01.03 A MEETING HOUSE OR A PERISH CHURCH

Chapter III A MEETING HOUSE OR A PERISH CHURCH IS NOT THE CHURCH OF JESUS CHRIST

I would next have it to be considered by what rule you call a meeting-house, a Parish-Church? The word in Scripture that is translated Church, used to signify A congregation called out of the world to be God’s people, a company of people that are to be looked upon as sanctified in Christ Jesus, called to be Saints, 1 Corinthians 1:2. By what authority do you give this title to an house made of Stones and Timber? The Word Church

Perhaps you will say the word Church is (like the Scottish word Kirk) derived from the Greek word Kiriaco "Symbol", which signifies, the Lord’s or appertaining to the Lord, and that you call these houses Churches, because they are the Lord’s Houses. But how came these to be the Lord’s Houses, more than any other houses? They were consecrated indeed by Popish Bishops. But though these Bishops had power from the Pope, we know who gave to the Pope his power and his seat and great authority, Revelation 13:2. Yet all this power and authority is too weak, and too little, to make these houses the Lord’s Houses. These house were also dedicated to Saints Canonized (or approved) by the Pope. Yet this also is not sufficient to make them the Lord’s Houses. The Latin Mass-Book (in the last age refined and turned into an English Service-Book) has also been used in these houses as many times as there be untruths in your Gangraena. Yet this also is not enough to make these houses the Lord’s Houses. It is not in the power of men, no not of the Pope, and all his Vassals, to make any place to be for ever the Devil’s house, for then many of these places had been made such, so neither is it in the poer of men, no not of an Assembly of Bishops or Presbyters, to make an house to be the Lord’s House.

O. T. Temple Was The House of God The Temple at Jerusalem was indeed called the House of God, because it was a type of Christ, as our Savior’s words do intimate in John 2:19. Dare you to make these houses herein like unto the Temple? Dare you say that any house may now be looked upon as a type of Christ? Or dare you say that one place may now be looked upon as more holy than another? Do you not know that this would be found an implicate denying that Christ is come, and has suffered in the flesh and is risen again according to the Scriptures? Do you not know what is written in John 4:21, and what is means? "The hour cometh, when ye shall neither in this mountain, nor yet at Jerusalem worship the Father." Do you knot know the words of Paul in 1 Timothy 2:8? "I will that men pray in every place." The Gospel Meeting Places Do you not know that Christ took every opportunity in every place to preach His Gospel? Do you not know that the Apostles did both preach, pray, and break bread in such houses as you call private houses? Do you not know that God neither puts difference now between place and place, nor gives to men any authority, warrant, or leave so to do? Yea, you know all these things. But if you should let the people know the same, your market would be marred. The Pedobaptist’s Market Places for their Unholy Goods 1. The glory of your preeminence in these supposed holy places, would then be darkened;

2. The people would not then reverence your Sermons (whether true or false, whether sound or rotten) for the supposed holiness of the place where they are preached;

3. You would not then be so able to stir up the people to persecute us for preaching, praying and breaking bread in those houses in which we meet for the performance of these actions. Therefore, you hide this truth from the people’s eyes. The Parish Assemblies are Not True Churches of Jesus Christ But it may be you will say, that you call such an house, A Church, by a figure because the congregation that meets there, is a Church. If so, then let it be considered,

First, that no example in the word of God does teach us so to speak. The word rendered Church, in 1 Corinthians 11:18 and 1 Corinthians 11:22 does there signify, not a meeting place, but the congregation of Christians.

Secondly, that there is a great difference between a Parish-Assembly and a true Church of Christ, as between Babylon and Sion, (There is a great difference between a Parish Assembly and a well ordered Church of Christ,) which I shall now prove:

Proofs That the Parish Assemblies Are Not True Churches of Jesus Christ

1. It is a most evident thing that the Parish Assemblies are not Congregations of Visible Saints, such as all true Churches are, 1 Corinthians 1:2; 1 Corinthians 14:33, and 1 Thessalonians 2:14.

2. It is also manifest that the Parish-Assemblies in this land in the days of Queen Mary (not withstanding the Reformation in King Edward’s days) were part of those many waters on which the Whore sitteth, Revelation 17:1; Revelation 17:15. Then certainly they were not true Churches. (Then what kind of Churches were they?) Their state was no more changed afterwards by a second bringing in of the English Service-Book in the room of the Latin Mass Book, then it was changed by the first bringing in of the same in King Edward’s days.

3. The few believers that yet remain in the Parish Assemblies, being that people of God who are called out Babylon, Revelation 18:4, are not there in the right state of a Church, nor can attain thereunto without coming out of Babylon, (are not there in the right state of a Church, nor can attain thereunto without coming out of it).

Here let it be laid to heart, that these Parish assemblies, being falsely persuaded (because persuaded) that they are Churches of Christ, are here miserably hardened in pride and profaness, and in security and presumption, whereby Satan is not a little strengthened to carry them away with ease to eternal destruction. The motives to you and others such, to Persuade them notwithstanding to look upon themselves as (right) Churches of God, do seem to be these:

Evil Advantages

1. By this means you seem to obtain the honor of Pastors of supposed Churches, (of Pastors of these Churches) as you call them.

2. Thus you seem to have some color to press all the people to maintain you by Tithes, or Oblations, or Stipends, &c.

3. You politically foresee, that if you should declare according to truth these Assemblies to be no true Churches, (no right Churches) then not only your honor, and your rich maintenance, and your Presbytery would all fall to the ground, but also you must undergo contempt and persecution from the World.

Hereupon (though it work to their eternal destruction) you bear them in hand that they are right Churches by all means, yea that their Infants are holy, and under the Covenant of Grace, and that the very place where they do meet, must, or may be called by the name of Churches. O that you were sensible of the sinfulness, of this your dealing. But I now hasten to that which you yet further add concerning me, and so to an end. That which follows in your book is this: Why has put out a Pamphlet called, A Declaration Concerning the Public Dispute Which Should Have Been in the Public Meeting-House of Aldermanburie the Third of December, Concerning Infant’s Baptism.

I am not ashamed of the assistance that I gave in putting out that Declaration. What have you to say against it? Can you therein find any one sentence swerving from the truth? If either you, or they that made a show of a mind to dispute with us, could therein have found any falsehood, we should surely have heard of it long ago. But it is enough that your Gravity calls it, A Pamphlet. Indeed, it is not very large, for it was not needful, as we conceived, that it should be large. But though we there us not many words, yet we write the words of Truth and Soberness. If you will blot out of your Gangraena all the words of Falsehood and Folly with which it is stuffed, it will, I suppose, be much shorter then this Pamphlet.

Having thus answered these things in your book that do particularly concern me, I will rake no further in such an unfavorable heap. I desire that you, yourself, may at the last be so sensible of the ill favor thereof, as that you may be moved to a loathing of it, and that you may not have a miserable experimental knowledge of the truth, of that word of truth in Proverbs 29:1, "He that being often reproved, hardens his neck, shall suddenly be destroyed, and that without remedy."