REFORMATION NOT SEPARATION: OR, Mr. CROFTON'S Plea for Communion with the CHURCH, under those Corruptions, and by that disorderly Ministration to which he cannot Conform, nor by it Administer.  
IN A LETTER, Written JULY 20. 1661.  
In, and from the TOWER of LONDON, to R. S. To satisfy the Weak, and silence the Wicked, who insulted in, or were offended at his endeavoured (and clamorously reported as obtained) attendance on God's PUBLIC WORSHIP in that Place, during his Confinement.  
NOW PUBLISHED, To silence Censures and Calumnies, satisfy such who would walk uprightly in this hour of Temptation.  
By the said R. S. to whom it was written.  
Unto which, is added the Copy of another LETTER, Written on the same Occasion and Subject.  
Printed in the YEAR, M.DC.LXII.   

TO THE READER.  
READER,  
IT is more than a Year, since it was clamoured, Mr. CROFTON goeth to the Church, and heareth Common-Prayer in the Tower of LONDON: Whereupon he was not little Censured by some, whose Profession of Religion, and Relation to him, required much more Charity.  
Mr. CROFTON did then write unto me this ensuing LETTER, with Advice to Communicate the same, for the Satisfaction of the Weak, who stumbled (to their own wounding) and Silencing of the Wicked, who insulted, to the Grief of him and God's Church.  
In Observation of this Instruction, I did (to save the labour of the Pen, and make this Paper more profitable to the Church) put it into the Press; where some good Friends did seize, and for present stisle it; choosing rather to Communicate the written Copy as they could.  
This Copy was imparted to many Christian Friends and Ministers, who seemed to be in this matter otherwise persuaded; in special, Those of the Congregational way, who seemed most concerned in the same; these were all requested to Correct Mr. CROFTON'S Error, and Rectify his Judgement; but none would, or did undertake the work, though assured he had an hearing Ear: Horresco referens; though he hath been most bitterly Censured, he never received any, the least Admonition concerning this matter, one excepted; a Copy whereof, with his Answer thereunto, being come to my hands, I have presumed to annex unto this LETTER.  
I presume (without Mr. CROFTON'S knowledge)  
First, To make these Papers public, to evidence the little Cause men have to represent Mr. CROFTON'S Nonconforming Communion, to be a Defection from the Cause of Reformation, and Result of his Temptation.  
Secondly, To let men see on what Grounds Mr. CROFTON hath satisfied himself in his solitary Estate, when he could neither Confer with Men and Books; that so if they appear weak, some serious man, may by word or letter (whilst the Press will not be allowed to speak) help him to Conviction; I cannot but determine it unchristian, to condemn without Fraternal Correption, or an Essay for Conviction; those Censures do reflect with Violence on the Censurers, which are retorted with a what doth your arguing reprove?  
Thirdly, To help others to discover that Point of Piety which is proper for their places and capacities, under the present Providences of God in, and towards his Church in these Nations.  
What lately was Mr. CROFTON'S Case, is now our own; we must either withdraw from the Prayers and Public Worship of God in this Church, or attend it by this disguised Ministerial Mode and Order; and with Grief I speak it, we are in the dark, and we are left in the dark, our Prophets are gone, who should tell us, and before their going have not told us, how in this Case Christianity doth require us to carry: Some general Cautions we indeed received in their last Counsels, but no clear Directions in reference to the special Case and Condition into which we are resolved: I well know, most Presbyterian Divines to be in Judgement the same with Mr. CROFTON; but their Prudence doth prohibit the Publication thereof to us, or at least in a particular Specification of our present Condition.  
I will not say, Mr. CROFTON by his Act or Apology, appeareth any very wise Pilate, I leave those to whom it doth belong, to judge his skill in the Compass; but I cannot but say, he seemeth to be most Simply Faithful, in fufilling his Ministry, proposing himself a pattern, and persuading his friends and people to walk in the Exactness of Truth against all Extremes, though his worldly and carnal Interest lieth on either hand, and might easily induce him to advance, or at least by his silence to abett the same. I cannot but observe this is not the first time Mr. CROFTON hath divided from the Policies of them who could not disown his Principles, or Scripturally determine against his Practice: And truly I wish men may consider, whether the Serpent do not outstretch and overreach the Dove, in those Policies which make Religion (unto its reproach) a matter of Faction; and study to save, and recover Reformation, by the appearance of a Bulky Party, for Separation? I cannot but let thee know, I am thus far clear of Mr. CROFTON'S mind, Unwarrantable Non-communion may not be allowed, no not for a day, though to saving Reformation; for we may not do Evil, that Good may come thereof; and I cannot be persuaded, I am disbanded from Christ's Army, so soon as I am superseded to my Conduct; I must march under his Banner, when I may not be permitted to march at the Head of a Company: And sure I am, it is more easy to fall into either Extreme, than to walk between both uprightly, according to the Truth of the Gospel.  
Reader; I will stay thee no longer, only know, That this Season of Publication of this LETTER, is by me chosen, or rather constrained by the over-prudent Supersedeas before mentioned, and silence our over-general Cautions of our pious Ministers in this Case, and hour of Temptation which is come upon us.  
If any Minister be hereby provoked to beat out the Truth, which must guide the Church's Practice: If any Christian do hereby receive Direction to dispel his Doubts, and steer his Conversation: Or if any rashly censorious Saint be hereby convinced of their uncharitable, unchristian Censures, and bitter words; by which they have wounded themselves, and grieved him whom God hath smitten, be hereby convinced of their fault, so as to give Glory to God, and with Jobs Comforters, confess their Guilts, I have obtained mine End, and hope it shall not much displease my Pastor, on whom, I confess, I have herein too much presumed.  
I am thine in Union with the Church, And Simplicity of the Gospel. R. S. Sept. 1. 1662.   

REFORMATION no SEPARATION: OR, Zachary Croftons' Plea for Communion with the Church of England. In a Letter to a Christian Friend.  
Christian Friend,  
COnsidering we live in an Age exceeding scrupulous, and the actions of a Prisoner are subject to Observation and Censure, without the least enquiry into the reasons, end and inducements thereof: And well knowing my unhappy self to be a man much mistaken and misrepresented; obnoxious to, and afflicted with the groundless calumnies of the wicked, and censures of the weak: And being deeply sensible of the sad doom denounced against such as administer Offence to any of Christ's little ones; 
Mat 18.6.  and the great damage and danger of a groundless offence, choking the joy, and curbing the duty of such as take it. 〈◊〉 (who have for more than six months been buried alive) do conceive a duty and necessity incumbent upon me, to appear, and (by such utensils as a close and severe imprisonment will afford) to speak for myself, in the cause of God and his Church (charged on my weak hands) in reference to an act, which Conscience doth constrain me to pursue; and (or obtained liberty) to attend. In which I discern some ready to insult, whilst others soon scandalised, beyond what the nature thereof may occasion, to the one or the other; for God (whom I serve in the Spirit) is my witness, I would give no offence, neither to the Jew, nor to the Greek, nor to the Church of God.  
The case is this:  
SIr John Robinson, the Lieutenant of the Tower, did of his own accord (not at that time, though often before, moved to it by or from me) on Friday the thirteenth instant, send me word by my Keeper, That I should have liberty to go to Church, and enjoy the Solemn Assembly, and Public Worship of God, celebrated within this place (the which on second thoughts he hath remanded;) in the use hereof, I must of necessity attend that Order of Administration, against which I have publicly witnessed, as that which is Corrupt and Superstitious; yet conscience of duty doth compel me to receive and use this liberty (when I can obtain it) as a mercy from God, and favour from men, the which I have often prayed for and desired. Hereupon I apprehend a clamour is sent abroad, that Mr. Crofton is present at, and attends unto the reading of the Service-Book; in which some boast beyond measure, as having gained a Proselyte; whilst others stumble, as if I started from the truth and work of Reformation, and testimony which (through God's grace) I have given thereunto.  
My good Friend, you must know, this clamour is (as to the fact) as yet false, the liberty being not yet obtained, but I confined to my Solitary Sabbaths,; wherein I hope, I can profess, I am not alone, because the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ is with me: But indeed I must confess it true in (the fieri) my desire, intention and endeavour to procure this liberty, so soon as I can, and my resolution to attend those corrupt Administrations, and this disorderly service of God, until God please to bring me forth, and make me drink the waters of his Sanctuary in purer Vessels; and I cannot but protest, that the one or the other, insulting, or offended at my so doing, may grieve me, and wound their own souls, but cannot say they know me, who was ever satisfied (and so declared myself in my public Ministry) as to this point; or that I administer any cause for such insultation or offence: Yet to the end God's dishonour, Religion's disgrace, their own danger by this their sin, may (if possible) be prevented, I thought it my duty to signify to you, and require you (as you have opportunity) to communicate to others, these following considerations, as Apologetical reasons, for what I am convinced, is not only lawful, but a positive duty, not without sin to be omitted, though the critisim of our times, and my special case, may require an Apology for the same.  
My long, close, 
Consid. 1. Deliberate thoughts, not distress of condition provoke it.  and severe durance (much beyond any other Prisoner in this place) or any carnal, self, politic Principle, hath not been the impulsive cause of my desire, or use of this liberty, but (as in my other acts, subjected to the censure of men) pure conscience of duty towards God and my own soul, and the preponderate dictates of my judgement (I hope in some measure also to discern duty in difficult times and conditions) in sense whereof, I desired this liberty the f●rst day I was committed to this place, and many times since; and have often complained of it to God, and such men as came near me, as a defect in the Government of this His Majesty's chiefest Prison in England, that care is not taken, nor liberty allowed, for Christian Prisoners to attend upon the public Worship, and preaching of the Word of God: I have in this respect often preferred the Compters, or Newgate (more base and despicable in vulgar account) before the Tower of London. It cannot I think be soberly (I am sure not charitably) denied, that Christian Prisoners, aught to have Christian liberty and accommodation, in a Christian Kingdom. It is supposed, a Prisoner bringeth with him into this place, some horrid crime, and notorious guilt, by reason whereof there is conceived but little between the Prison and death; therefore the hand of Justice which punisheth the offence, aught in Christian pity to seek the salvation of the soul, and (if possible) prevent the Malefactor from dying in, if he must die for his sin. I have often thought, that if the Heathen indulged Paul a liberty to Preach in Prison, Christians might and ought much more allow a Preacher liberty to hear the Word preached in Prison. I hope it will be no offence to mind this Age, that amongst other evils reflected (by such as risen up against him) on the Government of King Charles the first, his late Majesty of honourable memory, this was one, 
Exact Collections, p. 6.  and not the least, Men were detained close Prisoners, without the liberty of using Books, pen, ink, or paper, denying them all the comforts of life, not permitting their wives to come to them; and for the completing of that cruelty, depriving them of the necessary means of Spiritual consolation, not suffering them to go abroad, to enjoy God's Ordinances in God's House, or God's Ministers to come to them, to administer comfort to them in their Chambers. Let none therefore dare to censure this act as the result of a distressed condition, or base compliance by constraint of Prison, against the persuasions of Conscience.  

Consid. 2: Solemn public Worship positive duty.  Communion with the Church visible, in all acts of solemn public Worship, is an essential part of the Sanctification of the Sabbath, or Lords day, and positive, indispensable duty of every particular soul called by the name of God; to be only Superseded by a real, inevitable necessity, with assurance to any, that God will have mercy, and not Sacrifice. This cannot be denied by any, who observe God hath denominated the Sabbath an holy Convocation. 
Levit. 23.  Synagogues were on this ground erected and frequented, in all the Cities of Judah; that the Lord Christ, 
Luke 4 16. Acts 13 13, 14. & 17.2.  fulfilling all righteousness, and his Apostles in conscience of duty, made it their custom to go to the Synagogue every Sabbath day; that the Apostles and primitive Christians, from the very Ascension of Christ, 
John 20.19, 26. 1 Cor. 16.2.  held solemn Assemblies on the Lord's day, the first day of the Week, and charged the Saints of their age, and in them all others, not to forsake the Assembling of themselves together, 
Heb. 10.25.  taxing the defect of some therein, as the manner of some is.  
As Solitary Sabbaths are in themselves, so (God knoweth) they have been, and are to me, the sting of an imprisoned condition: I hope I can say, without vanity, as David in his exile, 
Psa 42.1, 2, 3.  As the Hart panteth for the water Brooks, so panteth my soul after thee, O God: My soul thirsteth for the living God; When shall I come and appear before God? when I remember these things, I pour out my soul in me, for I have gone with the multitude: I went with them to the House of God, with the voice of joy and gladness, with the multitude that kept the holy day. I deny not God to be served, and enjoyed in Solitary Worship, 
Psal. 84.7.  but must needs observe, in Zion the Saints pass from strength to strength, every one appearing before God. Solemn public Worship is God's chief Ordinance, for the support of his people's faith; this is denominated, the Beauty of God's Holiness: 
Psal. 27.4. & 96.9. and 110.3.  To this his presence and power is promised, and in it chief predicated; attendance on this, is charged as his people's duty, and discharged as their joy: The want of this is the Sacra fames, Spiritual famine, 
Amos 8 11.  under want of which David's faith was ready to faint, had it not been prevented by a speedy and seasonable supply: When I sought to know this, it was too painful for me, until I went into the Sanctuary, than understood I their end, Psal. 73.16, 17. This therefore is not to be slighted, or neglected, or superficially desired, or used; but most highly prized, earnestly desired, and joyfully embraced, and not voluntarily declined on every light occasion, and trivial exception, or friendly persuasion; but the grounds must be plain, clear, certain, and weighty, such as I may with confidence plead unto my God, as the apology of my absence of choice, not constraint, in which I expect God should have mercy on me, because and for that he cannot have Sacrifice from me, which can be nothing but the restraining necessity of my condition, or my running into sin to possess it.  
My good Friend, you see my case is hard; and what now is my case, may ere long be yours, and others of God's people: You yet enjoy a liberty of worshipping God, in due and right order, and may drink the Waters of the Sanctuary in clean Vessels; long may you enjoy it, and if God take pleasure in me, he will in due time restore me to it; but if not, let him do what seemeth him good At the present I have no choice; if I will attend Gods public Solemn Worship, I must do it in this place, and order, or not at all; whilst I dread to give the least occasion of insultation to the wicked, or offence to the weak, my conscience is under the apprehension and awe of a positive indispensible duty, which I dare not decline, unless on reasons constituting a clear and unavoidable necessity: my present restraint doth indeed acquit me, and carry the guilt (of my absence from God's House) from off me to others, I duly endeavouring, by all just means, to have the same removed; which once effected, what moral bar will lie upon my mind, and in my way, as a formal sin, which I cannot without guilt break thorough? that is the question I have desired seriously to consult, and by Scripture to resolve: And on mature thoughts I must profess I find not any, which will bear weight in the balance of the Sanctuary, as that which I shall dare to produce before the Lord, when demanded a reason of my voluntary absence; on which he may not pronounce, He was bidden to the feast, but would not come, and therefore is not worthy, and hereafter shall not: For I must profess;  
First, I never did, could, or yet can deny, 
1. The Church of England a true Church and I a member.  the being of the Church of England (that is, the community of Christians in this Nation, incorporated by Baptism, professing the true God and Jesus Christ, and subjected to the Word and Sacraments, in the Ministry of Christ's lawful Ministers (for I never believed any National Privilege, such as was peculiar to the Jews, or the Hierarchical Order, and collective Constitution (which cannot be denied to be a mere humane and separable adjunct, and is neither an equal, nor regular Representation) could or did give that appellation) nor disown my own relation to it; and must therefore see some good ground for my non-communion with it, and for my choice of Solitary Worship of God, rather than fellowship in its Solemn public Worship, where and whilst God affords his presence, though with a grieved, striving spirit, I dare not be absent, though thereby I might avoid some burden.  
