London: Miller, 1646), pp. 349–50
“…this accommodation is not impossible: if indeed it were, God does not bind us to the seeking after it…
If we look upon the nature of the things wherein they differ, they are not of such moment as to divide between brethren; their differences are not about fundamentals, but superstructures: there is no opinion expressly maintained by either side which is directly contrary to the substance of faith, or destructive to salvation; nay, whatever are such, they are condemned by both. Nor [is] the difference in those matters wherein they differ so wide but they may be composed and brought together, if men will act humility and self-denial.
It was said of the differences between Luther and the [reformed] Helvetians, that there was not any impossibility in respect of the things themselves; if their spirits could be reconciled, their causes might easily be reconciled… where the difference is substantial, I do not see but if humility and self-denial might take place, if interests might be waved, if pre-engagements might be slighted, even in those things there might be an agreement; certainly, God does not make the difference so great as we ourselves do make it…
It was the speech of one concerning the reconciliation of the German Churches: It is possible for the most hot and rigorous spirits to be reconciled, but it is easy for peaceable and moderate men to be agreed. The differences are not between enemies, but between brethren, and neither of them proud, imperious and contentious, but both of them humble, holy and peaceable…”
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London (Presbyterian) Provincial Assembly
A Vindication of the Presbyterial Government & Ministry… (London: Meredith, 1650)
“…we do exhort our [Independent] brethren, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that they would sadly lay to heart the inexpressible calamities which are brought upon our churches by their dividing from us; and that they would study for the time to come all ways of union and accommodation: And for our parts, we do here profess to all the world, that we are, have always been, and through the grace of God, shall ever be willing to study to find out any Scripture way wherein we may unite together with them…”
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“we do here manifest our willingness (as we have already said) to accommodate with you according to the Word, in a way of union; And (such of us as are ministers) to preach up and to practice a mutual forbearance and toleration in all things that may consist with the fundamentals of religion, with the power of godliness and with that peace which Christ has established in his Church…”
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Andrew Honyman
The Seasonable Case of Submission to the Church-Government as now Re-established by Law, briefly stated and determined by a Lover of the Peace of this Church & Kingdom (Edinburgh: Tyler, 1662), pp. 3-12
“The exceeding great bitterness of the continued and increasing sad distractions amongst the people of God to the hindrance of their edification in faith and a godly life with charity and peace amongst themselves should put all the ministers of Christ to most serious thoughts in considering how far they may under the present dispensations of God, without sin, accommodate in following unquestionable duties with and under the established government of the Church.
And although as to a cordial allowance of the present change they cannot yet attain, something remaining, whether of scruple or affection, which makes it unpleasing, and their concurrence with it, to lie heavy upon their spirits, yet if there be found no manifest transgression in concurring under the same, in matters of unquestionable duty, they would wisely put difference between gravamen spiritus [heaviness of spirit] and ligamen conscientiae [a tie of conscience]: something in the will that renders them averse, and [differenced from] the prevailing clear light of a well-informed conscience (to which, how uneasy it is to attain in this point of controversy, they can tell who have truly tried it) binding them up from concurrence, as a thing in itself unlawful.
Men who walk in the fear of God and are zealous of His honor had need to be very jealous of their own zeal, that it carry them not to the rejecting of a real duty, which (to their apprehension) sits too near a sin…
It is their duty to advert, lest, at this time too great animosity contribute to the laying of the foundation of a woeful division to be entailed to the generations to come, the evil whereof will preponder all the good that any one form of Church-government can, of itself, produce, viz. the dishonor of God, the weakening of the cause of the true protestant religion against the common adversaries thereof, the destroying of true charity and love amongst the people of God, the hinderance of their profiting under the several ministries they live under, and the creating continual confusions and distractions in the commonwealth (the ordinary fruit of schism in the Church) as too lamentable experience (whereof we carry the sad marks to this day) has taught us.
1. That there may and ought to be a brotherly accommodation and concurrence in matters of practice which are undoubted duty (albeit brethren be of different judgments anent the constitution of meetings or capacity of persons that act in these duties), grave and learned men have put it out of question. It is well known that in the [Westminster] Assembly of Divines at London, accommodation was mainly labored for (and far carried on) between presbyterians and independents, that they might concur in common actings for regulating the Church, with a reserve of liberty of their own several principles…
Also, several of the most eminent presbyterians in England, as Mr. [Richard] Vines, Mr. [Richard] Baxter and others, accounting of un-preaching [ruling] elders, as of a human device (as now the office of a bishop is accounted of by many brethren), yet, not being able to attain to the exercise of presbyterial government without the intermixture of these; yea, of them, double the number to preaching presbyters in each meeting (which gave them an overswaying power in the government), notwithstanding they did concur with them in matters of unquestionable duty.
