Letter to Mr Williams

A Letter of M ^r . John Cottons, Teacher of the Church in Boston, in New England.

THough I have little hope (when I consider the uncircumcision of mine own lips, Exod. 6.12.) that you will hearken to my voice, who hath not hearkened to the body of the whole Church of Christ with you, and the testimony, and judgment of so many Elders and Brethren of other Churches, yet I trust my labor will be accepted of the Lord; and who can tell but that he may bless it to you also, if (by his help) I endeavor to show you the sandiness of those grounds, out of which you have banished yours from the fellowship of all the Churches in these Countries▪ Let not any pr • judice against my person (I beseech you) forestall either your affection or judgment, as if I had hastened forward the sentence of your civil banishment; for what was done by the Magistrates, in that kind, was neither done by my counsel nor consent, although I dare not deny the sentence passed to be righteous in the eyes of God, who hath said that he that with-holdeth the Corn (which is the staff of life) from the people, the multitude shall curse him, Prov. 11.26. how much more shall they separate such from them as do with-hold and separate them from the Ordinances, or the Ordinances from them (which are in Christ the bread of life.) And yet it may be they passed that sentence against you not upon that ground, but for ought I know, upon your other corrupt doctrines, which tend to the disturbance both of civil and holy peace, as may appear by that answer which was sent to the Brethren of the Church of Salem, and to yourself. And to sp • ache freely what I think, were in soul in your souls stead, I should think it a work of mercy of God to banish me from the civil society of such a Common wealth, when I could not enjoy holy fellowship with any Church of God amongst them without sin. What should the Daughter of Zion do in Babel? why should she not hasten to flee from thence? Zach. 2.6, 7.

I speak not these things (the God of Truth is my witness) to add affliction to your affliction, but (if it were the holy will of God) to move you to a more serious sight of your sin, and of the justice of God's hand against it. Against your corrupt Doctrines, it pleased the Lord Jesus to fight against you with the sword of his mouth (as himself speaketh, Rev. 2.16.) in the mouths and testimonies of the Churches and Brethren. Against whom, when you over-heated yourself in reasoning and disputing against the light of his truth, it pleased him to stop your mouth by a sudden disease, and to threaten to take your breath from you. But you instead of recoiling (as even Balaam offered to do in the like case) you chose rather to persist in your way, and to protest against all the Churches and Brethren that stood in your way: and thus the good hand of Christ that should have bumbled you, to see and turn from the error of your way, hath rather hardened you therein, and quickened you only to see failings (yea intolerable errors) in all the Churches and brethren, rather then in yourself. In which course though you say you do not remember an hour wherein the countenance of the Lord was darkened to you, yet be not deceived, it is no new thing with Satan to transform himself into an Angel of light, and to cheare the soul with false peace, and with flashes of counterfeit consolation. Sad and woeful is the memory of Master Smiths strong consolations on his death-bed, which are set as a Seal to the gross and damnable Arminianism and Enthusiasmes delivered in the confession of his faith, prefixed to the story of his life and death. The countenance of God is upon his people when they fear him, not when they presume of their own strength; and his consolations are found not in the way of presidence in error, but in the ways of humility and truth.

Two stumbling blocks (I perceive by your letter) have turned you off from fellowship with us. First, the want of fit matter of our Church. Secondly, disrespect of the separate Churches in England under afflictions, who do ourselves practice separation in peace.

Answ. This exception seemeth to me to imply a contradiction to it self, for if the matter of our Churches be as you say godly persons, they are not then as trees unfelled, or stones unhewen. Godliness cutteth men down from the former root, and heweth them out of the pit of corrupt nature, and fitteth them for fellowship with Christ and with his people.

Answ. 1. We grant it is not local remoovall from former pollutions, or contrary practice, that fitteth us for fellowship with Christ and his Church, but that it is necessary also that we do repent of such former pollutions wherein we have been defiled and inthralled.

We grant further that it is likewise necessary to Church-fellowship, we should see and discern all such pollutions as do so far enthrall us to Antichrist, to separate us from Christ.

But this we profess unto you, that wherein we have reformed our practice, therein have we endeavored unfeignedly to humble our souls for our former contrary walking. If any through hypocrisy are wanting herein, the hidden hypocrisy of some will not prejudice the sincerity and faithfulness of others, not the Church estate of all.

And that we do (by the grace of Christ) see and discern all such pollutions as do so far enthrall us to Antichrist as to separate us from Christ; yourself doth acknowledge in acknowledging the visible members of these Churches to be godly persons; for godly persons are not so enthralled to Antichrist, as to separate them from Christ, else they could not be godly persons.

