A MODEL
HEREOF
. . . It rests now to make some application of this discourse by the present
design which gave the occasion of writing of in Herein are four things to be
propounded: first, the persons; secondly, the work; thirdly, the end; fourthly,
the meanest
1. For the persons,
we are a Company professing our selves fellow members of Christ, in which
respect only though we were absent from each other many miles, and had our
employments as far distant, yet we ought to account our selves knits together by
this bond of love, and live in the exercise of it, if we would have comfort of
our being in Christ. . . .
2. For the work we
have in hand, it is by a mutual consent through a special overruling providence,
and a more than an ordinary approbation of the Churches of Christ to seek out a
place of Cohabitation and Consortship under a due form of Government both civil
and ecclesiastical!. In such cases as this the care of the public must oversway
all private respects, by which not only conscience, but mere Civil policy cloth
bind us; for it is a true rule that particular estates cannot subsist in the
ruin of the public.
3. The end is to
improve our lives, to do more service to the Lord, the comfort and increase of
the body of Christ whereof we are members, that our selves and posterity may be
the better preserved from the Common corruptions of this evil world, to serve
the Lord and work out our Salvation under the power and purity of his holy
Ordinances.
4. For the means
whereby this must bee effected, they are twofold, a Conformity with the work and
end we aim at; these we see are extraordinary, therefore we must not content our
selves with usual ordinary meanest Whatsoever we did or ought to have done when
we lived in England, the same must we do and more also where we go: That which
the most in their Churches maintain as a truth in profession only, we must bring
into familiar and constant practice, as in this duty of love we must love
brotherly without dissimulation, we must love one another with a pure heart
fervently, we must bear one another's burdens, we must not look only on our own
things but also on the things of our brethren, neither must we think that the
lord will bear with such failings at our hands as the cloth from those among
whom we have lived.
Thus stands the
cause between God and us. We are entered into Covenant with him for this work,
we have taken out a Commission the Lord has given us leave to draw our own
Articles, we have professed to enterprise these Actions upon these and these
ends, we have hereupon besought him of favour and blessing: Now if the Lord
shall please to hear us, and bring us in peace to the place we desire then has
he ratified this Covenant and sealed our Commission [and] will expect a strict
performance of the Articles contained in it, but if we shall neglect the
observation of these Articles which are the ends we have propounded, and
dissembling with our God, shall fall to embrace this present world and prosecute
our carnal intentions seeking great things for ourselves and our posterity, the
Lord will surely break out in wrath against us, be revenged of such a perjured
people and make us know the price of the breach of such a Covenant.
Now the only way to
avoid this shipwreck and to provide for our posterity is . . . to do Justly, to
love mercy, to walk humbly with our God. For this end, we must be knit together
in this work as one man, we must entertain each other in brotherly Affection, we
must be willing to abridge our selves of our superfluities, for the supply of
others necessities, we must uphold a familiar Commerce together in all meekness,
gentleness, patience and liberality, we must delight in each other, make others
Conditions our own, rejoice together, mourn together, labour and suffer
together, always having before our eyes our Commission and Community in the
work, our Community as members of the same body, so shall we keep the unity of
the spirit in the bond of peace, the Lord will be our God and delight to dwell
among us as his own people and will command a blessing upon us in all our ways,
so that we shall see much more of his wisdom, power, goodness and truth than
formerly we have been acquainted with. We shall find that the God of Israel is
among us, when ten of us shall be able to resist a thousand of our enemies, when
he shall make us a praise and glory, that men shall say of succeeding
plantations: the lord make it like that of New England: for we must Consider
that we shall be as a City upon a Hill, the eyes of all people are upon us; so
that if we shall deal falsely with our god in this work we have undertaken and
so cause him to withdraw his present help from us, we shall shame the faces of
many of gods worthy servants, and cause their prayers to be turned into Curses
upon us till we be consumed out of the good land whither we are going: And to
shut up this discourse with that exhortation of Moses, that faithful! servant of
the Lord in his last farewell to Israel, Deut. 30. Beloved there is now set
before us life, and good, death and evil in that we are Commanded this day to
love the Lord our God, and to love one another, to walk in his ways and to keep
his Commandments and his Ordinance, and his laws, and the Articles of our
Covenant with him that we may live and be multiplied, and that the Lord our God
may bless us in the land whither we go to possess it: But if our hearts shall
turn away so that we will not obey, but shall be seduced and worship . . . other
Gods, our pleasures, and profits, and serve them; it is propounded unto us this
day, we shall surely perish out of the good Land whither we pass over this vast
Sea to possess it;
Therefore let us
choose life,
that we, and our Seed,
may live; by obeying his
voice,
and cleaving to him,
for he is our life, and
our prosperity.