Five propositions to the Kings Majesty and the army, concerning church-government, in the ordering of the discipline thereof towards communicants. / By H. Hammond Doctor in Divinity, and one of the Kings chaplains, now with his Majesty in the army.

Five Propositions to the Kings Ma∣jesty and the Army, concerning Church-Government, in the ordering of the Discipline thereof towards Communicants.

1. THat the power may be, To provoke to goodnesse, put∣ting them in minde of every occasion, wherein any Chri∣stian vertue of mercifulnesse, Almes-giving, meeknesse, pu∣rity, peace-making, is more then ordinarily seasonable; and by our example, and the examples of other pious men, (present, or read of in Story, especially sacred) encouraging to abundance in well doing, and upon all occasions re∣membring them of the various dispensations of the love and mercy of God through Christ, where∣in they have had their peculiar portion, and the in∣finite immarcessible Crowne, that super-abundant weight of glory, which is not in the same degree powred out to all, but dispensed according to works, according to the proportion of that labour of Love, and worke of Faith, that shall be obser∣vable in every Combatant of Christs, when the

great Leader and Crowner of our Faith shall come out to his day of retributions; and each of these is an excellent way to provoke all to well doing, the duty prescribed, Heb. 10.24. Let us observe one another, to sharpen or provoke (in one another) Cha∣rity and good or laudable works.

2. To give the Brother a sight, not onely of his sins (the not doing of which is an argument of a most mortall enmity, a hating the Brother in the heart, whom we do not in that case rebuke, Lev. 19.17. and no man must be ever accounted other∣wise then a treacherous contriver of his brothers destruction, that is guilty of it) but even of his passions, his inclinations, the weaknesses and pecu∣liar distempers of his nature, things, of which no man is a competent judge to discerne them in him∣selfe, and wherein a man may live and dye igno∣rant, if he be not taught by anothers more impar∣tiall observation, and of which there is farre more reason to expect to be admonisht by a friend that takes notice of them, then of a jaundice-looke, or earthly breath, which being but symptomes of bo∣dily diseases, and yet by all rules of friendship to be revealed to him who is concerned to know and seeke out for cure of them, are not neare so dange∣rous to be concealed, or unlikely to be discerned by the patient, as the more subtle secret diseases of the Soule. Thus, if the interpretation of learned men will stand good; Saint Paul received benefit by the admonition of the by-standers, Act. 23.4. without which he had not considered what was his duty to the High Priest. And thus did Christ befriend Saint Peter with the knowledge of his passionate temper

(transported with zeale at the present, though he should dye with Christ, he will not deny him, and af∣terwards, when danger was instant, transported as much with a contrary passion) and foretold him, that he peculiarly should deny him, which it seems, he never would have discerned in himselfe: And if any thing had been armour sufficient against seare, this of all others would most probably have secu∣red him.

3. The third is, (in case of falling into, but espe∣cially continuing in sin) frequent, repeated, impor∣tunate calling and rouzing to awake, and get out of it. That title of the friend among the heathens, to be the other or second selfe, being far from be∣ing lessened or superseded by Christ, (but improved indeed, and applyed to the divinest and most sacred offices of friendship, and the rescuing from sin, as from the most formidable danger) layes an obliga∣tion upon every friend, every brother, i. e. Chri∣stian (toward every other, that comes wit hin the reach of his warmth or influence) to supply all those offices, that every ones selfe, i. e. his soul, his consci∣ence, is concerned and obliged to do. Thus when the conscience, beside the directive office, hath ano∣ther of punishing and disciplining too, of playing the Erinnys with the torch within us, to scorch and light us out of our road of darknesse, the Brother, the Christian, the second soul, and conscience with∣in the fellow-Christians breast, received thus into his most venerable secrets, the knowledge of the deformities and sins of his very soule, when either he hath neglected to performe the duty of the Do∣mestick divine guardian, the assiduous watch to

keepe off the hostile approaches or mines of sinnes, or hath not been obeyed in his warnings, he hath now this onely last part of duty behind, that of be∣comming the Angell to Lot, calling him, leading him, forcing him out of Sodome, setting him with∣out the Port with an escape, fly for thy life, neither stay thou in all the plaine; and againe re-inforcing the admonition and warning, with an escape to the mountaines lest thou be consumed. And he that hath no heart to be thus importunate upon his pe∣rishing brother, may by that ghesse how little he hath of that Angelicall temper in him.

4 The fourth degree of this duty is, (in case any or all the former, though conscientiously and dili∣gently used, have yet been without successe, then watching of seasons and opportunities, calling in prudence to assist Charity, the braine to aide the heart, either comming as God to Adam, in the coole of the day, when the tempter of the wax may probably make it more capable of impression, or (as the fathers say of Gods dealing with the Elect, whom he doth, as 'tis thought, by that meanes in∣fallibly worke on) calling him, tempore congruo, at a fit chosen time, when in all probability a seaso∣nable admonition may be hearkened to; great va∣riety there is of these opportunities, not defineable particularly, but onely observable by him, that not onely in his duty towards God, and toward him∣self, but also toward his weak or sick brother doth walke circumspectly, and observingly, not as an unwise, but wise watchman, and that is the mea∣ning of Ephes. 5.16. parallel to Dan. 2.8. rendred

in the former place redeeming, in the latter gai∣ning the time, i. e. delaying in time of the rage, or fury of the Prince, in Dan. or of the evill times, in St. Paul; and so in the heat of a violent sinne, when admonition is out of its place, untill the present tempest be over, and then there be more hope, or possibility for reason to be hearkened to. And as a branch of this comes in at last

5 A fift degree of this duty (when nothing else will, and that may probably or possibly doe some good, but never else, never upon wearinesse, or wrath, or any thing, but grounds of deepest Cha∣rity) the breaking of familiar converse with him, to whom all other methods of kindnesse have prov'd succeslesse. For as in the authoritative pro∣cesse, when the censures of the Church are found necessary, to which onely Christ designed them to the saving that which is lost, the course is to de∣ny him the most intimate society, that of the communion of the faithfull, and neither joyne with him in the Prayers and Lessons, nor in the participation of the Lords Supper: so in the image of that, the society of single friends or Christians (especially where there is no place for the publike censures either for want of govern∣ment in a new planted Church, or where Schisme hath driven it out, or where the crime is not of that nature, as to be capable of that publike audi∣ence) when all the former offices of the Angelus custos have been perform'd improsperously, then that of the Angell with Jacob, a wrestling to get from him, to deny him the blessing of his company

and familiarity, may prove seasonable, not out of a fastidious passionate displeasure to the sinner, (O, he is then the most naturall proper object of pitty and kindnesse, the incorrigible sinner is fit for any thing rather then our anger or impatience) nor a∣gaine, lest I be polluted by his company, (in this case 'tis with the friend as with the beleeving Hus∣band, if the unbeleeving Wife is willing to live with him, let him not depart, how knowest thou but that by thy Christian contrary example thou maist yet save thy impenitent heathen brother?) but I say onely on that great principle of saving Charity, that by seeing himselfe avoided, with∣drawne from, left to converse with none (beside his sinne) but fiends and flatterers, he may possibly be ashamed, and by that confusion of spirit awakened out of that snare, whence the calme, lesse sensible admonitions were not able to rouze him, and this perhaps was the kinde that belong'd to the disor∣derly obedient, 1 Thes. 5.14. which the Thessaloni∣ons are so earnestly entreated (peculiarly under the notion as brethren) to use in this case; and an opportunity sometime may be wisely chosen when it may prove proper and seasonable.