Answ. 2. We deny that it is necessary to Church-fellowship (to wit, so necessary as that without it, a Church cannot be) that the members admitted thereunto should all of them see, expressly bewail all the pollutions which they have been defiled with in the former Church-fellowship, ministry, worship, government. If they see and bewail so much of their former pollutions as did enthrall them to Antichrist, as to separate them from Christ, and be ready in preparation of heart, as they shall see more light, so to hate more and more every false way, we conceive it is as much as is necessarily required to separation from Antichrist, and to fellowship with Christ and his Churches. The Churches of Judea admitted many thousand Jews that believed on the name of Christ, although they were still zealous of the Law, and saw not the beggetly emptiness of Moses his ceremonies, Act. 21.20. And the Apostle Paul directeth the Romans to receive such unto them as are weak in the faith, and see not their liberty from the servile difference of meats and days, but still lie under the bondage of the Law, yea he wisheth them to receive such upon this ground, because Christ hath received them, Rom. 14.1. to 6.

Say not, there is not the like danger of lying under bondage to Moses as to Antichrist, for even the bondage under Moses was such, as if they continued in after instruction and conviction, would separate them from Christ, Gal. 5.2. And bondage under Antichrist could do no more.

Answ. 3. To the places of Scripture which you object, Isa. 52.11. 2 Cor. 6.17. Revel. 18.4. we answer, two of them make nothing to your purpose, for that of Isaiah and the other of the Revelation, speak of local separation, which yourself knoweth we have made, and yet you say you do not apprehend that to be sufficient. As for that place of the Corinthians, it only requireth coming out from Idolaters in the fellowship of their Idolatry. No marriages were they to make with them: no feasts were they to hold with them in the Idols Temple: no intimate familiarity were they to maintain with them: nor any fellowship were they to keep with them in the unfruitful works of darkness; and this is all which that place requireth. But what makes all this to prove that we may not receive such persons to Church-fellowship as ourselves confess to be godly, and who do professedly renounce and bewail all known sin, and would renounce more if they knew more, although it may be they do not yet see the utmost skirts of all that pollution they have sometimes been defiled with; as the Patriarchs saw not the pollution of their Polygamie? But that you may plainly see this place is wrested besides the Apostles scope, when you argue from it that such persons are not fit matter of Church-fellowship, as are defiled with any remnants of Antichristian pollution; nor such Churches anymore to be accounted Churches, as do receive such amongst them; Consider I pray you, were there not at that time in the Church of Corinth such as partaked with Idolaters in their Idols Temples? and was not this the touching of an unclean thing? and did this sin reject these members from Church fellowship before conviction? or did it evacuate their Church estate for not casting out of such members?

And yet as if you had grasped more then you could hold, you let fall some part of what you had assumed, and do grant, that

Answ. 1. If such a confession and renunciation be not of absolute necessity to the admission of members when the substance of true repentance is discerned, then such Congregations may be true Churches (by your own confession) who do admit for their members such godly persons as do profess and hold forth the substance of true repentance; for such persons professing their repentance for all their known and open sins, do withal profess their readiness to repent of and forsake whatsoever further sins shall be discovered to them.

Ans. 2. When you judge that godly persons are not matter fitted for the Church, until first they be illuminated and convinced of the sinfulness of every sipping of the whores cup; you take away with the one hand what you granted with the other, and withal you impose a burden upon the Church of Christ, which Christ never required at their hands nor yours.

For we deny that it is necessary to the admission of members that everyone should be convinced of the sinfulness of every sipping of the Whores cup, for every sipping of a drunkards cup is not sinful; and though the cup of the whore do more intoxicate the mind then the drunkards cup doth the body, yet you know bodily drunkenness and whoredom are such notorions and gross sins that no man that hath any true repentance in him, cannot but be convinced of the sinfulness of them, and of the necessity of repentance of them in particular. But the Whores cup being a mystery of iniquity, the sinfulness of it, is nothing so evident and notorious as that every true repentant soul doth at first discern the filthiness of it: and therefore as those three thousand Jews and Proselytes were admitted into the fellowship of the first Christian Church, when they repented of their murder of Christ, although they never saw nor confessed all the superstitious leavenings wherewith the Pharisees had bewitched them, Act. 2. 37 to 47. so doubtless may such godly persons be admitted into the fellowship of our Churches, who do truly repent and confess their greatest and most notorious sins, although they be not yet convinced of every passage of Antichristian superstition, wherewith they have been defiled in their former walkings.

The Disciples of John (whom you instance in) did indeed confess their sins, the Publicans their sins, the Soldiers theirs, the People theirs, but yet it doth not appear that they confessed their Pharisaical pollutions, but rather the notorious sins, incident to their callings, as did also those Gentiles of whom you speak, Act. 19.18, 19. Conjurers confessed their curious Arts, and others their deeds, but whether all their deeds, is not expressed.