It is well known, I am not unacquainted with the Church renouncing, rending, ruining principles of the Anabaptists, and old separating Brownists, nor with the Paganizing practice of the (seemingly more sober and serious) Independent, or Congregationalist; who sometimes indeed pretend to own the being of this Church, but (by their Church-gathering, Self-Constitution, dispencing Ordinances by their self-consecration; professed principle, that in England there is much matter for, but not the form of a Church, and so no Church at all, for forma dat essentiam; and with the height of confidence (to say no more of it) proclaiming themselves the gathered Churches, contradistinct to the Nation, and all Christians in it (as if they only were the first fruits of Achaia, I mean England, an infidel Nation, who had never received the Gospel, or Christ had not been preached among them, and professed by them, nor any of her Inhabitants had been incorporated by Baptism, into Christ's Catholic Body, but were to this day aliens and strangers to the Household of Faith, and Commonwealth of Israel) do plainly declare so to all rational men (able and willing to discern) that the being of a Church in England is by them disputed, yea, denied: But these I never did, nor could approve, and therefore I must presume, none that ever knew me, and my constant contests, by preaching, writing, and suffering under and against them, can conceive this to be now any scruple to my conscience, doubt to my soul, demur to my duty, or diversion to my Communion with them, whose being a Church of Christ, I have ever, and openly asserted and defended, and to whom I have ever professed my own relation.  

Profane members destroy not the Church.  That these men urge, That many members in the Church of England, are rude and profane in their Conversation, with their mouths confessing, but in works denying God, and are not therefore fit matter for a Church, I do well know, and to my grief and shame do know to be true, and visible, but to my comfort do know to be an Objection of no weight; for our question is, concerning Communion with, not the Constitution of a Church: That such matter should not at first Constitution have been taken in, and having grown up, aught to have been cut off, and cast out, I can and do yield, and consent; but that the disorder, defection and profaneness of the members, or what is more, the Angels and Ministers, hath resolved the Church into a nonentity, and necessitated non-communion, (save in a new Constitution and Church gathering) I cannot believe, because I find nothing more plainer in Nature, then for a degenerate Vine, to retain the name and nature of a Vine, when it bringeth forth little save sour Grapes; 
Mat. 3.9.  nor is any thing more clearer in Scripture, then for the children of the Devil, 
Matth 3 9 John 8.44.  to have Abrahaem to their father, and be the children of God, and Covenant of Graco, by visible administration: or for disorderly Christians in Corinth, to be called, and owned as Saints and Believers, a man covetous, a fornicator, and adulterer, an idolater, 
1 Cor. 5.11. Rev. 3.1.  a drunkard, to be called a brother; Sardis having a name to live, but being dead, is declared one of the golden Candlesticks, among which Christ walketh; and when Paul wrote to Titus, the Christians in Crete were abominable, disobedient, and to every good work reprobate, Titus 1, 13, 16. yet was Titus charged to rebuke them sharply, not to disown them, or decline communion with them, or to gather the fit matter, and orderly Christians among them into a new Church form; nor are any among them advised, or directed so to do; a Ram, and a Goat cannot be denied to be of Christ's flock on earth, though they may be turned on his left hand, at the day of judgement; Correction, and casting out is the privilege of a Church member; and supposeth its capacity in their object, though an incestuous person: the profaneness of the members of this Church may and must provoke my brotherly admonition, ministerial reprehension, and the Church's Censures against them, but will never warrant my non-communion with them, or voluntary absence from God's solemn public worship celebrated among them; because it doth not ipso facto, by any due order, or divine direction; discharge their relation to Christ's Catholic visible body, so long as God knoweth them as his Spouse, and people, (though deserving) having not received from him a Bill of Divorce; I may be burdened to see their lewdness and lightness, but must not forsake the Bride-chamber, nor his worship therein celebrated: without all doubt, the capacity of those within the Church (though disorderly, and as such to be judged) is vastly different from Turks, Jews, and Pagans, and those without the Church; who refuse to profess the true God, and Christ, or obedience to them; the one being subjected to God's special pastoral, paternal care; in the case of their very disorder and aberrations; whilst the other only enjoy Gods common providence as do other creatures, the works of his hands.  
What hath been urged to nullify this Church from (what this kind of men will needs suppose to be) the form thereof, 
Parochial distribution convenient and good.  viz. that they are by Parochial constitution, and Christ never ordained Parishes, hath been often, and abundantly answered, by many, and among others, I have already fully spoken to it in my Bethshemish clouded, and shall therefore now only say, Parochial distribution is no constitution, nor any essential form of the Church; so as that bare simple habitation within such bounds, should ipso facto, without further capacity, or qualification make men Church members; or their removal, or nonresidence within this or that Parish, (as do Merchants and Mariners) should discharge their relation to the Church: but it is a Political order, and convenient distribution of the Church Catholic visible; to particular Assemblies; for the due and more easy Celebration of God's public worship; the Lord Jesus founded his Church Catholic, and universal, into which Baptism is the Ordinance of Catholic incision, and imitation; and excommunication is the Ordinance of Catholic excision, and discharge; but nature, and the necessity of order doth divide it into particular Assemblies, according to humane discretion: and no order can more conveniently circumscribe particular societies of the Church, than vicinity, and cohabitation; This the holy Ghost doth plainly digitate, by denominating the first plants of Christianity, 
Rome, Corinth, Galatia, Ephesus, and the like.  by the places where they were planted, not by the first planters, or after Pastors: blaming it as a Schism in the Church, to say, I am of Paul, I of Apollo, and I of Cephas; and indeed this distribution doth much facilitate the inspection of the Pastor, or brethren, beyond what the Covenant constitution of Congregationalists is capable of; whereby some living in York are members of a Church in London. Parochial Division then being the benefit of the Church, and members thereof in Christian Cities, Countries, and Nations, it is so far from blame and avoidance, that it is to be commended, and approved by men of prudence, and order, and can never necessitate, or warrant any man's non-communion with the Christian Assemblies thus distributed, and conveniently assembled.  
Unto such as stumble themselves, and would have others so to do, at Communion with the Church of England, because they do not know that it was rightly gathered, 
England's Church was rightly constituted at the first.  and constituted at the first; I shall briefly say, History, (the best evidence of an ancient Act,) doth assure us that the Gospel was first preached, and Christianity was first planted in our Islands by the Apostles, or Apostolical men, which (no doubt) did with all care, rightly lay here the right foundation of God's Church, and if we may (as in cases of this nature, we must) judge (a posterior) the certainty of the root, by the extent, and quality of the branches; the foundation by the Dimensions and duration of the Fabric; can any man reading the English Stories of the eminent Martyrs of Christianity found in this Church, in all ages, since the times of the Apostles unto this day, and not conclude the Church was at first rightly planted, and founded? these men shall do well to resolve the old question ever put by the Non-conformists to the Brownists (these men's progenitors) if they be begotten to God, in what Church, and by what Ordinances were they converted? was it not the Church of England? we (whom they to serve their design, will own as Saints, and declare fit matter for a Church.) must profess ourselves sprouts from this plant; their Charity is not sure so irrational, as to believe men may gather Gr●pes of Thorns, or Figgs of Thistles, for if so, their gathering Churches will be found needless, whilst Saints grow in Infidel soils, and God's house existeth without the laying any foundation.  
These men shall do well to consider, 
Knowledge of a Church it first constitution not necessary.  whether the knowledge of the mode and order of first planting and gathering the Church, be necessary to every member related to it. In England we find societies professing the true God, and Christ; baptised into his name, worshipping him by his own Ordinances; this is the form of a Church; and doth suppose and imply a Root and Foundation, by which it is animated and preserved; But must we needs know how it was at the first laid, or planted? though by length of time it is worn out of sight, and overgrown with earth and weeds? are we bound to renounce the Vine, and run out of the house, unless we pluck up the root, and raze the foundation to satisfy ourselves herein? if so, God help the illiterate souls, and weak capacities not capable to conceive, or well understand the same; is Christ's Church planted for an age only? that every succeeding generation must transplant? gathering of Churches did indeed begin the Acts of the Apostles; must it needs be continued to the end of the Revelation? to the coming of the Lord to judgement? I find not Paul in his joining himself to the Church, nor Priscilla and Aquila in their travels, and communion with different Churches, make any demur on this enquiry; and I dare not think the holy Ghost would have concealed from us a point of so great importance.  
My good friend; upon the whole of this Objection, I must let you know that my serious and deliberate thoughts do descent from the Conclusions concerning the matter and form of a Church, stated by the self-consecrated Officers of the hundred and twenty self-constituted gathered Churches, which of late years met at the Savoy: but assent unto the determination of Mr. Cotton in his advice to the brethren of old England at the close of his way of the Churches in New-England, (viz.) The work is not to make them Churches, which were none before; (for the Gospel having been preached in England by Apostles, or Apostolical men, they were without doubt rightly planted) but to reduce them to the Primitive purity they had in their first constitution.  
And (here my friend,) I must desire the Independents will not be offended, that I propose them as the present prime promoters of the nonentity of the Church of England, by way of bar to Communion with her, and a principle of separation from her: for that (notwithstanding their contrary professions of what they cannot soberly, charitably, and rationally deny) their common suggestion in England, is fit matter, but not the form, (which is the esse) of the Church; their Savoy conclusions, and paganizing Church-gathering practice, do loudly proclaim them the offspring of the Brownists, and posterity of the rigid Separatists, ever withstood by the sober, and serious Non-Conformists, since England's Reformation: and in this point the summum genus, of those several, specifical, self-constituted Sects, which have confounded our Church; the odium of whose Schism from it, defended by Rebellion, Schism, and horrid Treason is at this day most sadly (though falsely) reflected on the most loyal, sober, serious, reforming, nonconforming Presbyterians; to the weakening their hands, and retarding, yea diverting their progress in an humble, argumentative, and patiented pursuit of Christ's Ordinances, and due authority of Christ's Officers, to be restored, and exercised in the Church of England; by me ever owned, and now lamented, but not to be deserted.  
Such as fancy the Church of England was lost in the deluge of Popery and Antichristianism, 
England's Church lost not its being in Popery.  may by their own observation correct the same; and be constrained to confess, there is in this respect no more cause of stumble as to the entity of this Church, than was as to the being of the Jews, when overspread with Idolatry, in their many defections from God; for in England's worst times they may find a persecuted Elias, a John Wickliff, with many other most eminent branches, bringing forth the Clusters of Gospel Grapes, to the bleeding out their very lives, besides Obadiah's fifties hidden in Caves, by the violence of persecution; certainly the Root must abide, or how, or whence could these branches spring? Yea, the winter storms of Popery passing away, and the floods of Antichristianism assuaging, though not dried up, and the chief weeds of superstition being plucked up, though some remain; how hath this Church revived, flourished, and sent out many most eminent and pious branches, without any new plantation? Yea, conveyed unto themselves (who question her being) the truth of Grace, and Faith in Christ Jesus, if ever they received it? I bless God I have learned to discern between the subject, and its separable adjuncts though never so vile, and do believe the Church to be Christ's Church, though vitiated and defiled with Idolatrous administrations; all, nor indeed any defection is an actual divorce; if adulterous Judah, 
Jet. 3.  on a summons to repentance, do return, and put away her abominations, she loseth not her relation to God; nor doth the high places continued under his reformation, make God or his people to forsake her; the Temple of God abides his, when given to be trodden under the feet of the Gentiles: yea, when the Antichrist the man of sin, sitteth therein; this notion may possibly sound better to some ears from New-England, than from the Tower of London; let it therefore be thence received; If Antichrist must sit in the Temple of God, and the Courts of the Temple be given to the Antichristiaen Gentiles for a certain time to tread under foot, than there was a true Church state where he sat, and whilst he sat there, and it was the true measured Temple, whose Courts he did tread under foe t, nor can there be Antichrist, unless there be the Temple of God and Courts thereof, where he is; and if ever Antichrist sat in England, then there was the Temple of God there; before he sat in it, and whilst he sat in it, as was also in other reformed Churches, the Temple or Church is the subject wherein he must sit; the Antichristian seat is not the subject, nor constituteth it, but is an accident vitiating the subject, and separable from it; the removing therefore of Antichristianity, doth not destroy the subject, or make it cease to be; but changeth it into the better state, in which it was before thus accidentally vitiated: this is the assertion of Mr. Phillip's of Water-town in New England.  
England was Christ's Church before the Antichristian deluge, under the power of Popery; and since it was purged out, and so she at this day (notwithstanding her backsliding) doth abide; God provoked hath not yet removed his Candlestick, or given her a bill of divorce, as he justly may, and I fear yet will, if I then deny Communion with such of her assemblies, I have a liberty to attend and frequent, and make my appeal to God on the account of her nonentity; with a Lord she was not, or I know her not to be the Church and Spouse, my heart would condemn me in the guilt of a notorious lie, groundless, and uncharitable Censure, and so make my wilful solitary devotion, exceeding sad, because exceeding sinful.  
Secondly, I hitherto could not, nor yet can, 
2. England's corruptions no sufficient bar to Communion.  conceive the corruptions of the Church of England to be a sufficient ground, or warrantable bar to my non-Communion with her solemn assemblies in her public worship.  
I do not say that Separation in all Cases is unlawful, 
Separation from the world and Babylon allowed.  I well know Christians are called out of, and separated from the world, in their first accession to the Church of Christ; but this is not our Case, who (do as is before noted) own the Church of England as resolved into that capacity: I know also separation from Babylon the seat of Antichrist is a duty, directed and charged by the Lord, on all his people; and unto this also the Church of England doth profess, 
England's corruptions paralleled with Israel's and others,  and cannot be denied to have attained, and therefore stands distinct from the one, under the Epithet (Reform) as well as from the other by the Appellation (Church): so as t●at I dare not deem England the world, or Babylon, (those objects of a serious, sacred separation, and non-communion) to both which she is found contradistinct.  
That there are in the Church of England (especially in her present relapsed estate) many and gross corruptions, grievous to the Spirit of God and his people, calling for the zealous admonitions, and most faithful rebukes of his Ministers; is alas! too too legible, and apparent, to be denied by any; yet, (when I consult the Scriptures) I cannot but find as great (yea if possible) greater corruptions in those whom God, and his people owned as his Church, and Spouse; and yet separation, or voluntary non-communion, was never practised, advised, or indulged, but the contrary thereunto.  
