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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A50417	A sermon concerning unity & agreement preached at Carfax Church in Oxford, August 9, 1646 / by Iasper Maine ...	Mayne, Jasper, 1604-1672.	1647 (1647)	Wing M1477; ESTC R32062	36,818	45

worshipped superstitious garments worne and have heard the more superstitious Common-Prayer Booke read that great bolster to slothfull Ministers and twin-brother to the Mass and Liturgie of Rome Were this Charge true a very heavy one I confess had there been any among us so unreasonably stupid as to spend their devotion on a pane of glass or pay worship to the dumb sensless creature of the Painter or adore the Communion-Table the wooden issue of the Axe and Carpenter as I think there were none had there I say been very Idolaters among us yet unlesse they would have compelled them to be Idolaters too I after all the imparciall Objections which my weake understanding can frame can see no reason why they should not communicate with them in other things wherein they were no Idolaters I am sure if S. Paul had not kept company with Idolaters we to this day for ought I know had remained Infidels My Brethren deceive not your selves with a fallacy which every child is able to discover If such superstitions had been publikely practised among us it is not necessary that every one that is a spectator to anothers mans sin should presently be an offender Nor are all offences so like the Pestilence that he that comes within the breath and ayre of them must needs depart infected Thou seest one out of a blind zeale pay reverence to a picture he hath the more to answer for But why dost thou out of zeale altogether as blind thinke thy selfe so interested in his errour as to thinke thy self a partaker of his fault unless thou excommunicate thy selfe from his coversation Againe tell me thou who callest Separation security what seest thou in a Surplice or hearest in the Common-Prayer Booke which should make thee forbeare the Congregation where these are retained Is it the web or matter or colour or fashion of the garment or is it the frame or forme or indevotion of the Book which offends thee Or art thou troubled because they have both beene borrowed from the Church of Rome That indeed is the great argument of exception which under the stile of Popery hath almost turned Religion it selfe out of the Church But then it is so weake so accidentall so vulgar an Argument an Argument so fit for none to urge but silly women with whom the first impression of things alwaies takes strongliest that I must say in replie to it That by the same reason that thou poore tender-conscienc'd man who art not yet past milke or the food of infants in the Church makest such an innocent decent vesture as Surplices unlawfull because Papists weare them thou mayest make eating and drinking unlawfull because Papists dine and sup The subject is not high or noble enough to deserve a more serious confutation That therefore which I shall say by way of Repetition is onely this If to weare or do whatever Papists weare or doe be unlawfull as it will presently concerne us all to throw off our garments and turne Adamites so it will very neerely concern us too to lay aside our Tables and betake our selves to fasting as the ready way to famine Then to reject the Common-Prayer Book because some of the Prayers in it resemble the Prayers in the Romish Liturgie is as unreasonable as if thou shouldst make piety and devotion in generall unlawfull because Papists say their Prayers And so in opposition to whatever they do shouldst think thou art to turne Athiest because most in that Church do confess there is a God The time wil not give me leave to say much in the defence of that excellent Book Or if I should t is in any thing I presume which can fall from my imperfect mouth which wil be able to recover the use of it back again into this Church Yet thus much out of the just sense and apprehension which I have of the wisedome as well as piety and devotion of it I shall adventure to say That I cannot think that ever any Christian Church since the time that that name first came into the world had a publique forme of Gods Worship more Primitively pure more Religiously grave and more agreeable in all points to the Scripture then that is To which I shall only add this one praise of it more that there is not any Ancient Classically condemned Heresie to be found in the Records of Councells Church-Histories or the Confutations of Fathers which is not by some clause or other in that most Orthodox Book excluded Here then if there be any in this Assembly of that il-perswaded mind that he would not at this present make one of the Congregation if the Common-prayers were read let me once more ask him what that great Antipathie between him and that admirable Book is which should make them quarrel one another out of the Church Is it because it prescribes a Ring in marriage or a Cross in Baptisme over-scrupulous man who would'st rather choose to make a rent and schisme and division in the Church then be spectatour to th●ngs so harmless and indifferent But thy weak Conscience is wounded Weak indeed when a piece of marriage-Gold or a little water sprinkled in the signe and figure of a cross the Type and Emblem of thy Christianity shall drive thee from the Church I must confess to you freely if such things as the veneration of images or adorations of Altars or sacrifices for the dead or the worshiping of the Hoste or the mass-Mass-book with all the unsignificant Ave Maryes and superstitious prayers which use to trauell round the Circle of a numerous set of Beads had been establisht among us by publique Authority And had been enforced upon the practice and Consciences of men and no Liberty of person or freedome of estates allow'd them unless they would conform to the present Golden Calf of superstition set up before them a separation had not only been allowable but necessary We would have offended God very much to be partakers of such dross And our best Answer would have been the Answer of the Three Children when the King would have had them fall down to the huge image and Colossus which he had set up O King we are not carefull to observe thee in this matter But where no such things were enjoyned where every one was left to the full use and exercise of his Christian liberty where nothing was blameable among us but the ridiculous over-acted postures and gestures of some few busie fantasticall men whose Popery lay in makeing discreet men laugh to see them so artificially devout and so affectedly ceremonious to divide and separate or to give us over for a lost Church because the Psalmes of David after his own Musicall way used to be sung to an Organ As innocently certainly as if they had been tuned through his own loud Cymball or had more softly been sung and vowell'd to his Harpe Or to renounce our solemne Assemblies for such sleight indifferent things as a piece of holy story in

