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A29830 Catholick schismatology, or, An account of schism and schismaticks in the several ages of the world : to which are prefixed some remarks on Mr. Bolde's plea for moderation / J.B. J. B. (J. Browne) 1685 (1685) Wing B5116; ESTC R37483 61,193 209

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demand a Scripture prohibition or precept for every thing that humane authority imposeth on the Church is of most dangerous consequence as Mr. Baxter has soundly proved and shewed wherein by an induction of about Twenty particulars Defence of the Principles of Love p. 97 98 99 100 101. c. I shall no more than name but some of them 1. It draws men into the dangerous guilt of adding to the word of God under pretence of defending its perfection He shews how 2. It sorely prepares men for infidelity He shews how 3. It alters the very definition of the Scripture and makes it quite another thing c. 4. It tends to cast all-rational worship out of the Church c 5. It will bring in all confusion instead of pure reasonable worship c. 6. It will fright poor People from Scripture and Religion and make us our Doctrine and Worship ridiculous in the sight of all the world as he shews at large 7. All possibility of Union among Christians and Churches must perish if this error prevail and be practised c. 8. It will have a confounding influence into all the affairs and business of our lives These and as many more Mr. Baxter doth not barely name as I have done but foundly proves to be the consequence of making Scripture a particular rule of circumstantials in worship or teaching that humane authority has not power of imposing on the Church things not forbid in Scripture To all which I add That Sedition and Rebellion is not so apt to arise from any one Presbyterian Tenet whatsoever as from this for when men deny humane authority the power of imposing Church-ceremonies for want of Scripture-precept or prohibition they do on the same account call those ceremonies Humane devices uncommanded Rites Popish and Superstitious c. and therefore mark the consequence to be reformed and if the Magistrate will not reform it the people must and on this very principle have commenced the most barbarous and unnatural wars in England Scotland and other places And therefore 't is very disingenuous in Mr. Bolde not only to assert and vindicate this fundamental and most distinguishing principle of Dissenters but to accuse its contrary a most undoubted truth of Dangerous consequences when 't is so apparent that the dangerous consequences are all on the other side He proceeds on this head thus P. ●2 It is not demonstrably certain that humane authority has power any further than to punish and restrain indecencies and disorders in the Church Not to say whether this be not that speaking against the Kings Sovereign Authority in causes Ecclesiastical which the 27th Can. censures 1. It is demonstrably certain that humane authority had power to appoint Church-ceremonies and to determine the circumstantials in Religion David alter'd some things and instituted others even in the Temple-Service upon no other authority than humane Hezekiah on the same authority and no other broke the Brazen Serpent to pieces though it was a symbolical ceremony of Gods own institution He appointed the Levites to kill the Passover which by Gods appointment was to have been performed by the people themselves He preferr'd the Levites to assist the Priests in killing the other Sacrifices which they were never before admitted to So that it is demonstrably certain That humane authority had once a power to determine the circumstantials of Religion Nor can Mr. Bolde tell when or how they came to be divested of it But on the contrary when Christ said His Kingdom was not of this world he plainly intimated that he never intended to divest Governours of the authority they were possessed of 2. It 's demonstrably certain that the Scriptures do no where restrain the power of humane authority to punishing of disorders or indecencies in the Church when the Scripture commands obey every ordinance of man it supposeth in man or humane authority a power of making ordinances Church-ordinances not excepted and ubi lex non distinguit non est distinguendum It has been all along the practise of humane authority in all the reformed Churches to institute Church-discipline and to impose it upon the people and lex currit cum praxi Thus Calvin himself writes to Farellus Ep. 87. To prevent the desultory levity of those who affect novelty it always prevailed in the Church which was decreed in ancient Councils That those who would not be subject to the laws of common discipline should be dismissed from their function And Beza on the life of Calvin that subscription to their Church-discipline was enjoined not only Ministers but people 4. That every Church National has power to institute or appoint its Church-ceremonies was one principal argument that our Protestant Reformers made use of against the Papists in altering our Religion from Popish to Protestant 3. Mr. Bolde's 3d Argument runs thus The things we contend about are of such a nature they cannot bear so much weight as some lay upon them c. 1. How much the less the matters are we contend about so much the more is the sin and shame of contentious disobedience and inconformity to them 2. The more fit they are to be made a sacrifice to peace especially when in obedience to that great Gospel-precept of obedience to every humane ordinance 1 Pet. 2.13 And since Mahomet must to the Mountain or the Mountain to Mahomet as he speaks for shame let not Governours stoop to Subjects antiquity to Novelty and publick Authority the highest on earth to private fancy the most humoursome and peevish Since these things are not says the Pleader matter of such moment P. 24. as moderate men should lay out much of their zeal about He proceeds to shew how much mischief men laying out too much zeal and too much stress upon these things has occasioned he gives not so much as one instance of the mischief but instead of all instances he cites Mr. Burgess in his Sermon before King James for this Story The Roman Emperour Augustus in going to dine with a Senator of Rome saw some company dragging a man after them that made a horrid out-cry The Emperour demanding the Reason it was answered their Master had condemned him to the Fish-ponds for breaking a Glass of great value The Emperour stopp'd the Execution and when he came to the Senators house in expostulating the case with him he asked him whether he had Glasses worth a mans life That I have says the Senator Glasses that I value at the price of a Province Let 's see them says the Emperor the Senator brought them The Emperour broke them with these words Better all these perish than one man My Author says he left it to his Majesty to apply and so do I to the Reader And the Reader applies it thus The Glasses are Church-ceremonies the Senator is the Imposer of them the Emperour is the Opposer of them the breaking of the Glasses is the abolishing of the Ceremonies rather than one man