Will any object unto us the profaneness of the Ministers, 
Profaneness of Ministers & ministration.  rudeness and disorder of the ministration of God's worship, we yield it is too visibly true; but more vile administrators, or irregular administrations cannot be, than were the sons of Eli in their service; who made the people to loathe the offerings of the Lord, and were rebuked, and described by Samuel, in 1 Sam. 2.12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17. Now the sons of Eli were sons of Belial, they knew not the Lord, and the Priest's custom with the people was this, when any man offered Sacrifice, the Priest's servant came while the flesh was in seething, with a fleshhook in his hand, and he struck it into the pan, or kettle, or Cauldron, or pot; all that the fleshhook brought up, the Priest took for himself, so they did in Shilo unto all the Israelites that came thither, also before they burned the far, the Priest's servant came and said to the man that sacrificed, give me flesh for to roast for the Priest, for he will not have sodden flesh of thee, but raw; and if any man said unto them, let them not fail to burn the fat presently, and then take as much as thy soul desireth, than he would answer him, nay, but thou shalt give it me now, and if not, I will take it by force wherefore (by this horrid disorder defended by violence) the sin of the young men was very great before the Lord, for men abhorred the offering of the Lord, and in verse 22. it is reported that Eli's sons lay with the women that assembled at the door of the Tabernacle of the Congregation: O horrid uncleanness, most heaven-daring villainy! yet I find not that any God-fearing-Israelite forsook the Sanctuary, or durst forbear their Sacrifice; nor did Samuel (who reproved, and denounced God's judgement against this profaneness) ever advise, or direct the same: the Scribes and Pharisees in the days of our Saviour, said, but did not; laid heavy burdens on the people, 
Matth. 23.  which themselves would not touch with one of their fingers; they under pretence of long prayers, devoured widows houses, they would neither enter into heaven themselves, nor suffer such as would; yet the Lord himself who reproved them, heard them, and charged his Disciples to hear them, because they sat in Moses seat; Let it be observed and remembered, the Authority may, but the quality of the Minister doth not add to, or abstract from the entity, or efficacy of God's Ordinances, 
1 Cor. 9.27.  he may preach to my salvation, who is himself a castaway.  
Do any object the preaching false doctrine; 
Corruption in Doctrine and Worship.  public reading the Apocryphas as part of God's Word; innovations in worship, polluting Gods Ordinances, or injustice in discipline; I shall neither deny, nor excuse the same: only say as the Apostle Peter to the Church in his days, there were false Prophets among the people, even as there are false Teachers among you; the true Prophets of God in Israel, 
2 Pet. 2.1.  were ordinarily confronted by the false; there wanted not an Hannaniah, to break the Yokes of Jeremiah; nor a proud Pashur to put him in the Stocks, in the Gate of Benjamin, when he only declared God's mind, warned of God's approaching judgements, and withstood the perjurious breach of the Oath of God, which was upon the King, and Kingdom; nor is any thing more plain, than Israel's setting their posts, by God's posts; their Altars by God's Altars; 
Ezek. 8.6.43.8.  setting up in God's house the very Image of Jealousy, insomuch that God's Prophets were ordinarily invective; and vehemently reproving in their Ministry; and indeed extraordinarily raised up to that very end! yet we find (not in all their Calls to Repentance) one Caution against Communion with the Church, or Call unto separation: 
Mark 8.15.7.3.  In the days of our Saviour, the Jews were so corrupt in their doctrine, that he Cautioned his Disciples to beware of the leaven of the Pharisees, they made the Word of God of none effect, by their traditions of the Elders; they enervated the Law by most straight and false interpretations thereof; In worship they innovated, and with great severity imposed, their own Inventions, Pharisaical Rites, and Superstitions: they profaned the Temple, and made God's house a Den of Thiefs; and in their Discipline they made acts of Necessity, Charity and piety, censurable unto a casting out of the Synagogues; against all which the whole Ministry of the Lord Jesus was highly invective, and severely rebuking, yet he neither disowned them as a Church, denied communion with them, all his time on earth; or directed any of his Disciples so to do, so long as God continued his presence and Ordinances to and among them: but on the contrary pleaded for them (as the very fountain of Salvation) in opposition to the Samaritans, You worship you know not what, but we know what we worship, for salvation is of the Jews: he sent his cleansed Lepers to show themselves to the Priests, 
John 4.22.  and offer according to the Law of Moses; confined his Ministry and Apostles to them, till after the veil of the Temple was rend, in token of the expiration of their worship and departure of God; accounting them children, and all others dogs; and charged the Disciples to hear them who sat in Moses seat; under all their God-provoking Church annihilating corruptions, he neither practised or prescribed a non-communion or separation; 
1 John 2.6.  And in all extremes, I desire to make him my pattern, and walk as he walked, who never went astray.  
Do any stumble at the profaneness of the members, and the neglect of corrective discipline, rudeness and irreverence in the use of God's Ordinances, 
Prophadess of members, and disorder in Ministration.  confused method, and the disorder of popular acclamations in public prayer, and other acts of worship; I wish I could say these stones lay not in their way, or that they were in my power to remove them; but I think they run on a much greater Rock, who run out of God's Church, or from solemn public worship because thereof: for the Church at Corinth was greatly corrupt, and provoked the severity of Apostolical reprehension; and that once and again; 
1 Cor. 5.1, 2.10.21.11.20.21.14.26. 2 Cos. 12.20, 21  there being amongst them incest not to be named among the Gentiles, and an heaven-daring ostentation in it, instead of correction of it; a participation with the table of Devils, by their attendance on the Idol-feasts of the Infidels; a rude and deboist drunken Communion at the Lords Supper, intermingled and confounded with the Lovefeasts: intolerable disorder in their public Assembly, all speaking at one and the same moment, their very women not keeping silence; and that in different matters and tongues, every one had his Psalm, his Prayer, his Revelation, his Prophecy, his gift of Tongues, (in all which respects they were more confused than our popular acclamations) and constrained the Apostles to check them, by the nature of God, as a God of order, and not of confusion; in all these the Apostle advised, and endeavoured with all authority a Reformation, but not separation, or non-communion, nor transplantation into a new gathered Church; I cannot imagine he would make Schism from the Church, 
1 Cor. 3.4.  a sign of a spiritual, who judged Schism in the Church an evidence of a carnal mind.  
Do men complain (as they have cause) that some Roman Rites, and order was retained, 
Rom. Rites.  when this Church was reform; let them consider many pious Kings of Judah, have their reforming governments stained with a but the high places were not taken away, but the people went thither to worship: yet I find not that any God-fearing Israelite, who loathed those Relics of Idolatry, ever barred themselves because thereof, from God's Altar and worship.  
My very soul is grieved to consider England's back-sliding, 
Backsliding & Lukewarmness  Indulgence of erroneous Doctors and doctrines, formality and lukewarmness in Religion; yet when I observe that Ephesus who lost her first love, Pergamus indulging the doctrine of Balaam, and the Nicolaitans, Thyatira suffering the woman Jezabel, who called herself a prophetess to teach, and to deceive God's people; Sardis having a name to live, but being dead, and Laodicea, England's Counterpart, so lukewarm that no good is spoken of her; by all which these Asian Churches were rusted, and therefore reproved by the Lord, yet not rejected; but represented to the world as the Stars he held in his right hand, and golden Candlesticks among which he walked; I dare not disown her relation to God; disclaim mine own relation to her, nor voluntarily decline communion with her.  

Corruptions are not all alike.  My good friend, all corruptions in God's Church and worship, are displeasing to God, and distasteful to his people embracing the simplicity of the Gospel; but all corruptions are not alike in operation, quality, and extent, nor of a like influence on God's Church and worship: consider therefore some corruptions are substantial, and , vitiating the very subject, and so universally spread through the worship of God, that it cannot be used without sin; others are circumstantial and  to the same, vain, needless appendants, superadded by man's will, but which notwithstanding God's Ordinances remain entire, and exactly his, and may be used without participation in the affixed corruption.  
Some corruptions incident to God's Church and worship, I say are substantial and intrinsecal, (not arising out of God's Ordinance as the genuine product, and effect thereof, but) entering into the very body of the Church and substance of God's worship, 
Corruptions substantial and intrinsecal.  as a Spider into wine, or venomous Worm into an Apple; so as to vitiate the subject, (that it cannot be used with safety) and nullify the very Ordinances of God, that it altereth their very nature to the loss of their efficacy, and transmit certain destruction to such as sit under the same; yea, which is done either by changing the matter, and retaining the essential constitutive form, as by a solemn regular cutting off a Dog's head, or offering swine's blood, instead of a Lamb, or a Kid; a baptising (as some have done) by fire i●stead of water: or retaining the matter, but changing the essential form, as did Jeroboam, and the Samaritans worshipping the true God, by the very Sacrifices, and in the very order himself appointed; but before self-devised Symbols, Calves to the one, and the Dove to the other, in a self-appointed place, Dan and Bersheba to the one, Mount Gerizim to the other; and by self-consecrated Priests, the lowest of the people, and so departing from the Temple in Jerusalem, God's Ark in it, and the Tribe of Levi: all which were essential to the form of divine worship: and thus did the Corinthians eating and drinking at the Idol Sacrifices, which the Apostle severely corrected, with a (ye cannot partake of the Table of the Lord, and the table of Devils, ye cannot drink of the Cup of the Lord, and the cup of Devils;) and by pointing them unto the essential form of the Sacrament, the Cup of blessing, which we bless, is it not the Communion of the blood of Christ? and the Bread which we break, is it not the Communion of the body of Christ? Of this nature is Baptism, 
1 Cor. 10.16.  by a Midwife, or any other private hand, though with water, and in the name of the Father, Son, and holy Ghost; or by water and a lawful Minister, but in the name of God the Father of all things, and Truth the Mother of all things; as I have read some have done.  
Corruptions , 
Corruptions  and circumstantial.  and c'rcumstantial are Ordinances superadded unto, and so concomitant with, or conversant about God's Ordinances; but enter not into, nor do vitiate their subject: the which (these notwithstanding) doth exist in matter, and essential form, perfect and entire; capable of due operation, in their own course and nature; as stinking fish doth nourish; or water pudled, or in an unclean vessel, doth quench the thirst; and these are either some matter superadded, (not intermingled with, or destructive to God's Ordinances, such as were the high places, posts by God's posts, thresholds by his thresholds, Altar by his Altar in Israel, unto the very Image of Jealousy set up in God's house, which yet remained his, and as such was continued, preserved and acknowledged. The Lord Jesus found the Temple his Father's house of Prayer, though made a Den of thiefs; and such is our Cross in Baptism, though seemingly sacramental, yet distinct from Gods imitating Seal of the Covenant; and such is a Roman linen vesture in ministration of God's worship by a lawful Minister; or some corrupt, rude and unsuitable ministerial method and order, (which is the vessel, and only instrument of conveyance though unclean) of administration: such was the violent, and unfitting snatching of the Priests part of the Sacrifice, by the sons of Eli, the confused acclamations of the Church of Corinth, speaking all at once, different matters, in different tongues; and our imposed method, disorderly method of public Prayer, by Versicles, Responds, abruptions, abreviations and popular acclamations, with artificial singing by boys, and base fellows thereunto appointed: under all which Gods Ordinances abide a subject complete, truly, and formerly existent, and distinct from these superadded corruptions; operative unto salvation; and therefore may not be declined, or disowned.  
Corruptions , are indeed such as do not only warrant, but necessitate non-communion, yea separation of the highest nature, as a duty indispensable: In sense hereof all those in Israel who feared God, and set their hearts to seek the Lord, prayed for, and (according to divine directions) departed from Dan, and Bersheba, forsook the solemn Assemblies Jeroboam had constituted, and followed the Tribe of Levi, God's only Ministers, unto Jerusalem, God's only place of public solemn worship; and our Saviour resolved the woman of Samaria her enquiry concerning the place of worship, with a (ye know not what ye worship; for salvation is of the Jews: This is the very ground of the Reformed Churches departure, and non-communion with Rome; who though she be (by original constitution) the Temple of God, is become the very seat of Antichrist; and by the same so vitiated that her Ministrations are the cup of abomination by which she hath made the Nations drunk, having (by her intercessions of, and to Saints, the Pope's infallibility, divine power and properties, and by her expiatory Sacrifices) disowned, and nullified (as much as in her lieth) Christ's mediatory offices: and (by dividing the elements, destroying the outward sign, essential to a Sacrament, and on a fancied transubstantiation, turning it into a Sacrifice for quick and dead) nullified Christ's Ordinances: and (by many other  evils) poisoned Gods whole worship, and rendered it directly destructive to salvation; and is therefore presented to us under the Appellation Babylon, in the very abstract; spiritual Sodom, and Egypt; and so the object of our departure, advised, with (a lest ye partake of her sins: which were and are so universally diffused, and hath so fare vitiated the subject, that a guilt will be contracted by mere Communion.  
Corruptions  may, 
 corruptions warrant no separation.  and must grieve the spirits of God's people; occasion their loud complaints, his Ministers most zealous reproofs, and the stud●ous endeavours of all, to prevent and remove them; because scandals to the Church, prejudicial (though not directly destructive, to salvation) dishonourable to Religion, and the God (whose prerogative it is to prescribe every pin, and the very snuffers to be used in his House, 
1 King 11. 3●. ) and is therefore highly displeasing to God; provoking him to rend a Kingdom from the house of David, to loath, and at least to leave his holy place, and remove his Candlestick from such as will not fear him in the simplicity of his own institutions; without the vain and needless Appendants of their own inventions: But yet these cannot warrant separation or voluntary non-communion, because the Church abideth related to God as his Spouse; his worship and Ordinances remain for matter and essential form entire, and exactly his own; notwithstanding the concomitancy of some superadded matter; or the unfit ministerial method, and order by which they are dispensed; and God's presence is to them continued, (though with a grieved, striving spirit, threatening his departure) and thereby we are under a possibility of salvation; (though engaged to more care and industry) this was the case of the Prophets, our Saviour and his Disciples, the Church of the Jews, and Primitive Christians, under the many parallel (yea transcending to ours,) corruptions, before mentioned, without any prescript, or practice, of Separation, or Non-Communion.  
Christian Friend, it is too evident, That many and great Corruptions are to our sin, and shame retained; 
The Case of England under corruption.  and to the aggravation thereof (with an high hand, and defiance of the God of Jealousy) returned (after a Solemn and Sacred Expulsion) into our Church; but yet they are , and not of the substance of God's Worship, which for Matter, and essential Form, remaineth entire, and properly his own: (though not so acceptable) under, as well as without them; and will not therefore warrant my Separation, or Non-Communion, so far as to lie at Home, or loiter in the Churchyard, until the Common-Prayer (whereby God is truly, though not orderly, invocated, and worshipped; wherein I (as a Member of that Church) am interested, and unto which, as it is Public Solemn Prayer (though in an unsuitable Method) my Amen is an indispensable Duty) being ended.  
The Administrations of God's Worship among us, are indeed nauseous, and unhealthful, but not void, or venomous; our waters are bitter, and pudled, but not poisonous; our Pastures are trodden down, and the proud of the Flock do push us with Horn, 
Ezek. 34.18, 19, 20, 21.  and with Hoof; but we are not yet driven out of Christ's Fold, not dare not we say our Pasture is quite taken from us: To be plain, Under all our Corruptions, we must not, we cannot, we dare not deny the Matter, and essential Form of God's Ordinances and Worship, is continued to us; though some superstitious Rites are unto them annexed, which are apparent Appendants, redundant to, and separable from, and not vitiating, destructive, or annihilating to their Subject; and are therefore pretended and professed (by the Canons appropriated to this Church) to be Acts of Order and Ornament, rather than of Worship, and Adoration to God; and they are such wherein the people are generally passive, not active. Baptism is fully and formally God's Ordinance, though the Cross be needlessly, and superstitiously added thereunto; and the Parent (by virtue of whose interest in God's Covenant, the Child receiveth the Seal) is unjustly excluded; and a deputation of Godfathers and Godmothers, is groundlessly imposed: The Word of God is not excluded, though now and then, a piece of Apocryphas is unwarrantably read in the public Assembly; nor doth it cease to be the Word of God, because it is unfitly mangled into parts and parcels, urduly fixed unto places, unreasonably appropriated unto days and times, 
Surplices and canting quiering, singing boys and men.  and published in unseemly vestures and voices. I confess their Common-Prayer is my burden, by reason of its defects and disorder, and the rudeness of the Ministerial Method. I stand convinced, it ought to be altered; yea, ab lished, 
See the Epistle to the Liturgical considerator considered.  by reason of its Symmetry to the Romish Mass, superstitious Order, and unsutableness to Solemn Public Prayer; yet I must confess, I find in it no Matter to which (on a charitable interpretation) a sober serious Christian may not say, nay, can deny his (Amen:) And though I distaste the Ministerial Method, I cannot disown in it the essential Form of Prayer; (viz.) A calling upon God in the Name of Christ. That Set-Forms of Prayer are used, is an Act and Argument of weakness; that they are imposed on God's Church and Ministers, is an Act (I cannot acquit) of wickedness: And that this defective disorderly Form, is retained, yea, by forc● returned into the Church of England; I fear will be found an Act and Argument of wilfulness against God's mind; yet neither the one, nor the other, maketh it cease to be Public Solemn Pray r; nor do I see on what ground I can deny, or refuse my (Amen) to what is prayed for, because I know there are many things wanting to the Church, which are not, not indeed can be by this Form expressed; or not joining desires to God with (and as a Member of) his Church, because they are rudely and unfittingly expressed; whilst the irregularity of that common Order, is no Bar to God's acceptance of my more regular (Amen) thereunto given.  
