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book_n canonical_a church_n scripture_n 11,364 5 6.3973 4 true
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ID Title Author Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication) STC Words Pages
A49609 A letter from a minister in the country, to a member of the convocation N. L., Minister in the country. 1689 (1689) Wing L46; ESTC R1292 16,508 32

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A LETTER FROM A Minister in the Country To a MEMBER OF THE CONVOCATION A LETTER FROM A Minister in the Country To a MEMBER OF THE CONVOCATION Licensed and Entred according to Order LONDON Printed for Richard Baldwin near the Black Bull in the Old-Bailey 1689. A LETTER FROM A Minister in the Country to a Member of the Convocation SIR I Look'd upon it as a good Omen when the first Proctor that I heard of chosen to serve in the Convocation was you of whose Prudence Temper and Judgment I have had long Experience The sense of which so far transported me that had you not invited it I should hardly have forborn to give you my thoughts about the Matters which I hear are likely to be offered to your Consideration in that Venerable Assembly Matters certainly of great Importance to our Church a Church which I am certain of in respect of its Doctrine Worship and Order is inferiour to none upon the face of the Earth And therefore what we ought with all imaginable care at all times to preserve but in this present Juncture more especially to respect For if what Report and some Letters and the Queries suggest be true we have reason to fear there is a Cloud hanging over us in the Commission lately set up that portends no less than Ruin to our Constitution by taking away the two main Supports of it our Liturgy and Episcopacy A matter if true you cannot be too intent upon nor too resolute to oppose and if such things be complied with by you and those of your station you must be false to the Trust reposed in you and to the Church of which you are Members Ministers and at this present Representatives But I must confess to you I begin to think that we have been impos'd upon by the Artifice of some and the Credulity of others for having met with a Book called A Discourse concerning the Ecclesiastical Commission and convers'd of late with several discerning and impartial Persons that have penetrated into this matter further than some of us I find that there is little else intended than what you and I and several of our Acquaintance have thought would be rather for the Advantage Security and Honour of our Church than to the Prejudice and Detriment of it And if the refreshing of these things and laying them in some Order before you will be of any use to you as you pretend I shall as the time will permit do my best to answer your desires and in discoursing upon which 1. I shall shew that there are such things in our Church as are in their nature alterable and what they are 2. That there are such things in our Church which may be altered and the Church not the worse for such alterations 3. There are such things as may be altered and the Church be the better for such alterations 4. That this is a proper season for such alterations 1. That there are such things in the Church as are in their nature alterable and may upon just Occasion be altered has been the constant Opinion of our Church And which for the Authority of it and the Excellency of its Reasoning I shall choose to set down in its own words Preface to the Service-Book It has been the wisdom of the Church of England ever since the first compiling of her Publick Liturgy to keep the Mean between the two Extreams of too much stiffness in refusing and of too much easiness in admitting any variation from it For as on the one side common Experience sheweth that where a change has been made of things advisedly established no evident Necessity so requiring sundry inconveniencies have thereupon ensued and those many times more and greater than the evils that were intended to be remedied by such change So on the other side particular Forms of Divine Worship and the Rites and Ceremonies appointed to be used therein being things in their own nature Indifferent and Alterable and so acknowledged it is but reasonable that upon weighty and important Considerations according to the various exigency of Times and Occasions such changes and alterations should be made therein as to those that are in place of Authority should from time to time seem either necessary or expedient So the Homily of Fasting Part 1. Article 34 c. So that setting aside what in this case is to be supposed not concerned in the present Debate the Essentials belonging to our Religion and our Church without the former of which it would not be a true or compleat Church and without the latter it would not be our Church there is nothing but what as it's alterable so may in such Circumstances be altered 2. There are such things in our Church as may be altered and the Church not be the worse for such alterations Which Rule supposes the Alterations such as are consistent with the Being and Security of our Church With the Being whereby are excluded all such as will not allow a National Church Episcopacy and a Liturgy With the Security and so are excluded such alterations as will do more mischief by dividing us among our selves than good by uniting others to us And such alterations I conceive would be the new modelling of the Liturgy and the forbidding wholly the use of the established Rites and Ceremonies If the matters proposed for Alteration be of the former sort there can be no Accommodation if of the latter the time and season are to be respected as well as the things themselves which will also be debated in the close Setting aside the Objections against the Essentials of our Church as not to our present purpose the rest may be comprehended in this order The Kalendar The Service The Rites Reordination Subscription and Declaration Government and Discipline 1. The Kalendar And herein the first thing that is to be considered is the Apocrypha the Books of which being only of Humane Composure have not only been all along objected against by Dissenters but also wished by many amongst our selves might be exchanged for Lessons out of the Canonical Scripture as by the Bishops and other Episcopal Divines assembled to consider of these matters in 1641. It 's acknowledged that some of these Books contain matter of excellent use and have been anciently read in the Christian Church But the first of these is no Reason for those Books which contain things neither profitable nor true nor can it be of any force when there are Chapters of Canonical Scripture that may with great profit be read and are omitted for their sake 1. If any of them were anciently read So were Hermes Pastor and Clemens Romanus And if that is a reason why the one it 's a reason why what we have of the other should be read also 2 If they were read then we know what mischief ensued from it when there were some of the Ancients thought too favourable of some of them And the Church of Rome has of