Is it not also well known that amongst ourselves in this [Scottish] Church, [Resolutioner] brethren did ordinarily concur in synods and presbyteries, in doing their duties with these [the Protesters] whom they charged with a sinful schism? (a thing as much against the [Solemn League and] Covenant [1643], as that which is now pretended for withdrawing from the meetings of synods and presbyteries)… it is affirmed that they homologate with the tenet and practice of Separatism, denying the lawfulness of concurrence in a lawful necessary duty because of the personal sin of fellow-actors in it…
…
But thirdly, if the brethren refuse to concur with the synods for want [lack] of unpreaching [ruling] elders there, whose office they account of divine institution… yet can the removal of these without their fault render it unlawful for them to concur in a synod of ministers where these are not? Can the absence or removal of these (supposed) Church-officers render a synod of ministers, with their president, unlawful and not to be joined with? because other men are debarred from their duty (they are supposed to have right to) shall we run from our duty, especially this being done without our fault?”
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Richard Baxter
The Nonconformists’ Plea for Peace, or an Account of their Judgment in Certain Things in which they are Misunderstood… (London, 1679), section 7, pp. 130-31
“21… But the most of our acquaintance [being parish ministers in England in the 1650’s, under Cromwell] were peaceable, moderate men that thought several parties [of various views of Church government] had somewhat of the right, and that the points of difference were so few and small that they might well live in peace and love, and that none of the parties was so right as that in all things they should be followed, and others trod down to set them up: And many of these were young men that, being at the schools, had not been engaged in the first quarrels [in the 1640’s and before], and desired not to side with any dividing parties, and modestly professed that they had not maturity enough to study themselves to any great confidence in the controversies [about Church government].
22. This last sort of men beginning in Worcestshire set on foot a work of reconciling [an] Association, in which the Episcopal, Presbyterians and Independants agreed to practise so much of Church government and ministration as they were all agreed in, with mutual love and assisting concord, and to forbear one another in the rest, till God should bring us nearer (and after[wards] they added another agreement, to catechize every person in their parishes old and young that would come to them, or receive them thereto, and personally to instruct and exhort them about the practicals of religion, and preparation for death and the life to come). This example was presently followed by the ministers in Cumberland and Westmorland, Wiltshire, Dorsetshire, Essex, and going on in other counties, till the confusions [of] 1659 interrupted it [when Cromwell died], and the return of the prelacy [in 1662] ended it and many such endeavors.”
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John Owen
An Enquiry into the Original, Nature, Institution, Power, Order and Communion of Evangelical Churches... (1681), pp. 346-47
“For says he [Edward Stillingfleet]: ‘…if Presbytery had been settled upon the King’s Restoration [1660], would they [Independent churches] not have continued in their Separation?…
4. Had the Presbyterian government been settled at the King’s Restoration, by the encouragement and protection of the practise of it, without a rigorous imposition of every thing supposed by any to belong thereunto, or a mixture of human constitutions, if there had any appearance of a schism or separation continued between the parties, I do judge they would have been both to blame.
For as it cannot be expected that all churches and all persons in them should agree in all principles and practises belonging unto Church order, nor was it so in the days of the apostles, nor ever since among any true Churches of Christ, so all the fundamental principles of Church communion would have been so fixed and agreed upon between them, and all offences in worship so removed, as that it would have been a matter of no great art absolutely to unite them, or to maintain a firm communion among them, no more than in the days of the apostles, and the primitive times, in reference to the differences that were among Churches in those days. For they allowed distinct communion upon distinct apprehensions of things belonging unto Church order or worship, all keeping the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.”
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John Corbet
The Nonconformist’s Plea for Lay-Communion with the Church of England, together with a Modest Defense of Ministerial Nonconformity... (London: 1683)
The Nonconformists Plea for Lay-Communion with the Church of England, p. 7
“Objection 3. It is against our engagements for reformation. Answer:
1. I am engaged to endeavor reformation only according to my power and calling, and this practice does not gainsay my endeavours of the same within those limits.