Departure from Babylon, is the indispensable Duty, and will be the property of all, whose names are written in the Lamb's Book of Life; but the Object must be Babylon in the very abstract; Setting the mark of the Beast on them who partake with her, 
Rev. 13.8, 17, 4, 13, 8.  bearing in her hand the Cup of Abomination, and so appearing to be formal spiritual Egypt an● Sodom: I cannot believe every or any Society retaining some B●●●… 〈◊〉 ●…stures, and Orders, with a protested and apparent recession from Babylon, can be the Object thereof; and the last of these, is the capacity of England's Church: Certainly the Temple of the Lord is not to be disowned, or renounced, because it hath been sometime trodden down by the Antichristian Gentiles, and vitiated by the seat of the Beast; when these are expelled, though the dirt of their tramplings, and stink of their session remain behind them: My good friend, let it be seriously resolved, is there no difference between Israel and Judah? Rome, and a reformed Church? a professed sacrificing Priest, and a Minister of the Gospel, fond affecting and retaining that Appellation? between a calling on the only true God, in the name of Christ, though in a defective, rude, confused, and unfitting order, and praying unto Saints and dumb Idols? between the disorderly administration of the worship, for matter and form, Gods own appointment, and the Ordinance nullifying administration in an unknown tongue, to which the hearers cannot say Amen? and abstraction, or alteration of the Elements beyond, yea contrary to God's prescription, or what the possibility of nature, and entity of the ordinance will admit? between Sacraments with some unwarrantable superstitious Appendants, and a Sacrifice expiatory for the quick and dead? must we departed from Israel, returned from Egypt and Babylon? though retaining the savour, some of the Manners and Customs, and an hankering mind to go back unto those accursed places? I pray God keep England (in her now retrograde motion) from going back to Rome, than (through his Grace) I shall not dare to renounce her Communion, though my soul mourn for her corruption: for so long as we enjoy in her the very matter, and essential form of God's worship, and Ordinances, though in an humane, unfit, corrupt ministerial method and order, with some vain and needless appendants of humane invention; we are not without confidence of God's presence, and a possibility of salvation; and we therefore are without a sufficient ground for separation, or non-communion.  

Consid. 3d. Communion is no bar, but a help to reformation.  Thirdly, let it be considered Communion with the Church, under many, and great corruptions, is not inconsistent with zeal, care, and contest for reformation thereof: the designs of Hell may agree in the end, but disagree in the means; but it is not so with the determinations of Heaven; the Devil may suggest and provoke the correction of sin, by sin; or make zeal to purity a spur to separation, and the shipwreck of virtue to, and in the Church; 
1 Cor. 11.13, 14.15.  he can make the white Witch heal, what the black doth hurt; by him one Conjurer doth bless, what another doth curse; the Angel of light doth often expel, and lay the Angel of darkness; but yet they be both evil Angels; he sticks not at, nor stirreth against Piety, or Religion, provided it be but sinful; he is content men go in a via lactea & sacra, to the place of woe; and steer by Conscience (if erroneous) to their own condemnation: but it is not thus with God, and the dictates of his holy Spirit; all his commands are compatible; his Graces concatenated; 
2 Pet. 1.5, c. 7.  All the duties of a Christian are to be discharged without interfering, interruption, or destruction by one another; he alloweth not one sinful step in the way of salvation, though paved with never so fair a pretence of sanctity; if therefore his people stumble thereinto, they must return and go back, if they will go to heaven; no one duty, at any time damps zeal unto another; they may be desparata, but never are opposita, different, but not contrariant one to another, the discords in true Religion do ever constitute the clearest harmony, all extremes are equally odious unto the God of order; excesses find no more acceptance with him, than defects in Religion; be not righteous overmuch is a divine dictate (though many times unduly, 
Eccl. 7.16, 17.  and unjustly pleaded by men) as well as be not overmuch wicked, God's Israel may not turn to the right or left hand, 
Deut. 5.32.17.20.18.14.  departing from the way of his Statutes: the true Christian must walk in all wellpleasing, in every good word, and work, and hate every evil way: 
Col. 1.10.  It hath been a scandalous Blasphemy (from its very first being) of Christianity, to say or suppose it doth direct its subjects to do evil, that good may come thereby: sincere Saints are ever acted by the Spirit of peace, and love, to seek and zealously pursue, the purity of God's worship in union with his Church; 
Rom. 3.8, Reformation a duty.  zeal, care, and contests, for Reformation of God's Church, and worship, subjected to the least corruption, can never be denied to be the indispensable duty of every Christian: It is true, these are to be expressed and acted by all lawful, and only lawful means, 
1 Chro. 13.9.10, 11.  according to every man's place and capacity; the most dreadful shake of God's Ark, will not warrant Uzza to step out of his place to stay it; nor will the greatest sanctity in Israel, 
Numb 16.  authorise Chora to usurp the Priesthood: It is not a more poor apology, than base, for the rebellion of Dathan, and Abyram, that all the Lords people are holy; the God of holiness needs not, nor will he endure the help of our iniquities: these Cautions observed, endeavours for reformation can be by none omitted, or faintly pursued, without an inevitable contracting upon themselves the guilt of those corruptions, which remain upon God's Church and service; for no rule (in reference to humane society) is in Morality, or Divinity more true than this error, cui non resistitur approbatur, veritas non quae non defenditur opprimitur, negligere quippe cum possis deturbare perversos, nihil aliud est quam fovere, nec caret scrupulo societatis occultae qui manifesto sacinori cum potest desinit obviare. Er●…r not resisted, is allowed, for silence gives consent; Truth not defended, is oppressed, for, Cowardice giveth falsehood the Conquest, to neglect when we can do it, to disturb the wicked, is to cherish them, for concealment and indulgence is the guard of their design, nor can he want a suspicion of secret conspiracy, who can, but will not hinder iniquity; for such Connivance is an act and argument of affection: 
● Sam. 2.  let it be remembered old Elies' sin, by which he fell under the severity of God's wrath, was his not reforming the abominations of his sons; The Reforming Government of many pious Kings of Judah, are blotted, with a but the high places (which the Temple restoted and frequented seemed not worth the heeding) were not taken away: Israel is charged with the profaneness of God's Sanctuary, 
Ezek. 44.7.8.  by reason of the uncorrected neglect of the Keepers thereof, and the nonresistance of false Prophets, is aggravated with a (the Prophet's prop●…cy lies in my name, 
Jer. 5.31.  and the people love to have it so;) It is a matter of admiration to a God of jealousy, that his Church and ●●…ship should be overspread with corruption, without the ●●…king, and expostulations of an Advocate for him; 
Isa. 59.16.  the 〈◊〉 sa● it, and it displeased him, that there was no judgement; and he saw that there was no man, and he wondered that there was no Intercessor; 
1 Cor 5.  the guilt of the incestuous person is by the neglect of discipline, charged on the Church of Corinth; and the suffering the woman Jezabel, 
Rev. 2.20.  is the evil imputed to the Church of Thyatira: the light of nature, and Scripture leadeth every one in his place and capacity to reform corruption, and chargeth it on their conscience, as a positive duty.  
To damp zeal, or bar endeavours for reformation, and to blame, and violently silence Ministerial rebukes, and argumentation, or popular petitions, supplications, mournings and murmurations, under and against the corruptions of God's Church and worship, is irrational, and irreligious; and the defence thereof by this plea (viz.) these corruptions are confessedly consistent with salvation; and such which notwithstanding the most serious and zealous reprovers do not, and profess they dare not separate from, or deny communion with the Church; is no other than hellish divinity, and Bedlam Reason, best confuted by their wife's rebukes of the Queen of S uts preparing her mistress sack possets in the common w●shbowles (not to mention a vessel of more base employment) or presenting to the table his dainty Cates in a dis● licked by the dog, and wiped with her dishclout; the which though it be unhandsome, and unwholesome, is not poisonous, and so directly destructive, as to drive them the house or table; so as to beg or starve, rather than to eat or keep good fellowship: such as shall thus do, must needs proclaim themselves ignorant of the reproving invective Ministry of the Prophets, and Apostles; yea, of the Lord himself, when and whilst they lived in Communion with the Church of the Jews; the last of whom whipped the money-changers out of the Temple, when and because he acknowledged it, his Father's house of Prayer; 
Joh. 2.16.  insensible of the sad and severe judgements of God on Eli and his sons for their uncorrected disorder, which made God's people loath the sacrifices of the Lord, when they did not, nor durst leave his Sanctuary; and on Solomon for building high places, 
1 Kings 11.31.  though consistent with the Temple of the Lord; 
Ezek. 43.8.  and on Israel for building their posts besides his posts, their Altars besides his Altars, and setting up the Image of jealousy in the House of the Lord, which yet was not forsaken by him or his people: and unaffected with the nature and holiness of God, who will have holiness written on all the vessels of the Sanctuary, and the very bridles of the horses; 
Zack. 14.20.  and will have all things in his service done decently and in order, 
1 Cor. 14.33.40.  because he is a God of order, and not of confusion; when Corruption in God's Church and worship can be denied to be sin, I will allow and advise God's Ministers to be silent; and when they grow substantial, and vitiate their subject, I will allow and advise the Members of the Church to separate, but till then I dare not give my consent, or Countenance unto the one, or the other.  
Reformation and Separation (whereof voluntary non Communion is the privative part, 
Separation no act of Reformation, but obstructive thereto.  and the first formal act) though (by the groundless Calumny of the enemies to the one, occasioned by the rash inconsiderate zeal of the other) they are confounded, are in themselves vastly different, and indeed inconsistent, and destructive each to other; as much as is the Cleansing, and casting away a vessel; purging, and parting from an house, this is duty, but that is horrid iniquity; schisms in the Church are dangerous, and disgraceful, but schisms from the Church, is thereunto destructive and damnable to the subjects thereof; the purity of God's Worship must be pursued in unity with the Church; and Communion is implied in all endeavours for Reformation; desertion doth declare destruction, not repair of the house is desired, and designed; which of us leave our houses because not so convenient, handsome or healthful as is desired? or forsake our food because of a slovenly Cook or Carver? the Scripture doth detect much corruption in God's Church, and the zeal of many unto the Reformation thereof, provoking and pursuing it unto death, or very deep distress, without the least direction unto, or allowance of separation or non-communion; but with a most plain and clear charge and direction to the contrary; Christ's Apostles, (as most zealous Reformers) did often, and openly, and with much authority rebuke and resist the disorder of the Churches, and corrupt administration of God's worship, yet were so fare from approving or advising separation, that they have branded the subjects thereof, with these and the like odious epithets, they were not of us, 
John 2.19. Judas 19 Heb 10.25.  and therefore went out from us, these are they who separate themselves, sensual, having not the spirit, and taxeth the voluntary non-communicants with a defect, forsake not the assembling of yourselves as the manner of some is. I cannot without trembling consider, the circumcised Sects in the Church of Colosse, are charged to have left the head, 
Coll 2.19.  by leaving the body, in which all the joints are knit together to the nourishment of the whole; I cannot but assent to that maxim as most true, ex Ecclesia nulla salus, the Church is God's Ark of salvation, out of which none but mad men will leap, or leave it, on pretence of purging it, or putting out of it unclean birds and beasts: in this case of contest for Reformation, and communion with the Church under many and great corruptions; I must say as our Saviour of the lesser, and more weighty matters of the Law, 
Luke. 11.42.  these things ye ought to have done, and not leave the other undone; for Superstition and Separation are extremes equally odious, and ominous to Reformation; is it not obvious to every wise observer, that the Devil and wicked men, do make the one the advantage of the other; and cast the odium, and direct the force of each (as the turn cometh, and opportunity serveth) against such who (steering by Scripture Compass) desire (according to their capacity) to guide God's Church, and themselves in her, between these two dangerous Rocks into the Haven of rest and holiness.  
Whilst poor despicable I in our late years, in my place and Calling, withstood our Church-wasting separation, many professing piety, and pursuing purity in God's House and Ordinances, were (prejudiced (unto an high and open persecution of me) by their own fancy that I asserted and advanced the superstitions and disorders of our Church; by the return whereof God hath convinced them of their rashness, and constrained them to correct their mistake of his unworthy reproached servant: and now God (blessed be his name) having animated me with zeal for perfect, and complete Reformation, and acted me in my place and sphere (as a Minister of the Gospel) to debate the obligations thereunto, beyond my mean abilities, or the logical reply of the adversaries thereof; (who bear away the victory by a thou liest Bellarmine; and have confuted me argumento baculino, enforced by the severe moderation of authority; incensed by the suggestion of Treason and Sedition secretly whispered, and generally charged against me, whose loyalty is most legible by both active and passive characters) and who have in all the writings which bear my name, declared my abhorrency of Sedition and popular tumults,) and having blessed me with an heart, and opportunity to withstand and witness against the deluge of Superstition and Corruptions, which breaking over, and bearing down sacred banks, doth (to our s●… and shame) again overflow our Church and Nation; how many do now dream I will indulge, and embrace Separation; or at least by my voluntary non-communion (the first act thereof) give some countenance unto it? as if between these there were no medium; but that the corruption of the one, must necessarily generate the other, give me therefore leave to tell you, and by you to tell others (in me concerned) I cannot but withstand the one, with abhorrency of the other; and keep my distance from separation, whilst I desire and endeavour, to stave off Superstition; lest I Shipwreck myself, or others, on either rock; 
Superstition and separation strengthen each other.  I have observed, and our Church hath experienced the same, that as Superstition, Corruptions and disorder in God's house and worship do (and therefore call for the zeal and rebukes of God's Ministers, and careful Remedy by his Majesty's Prelates, by him entrusted with the Ecclesiastical good of his Subjects) very much harden men of strong affections, and weak Judgements to separate, furnishing them with a clamourous accusation, who discern not the proper and genuine cause of their sinful Shisme, but readily father, 
1 Cor. 3.3, 4. Gal. 5.19.20.21.  (what the Apostle hath determined to be) the brat of their own lust, on any thing which beareth relation thereunto; though but a remote, and accidental occasion thereof: so non communion and separation, is the grand Removal, and most Plain ruin to reformation, that ever could be devised: Subverting the house on pretence and instead of sweeping it; as if an house forsaken, and pulled asunder (one running away with a post, another with a beam, to patch up their own self-founded fabrics) were ever like to be purged, and preserved from uncleaness and disorder: (my good friend) take notice of this; God determined, and his people deserved the destruction of the ten tribes of Israel, before those who feared God fled from among them, or forsook them. Babylon is fallen, she is fallen, was the voice uttered by the Angel, before, Come ye out of her my people was sounded to the Saints which follow the Lamb; Conservation is the end of burdensome Communion, 
jer. 13.2.7  and careful Reformation; but dissolution is the most certain sequel of desertion; It is Gods and much be his people's last work to departed from and forsake his Sanctuary; he stays long with a grieved striving Spirit: and stands on the very threshold, with a wooing expostulation, Be thou instructed O Jerusalem, 
jer. 6.8.  lest my Soul departed from thee, and I make thee desolate: (the very issue of departure) let it be seriously resolved: did not Corah in his separating from the Camp of Israel, gathering a Congregation out of the Congregation: and the Circumcised Sectaries among the primitive Christians, strike at the foundations, and seek to subvert the very societies from whence they separated? and do not the practices, and some principles of the semi-separating (as they would be deemed) self constituting Independents of our age, determine a nonentity; by the non-formality of a Church in England, and ra●e the very foundation thereof, and so condemn the very generation of the just, who have lived and died members thereof, yea Martyrs to the truths of ●esus Christ, against Papal, as well as Pagan power and errors? The Anabaptists in Germany have not been more odious, and obstructive to Luther's reformation; then the Church gathering separatists of all Sects have been retarding unto a retrogradation of that in England: in that the odium of their schisms seconded with seditien, and centred in Rebellion, un o Regicide, with the confusion and subversion of our Church and Kingdom, is (most sadly and shamefully, though unjustly) imputed to all, who with humble and peaceable spirits, des●e and endeavour the casting out corruption and disorder, from God's house and ordinances; and reflectes on the work of reformation itself, as if their proper genuine and natural parent.  