Answ. 3. But to satisfy you more fully (and the Lord make you willing in true meekness of Spirit to receive satisfaction) the body of the members whom we receive, do in general profess, the reason of their coming over to us was, that they might be freed from the bondage of such human inventions and ordinances as their souls groaned under, for which also they profess their hearty sorrow, so far as through ignorance or infirmity they have been defiled. Besides, in our daily meetings, and especially in times of our solemn humiliations, we generally all of us bewail all our former pollutions, wherewith we have defiled ourselves, and the holy things of God, in our former Administrations and Communions, but we rather choose to do it, than to talk of it, and we cannot but wonder how you can so boldly and resolutely renounce the Churches of Christ, for neglect of that, which you know not whether they have neglected or no, and before you have admonished us of our sinfulness in such neglect, if it be found amongst us.

Object. 3.

Answ. Now surely if yourself had hearkened to your own desire, and had thoroughly weighed the Scripture, and had suffered the Lord to have held the scales himself, you would never have alleged this place to your purpose. Your purpose was to prove that Churches cannot be constituted by such persons as are unclean by antichristian pollutions, or if they be so constituted, they are not to be communicated with, but separated from: To prove this you allege this place; when the Prophet acknowledgeth the whole Church of the Jews to be unclean, and yet neither denieth them to be a Church truly constituted, nor stirreth up himself or others to separate from them.

If you say, why but they were unclean? I Answer, be it so, but were they therefore no Church truly constituted, or to be separated from? yea did not Haggai and Zacharias themselves communicate with them, and call others also to come out of Babel to communicate with them, even whilst Joshua the High Priest was still polluted with his unclean garments Zac. 2.6, 7. with 6.3.8.3. But if indeed you desire to know, what upon due weighing of the place, I conceive to be the meaning of it, you shall find it to be this; The occasion of the words arise from a worldly distemper, which the time grew upon, all sorts of the members of that Church, who were so far carried away with care of their own outward accommodations, that while every man looked to his own house, and the seiling of it, the Temple of the Lord and the building thereof was generally neglected of them all, Prince, Priest, and People, whence it was that God neither delighted in their spiritual services, nor in their bodily labors, but left them without a blessing in both, Hagg. 1.6. to 11. Now to clear the justice of God's proceeding against them in that case, he alledgeth a secondable law for it, out of Moses; The former is written in Levite. 6.27. where the Law saith, that a garment touching any holy flesh of the sin offering should be holy. But if the garment which toucheth holy flesh shall touch other things, as the person that weareth it, or any pottage, or Bread, or wine, or any touch of other common thing, the thing touched is not thereby hallowed by the touch of such a garment.

Again, there was another Law, that whosoever touched any unclean body, should be unclean seven days, and if in that time he touched the Tabernacle, or the holy things thereof, they shall be unclean, Numb. 19.13. Now (to apply these Laws to the scope of the Prophet) the touch of a dead body did type out either fellowship with dead works, as Ephes. 5.11. or dead persons, 2 Cor. 6.14, 15, 16, 17. or dead world, Gal. 6.14. but of these three, it was the dead world wherewith Priest and Prince and all the people were at that time generally defiled, in that they took more care and pains for worldly conveniences, then for the Lord's holy Ordinances. Whereupon according to the answer of the Priest, agreeable to the Law, the Prophet pronounceth them, in the sight of the Lord, all to be unclean.

From both these Laws, and the Interpretation of them by the Priest, and the application of them by the Prophet, it appeareth that there were two sorts of these people, and both unclean. Some that did not touch the holy flesh, or offerings, but on the outside of their garments only, to wit, in bodily presence (and the body is but the garment of the Soul) 1 Cor. 5.4. and such were all the Hypocrites amongst them: Others were sincere, as worshipping God in firm Truth, as Zorobabell, Jehoshua, and many more, but yet now defiled with touching a dead body, that is, with laying hold on a dead world, their worldly accommodations, which made their hearts and hands slow or dead to set forward the Temple work, and in this condition both sorts, their persons, their oblations, their bodily labors, were all unclean, and found neither acceptance nor blessing from the Lord, till the Lord stirred up the Spirits of them all to address themselves more seriously to the Temple work, Hag. 1.12, 13, 14.

This I take to be the true and genuine meaning of the place, which if you apply to the point in hand, will reach nothing near to your purpose. Hypocrites in the Church, and godly Christians themselves, whilst they attend to the world more then to the things of God, their persons, their labors, their civil oblations are all unclean in the sight of God; therefore the Church of Christ cannot be constituted of such, or if it do consist of such, the people of God must separate from them. You might well have gathered, therefore, the Church of Christ and the members thereof must separate themselves from their hypocrisy, and inordinate love of this world, or else they and their duties will still be unclean in the sight of God, notwithstanding their Church estate. This collection tendeth to edification, the other to dissipation and destruction of the Church, and of them that wrest blood instead of milk from the breasts of holy Scripture.

