Selected quad for the lemma: act_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
act_n	command_n	command_v	lawful_a	2,968	5	9.4987	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A26859	Richard Baxters answer to Dr. Edward Stillingfleet's charge of separation containing, I. some queries necessary for the understanding of his accusation, II. a reply to his letter which denyeth a solution, III. an answer to his printed sermon : humbly tendred, I. to himself, II. to the Right Honourable the Lord Mayor and the court of aldermen, III. to the readers of his accusation, the forum where we are accused.; Answer to Dr. Edward Stillingfleet's charge of separation. 1680	Baxter, Richard, 1615-1691.	1680 (1680)	Wing B1183; ESTC R10441	92,845	104

understand Ans Now you come to your business But 1. What if you by Calumny call my ordinary hearers Separatists and they are not such 2. What if we prove it to be their duty to hear both you and us in season if they need it or lawful at least and so do commend them and not condemn them may we then lawfully Preach to them What if the fault which we blame some for be their judging it unlawful to hear such as you Will your Logick prove that we call it their fault to hear us as if hearing us and not hearing you were words of the same signification And is all necessary which is lawful Do we condemn men that do not all that is lawful to do And because you after infer that if it be lawful it is a Duty I would you had told us whether you take this universally that What ever is lawful is a Duty or only in this case for some special reason and what that is I suppose it is because it is commanded as if every lawful thing commanded were a duty But we think otherwise unless the Command be an Act which God Authorizeth the Commander to do All mens Authority is limited by God and they have none but from him For instance it is lawful to eat brown Bread and drink Water or Wine But if the King or Bishop forbid me to eat better when my health requireth it I am not bound to obey them It is lawful to were Sackcloth but none have power to forbid me fitter Clothing It is lawful to set a Son Apprentice to a Chimny-sweeper or to an Ale-seller or Vintner but if the Bishop or any other forbid one to place him better it obligeth not It is lawful to marry a Blackmore or an ugly Scold or Beggar But the Bishop or King cannot oblige men to chose no better because it is out of the Verge of their jurisdiction and belongeth to personal and family power It is lawful to put my self into the Hospital and care of an unskilful Physician till my health require better But when my health requireth it I will use a better if I can whoever forbids it For it is usurpation in them that shall take the necessary care of my health and life out of my own hands It is lawful to give the King our estates But Lawyers say we are not bound to do it meerly because He or the Bishop commandeth it But perhaps you think that men may do more against our souls than against our bodies and have more power in Religion than in civil or bodily things But we are not bound to think so if you do It is lawful for men to hear one that only readeth the Scripture and Liturgy and never preacheth But when my needs requireth more I will use it if I can whoever forbids me It is lawful to hear an ignorant raw Lad that saith over a dry Sermon as a Boy saith his lesson and hath neither spiritual Life nor Light nor is fit to take the Charge of Souls And it is lawful to hear such a Sermon as yours or one that peacheth against other mens preaching Yea we rejoyce and will rejoyce that Christ is preached though by such as do it in strife and contention to add affliction to the afflicted and not sincerely But wise men that believe a life to come and love their souls will choose better if they can whoever forbiddeth them Men have no power to hurt our souls nor to deprive us of the help which God affordeth us nor to make themselves the only Judges what is profitable or hurtful to our souls or bodies or what is best for our edification § 37. But To commit a fault in hearing us is of doubtful signification In the manner of hearing all commit faults by some defect of attention faith or application But that 's not it that you mean But that it is their sin to hear us And indeed if this were true is it above your learning to understand that it is lawful to preach to them that commit a fault in hearing them 1. What if culpably they would hear no other Is it better let them hear none at all than that we preach to them If peevishness or sickness make a Child refuse the Food or Physick which he should take by his parents command will you say that it is better that he famish or die than that you give him any other Men may be saved that hear not you But how can they believe unless they hear or hear without a Preacher The means is for the End I will have Mercy and not Sacrifice is a Lesson which I perceive more than the Pharisees are to learn Order is for the thing Ordered Parish Order is not so needful as Faith and Salvation It may be