The reformation of the Church is a duty incumbent on every man and member thereof; 
Reformation must be by lawful means  only it must be pursued in their places and capacities, by just and lawful means without schism from, (or if possible) in the Church, or sedition in the Commonwealth, both which my soul ever did abhor as disgraceful to Religion, dishonourable to God, and destructive to Reformation: I never did, nor yet can allow, or advise other means of reformation then Ministerial admonition to the Church, Logical dispute, and Theological argumentation, and redaurgtion among equals; humble proposal, petition, and supplication to superiors with a patiented, and submiss attendance on their pleasure and on God acting the same; such as receive Kings as nursing Fathers to the Church, will rejoice in them as Christians; much more as professedly reform; and with all peaceable submission, embrace such degrees of Reformation of the extrinsecall order, and ministerial method of God's worship (enjoying the substance in the essential form thereof) as they will allow, until God incline their hearts to allow what himself expecteth, and his people desire: soberly pursuing the bene esse, with joy in the esse of Religion, and in communion with the Church, waiting on the truth of God's ordinances, quietly attending their Superiors for purity and regularity of dispensation; I find not that the men fearing God in judah, did tumultuously tumble down the high places, nor turn away from God's Temple because of them; yet their standing was the stain of Government to their reforming Kings, to fly out of God's house, or in the face of God's Vicegerents, because his own appointments are administered by instruments in order to his service unsuitable, and to us offensive, is a frowardness which God cannot nor will not admit, or indulge in any of his children. Ministerial reproofs and admonitions, and vulgar mournings and murmurations, are loud alarms to God and the consciences of men, and strong enforcements of Reformation: preces & jacrymae ever were and still are the only weapons of the truly Godly, 
Our state and time calleth for an higher degree of Reformation.  under and against the oppositions of just authority, and lawful Princes, such as God hath in his mercy, and by his miraculous providence restored to our Church and Nation. I am afflicted by, and ashamed of the slow progress, and shameful retrogradation of England's Reformation, under and against public, national, solemn, sacred bonds (whose obligation will abide before God, and conscience, though the affirmations thereof may be interdicted by men) If Calvini in his days could say, (If Godly Religion had flourished in England till that day (the time of Queen Mary her Reign) there ought to have been an order of service better corrected, 
Epistle to the Ch. at Frankford  and many things quit taken away. Can we without grief consider our Church hath enjoyed true Religion more than eighty years since that time: and yet we ignorantly continue, and violently contend for that order of service, as if ashamed to give place unto better things: yet, I dare not deny her to be a reformed Church, or as such, decline Communion with her: in, and for whom the Lord hath emminently appeared: and out of whom he hath graciously purged all things venentous and destructive (though some things nauseous, and distasteful, were continued, and are returned into her) having defended her against the Spanish Ari●ado, and Popish Conspiracy by Gunpowder, and other agitations, and attempts of Papal power and Antichristian rage; with an Almighty hand and outstretched Arme. I do believe the infancy of Reformation might rejoice in, and grow up under that order of divine service which the adult estate thereof ought to cast off, as puerile and unsuitable: First degrees were matter of Comfort, though not of Content to such who seek the simplicity of the Gospel: remaining dregs ought to be discharged, and I doubt not God will (notwithstanding men's averseness, and opposition) in due time effect it: In the mean time, i see no reason, to refuse to drink because my waters are pudled or presented in an unclean Vessel, and I can come by no purer: remaining degrees of Reformation must be so purified, that those obtained, may not appear to be disowned or despised: though our order of Divine Service be a Roman dreg of some dangerous distasteful influence, yet it is not Popery; shall we not bless God, and rejoice in England as brought out of Babylon, though some Babylonish Vestures, Rites, and Orders, which ought to be abandoned, are yet retained? I conceive them ingrateful for the purity obtained, who run out of Gods, house, for the Corruptions continued, and obtruded: I cannot but repute them over forward, who shall refuse the Substantials of true Religion, and Christ's Institutions, because of some rude Rough Appendants: shall we not acknowledge God's mercy in affording us, and humbly use the truth of God's word because transmitted unto us with some humane traditions? and the substance of his own worship celebrated in a disorderly way, and method, with some foolish Appendants, of men's inventions? (My good friend) my zeal, care and contests for Reformation of this poor Church, have cost me dear: yet (if God suffer the Charge to rise as h●g●, as did that of my namesake by the unkindness of King Joash) not one mite too dear: I bless God however my passions work, I see no cause to repent my bargain: I pray God glorify himself, and edify his people by my bonds; only I must profess to all that fear God, I see no sufficient cause to satisfy my Conscience, or to plead before my God, on which to refuse Communion with her, and attendance on God's solemn public worship under her rude Ministerial method; for that duty is not warantably superseded by the iniquity of another man; my sufferings, nor other men's sin, (under which I mourn, because I cannot mend it) must not turn me out of God's way, to the right or left hand; superstition, and separation, must be shunned as Rocks equally dangerous to God's Church and worship: the profaneness of this and its Subjects must not drive me: nor the pretended purity and piety of the other, and its Subjects allure or draw me unto the positive evil of separation, or privative evil of voluntary non-Communion; I pray and hope God will keep me upright under, and against all temptations, from falling into the extremes of our unhappy age and Church; and yet give me to see the purity of his worship in Union and Communion with his Church here on earth; or possess me with his undefiled, unstained glory in Heaven; for from the one I dare not departed until I arrive at the other; lest by shipwarck I should be deprived of both.  
Fourthly, Let it be considered, 
Consi. 4th.  Scandal is an argument of no strength, when pleaded to supersede or condemn a positive duty; Jobs friends, 
offence no argument, in this case.  (like miserable Comforters) were no little Scandalised, that he would not from his Cross condemn himself as wicked; nor brand himself with Hippocrisy in his past piety, to which they laboured to compel him, by a right Theological, rather than Logical argument. (though not fully asserted) they that plough iniquity, & so we wickedness, reap the same; 
job. 27.4.5.26.19.42.7.  sorrow is the fruit of sin; yet Job well knowing the Prosperity of the wicked, and that God trieth the righteous, would not let go his integrity; Nor to justify them, would he let his lips condemn himself, but made his appeal to God his witness on high, and record which is above; who interposing to moderate the Question, 
Mark. 2.23. ad fin●m.  discovered their fallacy and determined they had not Spoken of him the thing which was right, as did his servant Job; The Jews were offended that the Disciples plucked the ears of Corn on the Sabbath day (appointed of God for rest) and that our Saviour on that day healed: yet our Saviour mattered not their offence as of any weight, but justified the facts by the positive duty of preserving man's natural life; 
Luke 13.15.16.17.  If the Circumstantials of the first Table must give way to the Substantials of the Second table of the Law; and if obedience to humane, must give place to Divine command, and authority; much more must the offence of a brother, 
Act. 5 29.  veil to obedience to the will of God: In pleasing men, God must not be displeased: every man must therefore please his neighbour for his good to edification. but to please a brother by omission of positive duty (which is formal, 
Rom. 15.2.  fearful iniquity) is (by sinful strengthening his profaneness, 
Scandal is not to be slighted.  or Error) aedificare in Gehennam, to edify both to Hell, from which the Lord deliver me. Scandal is indeed an argument of more weight (when duly and fitly pleaded) then to be slighted or supersicialy evaded: not to offend a weak brother, 
Rom. 15.1.  is charged as a duty: we who are strong aught to bear with the infirmities of the weak, and not to please ourselves! It's good not to eat or drink, nor do any thing whereby thy brother is stumbled, 
Rom. 14.21.  offended or made weak, are Divine directions and Gospel rules: fearful is the sin of a Wilful Scandal, for that it is nor only a snare by which a Brother is entangled, and laid on the rack of a Scrupulous conscience, and tortured between his own doubts, and the contrary practice of the pious professing obedience to Gods will, But also a stumbling-stone, occasioning to him certain sin; by either acting under his own doubts and against his own apprehensions induced by the bare ensample of another, or by uncharitable censureing his brother, in what is to him lawful, and without his own liberty and power to do, or not to do it; this is therefore represented to be the destruction of the work of God: 
Rom 4.20  against this sign our Saviour hath denounced a most sad doom, Whosoever shall offend one of these little ones, it were better for him a millstone were hanged about his neck, and he were drowned in tthe depth of the Sea: the dread hereof hath seized on my spirit, in my present state and Case, that though it become lawful, 
Mat. 18.8.  could I without sin withdraw from public solemn worship, in an unfitting order, I would on sense of Scandal do it, Scandal is of force, and fitly pleaded to supersede or condemn an action in itself indifferent, and so within a man's own power to do, or not to do it; 
scandal is of force in things indifferent.  for or against which the conscience may be awed by a seemingly religious reason; such was the observing, or not observing a day, the eating or not eating of some kind of meats, or meats offered unto Idols, and the like things, which in the Primitive Churches, and times of Christianity, the Apostles (during the honourable obsequies of the expired law, which h●d sometimes, and yet seemed, to charge them as duty, or forbidden them as iniquity) determined indifferent, and directed Scandal of the weak as the casting grain in the aequilibrious mind of a man (satisfied in conscience) as to the doing, or not doing the same; thereby guiding us in all things and cases of the like nature; for the indifinite Universal, Eat, drink, 
Rom. 14.  or any thing that may Scandalise, offend, or weaken a brother, advised in Rom. 14.21. must be restrained to this species, and things of this kind: For what is positively forbidden, or commanded, must not at any man's pleasure be done, or left undone: simple scandal hath no strength. To plead we are offended, and not produce a reason, at least seemingly religious, is a most simple plea: 
1 Pet. ●….  Jesus Christ is a stone of stumbling and a Rock of offence to many; and yet he must be preached and professed unto bonds, and death itself. Such as in my case pretend scandal and offence, I must advise and entreat to reflect their thoughts, and take heed they do not mistake the case, and mistake the question, and thereby take offence, where none is given: I confess the ministerial order and method of public worship and prayer, is purely humane, within the power of the Ministers thereof, and so indifferent, and ought not to be prescribed or imposed; when it is as in our common divine service rude, confused, and disorderly, it's no less Scandalous to the serious Godly, then was the administration of the Sons of Eli, or confused acclamations of the Church at Cerinth; and such on which if I out of choice, at liberty to enjoy a more serious and regular order, (according to the King's gracious Indulgence granted in his Royal declaration concerning Ecclesiastical affairs,) should attend, I could not but give offence to such as seek the Simplicity of the Gospel; and seem to them to allow, what I have concluded aught to be abolished, and to build again what I have endeavoured to destroy: for extirpation of every thing which is evil (though but extrinsecall, and in the ministerial method of God's ordinances) being the extent of zeal, and duty of every member of the Church to be endeavoured in his place and calling, (though however not under a special, solemn, sacred obligation thereunto,) non-attendance on that order unto, and by embracing of more regular administration of the same ordinances in Communion with the same Church, is the least Act I could do to the enforecing that end; I cannot believe the pious Israelites would have brought their Sacrifices unto the Sons of Eli (whose order made them loathe the offerings of the Lord, which they durst not withhold) if they had enjoyed other Priests who would have offered more conformly to divine appointment. But my friend, this is not my case or Question, but whether solemn public Worship, which is my positive duty unto the sanctification of the Lords day and as I am a member of Christ's Catholic visible Church, and cannot by reason of my confinement be enjoyed without my attendance, on that Irregular unsuitable method, and confused order: may be warrantably superseded, and omitted on this ground and reason, my presence at such administrations is offensive to some weak Brethren zealously affected to the simplicity of the Gospel, were these corruptions abstracted from, or opposed unto God's worship, there were to me no case of Conscience, but they are confounded with it, as the unclean vessel, or ill favoured carving with my food whereby I live) and therein I must profess it satisfieth not my conscience, nor seemeth to me to be of weight, that I must offer my sacrifice, though by the loathsome order of Elies' sons, or go to the Temple, though my way lie by the high places, or assemble and send up my prayer in God's Sanctuary, though the Image of jealousy be set up in it, cannot be soberly denied; nor ought any to be thereat offended; and I must needs resolve in the affirmative, for the superadded vanities do not void God's ordinance: nor will defect and disorder, (with which my private capacity is not charged) discharge my positive duty; I am not insensible that some will be ready to read my allowance of the same, in my attendance on it, unto the hardening of themselves in sin, or hindering themselves in duty, concluding, Communion in the ordinances is a consent unto the order: to such I must say at their peril be it; this scandal is taken not given; this inference is more than the promises allow: the Communion of the Prophets, our Lord jesus Christ and his Apostles, with the Churches in their time under their many and great corruptions, was not, nor logically could be interpreted, to be an argument of countenance, and approbation of them, or abatement of the zeal against them; nor did they thereby contraction themselves the guilt thereof; the spider which diffused in wine, doth vitiate its subject and make it destructive by the very act of Communion, doth spread his dirty webs all over the Vine, and we ear the grapes thereof, without the least of doubt, or danger: the Cities that suffer by all unfit matter in their public ministrations, attend the good instructions, and assent unto the due proposals, petitions, or demands, rudely uttered by their Recorder: nor think they themselves concerned in the broken, blunt, abrupt style, or confused indigested method of his discourse: the  adjuncts, and ministerial method of God's ordinances, is charged on the Ministers, not members of God's Church: it may indeed add grief or pleasure to the people, but voids not the matter of God's worship, or leaveth any guilt on them, who thereby receive, and celebrate it, but do not approve the same: the spider may indeed suck poison of the grape, and wicked men may make my duty an occasion of their iniquity: but neither the one nor the other giveth thereto any proper casualty: events, accidentals are no arguments against my duty: these are not more damnable to them, who infer them, than they would be to me: if I by reasons thereof decline my duty: my own sorrow, nor other men's sin, must never stave me off from positive duty: these stumbling stones and scandalous inferences, do, and will ever lie in my way to Heaven: yea to my natural life: Christ's sheep must drink, and may be hurt by pudled waters: without participation in the polluting pudling guilt only chargeable on the Pastors, and proud of the flock, none can be offended that I worship God, 
Ezek. 44.  in the solemn public worship of his people: nor can without wounding their own soul be offended that I do it in this order, (to me distasteful not to Gods worship destructive) until my liberty doth manifest it to be an act of choice, not of chance: if any hence infer and enforce a persecuting constraint, and say these men may be compelled to that form of service they will not choose. I shall grant it: but advise such to sit down and consider how this will sound in God's cares: or how themselves will like it to be confined to unclean vessels, and order, because they can but will not choose in such to eat their meat; The offence of any who are Godly will be my trouble, and their sin: but the omission of duty though but for a day will be my transgression, as I dare not admit that, as a reason of this, and must advise it be not pleaded.  
