Some thoughts of John Robinson 1620
The Wholesome Counsel Master Robinson gave that part of the church whereof he was Pastor at their departure from him to begin the great work of Plantation in New England. Amongst other wholesome instructions and exhortations he used these expressions, or to the same purpose:
We were now, ere long, to part asunder; and the Lord knoweth whether ever he should live to see our faces again. But whether the Lord had appointed it or not; he charged us, before God and his blessed angels, to follow him no further than he followed Christ: and if God should reveal anything to us by any other instrument of his, to be as ready to receive it, as ever we were to receive any truth by his Ministry. For he was very confident the Lord had more truth and light yet to break forth out of his holy Word. He took occasion also miserably to bewail the state and condition of the Reformed Churches, who were come to a full stop in religion; and would go no further than the Instruments of their Reformation.
As, for example, the Lutherans: they could not be drawn to go beyond what Luther saw, for whatever part of God’s will He had further imparted and revealed to Calvin, they will rather die than embrace it. “And also,” saith he, “you see the Calvinists. They stick where he left them, a misery much to be lamented. “For though they were precious shining lights in their Times, yet God had not revealed his whole will to them; and were they now living,” saith he, “they would be as ready and willing to embrace further light as that they had received.”
Here also, he put us in mind of our Church Covenant; at least that part whereby “we promise and covenant with God and one another to receive whatsoever light or truth shall be made known to us from his written Word:” but withal exhorted us to take heed what we received for truth; and well to examine and compare and weigh it with other Scriptures of truth before we received it. “For,” saith he, “it is not possible the Christian World should come so lately out of such thick antichristian darkness; and that full perfection of knowledge should break forth at once.” [.....] And so advised us, by all means, to endeavour to close with the godly party of the Kingdom of England [the Puritans]; and rather to study union than division, viz.: How near we might possibly, without sin, close with them; than, in the least measure, to affect division or separation from them. “And be not loath to take another Pastor or Teacher,” saith he, “for that Flock that hath two Shepherds is not endangered, but secured by it.”
Many other things there were of great and weighty consequence which he commended to us. But these things I thought good to relate at the request of some well-willers to the peace and good agreement of the godly so distracted at present about the settling of Church Government in the Kingdom of England that so both sides may truly see what this poor despised Church of Christ now at New Plymouth in New England, but formerly at Leyden in Holland, was and is how far they were and still are, from separation from the Churches of Christ, especially those that are reformed.
(Emphasis in italics -mine.)