have encouraged them and as the time hath favoured their Reformation as they have called it proceeded from the rectifying of mens Errors to the lessening of their fortunes And they only have at length been called the wicked who have been rich and have had estates to lose That onely which I shall further say to you of it is this Separation is a sin which hath alwaies veyl'd it selfe in the disguise of sanctity Thus Montanus and his followers broke off Communion with the whole Christian Church then in the world because forsooth 't was revealed to them by divine illumination that the Holy Ghost was no where to be found but in their Conventicle An Heresie which beginning in Schisme proceeded at length to this monstrous conceit among them That only the house of Montanus was the true Church and that Montanus himselfe was the Holy Ghost Thus also the Donatists an over-scrupulous Sect of men divided themselves from the then Catholique Church because it was not pure enough for such sanctified Communicants nor complied with the inspired doctrines of the Father of that Sect. And this it seems was the fault of these Corinthians here in this Text who having intitled themselves to severall Teachers proceeded by degrees to divide themselves into severall Churches and Congregations every one of which challenging to themselves the true and right Religion and charging the others with the name of the false thought at length that no way was left to keep themselves pure and unspotted but by breaking off all Religious nay Civill Commerce and Communion with each other Hence for feare of infection it was held a crime for any but the Righteous to assemble or converse with any but the Righteous or for any to meet together at a spirituall Exercise but such who first agreed in the same purity of Opinions Here then if I may once more take the liberty to parallel one people with another is not this our very case Hath it not been the practice of many many yeares for those who call themselves the godly the righteous the children of the most High to breake off society and communion nay almost neighbourly civility with those whom they call the wicked As there were among the Jewes certaine uncleane places and things and persons which whosoever toucht were for that time uncleane too so hath not the like opinion past among us that there have been certaine unholy unsanctified places and persons which make those who touch or approach neer them unholy too Have not some Pulpits been thought unsanctified because forsooth the Preacher hath been ungifted And wherein I pray hath his ungiftedness appeared Because hee hath not expressed himself in that light fluent running passionate zealous stile which should make him for that time seem religiously distracted or beside himselfe Or because his Prayer or Sermon hath been premeditated and hath not flowne from him in such an Ex tempore loose careere of devout emptinesses and nothings as serve onely to entertaine the people as Bubbles doe children with a thin unsolid brittle painted blast of wind and ayre Or because perhaps the sands of his Glasse have not fleeted for two tedious houres together with nothing but the bold insolent defamation and reviling of his Prince Againe have there not been some who have thought our Temples unholy because the Common-Prayer Booke hath been read there And have renounced the Congregation where part of the Service hath been tuned through an Organ Hath not a dumb Picture in the window driven some from the Church And in exchange of the Oratories have not some in the heat and zeale of their Separation turned their Parlours Chambers and Dining-roomes into Temples and Houses of Prayer Nay hath not Christ been worshipt in places yet more vile and mean In places which have reduced him the second time to a Stable If I should aske the people of both Sexes who are thus given to separation and with whom a Repetition in a Chamber edifies more then a learned Sermon in the Church upon what religious grounds or motives either taken from the Word of God which is so much in their mouthes or from reason which is so little in their practice they thus affect to single and divide themselves from others I believe it would pose them very much to give a satisfying Answer Is it because the persons from whom they thus separate themselves are irreligious wicked men Men who are Christians onely in forme and whose conversation carries nothing but evill example and pollution with it If I should grant this to be true and should allow them to be out-right what they call themselves The Elect and Godly and Holy ones of the earth and other men to be outright what they call them The Reprobate the wicked the ungodly and prophane yet is not this warrant enough to divide or separate themselves from them Nor are they competent Judges of this but God only who by the mouth of his Son hath told us in the Parable that the wheat and corne is not to be separated from the chaffe and tarres when we list but that both are to grow together till the great harvest of the world Till then 't is a piece of the building of it that there bee a commixture of good and bad Besides let me put this Christian Dilemma to them either the persons from whom they divide themselves are holy or unholy If they be holy they are not to separate themselves from them because they are like themselves If they be unholy they are in charity to converse with them that they may reforme and make them better Did not our Saviour Christ and certainely his example is too great to be refused usually converse with Publicans and sinners Did he forsake the Table because a Pharisee made the Feast Or did he refuse a perfume because a harlot powred it on his head Or did he refuse to goe up into the Temple because buyers and sellers were there men who had turned it into a den of Theeves Certainely my Brethren we may like Christ keep company with Harlots and Hypocrites and Publicans and Sinners and yet retaine our innocence 'T is a weake excuse to say I will never consort my selfe with a swearer lest I learne to blaspheme Or I will utterly renounce all familiarity and acquaintance with such and such an Adulterer or with such and such a Drunkard lest I learne to commit Fornication from the one or Intemperance from the other In all such conversations we are to imitate the Sun who shines into the foulest puddles and yet returnes from thence with a pure untainted Ray If mens vices then and corruptions bee not a sufficient cause to warrant a separation what else can be Is it the place of meeting or Church or the things done there which hath made them shun our ordinary Congregations Yes say some we have held it very unlawfull as we conceive to assemble in such a place where we have seen Altars and Windowes