such a mans Sin that he will not hear such as he should hear and so by Consequence that he heareth me and yet also Consequently his Duty to hear me supposing that his fault hath blinded him to think that he may hear no other till his Errour be Cured Or at least it is my Duty to take him as I find him and Preach to him in his own mistake 2. The Canon forbids going out of our own Parishes suppose twenty or five Hundred Infidels or Papists of the next Parish resolved we will hear no Protestant but Dr. Stillingfleet were it unlawful for you to Preach to them 3. If I should Preach to them all against separation and for Prelacy were it unlawful One of the Doctors at the Savoy 1661. motioned that he and I might go up and down England to Preach for Conformity and if any ask us why we do not we may tell them Dr. Stillingfleet taketh it for unlawful If it be a Sin to preach to them it is a sin to preach to them against Separation or for Conformity 4. It is ordinary for men of other Parishes to hear you and Dr. Tillotson and others such as you esteem And I suppose most weekly Lectures are Preached most to men of other Parishes and yet you take it not for sin to preach to them 5. It is ordinary for many Protestants to go hear and Communicate wi●h the French or Dutch Churches which differ from you in the Mode of Worship And yet I never heard it proved that it is a sin for the Preachers thus to preach to them 6. What if your Children as Prodigals over-run you or the Kings Subjects causelesly fly into another Land They ought not to be there Is it herefore unlawful for any to teach them there or receive them to pub●ike Worship 7. Almost all the Christian World is so tainted with some degree of Errour and Partiality that men will hear none but those of their own mind for their Errour sake The Armenians Abassims Greeks Papists Nestorians Jacobites Luth●rans Arminians Calvinists Anabaptists c. It is unlawful for any of these to refuse sounder Teachers than their own and to Confine themselves to

of the Sabbath c. and others against these If not Is not difference in such Doctrines as great a difference as using and not useing some of your Liturgick Forms and Ceremonies IV. Are all different modes of Worship enough to make our Party Separatists Then the French and Dutch Churches are Separatists and either the Cathedrals or the Parish-Churches as to their Vestments Organs Chore mode of Singing c. And the allowed private Baptismes and Communion with the sick are Separations V. Doth every disobedience to the King and Laws and Canons in matters of Religion Government and Worship make men Separatists If so then when ever a Conformist disobediently shortneth his Common-Prayer or leaveth off his Surplice or giveth the Sacrament to one that kneeleth not or receiveth one of another Parish to Communion c. he is a separatist Yea no man then is not a Separatist sometimes VI. If the Diocesane be the lowest political Church and a Parish but a part of a Church as they hold that take a Bishop to be a Constitutive part how is he said to separate from the Church that owneth his Diocesane and the Diocess what ever place in that Diocess he meet in seeing he separateth not from the Kingdom that stayeth in it and owneth the King though in some acts he disobey Nor doth every Boy that is faulty separate from the School VII Is he a greater Separatist that confesseth you to be a true Church and your communion lawful but preferreth another as fitter for him or he that denieth Communion with true worshiping assemblies as unlawful to be Communicated with when it is not so If the former then Condemning you as no Church is a diminution or no aggravation of separation and the Local presence of an Infidel or a Scorner would be a less separate state than the absence of your friends If the latter which is certain then if I can prove the Assemblies lawful which you condemne you are the true Separatists that condemn them and deny Communion with them and declare such Communion to be unlawful I Communicate with your Assemblies and you utterly shun refuse and condemn Communion with ours which then is the Separatist if I prove ours to be as good as yours VIII Many English Doctors say Rome is a true Church as a Knave or Thief is a true man and we separated not from It but they cast Us out for doing our duty and not sinning as they do I say not as they for as the Pope claimeth the Headship of the Church Universally that form of Policy is not of God and we separate from that essencial form of their pretended Church But ad hominem if the Diocesane also be a true Church and we cast out of it for not sinning are We separatists or are our Ejectors such IX I have shewed you that the Canons Excommunicate ipso facto all that say the imposed Conformity is unlawful If this be unjust is it Separation to be so Excommunicated and who is the Schismatick here And what shall be thought of such Church-men as will first ipso facto Excommunicate us for our duty and then as you do call us Separatists Would you have Excommunicate Men Communicate with you I