of that decency the care and observation whereof is commended to us in those words let all things be done decently and in order but humane so far as they are appropriated by men to some circumstance of Person Time or Place Mr. Bolde proceeds next to play the Emperick in prescribing to the body-politick Church and State The disease is falling out and quarrelling about old Rights and Ceremonies p. 8. passim and he has no remedy for this but the Churches yeilding to its Enemies in altering some and wholly laying aside other of her Ceremonies p. 11. That abatements might be made to Dissenters p. 12. who are to be Proselyted by the Churches condescending and yielding p. 19. And the like throughout his Book like a Vein through his Body and thus he prescribes to Parliaments in chief p. 25. Can any thing be more Baxterious than such arrogant prescribing to Princes and Parliaments Or is not this as if he had said that the makers of the Law must concede to the Subjects of the Law that Laws and Law-makers both must conform to Nonconformity that Parliaments and Synods those most august and venerable Assemblies in the World must stoop to Scepticks and Innovators Authority and Antiquity to Novelty and Bigotry Primitive practice to innovating humour and Majesty its self to peevish and turbulent and endless Scrupulosity And all this saies Mr. Bolde to satisfie some that are unsatisfied i.e. as some love to speak unsatisfied in Conscience profanely calling by that sacred Name of Conscience what men of greatest Learning strictest Piety and Holiness and most comfortable Consciences have called sturdiness of Opinion in some weakness and unsetledness of Judgment in others and indeed a meer fear of doing what God commands for fear of Sin But pursuant to his Plea for the Churches yielding to its Enemies in the Alteration and Abolition of Church-Ceremonies He tells this dull Story from Beza that was a sworn Enemy to Episcopacy A Noble-man having finish'd the building of his house suffer'd a great Stone to lie before the house which he had no occasion for the People stumbling at it in the dark complained the Noble man would not suffer the Stone to be took away but order'd a Lanthorn to be hung out over it this not securing the People from the inconveniences of it the Noble-man was at last intreated to remove the Stone and Lanthern both But whether he did remove them or no that Mr. Bolde keeps to himself Without any remark on the impertinence of this dull Story Serious and compassionate Enquiry p. 10. I shall be so civil to Mr. Bolde as to return it from a more considerable Author than Beza thus Apelles to deride the conceited folly of the Age exposes to publick view a Master-piece of his Work and as it usually happens by the encouragement of the Proverb Facile est inventis adhere every body pretends to skill in reforming scarce any passed by but passed their Verdict on the Picture all generally commend it yet to give some instance of their skill every one finds some fault or other one would have had more shade another less one commends the Eye but blames the Lip c. The cunning Artist observes all but says nothing and still as any Passenger gave his Verdict he alters the Picture accordingly the result was this by its Alteration and Reformation it became such Abomination of Deformation such a horrid monstrous Piece that the very Reformers themselves wonder'd at its Ugliness Apelles to right himself produces another piece of the same Art and Beauty which he had hitherto kept up by him and so had escaped their censure with this he upbraids them thus Hanc ego faci istam populus This I made the t'other is a Devil of your own making Now not to be so abrupt as Mr. Bolde was as to run from my Story without any Application Christian Religion was by Wise and Holy men our Reformers divested of those meretricious and gaudy Accoutrements that the Papists had drest her up with and habited her according to primitive simplicity but this tho amiable of it self would not please every Body every Sect or Party would have something alter'd which if it were allowed the Opinions of men are so contrary to one another as well as to truth the true lineaments of Christianity would be lost and so our Religion have the same fate that the poor Picture of Apelles had But in pleading for Alteration of some Ceremonies and laying others wholly aside Mr. Bolde proceeds to seven Arguments 1. The first is this It is unquestionably certain that the closer any Church doth keep or the nearer she approaches to the first Churches in their simplicity and freedom from humane inventions the more justifiable she will be and so on 1. The Ceremonies we retain are so few that if compared with the vast numbers used in the Church of Rome or in the Orthodox Christian Churches in St. Augustine's time they will appear to be vix quod Thebarum portae next to none in the comparison 2. Those few Ceremonies we do retain are according to the Practice and Simplicity of the first Churches The 30th Canon saies we depart from the Churches of Italy France Spain and the like Churches in those points only wherein they are fallen from themselves in their ancient Integrity and from the Apostolical Churches which were their first Founders Thus the Church of England declares concerning Church Ceremonies in general and of the Cross at Baptism in particular it says we therein follow the primitive Apostolic Churches And 3. It is on no account more then agreement with the Primitive Churches that we retain the use of our few Ceremonies and refuse to yield to Dissenters in altering some and abolishing others and therefore according to the Pleaders own Hypothesis our Church is most justifiable in so doing 2. His Second Argument is this That teaching that humane authority has an unlimited power to impose any thing on the Church which is not expresly forbid in Scripture may be of dangerous consequence The word unlimited is here impertinently foisted in for if humane authority has power to impose on the Church what the Scripture doth not forbid it must in that case have an unlimited power because nothing can limit it but the Scripture If you take his assertion without the word Vnlimited then it is that which Dr. Sanderson called the very mystery of Puritanism Serm. Preface and that which the very Protestant Reconciler doth contradict and confute P. 187. and which is not only the very characteristick doctrine of the Dissenters but their chief fundamental the very ground and foundation of their out-cries against ceremonies as uncommanded rites humane inventions Superstitions c. And whereas he says this may be of dangerous consequence it 's certain that the contrary is so to teach that humane authority has not this power of imposing on the Church things not forbid in Scripture but to