Fifthly. Let it be considered in steering this course, 
Consid. 5. This practice is not w●…hout precedent.  using this liberty, and holding Communion with this very Church, under these very corruptions, and by attendance on this very order of service, and solemn public worship: I am not without the caution and conduct of the sober, godly, learned promoters, and pursuers of a perfect and complete reformation: the reformed Churches beyond the Seas and in Scotland obtained higher degrees of reformation, and more purity of ordinances, than did England (for power and dominion the chiefest reformed Church) yet these never did disown, or decline Communion with her, nor advise any her Members thereunto, yet they did often rebuke and complain of her lukewarm haesitation in the degrees of reformation obtained, and retention of those corruptions which ought to have been expelled among ourselves: tindal, Hooper, Ridley, Latimer, Farrar, Whitaker, Cartwright, Baines, Sibbs, Preston, Rogers, Geree, Mr. john Ball, Langley, Hind, nichols, with many others, the non-conformists of Lincoln, Devon, and Cornwall) besides those of our present age, and yet contemporary with us) all eminent Divines, and Holy men groaning under these retained corruptions, praying for, persuading, and pressing after (unto many and great sufferings) a progress in reformation, (unto the pure primitive plains and simplicity of Christ's own institution) yet lived unto their last breath in constant Communion with our Church, attending God's ordinances under these very disorders and irregularities: and did in many things administer according to the form then & now imposed, and did dismast the non-communion of such who loitered out the time of public prayer, because prescribed and confused: and by press and pulpit pleaded against the separations of Brown, Barrow, johnson, Can, and their separating followers, and adherents, or noncommunicating abettors; as inferring that from the English Liturgy, which it would not allow; these good men with zeal reproved the many Superstitions continued: but still denied them to be any sufficient ground for Separation: from which they ever kept the greater distance, as subverting the very foundation of the Church: and have plainly trodden this tract, in which we must travel, pursuing the purity of worship in Union and Communion with the Church.  
I shall not fear to profess, these good men are the patterns to me proposed, (next to the prophets, our Lord Jesus, and the Apostles) and cautionary boigh● for the guidance of my zeal for the perfection of Reformation, against and past the dangerous extremes of Sup●…stitions, disorderly administrations of God's ordinances, and Church-rendring religion, subverting separation, nor am I herein sensible that our case (because our capacity is so) is different from theirs: only I wish it to be observed, the difference is gradual not Real, it lieth on the measure and mode, not in matter and Substance: they were bound to endeavour an extirpation of the same evil but not by so strong an obligation: They were in the infancy, we are in the adult estate of Reformation, and must therefore esteem the puerilia, which were their pleasure our shame: The nature and quality of the Corruptions, with the necessity of their expulsion were by them under dispute, it has been determined, and that by an Authority (sometime reputed just) and (whatever it will do in politics) will in point of conscience yet abide a dispute as to its lawfulness: they were entangled in the snares of education, and under the insensible yokes of unseasonable subscriptions of approbation of, and promise to administration by this rude order and confused method: whereby the conscience was awed, and the credit of Religion engaged them (by a burdensome groaning spirit) to bear what they did not see how they could regularly be released from: from all which we are free, and most strictly tied by contrary obligations: but neither they nor we might out of our places and Capacities attempt a Reformation by any sedition in the Republic, or sinful Schism from the Church: Non-communion is no more warantable to us under the strongest bonds to reformation than it was unto them without them: because it is an evil in itself: The nature of the (retained, returned) corruptions were the same to them, they are to us, but to neither a justifiable reason for Non-communion: The administration of these good men in, and by this corrupt order, I can better, excuse, then justify, or intimate: I believe extirpation to have been their duty as it is mine: and I see not how I may act, (though I as a private member may and must attend, assent and give my (Amen) unto right matter, in that order and method with those corrupt Appendants I am bound to extripate: (Abstinence from action being the least, and first act of extirpation) in which the private Christian is passive, purely passive, necessarily passive because he cannot enjoy or attend God's worship in this indispenceable duty of holy convocation without it: I believe the ministerial method of public worship: to have been subject to their Judgement, and within their power as Ministers of the Gospel and Stewards of the mysteries of God himself, full and formal Judges of the m●de and order of dispensation (not belonging to or charged on the private members, and objects thereof as to me: In both which respects (besides that special capacity, in which I conclude all the Ministers of our Church now stand by that special obligation which the transactions of providence in our unhappy times brought u on us, and our posterities, and successors: I have else where professed (and must still profess it, as the result of my most serious and deliberate thoughts) I can keep Communion under that form of worship, 
Epistle to Considerator co●…d●res.  whereby I cannot administer and hearty say Amen to the Master of those petitions which are put up in an order so confused preposterous, and indigested, that it seems to me to be so much below the gravity of the Church, whose mouth I must be, the seniousness of the office whereby I minister, the sanctity of the duty I am to perform, and the sacred nature of the object to whom they are presented, that I dare not stand between God and his people with the same; I presume no man will or can deny my capacity as a Minister, to differ from the capacity of a private Member, and bar me against, or bind me unto, what the capacity of a private member of the Church doth not bar against or bind unto: non-administration may subject me to a suspense of my Ministry, when none communion cannot be warranted nor excused; the restraint of that must not run me upon the sin of this: I must (with the pious Israelite) leave my sacrifice before the Lord (though with my souls abhorrency of the profane preposterous order of administration) when I dare not with violence snatch the fat of the sacrifice, and act according to the method of the sons of Eli: I must not leap out of Christ's fold, nor leave his pastures, when trodden down by others, because I dare not present his sheep with puddled waters: in the one I am passive by other men's sin, in the other my action maketh the sin mine own: Gods substantial worship must not be slighted or refused, because the sinful order of men attend it: Strait is the gate, narrow is the way which leadeth to life: whilst I fly from the sin of my Ministry, I may be, and must take heed I be not split by flying into the sin of a Member of the Church: that guilt may be charged on me in the collective body, which I must be innocent of in my personal capacity; where the Constitutions of men include, the righteous judgement of God will distinguish and discriminate; 
Ezek. 9.4.  all particulars are included in an universal defection, but do not perish by it: God will not forget to mark his mourners under Israel's abominations in his worship, 
Numb. 14  which they could not mend nor avoid: his Joshuas and Caleb's, who follow him fully, shall nonfall short of the land of promise, 
Confid. 6.  though all Israel fall in the wilderness.  
Sixtly, Let it be considered, my communion with this Church under these corruptions is not more consonant unto the example of these good men of our Church, 
Communion under corrup. is consonant to my own professions.  and the carriage of other reformed Churches, then unto myself, who am (and I hope through divine Grace shall be) semper idem: ever since I knew any thing of Religion, and in any measure discovered the ways of God and his people, I have grieved for, and contested against the corruptions of his Church, but avoided, abhorred, and opposed separation from, yea a non communion with it, as the much greater evil; though palliated with professions of piety, and pretences of purity, to the seduction of the simple: such as have sat under my ministry (now clouded by a righteous God) reveiwing their notes, and reflecting their thoughts on what I preached) will find a series of rebukes and admonitions against separation and non-communion, though enticed by men seemingly the most holy, and pretences unto the greatest purity and sanctity: In the last Sermons that I preached from John 4.22. from our Saviour's practice and pleading for the Church of the Jews, opposed to the Samaritans, I affirmed, Communion with God's Church under many and great corruptions is not only lawful, but an indispensable duty; the which I amplified by showing the different nature of corruptions, as nouseous and venomous, prejudicial to health and growth, or directly destructive, as intrinsecal and vitiating to the subject, or  and conversant about the same; notwithstanding which the subject remains the same, participation in which contracts guilt (as in offering sacrifice to an Idol) or contracts no guilt to the Communicant (eating in an amicable friendship what is offered to an Idol) such as put us out of a possibility of salvation (the only ground of separation) or are therewith consistent, imposed by others, and so their sin not sufficient to b●r our duty: all which were applied to the Popish administrations, nullifying Christ's Offices and Ordinances, and so necessitating separation, polluting by participation: and England's corruptions grieving God and his people, 
some 8. some 7. some 4. years now past.  but preserving God's worship in the substantial matter, and essential form thereof, and so not sufficient to supersede communion: If you look into the writings which bear my name in the world, you will find separation, because of corruption, condemned by reasons, beyond what the most serious Church-gathering Separatists ever undertook to answer, otherwise then by rage and reproach (the dialect of restrained lust in that, as well as in this revolution): Read at your leisure my Bethshemesh clouded: Saints zeal against sinful Altars: Virtue and value of Baptism, written many years since, and you will see Mr. Crof●ons communion with the Church of England, is not repugnant to his judgement, more than seven years since declared, and in those very writings lately published (before and for which men have (by God's permission) brought my light under a bushel) you shall find my zeal for Reformation consistent to union and communion with the Church; nor did the force of opposing corruption drive me (as I might probably have done) to let fall any expressions in favour of separation: My logical casuistical Contests for Reformation, do very plainly condemn, and protest against schism and sedition as thereunto destructive, particularly in my Analepsis to Doctor Gaudens Analysis, my Argument and Answer is thus concluded: Whatsoever shall be the establishment in the Church, though never so corrupt, yet whilst consistent with salvation, though it may occasion to me suffering, and a suspense of my Ministry by God's Grace, it shall not effect on me, or such on whom I have influence, Schism from the Church or a resistance of his Majesty's just Authority; And in my Epistle to the Lyturgicall Considerator considered (in which I urge my apprehended grounds for the alteration, and abolition of the Ministerial method of solemn public prayer used in our Church) with a pro●est for Communion under it, though against administration by it. I am so much affected to the peace of the Church, that I have of late preached, what (God assisting I am resolved for to practise (viz.) that many, and graet corruptions in God's worship are to be grieved for, and patiently groaned under, before Schism be consented to, or separation be consulted: Provided nevertheless I be passive, not active in them? I can keep Communion under that form of worship whereby I cannot administer and hearty say Amen to the matter of those petitions which are put up in an order so preposterous, and indigested, that I dare not stand between God and his people with the same; The liberty that I now pursue; (when obtained and used) is no more than a practice commencing on these professions, whereby they are made more legible, not more censurable than they were before.  
My good friend, These things considered, I must profess, when ever God shall mollify the hearts of men, into whose hands he hath given my present liberty; I see not any reason (that I dare plead before the Lord, or reflect as a bar on my Conscience) whereupon my solitary Sabbaths may be sweetened, and spent with comfort; my passage to the public assembly and worship, though in this order, and with these appendants which are burdensome to my spirit, standing open; and so my absence being a voluntary act within my own power; If any man professing the fear of God, can produce any, I should be glad, for I fear to be charged with the omission of God's public worship, celebrated in Christ his Church, though with  corruption, and in a rude Ministerial order, which ought to be reform; but will not excuse me, though unforced, by the offence of some weak brethren zealously affected to the purity of God's House and Worship.  
I am not insensible, that the Committee of discretion, will be no less ready to call me fool, for steering this course, than they were for my entering the Lists, in defence, and ●●…o●cement of Reformation, wherein I am deserted by my more prudent brethren;) for that I hereby strike  from that party, on whom my former contests did seem to 〈◊〉 me; But to them I must briefly answer, I am willing to be wise as a serpent, and resolved to keep my inno●…n●… as a dove, so long as these do correspond and agree, I have an heart to lodge them; but if prudence once ob●…ate or obstruct duty, or guide into, o● guard sin, I fear the serpent gins to wind too fare, and getting in the head, will wind in the body, and devour the do●…, that some who have been objects of my opposition (because subjects of separation) have in my present sufferings embraced me, and showed kindness to me and mine, (beyond some more specially charged with it, as their more particular duty.) I am very sensible, and thankfully acknowledge to God and them; and hope they did not thereby design to charm my zeal against what I ever cenceived to be sin, I confess it hath been a check to my comforts, to consider, some triumph in me and my sufferings, because opposed to the superstitions and profaneness, (which they dislike) who agree not with me in those positive truths, which I have asserted; and will be turned in their hearts against me, when the same two-edged-sword in my weak hand, shall be constrained to strike their more civil, seemingly sacred lusts; The Usurer hugs, and hath the Preacher home to dinner, when he preacheth against the prodigal profusal spending drunkard; who will hunt and hurry him out of the Parish when he shall preach against usury: I cannot but tell you a passage which here befell me; In my close confinement three persons, full of seeming zeal to piety and purity, stumbled into my chamber, and saluted me with this salutation, we are strangers to you, but in conscience of our duty are come to visit you as a sufferer for Jesus Christ; to which kind and Christian salutation I returned a short admonition that we might endeavour to understand the truths of the Lord Jesus, and labour to agree in positives, for I feared many rejoiced in my sufferings as negative, and against what is grossly evil, who would not embrace the truths I did contend for; on which these persons zeal boiled over into this angry Taunt; what I warrant you, you are yet for the Church of England, and your parish Churches? to which I could not but Reply by way of advice, not to deny the being of the Church, nor renounce union and Communion with it, because of the corruptions in it; but their zeal broke into rage, and railing, thou Antichrist, wilt thou yet uphold the Beast and Whore of Rome? are you Antichrist still? with many more invectives and expressions of outrage, which provoked me to give them this short farewell, Friends, reconcile yourselves to yourselves, am I a sufferer for Christ, and yet Antichrist? if you come not to visit me, come not to vex me; to all dissenting friends I cannot but by way of thanks for all their kindness, entreat them to study the truths of God I have asserted, and embrace not their force against me, but against both extremes; for that love will not last, which is founded in present contradiction, without consent in positives asserted; Love the Truth, and me for the Truth's sake, then shall ye have the comfort of loving indeed and in truth; It was my hope, and is my prayer, that our retrogradation in Reformation, would have made such who departed from us, to reflect with seriousness (even unto Repentance) the experienced remorse of separating, and Church confusion, to which Church-gathering hath resolved us; but if men harden themselves to uphold their sin, and strengthen their party, (to the utter subversion of this poor Church) and paganizing this Nation, they must give leave to trust God with their love and kindnesses, whilst to my power I resist their lusts; and let them know I cannot be a Martyr of Faction; I hope I can do all things, and suffer all things for the truth, and nothing against the truth: and must all my days pursue Reformation of God's Ordinances in Union, and Communion with the Church, leaving myself, principles, and practices to the judgement of God; knowing it is an easy matter for me to be judged and misjudged by men, and yet abide what I am,  
A servant to God, his Truth, and Church. Z.C. Julij 20. 1661.   

