Selected quad for the lemma: book_n
Text snippets containing the quad
|
ID |
Title |
Author |
Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication) |
STC |
Words |
Pages |
|
A52421
|
A discourse concerning the pretended religious assembling in private conventicles wherein the unlawfullness and unreasonableness of it is fully evinced by several arguments / by John Norris ...
|
Norris, John, 1657-1711.
|
1685
(1685)
|
Wing N1251; ESTC R17164
|
128,825
|
319
|
not savouring the things of God but of men for dissuading his Master from going up to Ierusalem The means as well as the intention must be good if we would have our actions pleasing to God We grant God may and doth often bring good out of evil but that is no thanks to those that doe it Evil can naturally produce nothing but evil It must be no lese than the infinite Wisdom and Almighty power of God that must over-rule it into good As good Ends cannot justifie Evil means so neither will evil beginnings ever bring forth good conclusions unless God by a miracle of mercy create light out of darkness order out of confusion and peace out of our passions And as he hath not allowed us to doe any evil for the obtaining or procuring of the greatest good so he needs it not Wilt thou speak wickedly for God and talk deceitfully for him q. d. his cause his glory needs not any â—in of ours to promote it He will never thank any man for seeking his honour by sinfull means he can get himself glory and save mens souls otherwise He will say as Achish Have I need of mad-men that ye have brought this fellow to play the mad-man in my presence The way God hath taught us to gorifie him by in seeking or procuring the salvation of our own or the souls of others is always to doe that which is good and though he can bring good out of evil yet he never Commands ordains or allows our evil for that end But such Preaching and Meetings as are in question are sinfull acts Which will appear as by other reasons which shall be shewed hereafter so in this place onely because they are done in disobedience and opposition to the known Laws of the Church and Kingdom wherein we live and which we stand bound in Conscience towards God to observe and obey I begin with the Laws of the Church The Eleventh Canon of the Church of England saith Whosoever shall affirm or maintain that there are in this Realm other Meetings Assemblies or Congregations of the King's born-subjects than by the Laws of this Realm are held and allowed which may rightly challenge to themselves the names of true and lawfull Churches Let him be excommunicated and not restored but by the Arch-bishop after his repentance and revocation of such his wicked errour The sense of this Canon is large and comprehensive and contains in it virtually a prohibition of all Meetings Assemblies or Congregations whatsoever which are not allowed by the Laws of the Land as the Meetings in question will and God willing shall be made appear to be Neither can it be restrained onely if at all to any other Meetings than such as are under pretence of joyning in religious worship not authorized by the Laws of the Land which according to the title of the Canon are called Conventicles for there can be no other unlawfull Meetings so called for any other end but onely these two viz. First for Ministers and Lay-men or either of them to joyn together to make Rules Orders or Constitutions in Causes Ecclesiastical without the King's authority And that is censured and forbidden as unlawfull in the twelfth Canon Or else Secondly to consult about a course to be taken to impeach or deprave the Doctrine of the Church of England the book of Common Prayer or any part of the Government or Discipline established in the Church And this is forbidden under pain of Excommunication in the 73 Canon Any other end for any other unlawfull Meeting or Assembly other than what is aforesaid cannot easily be imagined therefore unless we will make the Reverend Pious and Learned Authors and Composers of those Canons and Constitutions which are so solemnly established by Supreme authority guilty of a gross tautology this Canon flatly prohibits all Meetings Assemblies or Congregations except the publick which are commanded and allowed by the Laws of the Land of any manner of persons in private houses or elsewhere which under pretence of religious worship take upon them to be called Churches Besides it is expressed in such terms as are commonly competible to none but such Meetings as are under pretence of religious worship What other Meetings are commonly called Congregations or do challenge to themselves the name of Churches but such Meetings as are in question The place and order of the Canon do prove the same for immediately after the impugners of the King's Supremacy the publick worship of God Articles of Religion Rites and Ceremonies Government established in the Church of England the Authours of Schism and maintainers of Schismaticks in the Church are censured is subjoyned this Canon censuring Conventicles as being the Nursery of all the former In the 71 Canon all Ministers whatsoever are forbidden to preach or administer the holy Communion in any private house except in be in time of necessity when any is either so impotent as that he cannot go to the Church or very dangerously sick under pain of Excommunication In the 72 Canon it is ordained that no Minister whatsoever shall without licence from the Bishop of the Diocese first obtained and had under his hand and seal presume to appoint any meetings for Sermons or Exercises in Market-Towns or other places either publickly or in private houses under pain of Suspension for tho first fault Excommunication for the second and Deposition for the third Now if a Minister may not doe this in his own Parish but onely in a case of necessity much less may a stranger intrude himself into another man's Parish where there is a Preaching Ministry established by Law and there set up a course of private house-preaching administring of Sacraments and performance of all Ministerial acts where there can be no need of his so doing so much as pretended But is will be thought by some that the Laws and Constitutions of the Church are not so greatly to be regarded as that the breach of them should be sinfull and that her Canons lay no such obligation on Conscience as that the neglect of their observation and contrary practice should be criminal Nay such is the state and condition of our times that is is rather thought a vertue to despise them than any fault to disobey them And they are reputed most pure and holy who with greatest boldness quarrel and cavil against the Authority Government and Lawfull Precepts of the Church Yet certainly the judgment and practice of Christians in former ages was otherwise When vertue and true piety did more abound they made more conscience of observing the Precepts and Constitutions of the Church which were made for decency order and good government And if any frowardly wilfully or constantly lived in any opposition or contrariety thereunto they were adjudged as evil doers Nec his quisquam contradicit quisquis sane vel tenuiter expertus est quae sunt jura Ecclesiastica And truly I see not why the same regard and respect
