Selected quad for the lemma: act_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
act_n	circumstance_n	command_v	lawful_a	3,295	5	9.7889	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A48122	A letter of religion to the Protestant-dissenters from the Church of England, of what denomination soever in the county of Kent wherein is reported the ground of their dissent, their worship, way of instruction, and behaviour towards laws and government : to which is added a perswasive to conformity, at least an acquiescence in the religion established / by a curate of the same county.	Curate of the same county.	1675 (1675)	Wing L1574; ESTC R11508	15,343	27

unreasonable request of mine to you who are engaged in this County to the way of dissention from us if I desire you to peruse that Author and to proceed moderately if you can in your Inconformity till you or yours have answered him Neither can I think the denying of this your Principle will argue an Opinion in those that oppose it that Christ was less faithful than Moses For if he hath made known unto us all things that he hath heard of his Father John 15. 15. as to that Errand about which his Father sent him as Moses did in respect of the promulgation of the Laws he received from God for the Instruction and Government of the Israelites and yet left some circumstances unmentionned he is not unfaithful nor his dispensation uncomplete nor fail'd any more than St. Paul to declare the whole Counsel of God though he hath said nothing of the Antipodes Motion of the Earth or World in the Moon no nor so much of God's Decrees as some others have and continue to do What Ceremonies and Circumstances are recorded in the New Testament as the issues of the Will of the Great Captain of our Salvation to be constantly and universally practised in his Church let him be anathematized that renounceth to them either in Opinion or Practice and let the Church of England stand charged of partiallity and falsehood If any children of her Family will not say Amen But if many Acts of Religion and Piety are commanded in their Substance only in Scripture and men cannot perform them without circumstance what should be the Reason not the pretence why lawful Authority which is judge of decencie and always aims at a blessed Uniformity and in pursuance thereof injoyns nothing contrary to the least Iota of the will of our Saviour should not determine them when de facto some circumstances will though variously be used and determined by every private person But should this very obnoxious Principle be allowed you yet I make a Question whether you have not exceeded in your modern cavil the fairest extension of it For under pretence of precisely standing to Scripture and therein often to words sounds and syllables you have rejected somethings that are Scriptural in sense and signification at least in the judgment of those that are as pious and learned as your selves and infinitely beyond you in number and Antiquity yet still within the acknowledged Church of Christ For what a daring rudeness was it in you to damn Episcopacie supposing such as obtains in England as Unscriptural if the Jus Divinum thereof which is equivalent to the obligation of Scripture be so fairly pleadable by men that are ever ready to go down with you into the Sand to defend it at any Weapon in the Spiritual Armory and are no near at a loss or short of you in Piety than Learning For not to remember your former rage against this Government on the account of the former Principle or none I ask whether ever any Society of men were unchurcht for being govern'd by Bishops but by you For to reckon our Episcopacie Antichristian is as much as to unchurch us And though the Long-Parliament-Sermons call'd it Prelacie yet thereby they meant nothing else but our Episcopacie both in sense and execution But the people must have the new word Prelacie as then used by you having something yet left in them of the antient reverence to Episcopacie But if the Divine right of Episcopacie be not demonstrable as I believe it is yet hath it not as fair pretence thereto as any of those Hebrew or Scotch Roots from whence your different Associations are derived For let it be shewn wherein it comes behind in evidence to your forming and predominant Theses viz. The Doctrine of Lay-Elders and purity of Ministers The Doctrine of the Church-Covenant and Independent-Pastors Or again That the Gospel hath so restrained the Subject of Baptism as to exclude Infants And that men may now expect the same degree of conduct and assistance from the Holy Ghost to guide them into all truth and even to prevent study and meditation as the Apostles had c. And as it is in Government so I go on to demand of you in the point of worship Who ever besides your selves ran away from an explicite Communion with a Church for having a form of Prayer for kneeling at the Lords-Supper for the use of the Cross after Baptism and for the Surplise when they were declared not essential to Religion nor substantial in Worship but recommended and enjoyned out of Reverence to Antiquity and zeal for Uniformity by those who had Authority over us yet never asserted any other Authority in such matters but for edification Concerning which Ceremonies there is no man among you who seems to have retained discretion or a faculty of judging but only hovers and makes slight reflections but never prove them to be directly sinful unless by the former weak and every where even among your selves contradicted Principle The Doctrines of the Church of England contained in the 39 Articles have of late obtained to some better respect among you and on a sudden grow into favour with many Dissenters which one would think were a good pledge of their farther conformity there being nothing as I know in our Government and Worship that is contradictory or abhorrent from those Articles But what the reason should be of your approbation or whether you be not real in it I know not but if you are then proceed to examine other matters and your selves by them I doubt if you were urged to subscribe to them you would again as heretofore have your exceptions and only acknowledge for truth in them those which be the great Commandments However it were but fair if you do own our Articles to let the rest of your Societies know from your own mouths that there are some good things among us that they may become more modest in their revilings who seldome rate us below the Idolatrous the Superstitious and Antichristian not only in one but in all matters that pertain to us as a Church Perhaps you lay hold on our Articles now as an Argument ad hominem and to beat us as you think with our own Weapon for there are great cries among you as if many that live in conformity to the Church of England are departed in their Opinion from the Catholick soundness of the 30 Articles by espousing Socinianism of which there is much suspition and dread express'd in some late Writers but then they charge such persons therewith that are so clearly not guilty of it as that they approve and use that Lyturgy wherein there is a particular Creed against the farce of Socinianism and are willing for ought I hear to give other assurance of their detestation of it notwithstanding those passages in some late Papers that they have with great confidence accused and condemned But if the Doctrine of Socinus and his followers hath gotten any credit