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CXM MEMOIR OF BICHAED SIBBES, D.D.
yet notwithstanding they are more corrupt in Preachers, (which is the maine) as in prophanation of the Lord's day, &c.
As for wicked and prophane Persons amongst us, though we are to labour by all good meanes to purge them out, yet are we not to separate because of this residence with us : for, there will bee a miscellany and mixture in the visible Church, as long as the world endures, as our Saviour shewes bj many parables : Matth. xiii. If therefore we should be so oveijust as to abandon all Churches for the intermixture of wicked Persons, we must saile to the Antipodes, or rather goe out of the world, as the Apostle speaks : it is agreed by all that Noahs Arke was a type and embleme of the Church. Now as it had been no lesse then selfe-murder for Noah, Sem, ov laphet, to have leapt out of the Arke, because of that ungracious Cains * company ; so it is no better then soule-mm'der for a man to cast himself out of the Church, either for reall or imaginall corruptions. To conclude, as the Angell injoyned Hagar to returne, and submit to her Mistris Sarah, so let me admonish you to returne yoiu- selfe from these extravagant courses, and submissively to render your self to the sacred communion of this truly Evangelicnll Church of England.
I beseech you therefore, as yon respect Gods gloiy and your owne eternal! salvation, as There is hut one body and one spirit, one Lord, one Baptisme, oyie God and Father of all, who is above all, and through all, and in lis all ; so endeavour to keep the xmity of the spirit in the bond of peace, Eph. iv., as the Apostle sweetly invites you. So shall the peace of God ever establish you, and the God of peace ever preserve you ; which is the prayer of
Your remembrancer at the Throne of Grace R. SiBS.
The preceding ' Letter,' the more valuable because of the paucity of such memorials of Sibbes, v^^as in all likelihood ad- dressed to Thomas Goodwin, D.D., who has been designated the Atlas and patriarch of Independency. Francis White, Bishop of Ely, "within whose jurisdiction the Church of Trinity, Cambridge, lay, being one of the ultra-zealous adherents of Laud, had put every obstacle possible in the way of Goodwin's acceptance, and subse- quently of his installation ; but he was ultimately installed as vicar, having passed from the curacy of St Andrew's, Cambridge, thereto. On the succession of Laud to the primacy, his special charge to his bishops was to watch over the lecturers, and ' watch over' had a terrible significance. White harassed all within his dio- cese who sought to preach evangelically. He renewed his attacks upon Goodwin. The result was, that, dissatisfied with the restric- tions imposed upon preaching that trutli which, from the time of Sibbes's barbed words to him, he had found to be the very life of his own soul, he resigned at once his vicarage, lectureship of Trinity, and fellowship of Catharine Hall, and removed, as it would appear, to London, where he began to propagate his new views and conclusions in regard to church government. He shrank not from the name, then of evil omen, of ' Separatist.' t The * Qu. ' Cliam's ?'— Ed. t Consult Dr Hallcy's Memoir of Goodwin in this series, II, xxiii-iv.
MEMOIR OF RICHAED SIBBES, D.D. CXVU
whole circumstances of the case, their previous friendship, their mutual sentiments, warrant, I apprehend, the supposition that this grave, loving, skilful, and admirable letter Avas addressed to Thomas Goodwin. If so, it was unsuccessful in winning him back to ' the church.' Methinks Sibbes would have acted more faithfully as well as more consistently, had he followed the example of his friends, Goodwin, John Cotton, John Davenport, Thomas Hooker, Samuel Stone, and their compeers. The spirit that pervades his letter i-s worthier than his arguments. It seems difficult to see how Goodwin could have remained within the pale of the church, gagged and hindered as he was in what was to him momentous beyond all earthly estimate ; and it was equally impossible to give ' assent and consent' to what those in authority pronounced to be the ' beauty of holiness,' and teaching of the Book of Common Prayer. Sibbes allowed of neither. By the powerful influence of his many friends, while certainly, as we have seen, summoned before Star Chamber and High Commission, he held on in his way of preach- ing the same gospel everywhere. That explains his remaining within the church. Who doubts for a moment, that, if his mouth had been shut, as was Goodwin's, on the ' one thing,' Sibbes would have placed himself beside his friend ? Perhaps there would have been more of hngering effort to get above the difficulties, more pain in sundering of the ties that bound him to the church, more sway given to heart than head. Still the final decision, beyond all debate, would have been that of the ' two thousand' of 1662. The more shame to those who compelled such loyal lovers of 'the church' to leave her. This letter gives us insight into Sibbes's method of procedure in dealing with the scruples of the conscien- tious. It is to be regretted that we have no more of such letters, and none of his conversations with them. But we have the fact, upon various authority, that he was at all times ready to speak a word in season, and on principle, contrived to sanctify all his intercourse with his fellow-men, as well more privately as publicly. He had many opportunities of influencing for good some of the finest minds of the age ; and he availed himself of such opportunities. He was wont, Samuel Clarke informs us, ' in the summer time, to go abroad to the houses of some worthy personages, where he was an instrument of much good, not only by his private labours, but by his prudent counsel and advice, that upon every occasion he was ready to minis- ter unto them.' * Charles Stanford has well Kmned to us such visits in Alleine's day. If you wish, he says, ' to see what Puritan life was like in " the high places," go with l^Ir Alleine and * Clarke, ante, p. 145.