2. My engagement to endeavors of reformation, does not necessitate me to unwarrantable separation.
3. My engagement to endeavors of reformation does also engage me against schism.”
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A Defense of my Endeavors for the Work of the Ministry
p. 23
“Why may not Lutherans and Calvinists of the same nation, town or village have their several churches under their several pastors, and live in peace? Nothing could hinder the said peace but want of Christian humility and charity.
And consequently, why among us may not Christians that have invincible diversity of persuasions in matters of Church government live peaceably within the same precincts in their several churches?”
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pp. 26-27
“There is a great difference between inimical segregation, like sedition in a commonwealth; and a going severally upon weighty reasons and without breach of charity. And among other weighty reasons [for this,] this may be one: That all Christians of sound faith and good life, that are dissatisfied about some human injunctions and orders in a Church, may not for lack of tender regard towards them be utterly abandoned and exposed to be led aside into the errors of the wicked, as to heresy, apostasy or a course of irreligion.
It is in the power of rulers to grant this indulgence to such dissenters, when it is not in the power of dissenters to change their judgments. And this is not to set up Church against Church, or according to an ancient manner of speaking, altar against altar, but only either occasional and temporary assemblies, or at the most but diverse churches distinguished by their several places of assembling, as one parish-church from another; and by diversity of external order, as the allowed congregations of foreigners in London from the parish churches.
The same true religion for the substance thereof, is exercised; and the same holy ends are pursued in the one and the other. And there will be no opposition between them but what an unchristian enmity, proceeding from worldly lusts and interests, will produce.
…
After such [a] Comprehension [be] setled, the toleration of all tolerable dissenters within such limits as will secure public peace and safety, is more agreeable to the wisdom and clemency of rulers, and the charity of Christians, than the rigorous constraining of the said dissenters to what they cannot bear and the restraining of them from the liberty of serving God according to their consciences.”
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p. 29
“His Majesty has graciously declared that he had seen better effects of one years indulgence than of many years’ severity before that time.”
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London Ministers
A Collection of Cases & other Discourses lately written to recover Dissenters to the communion of the Church of England by some Divines of the City of London (London, 1685), vol. 1, p. 37 John Williams, ‘The Non-Conformists’ Plea for Lay-Communion with the Church of England’ Williams (d. 1709) was an Anglican bishop.
“Let men be as scrupulous and fearful of offending against the Christian laws of subjection, peaceableness and charity as they are of worshipping God after an impure manner, and this alone will contribute much to the making up those breaches which threaten sudden ruin to our Church and nation.”
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Church of Scotland
A Seasonable Admonition & Exhortation to Some who Separate themselves from the Communion of the Church of Scotland… unanimously agreed unto by the Commission of the General Assembly (1698; Edinburgh: Mosmam,1699), p. 16
“Whereas judicious casuists do recommend it that they who would attain unity and peace where divisions are, should forbear one another in love, and as the apostle directs, wherein they are agreed, walk by the same rule.
They also tell us that those who have the truth on their side may be the sinful cause of division when they too peremptorily press their light on others in things not fundamental or necessary, contrary to Rom. 14:22. See Durham On Scandal, [pt. 4] pp. 286 & 358. He presses this mutual forbearance in things controverted and that seeing the great scope of bringing forth any truth is the edification of the Church, therefore where the bringing it forth does destroy more than edify, it is to be forborne.
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2000’s
Travis Fentiman
“Editor’s Extended Introduction” in English Puritans, A Refutation of the Errors of Separatists (1604; RBO, 2025)
p. 88
“If one would participatingly accommodate a measure of indecency in a civil assembly for the good in it and out of respect and submission to public order, how much more ought one to do so in charity for the Church’s public worship, as such common and legitimately applied civil principles do not need a Scripture precedent and “God is not the author of confusion, but of peace.” (1 Cor. 14:33)?
Often doing something that is inconvenient and less than fully decent or in the best order, given the larger context, is more decent, orderly (1 Cor. 14:40) and conducive to peace, and less confusing, than not, especially for leaders.
