Three treatises tending to awaken secure sinners

Should our Assembly limit all their Ministerial advice to the warrant and directions of Parliament, and not extend it to the warrant and directions of Christ; would they not become the servants and pleasers of men? If you do not your best to set up all the Government of Christ, even that in and proper to his Church, as well as that which is over them and for them; men may well think, it is your own seats and not Christs that you would advance. I would all the Magistrates in England did well consider, that Christ hath been teaching them this seven years, that their own peace or honours shall not be set up before his Gospel & Government; and that they do but tire themselves in vain in such attempts; then they would learn to read my Text with the Vulgar, Apprehendite disciplinam: And if the Decisive power of the Ministry be doubtful, yet least they would set up their Nunciative in its vigour, Christ will rule England, either as subjects, or as Rebels: and all that Kings and States do gain by opposing his Rule, will not add one cubit to the stature of their greatness. Yet I do not understand by [the Government of Christ] a rigid conformity to the model of this or that party or faction, with a violent extirpation of every dissenter. It is the ignorant part of Divines (alas! such there are) who with the simple fellow in Erasmus, do expound ⟨p. 132⟩Paul's Haereticum hominem devita i e. devitâ tolle. It is the Essentials, & not the Accidentals of Discipline that I speak of: And if so me disengaged standers by be not mistaken (who have the advantage by standing out of the dust of contention) each party hath some of these essentials, and the worst is nearer the truth then his adversary is aware of: And were not the crowd and noise so great, that there is no hope of being heard, one would think it should be possible to reconcile them all: However, shall the work be undone, while each party striveth to have the doing of it? I was afraid when I read the beginning and end of this controversy in France. The learned Ramus pleadeth for Popular Church-Government in the Synod; they rejected it as an unwarrantable novelty; the contention grew sharp▪ till the Parisian Massacre silenced the difference. And must our differences have so sharp a cure? will nothing unite disjoined Christians, but their own blood? God forbid.

Should our Assembly limit all their Ministeriall advice to the warrant and directions of Parliament, and not extend it to the warrant and directions of Christ; would they not become the servants and pleasers of men? If you do not your best to set up all the Government of Christ, even that in and proper to his Church, as well as that which is over them and for them; men may well think, it is your own seats and not Christs that you would advance. I would all the Magistrates in England did well consider, that Christ hath beene teaching them this seven yeares, that their own peace or honours shall not be set up before his Gospel & Government; and that they do but tire themselves in vain in such attempts; then they would learn to read my Text with the Vulgar, Apprehendite disciplinam: And if the Decisive power of the Ministry be doubtfull, yet least they would set up their Nunciative in its vigor, Christ will rule England, either as subjects, or as Rebels: and all that Kings and States do gain by opposing his Rule, will not add one cubit to the stature of their greatness. Yet I do not understand by [the Government of Christ] a rigid conformity to the modell of this or that party or faction, with a violent extirpation of every dissenter. It is the ignorant part of Divines (alas! such there are) who with the simple fellow in Erasmus, do expound