and many do so because you shall be the Executioners of your own sentence and not I But with what face can men cast Men out by Canon ipso facto and then revile them for not coming in You can mean no other in common sense but that we are Schismaticks or separatists because we are not of the Conformist's judgment And that is not in our power And you differ more in judgment in greater matters from each other and yet call it not Schisme or Separation Yea you differ about the very essential form of your National Church one part taking it to be the Kings supremacy and another to be the Bishops or Clergy's Power And therefore you cannot be truly of one National Church that are not for one essential Form X. If men be wrongfully Excommunicate are they thereby absolved from all publick Worshipping of God or do they lose their Right to all Church-Communion I have else where cited you Canons enow that say the contrary and that Clave Errante the excommunication hu●teth none but the Excommunicator And I have Cited Bishop Tailor 's Full Consent Must we not then Meet and Worship as we can when you wrongfully Excommunicate us XI Are not the Laity by your Canon forbidden to Receive the Sacrament in another Parish or any other to receive them if they dare not Receive it from a Non-Preaching Minister at Home And if the People judge that he that is unable or unwilling to Preach or that is a Heretick or that liveth in such heinous Sins or Preacheth Malignantly as to do more Harm than Good may not lawfully be owned by them for Christ's Ministers nor their Souls be Committed to their Pastoral Trust Must they therefore be without a Pastors Care or all Publick Worship and Communion and be Condemned for being Wronged XII Were all those Councils Separatists that Decreed That none shall hear Mass from a Fornicating Priest And Were the Canons called the Apostles and the Greek-Church that used them for Separation that said Episcopus ignorantiâ aut malo animo opplotus non est Episcopus sed falsus Episcopus non a Dee sed ab hominibus promotus Was Guildas a Separatist that told the Brittish Wicked Priests That they were not Christ's Ministers but Traitours and that he was not Eximius Christianus that would call them Priests or Ministers of Christ Were Cyprian and all the Carthage-Council Separatists that wrote the Epistle about Martial and Basilides which I Translated and told the People It was their Duty to Separate from Peccatore Praeposito a Scandalous Prelate and that the Chief Power was in them to Choose the Worthy or Refuse the Unworthy and that they were guilty of Sin if they joyned with such Sinners Who made You a more Reverend and Credible Judge of Separation than Cyprian and this Council At least Who will think that you may Judge them Separatists or guilty of Schism XIII Are not the Laity by your Canon to be denied the Sacrament if they be not willing of your Episcopal Confirmation And when Imposition of Hands is made the Signe by which Confirming or Assuring Grace is conveyed and some Bishops assigne no less to it they fear lest it be made a Sacrament Be their Doubts just or not they cannot overcome them And Must they therefore Live without Sacramental Communion By what Law XIV Are not the Laity that dare not Receive the Sacrament Kneeling for the Reasons else-where mentioned to be denied the Sacrament by your Rule And though herein they fear Sin more than they have cause Must they that cannot Change their own Judgments live all their Dayes without the Sacrament When as General Councils Decreed That none should adore Kneeling on any Lord's Day and the Church for a

their endeavours for it were the same with th● Church of Englands none that know the case will be of your mind 3 If you are intelligible we must suppose that you cite them to defend this as the conclusion which you own The word Tyranny is too harsh to be used without need But I suppose you include that the said Endeavours for Vniformity have no culpable severity in them That is that the Acts for Vniformity the Canons the Executing of them in Declarations Subscriptions Oaths Practices Punishments Corporal and Spiritual are no Sin but Lawful In your Epistle you say They are ill men that say This is stirring up to persecution All that I will say is that if you own these Endeavours for Vniformity I do not and the judge is at the door § 68. Serm. p. 44. If they form their judgments rather by prejudice and passion and interest than from the Laws of God or just Rules of Conscience c. Ans 1. This is true and good If we make not Gods Laws the Rule of Conscience no wonder if we err God preserve us from all corrupting prejudice passion interest and Canons 2. But when you compare our temptation from interest with yours I hope you will not say as Dr. Asheton that as going to the Bar of God he undertakes to make good that it 's through Pride and Covetousness that we conform not that is that we choose the contempt of high and low and to live on Alms and multitudes in pinching poverty § 69. Serm. p. 46. We find Vniformity and Order condemned as