AN APPENDIX To the foregoing LETTER: IN A LETTER, Written in answer to one, signifying to Mr. CROFTON, the Offence which was taken at his going to CHURCH, And being present at the COMMON-PRAYERS IN THE CHAPEL IN THE TOWER OF LONDON.   

For Mr. Z. C. Prisoner in the TOWER.  
DEAR BROTHER,  
YOU cannot enough believe, how much your renewed public Communion, with we know not whom, in the Ordinances, which they think cannot but be materially corrupt, especially in that place, hath grieved and alienated the hearts of the Godly; not only Members, but Ministers: Defend it how we can, They censure it not only Impolitic, but Impious; hardening our Enemies, weakening our Friends, undoing your good Testimony, and giving away the CAUSE, it being aeque, if not aequaliter; as if you should Read and Administer the Form: They think there can be no Obligation of Duty, or Edification warranting the one, which may not also justify the other. The matter of Doctrine, and worship of Prayer, seems to be not only the objectum ad quem, but also per quibus, whether things or persons; wherein they take it for granted, the Common-Prayer is corrupt: As when you pray for Arch-Bishops, Bishops, as Ministers of a superior Degree (and indeed according to the new corrected Form of Ordination, of the only Holy Order and Institution) wherein they are an Antichristian Order, etc. Or if only the Circumstance of the Form were exceptionable, yet you judge the Nurse may as well be bound in Duty and Necessity to give the Child his bread out of a Chamber pot, as she herself, or the Child feed themselves out of it: Plead than you must necessity, for both or neither; and they expect you should do th'other too (se defendendo) or else supersede this for the time to come: But if you proceed, I persuade myself of that very many Brethren which are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the rest, you will be alone in this; for they can with more patience brook to the present, where there be personal corruptions in the Matter, than where there are circumstantial, material Offences in the Form.  
Yours, Bound in your Bonds. P. E.   

For the Reverend Mr. P. E. to be communicated to other Christian Friends, and the Brethren of the Ministry concerned in his Letter, as scandalised at my Communion with the Church, in the Order of Service, by which I cannot administer.  
Good Brother,  
GRace and peace abound; yours (no little aggravation of mine affliction) I received, I thereby understand the grief, not only of Brethren in Christianity, but in the Ministry; because of (what you call renewed) my Communion, with their Church; in that Service by which I cannot administer: and what is to me more grievous, their Censures of my act, as impolitic yea impious, hardening our enemies, weakening our friends, undoing my good testimony, and giving away the Cause: Sir, such is my esteem of the affections of the godly, that their grief must needs be mine: God is my witness, I desire, seek, study their joy; their grief for my duty, can only grieve me in by being groundless; whereby they wound themselves, by wounding him whom God hath grieved; and that by most bitter words, sharper than Swords or Razors, hardening our enemies, weakening our friends, are easily borne, they are events by accident; beyond the nature and intent of the Act, or the intention of the Agent; resulting from the wickedness of the one, and weakness of the other: to deem this Act, Impolitic, I take not ill; all my acts and writings have been such in their account; the Censures of the Committee of discretion, are to me so common, that they pass on me as things of course; branding with folly what could never be convinced of iniquity; but impious doth pierce mine entrails, to shun sin hath been my study, my smart; did not piety bar may policy, I could sleep in as whole a skin as my more prudent Brethren; the fear of God, conscience of duty, provokes this impious act; what a Monster of man hath God made me? my course is nothing but contradictions, treasonable loyalty; schismatical unity; impious piety: yet this is not all, an undoing of my good testimony, and giving away the Cause, and so an Apostate, can any thing cut deeper? be more clouding to my sufferings? more deprive God of the glory thereof? it pierceth my soul to cry Lord judge between me and Brethren, my witness is on high, my Record is above; I have charity for Jobs miserable comforters; they spoke well of God, though their arguing reproved not Job, for they spoke with a mistaken zeal; I believe they were Saints against whom Paul appealed; it is an easy thing for me to be judged of men, my judgement is of the Lord; The Lord strengthen my patience under this most provoking temptation, that I may with sobriety reason against clamatous censorious Brethren.  
My good Brother, where is sobriety? charity? is zeal for purity a Moses Serpent, to devour these Graces of the Spirit? Cave.  
Why is my now attendance on solemn public worship, branded to be renewed communion, with you know not whom? if you mean this of persons individual, truly as to the most I know not whom, nor can I think you judge it necessary; I cannot in my first communion know it in any Congregation; is Church gathering become a Presbyterial principle? is it the work of every age? is seven, not seventy years an age? is non knowledge of Members a cause of non communion? would not common charity make me know them to be a society of Christians? worshippers of the true God in Jesus Christ, and are they not hereby members of the Church Catholic visible, particularly divided by local circumscription? or have we renounced this principle? is not the Liberty of the Tower a particular Church, in a Presbyterial sense as well as Christ Church, or Alhallows Breads street? If I communicate in these, must I not communicate with I know not whom? may I not hear the Gospel preached, and (in calling on God in the name of Christ, for things agreeable to his will) communicate with I know not whom? But why is my communion renewed? I never denied; I never ceased from; I never was cut off from communion with the English Reformed Church, and its particular Assemblies: must Independents be verified in the false reproach, (viz.) Presbyterial Churches w●re gathered Churches? Presbytery interrupted was the Church dissolved? and Communion abandoned? Cave.— We have disowned, denied, determined sin, and danger in these Notions; I have more charity than to think myself out of Communion, because violently debarred from Convention with the particular Assemblies of the Reformed English Church. God having at length opened me a door of liberty to attend his solemn public worship in this place, with this Assembly, why is my acceptance, and use thereof clamorously condemned as an act not only impoliti k, but impious? do not you know this is the execution of a resolution, neither new nor rash? not new, for I thus determined, and thus practised in my youth, when piety was reproached by profane men, as Puritanism, and by the Brownists as corrupt Communion: I thus determined, and declared in my public Ministry, and preaching for Reformation: I thus determined in all my late disputes and writings; whilst I was at liberty I thus practised on accidental occasions; I (herein convinced, and hereof persuaded) prayed the liberty I now enjoy, the first day I was committed prisoner to this place, and have ever since petitioned to enjoy it: this act you know is not rash, but the result of mature and deliberate thoughts, besides what hath passed between God and mine own soul; I have heard and weighed the objections of separating as well as reforming brethren; and after many expostulations I have (you know it) stated my Case of Conscience, drawn up my reasons, communicated them to Brethren, and Christian Friends; craved a Confutation from more than one; prayed fraternal Correption, by solid and serious Argumentation; and professed a readiness to hear, and obey Conviction: I wonder after all this, and Nine months' time to have corrected, convinced my Judgement; I shall be censured for bringing it to Act, and you should now call for an Apology.  
Dear Brother, How long shall I complain? when shall I be known, and dealt with as a Brother? Is it fair Play to revile, and not reprove? To condemn, and not confute? Will you neither convince my Conscience, nor be content without Censures, to see me obey it? Are you angry to be imposed on, and yet expect I should live by an implicit Faith; and forbear what is to me a positive Duty, on this bare Reason, The Brethren will be displeased? Let me say it without Profaneness or Levity, Be not wise overmuch: The Offence of Brethren hath its place and weight in my Soul; but must be well grounded, before it counterpoise Conscience of positive, indispensable Duty.  
I well understand not the Epithets which vilify my present Act, because they are general, and without Reason.  
That it is Impolitic, I may not deny; I have ever been estranged to, and at enmity with the brethren's Policies and Fancy: If they had in some things been as foolish as silly I, God might have had more Glory, Truth more Strength, the Church more Purity and Order, myself more Liberty; their Comforts I know not, nor will adventure to judge: What Policies this Act must relate unto, I know not; unless, it be the strengthening, and so justifying those Schisms which supplanted, subverted our Reformation, by those Seditions, Rebellions, Treasons, which have made it Odious, and scandalised the endeavours thereof; that the most Upright, and Innocent among us, are pressed under it. If Brethren were sensible, That my Zeal for Reformation is reproached, repelled; and myself, thus oppressed by these Schisms; they would not sure think it Policy to strike hands with them; or Impolitic, to appear really, as well as verbally against them. God knoweth I may not long speak, let me speak freely: Truly Brother, foolish I, think it aque, and aequaliter politic, for serious sober Reformers, to unite with Noncommunicating, Separating, Congregational Brethren, in the Church-confounding, nullifying principles and practices: As for our late King-Killers to cry up the COVENANT▪ and confound the Quarrel of the Parliament, with the Good Old Cause. Confound 62. with 52. and you may reconcile 48. to 43. and soon return to 48. again: Agree these in ecclesiastics, and divide them in Civils if you can. I wish I could not scent some Brethren (offended at my Act) as tainted already in their Civils: But I am a Fool, be it so; yet a Fools Bolt is soon shot. If Presbyters will wisely serve God's providence, and do his Church proper Service, Now it is their Time, and Business to witness Corruptions circa cultum publicum, will not warrant Non-communion with secession or separation from a true Church, and such I yet deem England: Correct this folly, and I may become wise; till then, I will through Grace, joy in my folly. I have observed indeed Gods, and the King's Fools were never many: But truly, foolish I, could never judge it good Policy, That Non-communion, Separation, and the Sectarian Spawn, should shroud themselves, and be sheltered by Nonconformity and Reformation: Hath not our dear-bought Experience taught us, That the Repute of being the Parent of these, hath been the Remora, and Retroversion of that? Can we forget, how these, when in Power, did divide, divert, and destroy Reformation; Paganize all England, and plant One hundred and twenty gathered Churches, and thereby proclaim Entity, not Purity of the Churches, was their Quarrel? And shall we not now be so wise, as to disown, and deny them, as a Bastard brood: Now they are taken as Vagrants, and whipped up to Non-conformists, as their reputed Parents? Can we ever witness Relation more than by these affectionate embraces in this day of Discrimination? O! that my brethren's Policy were so wise, as to consider the Duty and Necessity of differing Reformation and Separation, and thath they would ponder the Honour and Benefit of Nonconformity, protesting, and practising against Non-communion, in this day, when its Enemy doth confound and destroy this for the sake, and under the name of that. But whither am I gone? I must come back like a Fool, and tell you, I could never beat it into my Brains, That it was good Policy to run out of an unclean disordered House, under pretence of cleansing and regulating the same. My little will led me to abide in it, and by a Scrub Besom of a reproving Ministry, such as I can get, to bring the Dust about mine Ears: I judge it prudent filth which hangs on my , in a regular endeavour to get it out of my House; I am mistaken, if ever my House will cleanse itself, if I run and call all others out of it: Once more, and all my wit is wasted; I am an Irish man, and never yet was so wise to lie in the Field, open to cold and wet, because the Beasts, not only stood, but unhandsomely dung d in my lodging Chamber? I have been used to Impoliticks, but am unwilling to be better advised. Impolitic! That is nothing, Fools may go to Heaven; but my Act is impious, This cannot be endured, without good Evidence, it is an high Charge: I pray, wherein lies its impiety? This seemeth contrary to the general nature of the Act; for that is a Religious Attendance on the Solemn Public Worship of the true God in Jesus Christ. Irregularity and Disorder may be an iniquity in the Administrator; but that the Attendance on God's Worship disorderly dispensed, is impious in God's People, my Bible doth not teach; lend me yours, for I will not persist in any thing that writeth impiety on my Soul; my Charity will not allow me to charge them with impiety, who voluntarily attend this Service, only because they do so; misguided Zeal is not always impious. I dare not charge our first R formers, and Marian Martyrs, to have gone to the Stake, under the Gild, and in the very Act of impiety? and yet many of them went embracing, commending, chanting, and concluding their last Devotion and Breath, in the Words, and Order of the Common-Prayer. Gradual Defect, will not acquit their Act from impiety; if it now be, it than was an Act impious to serve God by the Common-Prayer. Our measure of increased light, and many Obligations, may aggravate our persistance in it, but will not alter the nature of the Act, in itself impious. Conscience bindeth me to be present in the Solemn Convocation, and personally attend his Public Worship; the which, when I come to it, is by the impious Administrator, dispensed in a rude, disorderly, irreverend Mode, which maketh it my burden, and my Soul to loath, what I dare not leave, because it is for Matter and essential Form the Lords Ordinance: Is this an Act impious? Let brethren's Piety work by Charity, to evince the Impiety; I will give Glory to God, and return; till then, let me proceed without Censure.  
You specify some Sequels of this mine attendance on Solemn Public Worship, in this Mode and Order; but they are such, as will not convince the same of impiety; you say,  
I hereby weaken Friends, and strengthen Enemies: I pray you how, and wherein? The Friends and Enemies of Non-Communion and Separation, from the English Reformed Church, never came into the Calendar of my Friends or Enemies; nor were they ever owned by sober Non-conformists, contesting for gradual Reformation: If such be hereby strengthened, and weakened; I bless God that I have done my Duty, and that my practice doth edify, whilst I am not permitted to preach. I must confess, it is one end of my Action; I account it mine Honour, really to witness against Non-communion, in my very Conflicts for Reformation: But if Friends and Enemies to that Gradual Reformation, incumbent on our age and hands, be weakened, or strengthened, it may be mine Affl ction, it is not mine Impiety; for this Event is by accident, not natural and genuine; the result of weakness in the one, and wickedness in the other, who consider not that Nonconforming Communion, is an indispensable Duty, and essential to Church-Reformation. I must keep in my house if I will cleanse it, though the filth in it is mine Annoyance: Circumstantial Defects, Redundant Appendants, and Disorders, will not warrantably discharge mine attendance on the substantial, and truly existing worship of God: In this Case, give me leave to say to stumbling Friends and Brethren, you have Zeal, but not according to knowledge. I must by Union with the Church, seek Purity of Ordinances; and none but wilful Fools, or mad Men, will run to the Channel to drink, because men at Sea are glad to drink stinking water, or deny to wash the Vessel, or force all for ever to drink in such unclean Vessels, because some through necessity can, and do drink in such: And yet Brother, I cannot but tell you, I have the comfort of my own Endeavours, to anticipate this accidental Event, by those Papers which I passed into the City, with an intent to have passed them into the World; in which you have my Apology for this Act: And in Answer to this Objection, I pray God they who stopped their Publication, when they might have done it, may seriously consider the service they have done the Church of God; I could do no more to make even paths to weak feet; if those who should, would not pave it, I cannot help it; I am innocent of the blood of all men, who stumble at this Act (in itself lawful) and indispensably necessary, because of those accidents which I have done my part to anticipate.  