War with Benjamin And this they did more than once and till they did so they prevailed not The like course took king Hezekiah at his keeping the Passover to make the Congregation in the house of the Lord the Temple at Ierusalem as great as he could Hezekiah sent to all Israel and Iudah and wrote Letters also to Ephraim and Manasseh that they should come to the house of the Lord at Ierusalem and keep the Passover unto the Lord God of Israel And as there they have prevailed with God in Prayer more than they could any where else so there God hath taught them more than they could learn any where else When I sought to know this viz. the Doctrine of God's providence and wisedom in the just and righteous management of the affairs of the world it was too painfull for me saith David till I went into the Sanctuary of God then understood I their end When all means else did fail the publick Ministry through God's blessing on it became effectual to bring him to understanding in this Mystery Therefore he concludes thy way O God is in the Sanctuary And as in Gospel-times we have the like promises of God's special presence in the publick Congregations of his People Mat. 28. 20. 2 Cor. 6. 16. Rev. 1. 13. so it was professed long before that there the Godly should exhort and stir up one another to seek the true Knowledge of God and his ways Es. 2. 3. Mic. 4. 2. which was fulfilled accordingly both in the Disciples of Christ after his Ascension who continually were in the Temple And also in the converted Jews and Gentiles who continued daily in the Temple with one accord So did the Christians in the primitive times in their Churches their Ministers did preach as frequently as the persecution of those times would permit And there the People assembled themselves together to hear They did not divide themsleves some of the Congregation going one way and some another but they came together in one place And that place was the Church If not the publick place of worship so called as most think yet the place where by reason of the hot persecution of those times the whole Church did or could meet together And St. Hierome gives this commendations of the Faith of the primitive Christians at Rome Vbi alibi tanto studio frequentia ad Ecclesias concurritur ubi sic ad similitudinem Coelestis tonitrui Amen reboat vacua Idolorum templa quatiuntur non quod aliam habeant Romani fidem nisi hanc quam omnes Christi Ecclesiae sed quod devotio in iis major sit simplicitas ad credendum In what part of the World else is there such studious flocking and resort to Christian Churches as here Where else doth the Amen of the Congregation sound so loud as that it seems to equalize a Clap of Thunder in the Air insomuch that the Idol-temples being left empty are made to tremble therewith Not that the Romans had any other Faith than the other Churches of Christ but they had more devotion and singleness of heart in believing To this also agrees the Testimony of St. Augustine primi credentes in templo veteri Domino servierint the first and new Christians did serve God in the old Temple It will be said by some to what purpose is all this that hath been alledged out of the old Testament touching God's promises to or benediction of the Church-assemblies of the Iews Their Tabernacle and Temple were holy places and the sanctification of them was Levitical and therefore now abolished and not to be applied to our Churches This passeth with some for an objection that hath force enough in the bowels of it to overthrow and demolish the whole fabrick of this my third Argument But if we carefully look into the inside of it and not tamely deliver up our hold we shall find no such formidable matter in it For as for the City of Ierusalem the Tabernacle and Temple they were in themselves places no more holy or religious than any other places in the Land of Canaan were or than any other places now in England are But they were therefore holy Partly because they had many things in them and their worship that were typical and ceremonial which are now abolished The Temple and Tebernacle were types of the body and humane Nature of Christ. Ioh. 2. 19. 21. Heb. 8. 2. Heb. 9. 11. And this I grant might be one reason that moved David in his banishment so earnestly to desire his return to the Temple Ps. 42. 3. And in the beginning of the New Testament we reade of certain holy and devout persons that when they prayed they went up to the Temple to perform their devotion And those that could not repair to Ierusalem they might and did pray elsewhere but it was with their faces towards the Temple And Partly because God placed a memorial of his Name there or caused his Name to be remembred there i. e. did set apart those places for his publick worship and service as monuments of him For as Absolom erected a Pillar to keep his Name in remembrance so did God chuse out those places to put his Name there And therefore they were called his habitation In this respect our Churches now are every whit as holy as Ierusalem the Tabernacle or Temple there was being places lawfully set apart for God's publick worship to have his Name remembred and placed there And so the Tabernacle and Temple had this in them and their worship that was moral and consequently of equal concernment to us now as to the Jews then that publick places ought to be assigned for God's publick worship every way fitting and convenient for Ecclesiastical conventions where all the Congregation ought to meet as in a place where God will vouchsafe to be more graciously present in his worship than elsewhere according to all those his gracious promises And touching the holiness of the Tabernacle and Temple that is excepted against in the objection as being not to the present purpose Let the answer of that learned and pious Gent. Sir Henry Spelman in his book de non temerandis Ecclesiis be heard and well considered and the reader will easily find what hath been alledged out of the Old Testament maketh much for my present purpose his words are these The Temple was sanctified unto three functions which also had three several places assigned to them The first belonging to the divine presence and had the custody of the holiest types thereof the Oracle the Ark the Mercy-Seat c. And was therefore called Sanctum Sanctornm the Holiest of all The second was for ceremonial Worship and Atonement viz. by Sacrifices Oblations and other Levitical Rites the place thereof being the Sanctuary wherein were the holy Vessels and the Court of Priest wherein the Altar of burnt Sacrifice did stand The