Tyrannical till men come into power themselves and then the very same things and arguments are used and thought very good and substantial which before were weak and sophistical Ans A true and sad confession when I read your Irenicon and this Sermon I the more believe you Therefore it hath been my happiness that I was never in Power no nor ever on the uppermost side unless as I am for the King I remember Dr. Rieves told us in the Pulpit that the reason why we were against Diocesan Bishops was because we could not be Bishops our selves And many others have said the like § 70. Serm. Those that now plead for Toleration did once think it the Mother of Confusion the nurse of Atheism c. Ans 1. Sure though you often cite Dr. Owen you mean not the Independents 2. If they spake either for or against Toleration as you do without distinction and were for all or against all and distinguished not the tolerable from the intolerable it 's no great heed to be taken what they say If there were but one false word imposed on you which you could not assent to and on 2000 such as you should you be no more tolerated than a Mahometan § 71. As to your advice to us p. 47. 48. 1. Did you think that because we must bear with much that is amiss in the Church that therefore we must either consent to it or practise it and Covenant against all endeavours of amending it or prefer it before better The man you talk of out of Mr. Ball was near Bremicham and was Melancholy to a kind of madness To your second I answer It followeth not that because we must not judge too hardly of Impositions therefore we must say swear and do all that is now imposed on us Or that he that dares not do it is unpeaceable I would we knew in what cases only you would deny Obedience and Conformity your self Doubtful passages and undoubted evils somewhat differ A fault-finding disposition and the Roman art that Boccaline mentions to swallow a Pimpion have a mean between them Papists Socinians or any that are uppermost may call for Conformity under the names of Unity and Peace To the Third separation was not the same thing in the mouth of the old Non-conformists as in yours They took it first for unchurching the Parish Churches 2. Or holding it a sin to communicate with them if they might be excused as to kneeling Crossing c. You take it for preaching when forbidden I have named to you the old Non-conformists that preached when they could And half of them I think got into small priviledged places exempt from the Bishops power and there preached most of them without the Liturgy and all without the Ceremonies And was not this against Law Sure Bishop Bancroft that describeth their attempts to set up new Churches and Discipline was not of your mind concerning the Non-conformists judgment We had but two in all Shropshire and Dr. Allestree when a boy was the Catechiz'd Auditor of one of them being his next Neighbour in a peculiar Chapel without the Liturgy c. And yet I think not that his Father and all that Assembly were separatists for hearing him Bradshaw thought we should submit to a silencing Law where our Ministry was unnecessary and so do I. Dr. Gouge was a Conformist when he wrote the Book which you cite To your Fourth Woe to them that believe our divisions indanger the Land and let in Popery and yet will cause them and no intreaty can procure them to forbear dividing us when they may and then revile them that have no way to remedy it unless wilful heinous sinning be the way § 72. That it is diseases that love not their own names in mens hearts that make the trouble more than our different judgments and Assemblings experience telleth us I was never a settled Teacher but in two places saving a Lecture at Coventry in the War viz. An Assistant at Budgnorth and a Pastor at Kidderminster And in both places there is an honest Conformable and a Non-Conformable Minister And the People go to the publick Assembly and many hear the Non-conformist privately between the publick Meetings And both parties as I hear live in very much love and peace and why might it not be so in other places if there were the like Ministers and People without all this envyous clamour and bugbear words of Anti-christian on one side or Separatists and Schismaticks on the other § 73. As to your next advices p. 53. 54. First Qui monet ut facias c. We speak so much against rash ignorant Zeal that you commend us against your purpose 2. We thank you for the admonition not to be always complaining of hardships and persecutions Doubtless our mercies are so great as forbid us to be over querulous nay leave us unexcusable if we are not very thankful For my own part my sufferings have been very small from man in comparison of what I endure in Soul and Body from my self They are few days in which I am not a heavier burden to my self than all my Enemies are But First I may not be senceless of the case of many better men who have great families and no bread but what they have by Alms in poor Countreys where the people are fitter to receive than to give And if they remove to bigger Towns