But you say, I hereby undo my good Testimony, and give away the Cause in which I appeared, This beareth indeed an Aspect of Impiety; an Apostate is odious to God and men: I have ever resolved (and may ere long prove it) to die, rather than do this; my Conscience beareth me witness, All this is come upon me, yet have I not dealt falsely in the Covenant. Had this been objected by men who knew not Mr. Crofton, who never read the Writings for which he suffered, it had been a tolerable mistake; well may others, when my Familiars and Brethren so much mistake my Testimony, and misread my Cause; well might Thomas Tomkins confound me with our late Usurping Traitors, when my Fellow-Presbyters confound me with Separatists. I observe you grant my Testimony given, is good; I wish it had been owned with less fear and shame, I had been then more encouraged in it: But I pray Brother, what was it? Was it the Cause of separation from, or Non-communion with the English Reformed Church, because corrupt, or Backslider in its Reformation? Have I been all this time a Martyr for Independency? nothing less; Zachary Crofton a Separatist from, or Non-communicant with a backsliding, corrupt, disordered Church, is as great, as clear a Contradiction, as Zachary Crofton a Traitor to King Charles the Second: Which of the people who sat under my Ministry, will say, I now undo the good Testimony I gave, and give away the Cause for which I appeared? Do I now practice otherwise than I have preached? Who hath read the Books for which I suffer, and will say, I, by this Act, Give away the Cause, and undo my good Testimony? Read my Bonds, pag. 35. Whatever shall be the establishment in the Church, though never so corrupt, yet whilst consistent with Salvation, though it may occasion to me Suffering, and Suspension of my Ministry, by God's Grace it shall not effect in me Schism from the Church. Read my Fetters, pag. 49, 50. This Reformation cannot justify the Separation; for that the Corruptions established, were never made a sufficient ground for Separation; sober, serious Non-conformists, who groaned under the burden of th●se Corruptions, and for this Reformation, were grieved by, and greatly contended against this Separation, as that which wanted sufficient ground. Read again mine Epistle to Mr. Firmins' Lyturgical Considerator, in pag. 3. I can keep Communion under that Form of Worship whereby I cannot Administer; and I can hearty say Amen to the Matter of those Petitions which are put up in an Order so confused, preposterous, and indigested; that it seemeth to me to be so much below the Gravity of the Church, whose mouth I must be; the Seriousness of the Office whereby I administer, the Sanctity of the Duty I am to perform, and the Sacred Nature of the Object to whom they are presented, that I dare not stand between God and his people with the same. This last is part of my Testimony concerning, and against the Lyturgy itself: Now Sir, What is my good Testimony? Wherein is it undone? Am I not practising the Cause in the express state in which I stated it? It was ever far from mine intentions to be an Advocate, much less a Martyr, for Non-communion and Separation: Nonconformity and Reformation is my Cause, hath made my Testimony; if I undo, or give away this Inculca me tanquam salem insipidum. Good Brother, read me right, and charge me not with Apostasy; who drive with all my main, my good Testimony against the one, as well as the other, extreme of Reformation: You wound yourselves, and engage Enemies (by your Censures) to Clamour, and call me Apostate: But you cannot convince me, nor any that know me and my Testimony, that I am started one hairs breadth from my Cause; this condemned practice, is the formal pursuit of my Contest; I must therefore see very good grounds before I give back.  
Having answered your Charge of Impolicy and Impiety, I must consider your suggested Arguments against mine attendance on God's Solemn Public Worship in this place and order: And truly Brother, these are few and obscure, I understand them not: You speak of Ordinances, which the Brethren think to be materially corrupt: I can say no more to this, but only to request they will speak out their thoughts, and specify the seeming corrupt matter, and then I will judge concerning it: And when they come to do this, I think they will find, Secundae Cogitationes sunt meliores; they will find it is the Mode, not Matter, that is corrupt. You say, The Matter of Doctrine, and Worship of Prayer, seemeth not only to be the objectum ad quem (I think quoth more proper) but pro quibus; whether things or persons, wherein they take it for granted the Common-Prayer is corrupt. This I profess I understand not; What do you mean by the Matter of Doctrine, and Worship of Prayer? Are these terms Synonimous? Intent you by them Doctrine suggested in, and by Prayer? Or the Credentials of the Common-Prayer-Book, distinct from the Worship of Pray? I pray you explain yourself, and then know, Think so, Seemeth so; and take for granted, may be supposed grounds for your Censures; but signify nothing to my Conviction; which must be on certainty if it supersede, what I conclude indispensable Duty: Indeed your annexed instance maketh me think, you mean the Matter of Doctrine suggested by Prayer; for you specify Arch-Bishops and Bishops, as a superior Degree of Ministry; and if so, you will give me leave to tell you, you have antedated your Objection; for our Books pray for none but Bishops and Curates, or Pastors and Curates; so that till the time of change come, I may (notwithstanding this Exception) continue my Communion; when the new Book cometh, I may consider the weight of this Plea; in the mean time I pray you resolve me, Will single Errors preached, much less suggested in Prayer, warrant Non-communion with a true Church, Non-attendance on Gospel-Ministry, and Gods Solemn Public Worship? What meaneth, when bindeth that Rule of our Redeemer, Beware of the Leaven of the Pharisees? I cannot understand by take heed what you he●r? hear not them who teach for Doctrines the Traditions of men. May not a personal Dissent be entered to a Petition, for a mistaken Object, and suggesting an Error as its Basis? Or must the whole Prayer for Matter generally good, therefore be disowned? This will necessitate, and was the first cause of S t-forms of Prayer, and require that they composed, be not only communicated fratr●bus doctioribus; but also to every indiv●dual Member of the Church, who must join in Prayer; and so Sir, we fight well, to fly upon, by flying from a Common-Prayer Book.  
You add, The Brethren think mine attendance on it is aequ●, if not aqualiter; As if I should read or administer by this Form; and that there can be no Obligation of Duty, or Edification warranting the one, which may not also justify the other. To this I say, Th●nk so will not convince; but of such who thus think, I would inquire, Is the common state of a Christian, different from the special state of a Minister? And so the Capacities, Duties, and Obligations of each different; so that the one may be continued, while the other doth cease. The one may, and must be acted, when the other is arrested, superseded, or violently barred; if men of power in the Church will discapacitate me for the one, doth it ipso facto, discharge me from the other? Do our discapacitated Common Councel-men cease to be Citizens? Or be they not bound to retain their Relation, and participate or communicate in the common good of the City, under what (they judge to be) the rude and disordered Government thereof? I do not believe the Obligation of my Ministry to be aeque, or aequaliter, necessitous and extensive with that of Christianity. I must be, and act as a Christian, when those conditions are required from me which I cannot yield, and without which I may not be permitted to act as a Minister; and those conditions will not discharge the Duties of the one, nor bar the Exercise of them which do bar the other. I a Minister, stand in a general and special Relation to the Church, and am charged with Duties proper and peculiar to each of these. I may be sinfully imposed on, and restrained from my special, by those things which will not bar the Duties of my general Relation and Capacity: I conceive Administration of God's Worship, is much different from Attendance on God's Worship; and I stand bound to the last, when I am (justly or unjustly) barred from the first. Abiathar, and the Idolatrous Priests, were not barred from serving God with the Church, when thrust from serving in the Priests Office. In my general Relation, as a Member of the Church, I stand charged, and am capacitated to judge the Matter, and essential Form of God's Worship; assent to which, is mine only Act: But in my special Relation, as a Minister, I stand also charged, and am capacitated to judge the Ministerial Mode, and humane Order by which Gods Worship is celebrated; and if herein I be imposed on, and that by an Order rude, irreverend, and unsuitable to God, his Church, or Worship; which right Reason, much less true Religion, will not allow me to receive; I am interrupted in my Ministerial Office, the Formality of which is, As a man to Modify God's Institutions, whereby an intercourse is maintained between God and men; such imposition I judge to be a subversion of Ministerial Office and Authority; not to be offered by others, or admitted by myself, without great iniquity; and if it therefore be enforced by violence, that I must be restrained from my Ministerial Modification of God's Ordinances according to mine Office, and Ministerial Gifts received; or I may not be permitted to Minister, I yet stand in my Relation, as a Member of the Church, bound to communicate: The Ministerial Mode imposed, and sinfully received (by such as subjugate their Ministry) not vitiating the Subject, or nullifying the Ordinances of God; will not warrant my Non-attendance on them: It is not equally necessitous and obliging, that I a Speaker, pronounce a wild indigested Speech, full of Incongruities, Nonsense, and Solecisms (from which a sound mind doth bar me) as that I join and concur in the Substantials thereof with the Assemblies, so ask common and certain good things.  
I may not cast off my general Relation, wherein I am purely passive, because those things are to be personally acted in my special Relation and Capacity, which I cannot without sin consent to do, and therefore must stand still. I cannot beat it into my Brains, that it is aeque, or aequaliter to attend, and give an Assent unto the Matter prayed, as to utter, pronounce, and express the raw, rude, and disorderly Speech of the Speaker: Or that the Necessity or Obligation of the whole House, in this general Order to present itself before his Majesty, which will and doth warrant the one, may justify the other; the Speakers Speech is often censured, when the Commons concerned in it are commended and justified.  
But Sir, Rather than not enforce this Fancy, you will knock me on the Head with a Chamber-pot; you urge my necessity to Communion, to be the same to Ministration, and tell me, I judge the Nurse is bound in Duty and Necessity to give the Child his bread (his milk had been more proper) out of a Chamber-pot, as she herself; or the Child itself out of it: An homely Simile, but in a starving Necessity, I do judge so; but I judge Similes do not currere quatuor pedibus, there is no aptitude in this to my Case, that Necessity will constrain me to take my Meat in an unclean Vessel; which will not constrain me to give it in that Vessel to another. I suppose your Nurse is poor, who hath no other Vessel but a Chamber-pot; yet I must suppose her a good Huswife capacitated to make it clean: But if her Superiors have stripped her of all other, and will bar her from her cleansing this, I suppose she is not bound to play the Nurse, and feed others, though she must thus feed herself; if filthy Parents will have such Nurses, or none, I hope it is in my power to be none of them, I am not bound to it, I am by Nature bound to deny it; and yet I must maintain mine own being as well as I can: If the being of Christianity depend upon my personal Ministry, as my being, or appearing a Christian, doth on my Communion with the Church visible, your Inference might be of some force, but this it doth not: That therefore you may understand the difference, keep to similitudes more apt: The King hath Decreed, All the Citizens shall each Month present their Petitions by a joint Assent to the Expressions of a Speaker; the Governors of this City direct a course by which to design different Speakers, they consult Matter to be spoken, and the Mode of speaking; the first is good, and allowed; the second is rude, and disordered; the Speakers can better express the desired Matter, but shall not be permitted; are they aeque, or aequaliter, obliged to speak in this Mode, as to attend this Assembly, and give Assent to this common good Matter rudely expressed by others? Not speaking in this Mode, they lose the Honour and Advantages of the Speakers; but not attending, or assenting to the Matter, they lose the benefit and being of Citizens; are these equally to be embraced and pursued? They are bound in the one personally to Act, and denying to subjugate their Judicium rationale, to the rude Prescriptions of others, they are barred from it; but resolved into the common state, in which, assent to the Matter is their only Act, being wholly and purely passive in the prescribed and imposed Form and Mode of expression; in your Chamber-pot Case, you suppose Christianity to depend on my personal Ministry (which my Relation as a Nurse doth renounce) and then indeed your Inference may be cogent; for than your Chamber-pot will square with du Moulins, Fool's Coat; but in my more suitable and sociable Case, I am bound to attendance when, and where I am not bound to administer: The Necessity of City-Interest and Relation, doth bind me to attendance, and assent to City-Petitions; but not to the Duty and Dignity of a Speaker, between the King and the City, from which I am barred by the irrational imposition of an irregular, undue Mode of expression, in which I must personally act, by a suspense of my Judicium rationale, which I am bound to act in this more, and beyond what I must judge in my more common Capacity.  
Now Sir, I must tell you, I know not whom you intent by the Brethren, who are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, in the rest; sure I am, they are not Congregationallists, who have no little blasphemed the COVENANT, by their late Professions for it, and by their Martyr's pretences to it, as the Bond of their most barbarous, pernicious Treasons and Impieties; which was by themselves slighted as an Almanac out of Date, and profanely, blasphemously violated before they could, or did consult and perpetrate the same: I cannot suppose them to be the Brethren, for the late specifical Difference, whose Policy propounded an interpretation of the COVENANT, contrary to the literal sense, and Grammatical Construction thereof; from whom, and which you know, I was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉; it hath been mine unhappiness, that few of the Brethren have been 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the present concernments of Reformation; nor could I expect it, whilst I could not be heard to speak; nor was worth reading when I had written.  
Again, I must tell you that it is my Grief to observe that many are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in Negatives, who are, and are resolved to be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in Positives: These agree with me in, and against the Disorders which should not be, but descent from me in that Order which should be in the Church: They consent, when I say, Ministers must not conform; but understand me not, or affirm me Antichristian, when I say, Members must communicate. They own me as Zealous, when I cry to the sons of Eli, You do wickedly, thus rudely to Administer; but disown me as impious, when I tell Israel, You must bring your Offerings to the Lord, though by reason of the profane Priests, and rude Administration thereof, your Soul doth loathe them. They like me well, and cry me up, when I say, The Image of Jealousy provoketh God, and hath brought him down from his Mercy-seat, to the Threshold of the Temple; but look a squint, and cry down, when I tell them, I will follow, not go before God; Israel must know, and appear in the Temple as God's house, though he be at the Threshold ready to departed, but not yet gone. How long shall we represent the Spirit of Reformation, to be a Spirit of Contradiction? and verify that odious Scandal, That Non-conformists condemn every thing, but cannot tell what they would have. I have observed new light is only reprehensive, but true light is also discretive and directive.  
Good Brother, Desire such who in this are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, to cast an eye on that Tract (almost lost in our late Confusions) which Cartwright, Geree, Hildersham, Dod, Ball, Hind, nichols, Langley, did tread out, between the Conformity thou (as now) required; and the Non-communion by the Brownists, and Semiseparatists then as now pressed, practised, and contested for, with more reviling Censures, than convincing Reasons.  
I wish all those 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Brethren, would seriously study the Nature of Separation and Non-communion, and observe the quality and quantity of Corruptions, which all who have written on that Subject, have concluded may be in a Church, before they constitute a warrantable Cause of Separation, or Non-communion. I have not met with any who would not allow, yea, require Communion as a Duty with a Church whose Ministers are vile, Members wicked, Ministration rude and disorderly, Censures wanting, or warding against the power of Godliness; Worship polluted, and in which Idolatry is practised, but conjunct with Gods true Worship; their Altars standing by God's Altar; their Post by his Post; their Groves and high Places, in his holy Mountain, near unto his very Temple. I will not in these Cases except Cotton, or H ochre; by whose Principles (the being of the Church admitted) I will be bound to defend my present Practice.  
Good Brother, Remember, Consider our difference from the former state of these holy men is Gradual, not Real; the Duty or Impiety was in nature the same to them, the measure and aggravation is more to us: They indeed acted beyond what I can allow, and in what I can better excuse, than justify them; but their Arguments for Communion, are armed with Religious Reason, beyond what can be resisted.  
If now, I am left alone (for I must yet proceed) I shall only note paucity of Professors, is attendant on all Criticisms of Christianity, straight is the Gate. Joshua and Caleb must follow God throughly, not turning to the right or left hand. God's Worship, disordered in its Ministration and Mode, I attend with Grief; but the Corruptions being , not vitiating the Subject, under which Gods Worship is for Matter and constitutive Form his own, I dare not leave it, I dare not but attend it; violent Restraint removed, I have no ground of Faith in neglect hereof, to expect special Grace or Presence; I cannot with Confidence appeal to God, with Lord, Thou wilt have Me●cy, not Sacrifice. As a common Christian, I am charged to judge the Matter; as a Minister, the Mode and Order of God's Worship; when it is convincingly demonstrated, that these two are aeque, or aequaliter, necessitous and obliging, I shall either Conform, or cease to Communicate; till then, I pray you Brethren, receive my Practice as a Comment on my Cause and Testimony; and give me leave without your Censures (provoking, justifying the Clamours of the wicked) to walk with my God in Communion with his Church visible, conform to the commanding Dictates of my Conscience; This is the Desire of, Sir,  
Your Brother, Constant to God, And his Covenant. ZACHARY CROFTON.  
FINIS.