Are not peace, love and mercy weightier matters of the Law (Mt. 23:23; Mk. 12:33; Rom. 14:19; 1 Cor. 13:13)? and external ceremonial observances are to give way to moral law? (Hos. 6:6; Mk. 12:33) “But if ye had known what this meaneth, ‘I will have mercy, and not sacrifice,’ ye would not have condemned the guiltless.” (Mt. 12:7)”
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pp. 133-34
“[Johannes G.] Vos says taking the [Scottish, civil] indulgence [in 1669-1688] involved ‘becoming Episcopalians’ and was ‘a compromise with an unscriptural form of Church government…’ Such ‘must be regarded as a sacrifice of principle… they compromised with prelacy.’
This is to confound material actions with their formal ends. The indulged ministers did not necessarily sacrifice or compromise any principle or become anything but presbyterians acting under limitations of a partially unscriptural form of external Church government.
If Vos’s slurs were true, that anyone who materially accommodates and cooperates with rulers acting under erroneous principles, sinfully sacrifices principles and becomes as their rulers: would not the old Jewish Church of God, with intrinsic, divine-right Church government, ruled by their Erastian Babylonian rulers in their captivity (in a broken and declining state), have been in sin for so accepting that Erastian supremacy, at the very command of God (Jer. 27:12–13; 29:4–7)?
The Erastian, absolutist, civil rulers over the Jews in Christ’s time dictated and changed who was the Jewish, episcopal high priest at their will, contrary to God’s ordinance (Lev. 16:32; Num. 20:25–28; 35:25). Yet they allowed Christ and the apostles to otherwise exercise their ministry freely while practicing presbyterianism (Lk. 7:3; Mt. 18:15–20), alongside the overseeing priests, or bishops (Mt. 26:3, 57; Mk. 11:27; Lk. 20:1). Though Christ and the apostles suffered greatly under these bishops (Mt. 16:21; 27:1; Mk. 8:31), yet without fleeing (Mt. 26:47–57; Jn. 18:4–8; Acts 16:25–30; 21:13), they appeared at their courts (Mt. 21:23; 26:59; Acts 21:13; 25:11) in that broken and declining state of the Church. Question: On Vos’s premise, were not Christ, the apostles and the whole Jewish Church in sin for cooperating under these restrictions?
Would not churches today which cooperate under American rulers acting under erroneous principles be guilty of all their rulers’ errors? Say if churches limit (or do not exercise) their own liberty in some ways to comply with over-reaching government restrictions about a spreading disease, so churches may prevent worse things (such as being shut down, or scandalizing unbelievers they are seeking to win to the Gospel), are they therefore guilty of their rulers’ errors?
Perhaps some will affirm this, as many have. When you accommodate your boss’s unnecessary restrictions at work for the greater good, are you sacrificing God’s divine-right of governance over you and you are guilty of your boss’s errors? Are you divinely obliged to suffer the consequences of getting fired and hazarding your family’s survival every time your company wants you to do something not fully in accord with God-prescribed, right reason?”
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On Accommodation or Partial Conformity in a Broken & Declined or Declining State of the Church
Article
2000’s
Fentiman, Travis – “Extended Editor’s Introduction”, pp. 53-54 in English Puritans, A Refutation of the Errors of Separatists (1604; RBO, 2025)
The Extended Intro throughout cites Scriptures instancing approved accommodation or partial conformity in a broken and declining state of the Church on pp. 30, 54, 111-13, 115, 133-35, 144, 147, 150-51, 154-56, 184 fn. 565.
The puritan book itself, and the partial conformity it advocates for, revolves around a broken and declining state of the Church.
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Latin Articles
1600’s
Voet, Gisbert – Ecclesiastical Politics (Amsterdam: Waesberge, 1663), vol. 4, pt. 3, bk. 3, Of the Government of the Church with Respect to a State of Turbulence, Tract 1, Of the Dispersion and Regathering of the Church
1. Of the Scattering or Dispersion of the Church 424
2. Of the Regathering and Reinstatement of Scattered Churches 426
3. That by which the Reformation of the Public Profession and Worship, and Consequently, of the Church, is Introduced 433
4. Of the End to Which [Termino ad Quem] Reformation is to be Made 439
5. Of Reformation in Rituals and Ceremonies 443
6. Of Reformation in the Government and Discipline of the Church 446
7. Of Reformation about Piety in Practice and of Good Works 456
8. Of Specific Reformations of the Churches under the Old and New Testament 475
9. Of the Reformation Having Been Started in the Years 1516 & 1517 by Luther and Zwingli 479
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