Answ. 1. Instead of halting betwixt Christ and Antichrist, we conceive the Lord hath guided us to walk with an even foot between two extremes; so that we neither defile ourselves with the remnant of pollutions in other Churches, nor do we for the remnant of pollutions renounce the Churches themselves, nor the holy ordinances of God amongst them, which ourselves have found powerful to our salvation. This moderation, so far as we have kept it in preaching or printing, we see no cause to repent of, but if you show us cause why we should repent of it, we shall desire to repent that we repented no sooner.

2. I know no man that reproacheth Salem for their separation, nor do I believe that they do separate. Howsoever if any do reproach them for it, I think it a sin meet to be censured, but not with so deep a censure as to excommunicate all the Churches, or to separate from them before it do appear that they do tolerate their members in such their causeless reproachings. We confess the errors of men are to be contended against, not with reproaches, but the sword of the Spirit; but on the other side, the failings of the Churches (if any be found) are not forth with to be healed by separation. It is not Chirurgery, but Butchery, to heal every sore in a member with no other medicine but abscission from the body.

3. For myself, I acknowledge the words which you mention, that the way of separation is not a way that God hath prospered. But you much mistake, when you think I speak it for want of their outward countenance, peace and liberty. The truth is, they find more favor in our native country then the way of reformation wherein we walk, which is commonly reproached by the name of Puritanism. The meetings of the Separatists may be known to the Officers in the Courts and winked at when the Conventicles of the puritans (as they call them) shall be hunted out with all diligence, and pursued with more violence then any law will justify. But I said that God had not prospered the way of separation, because he hath not blessed it either with peace amongst themselves, or with growth of grace; such as erring through simplicity and tenderness of conscience have grown in grace, have grown also to discern their lawful liberty to return to the hearing of the word from English Preachers.

Object. But this (you fear) is to condemn the witnesses of Jesus (the separate Churches in London and elsewhere) and our jealous God will visit us for such arrearages, yea the curse of his Angel from Meroz will fall upon us, because we come not forth to help Jehovah against the mighty, we pray not for them, we come not at them, (but at Parishes frequently) yea we reproach and censure them.

Answ. The Lord Jesus never delivered that way of separation to which they bear witness, nor any of his Apostles after him, nor of his Prophets before him. So far as in that way they hold or practice any holy truths, we bear witness to them both in our profession and practice. The Angels curse in this case (we bless God) we do not fear, because we do come forth (according to the measure of grace given us) to help the Lord against the mighty, although we do not come forth to help them against Jehovah. It is not to help Jehovah, but Satan against him, to withdraw the people of God from hearing the voice of Christ which is preached in the evidence, and simplicity, and power of his Spirit in sundry Congregations (though they be Parishes) in our native Country. In which respect, though our people that go over into England, choose rather to hear in some of the Parishes where the voice of Christ is lifted up like a trumpet, then in the separated Churches (where some of us may speak by experience we have not found the like presence of Christ, or evidence of his Spirit) do not you marvel, or stumble at it: Christ's sheep hear his voice. If any carelessly hear at random, making no difference betwixt the voice of Christ and the voice of strangers, or if they shall stoop to any defilements of themselves, that so they may hear a good Preacher; as I know none such, so neither do any of us approve them in so doing.

That we do not pray for the separate Churches by name, it is because we cannot pray in faith for a blessing upon their separation, which we see not to be of God nor to be led to him. If any reproach them, I will not go about to excuse it, only they may do well to consider, whether they also have not reproached others.

If there be so many separate Churches in London and in other parts of the Kingdom (as you write) it is little comfort to the true servants of Christ to hear that either such inventions of men are multiplied, as like stumbling blocks do turn any well minded men out of the way, or that such men being desirous of reformation, should stumble, not only at the inventions of men, but for their sakes at the ordinances of the Lord; which appeareth the more evidently, because they separate not only from hearing the word in all the Parishes, but also from fellowship (as yourself say) both of the Church of Plymouth, and of that whereof Master Lathorpe was Pastor, and yet they refuse all the inventions of men, and choose to serve the Lord in his own Ordinances only. Now truly Sir, (to use your own words) I fear this news pleaseth not the Lord Jesus, and therefore the more inwardly sorry I am, that it pleaseth you rather to return to them, not to help the Lord against the mighty, to wit, either against the high Prelates, or against the inventions of men, as you suppose, for that you might have done here, or in Plymouth, or in Master Lathorpes Congregation; but to help erring though zealous souls against the mighty Ordinances of the Lord, which whosoever stumble at shall be broken; for whosoever will not kiss the Sun, (that is, will not hear and embrace the words of his mouth) shall perish in their way, Psal. 2.12.