Selected quad for the lemma: book_n
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Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication) |
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A65235
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Two letters to a friend, concerning the distempers of the present times
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R. W.
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1686
(1686)
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Wing W104; ESTC R222551
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25,813
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36
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adoring and praising God and praying for the remission of their sins Your being so much a stranger to our Church Prayers has inclined me to give you this large account of them and of my own thoughts I might here undertake also to satisfie your scruples of kneeling at the Sacrament and the Ring in Marriage but there has been so many good reasons given of them in several small Treatises for the justification of them that I will decline that trouble both for yours and my own sake And offer unto you the few following observations and so put an end both of yours and my own trouble And in order to doing this I desire you to look back with me to the beginning of the late Long Parliament 1640. at which time we were the quietest and happiest people in the Christian World And praised be God we yet are so we had then a prudent and consciencious King whose life was a pattern of Temperance Patience Piety and indeed of all the Christian Graces He governed I think by the known Laws of the Nation Every man sate then under the shadow of his own Vine and did eat his own Grapes that is enjoy'd the benefit of his own labour and eat his own bread in peace We had then no need of a Court of guard to keep the discontented inferiour people from rising against Government We had then no need to raise those Monthly Taxes to pay those Courts of guard and other Charges that are now come to be of necessity to secure us from the yet unseen Commotions of a malicious restless discontented Party which were first made so by the example of the ill-natured Presbyterians And continue to be so by retaining the destructive Principles they then taught them and which do still threaten us with new Commotions thus happy we were then and he that considers the present miseries of Germany Poland France and indeed of all Christian Nations how many Cities lately were and at this time are besieged what devastations and ravishings and fears follow running Armies what terrours and wants those poor distressed people now groan under he that considers all this and compares our present condition with theirs ought to say that England is at this time the happiest Nation in the Christian world But our unhappiness is that peace and plenty will not suffer us to think so and study to be quiet and thankful This I beseech you to consider seriously and good Cosin let me advise you to be one of the thankful and quiet Party for it will bring peace at last Let neither your discourse or practice be to encourage or assist in making a Schism in that Church in which you were baptized and adopted a Christian for you may continue in it with safety to your soul you may in it study sanctification and practise it to what degree God by his grace shall enable you You may fast as much as you will be as humble as you will pray both publickly and privately as much as you will visit and comfort as many distressed and dejected Families as you will be as liberal and charitable to the poor as you think fit and are able These and all other of those undoubted Christian graces that accompany Salvation you may practise either publickly or privately as much and as often as you think fit and yet keep in the Communion of that Church of which you were made a Member at your Baptism These Graces you may practise and not be a busie-body in promoting Schism and Faction As God knows your Fathers Friends Hugh Peters and John Lilbourn did to the ruine of themselves and many of their Disciples Their turbulent lives and uncomfortable deaths are not I hope yet worn out of the memory of many He that compares them with the holy life and happy death of Mr. George Herbert as it is plainly and I hope truly writ by Mr. Isaac Walton may in it find a perfect pattern for an humble and devout Christian to imitate And he that considers the restless lives and uncomfortable deaths of the other two who always liv'd like the Solamander in the fire of contention and considers the dismal consequences of Schism and Sedition will if prejudice or a malicious Zeal have not so blinded him that he cannot see reason be so convinc'd as to beg of God to give him a meek and quiet spirit and that he may by his grace be prevented from being a busie body in what concerns him not The reasons that I have offered to your consideration have crouded so fast into my present memory that they have made my Letter more perplext and longer and indeed some expressions in it bitterer than I intended when I began it But I beg your pardon for both And supposing I have it I will close all with this friendly advice and caution Remember you and I are but Citizens and must take much that concerns our Religion and Salvation upon trust I will explain my meaning for what I say and have said by this following Parable There was a man that was and continued under so great a mistake that though he thought and granted his Neighbour to be strong enough to lift a hundred pound weight from the ground yet could not be brought to believe or grant that he was able to lift fifty pound weight from it which was doubtless a great mistake But if you will give me leave I will explain my self by a more proper Parable and then make my Application The same mistaking-man offered and was willing to lend his Neighbour a hundred pound though it were his whole Estate upon his single Bond but being desired to lend him fifty pound upon his Bond he durst not trust him with that lesser Sum lest the Borrower should not be able to repay him And so he the Lender prove to be undone by the Borrowers inability to repay him Before I make my Application of what I have told you give me leave to tell you the Papists would obtrude upon all Christians a belief that all those doubtful Books which the Church of England calls Apocryphal were certainly writ by Divine Inspiration and ought to be of equal Authority with those which we call Canonical Scripture and that the foundation for our faith and manners to God and man may and must be laid equally upon both But I think we agree with the Papists concerning all the Books of the New Testament that is that all were writ by Divine Inspiratione But the Lutherans deny some part of the New Testament which both the Papists and we believe and grant to be writ by Divine Inspiration And now for my Application let me ask you seriously Are not you like this mistaking-man that durst trust a greater but not trust the Borrower with a lesser Sum of money You have trusted the Bishops and a select Clergy in a Convocation to tell you These you shall take to be Canonical Books of Scripture and no other Upon the truth of those and only those that they declare to be the holy Scripture you lay the foundation of your Faith and hope of Salvation You have trusted the Bishops that is the Church of England first their Learning and Wisdom to know and then their Integrity to tell you truly which is the blessed and holy Scripture With these great and necessary concerns of your Faith and Salvation you have trusted them and yet like the mistaking man you dare not trust them with what is of less concern Namely you do not believe them when they tell you how the Primitive Christians did worship and praise and pray to God And though you have trusted them to translate the Scriptures into English as being best learned in the Original Languages yet you dare not or do not trust them with the explanation of many words which have in the Original an ambiguous or doubtful meaning especially to us of the Laity who cannot know the Customs and Phrases of those Nations where our Saviour and his Disciples preached the glad tidings of our common Salvation Cosin I hope I have in this made some unforc'd and so useful Observations as an humble and good Christian will not gainsay And doubtless a soul truly humble will both think and say Almighty God hath appointed me to live in an Age in which Contention increases and Charity decays and it is certain that variety of Opinions and Controversies in Religion declare difficulty to know them truly but my comfort is That without Controversie there is so much Religion without Controversie as by the true practice of what is so I may save my Soul And therefore to make sure of that I will first become an humble Christian and conclude that I will in all doubtful things obey my Governours for sure they see a reason which I neither can or need to know why they command them I will be sure to be humble to fast and pray to be Charitable to visit and comfort dejected Families to love my Neighbours to pardon my Enemies and to do good to all Mankind as far as God shall enable me For I am sure these be Sacrifices which please Almighty God and will bring peace at last And I am sure that by using these graces these graces and my faith in Christs Merits for my Salvation will be more and more confirmed and by still using them more and more new graces will be still added and all be still more and more confirmed so confirmed as to bear witness with me and be my comfort when I must make my last and great account to the Searcher of all hearts Almighty God give me grace to practise what I have commended to your consideration for this and this only can and will make my life quiet and comfortable and my death happy And my dear Cosin as I wish my own so I wish yours may be September 12 1679. Your Affectionate Kinsman R. W. THE END