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A51980
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The vanity, mischief and danger of continuing ceremonies in the worship of God humbly proposed to the present convocation / by P.M., a minister of the Church of England.
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P. M.
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1690
(1690)
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Wing M68; ESTC R19138
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38,859
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48
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that the Union of the Church lies more in the Unity of Faith and Affection than in the Uniformity of doubtful Rites and Ceremonies It is the condescension of the Government that the desired Union is proposed to the Clergy the Legislative Power may do it without us The Lords the Knights of the Shires and the Burgesses know who are fit in their several Counties to be Counsellors of Peace and Healers of our Breaches and if we are unwilling to be Peace-makers they may if they please make a Law that the Members of both Houses shall in their several Counties choose three or four Divines to sit in Convocation to offer unto them what may settle the peace of our Church In the act of Indulgence the King Lords and Commons have acted like good Pastors that are careful of the Flock I wish our Convocation follow their good example If we will not do our parts we have no reason to think that the Nobles and Gentlemen will sacrifice all their Interests to our fondness of continuing snares among the people If a combustion should happen we shall in the issue lose more than is now desired A Ceremonial War hath been once fatal to Clergy-men another will strike home The Church would lose nothing tho all its Ceremonies were laid aside The beauty and excellency of it is not at all advanc'd by a luggage of Impositions They are no more an Ornament to the Church than the Chains of a Galley or Prison are Ornaments to the poor man that is laden with them The Church is the spouse of Christ her Glory consists in a conformity to him her Head and Bridegroom in holiness and love and not in such geere Rev. 17.1 2. as is common to the great Whore who hath made the inhabitants of the earth drunk with the wine of her fornication I dare affirm saith Mr. Bolde that if the Rites and Ceremonies now in use in the Church of England Plea for Moderation P. 11 12. should be altered some changed and some laid wholly aside by the same authority which did at first enjoyn them the Church of England would still be as impregnable a Bulwark against Popery as now she is And I am fully satisfied there is no man will deny this unless he be either a real Papist or an ignorant superstitious fool After all the endeavours of our Bigots neither these things nor they that labour to support them will ever be valued by them that are seriously pious in our own Communion All the art and power in the world cannot make trifles in the Worship of God seem matters of importance to them that rellish Heavenly things What Trumpery are Habits various Gestures and Postures to a man that is swallowed up in the contemplation of the infinite Majesty of the Glorious God or that is lost in the ravishing admiration of his goodness and love or that is sunk into the lowest abasements and self-abhorrence for his sins Such a soul may be loaded with human Inventions but he can never look upon them as ornaments or helps unto devotion On the contrary he may count himself mocked and reckon those imposed fooleries no better than the fools caps and coats which Persecutors did put on the Saints of God when they led them to the stake to be sacrificed in the flames They may be valued by formal dead Christians but the spiritually minded will look on them as toys fit only to adom Hypocrites III. It is unreasonable to continue Ceremonies After all that the Wisdom and Power of Imposers can do the judgments of men will differ It is as possible to make their Hair all of one Colour their Bodies of the same Proportion their Faces all alike as their Judgments to be the same in Rites and Ceremonies Instead of obtaining Uniformity by Impositions they break the Unity of the Spirit and crumble the Church into Parties and Sects Which may seem strange saith Dr. Stillingfleet the things that men can least bear with one another in are matters of Liberty Iren. Pag. 38. and those things men have divided most upon have been matters of Uniformity and wherein they have differed most have been pretended things of Indifferency Nothing but what is necessary should be imposed as Terms of Communion What possible reason can be given why such things should not be sufficient for Communion with a Church which are sufficient for Salvation Ib. Pref. 8. and certainly those things are sufficient for that which are laid down as the necessary duties of Christianity by our Lord and Saviour in his Word The practice of the Reformers of the Church from Popery is a good pattern for us to follow Ib. Pag. 121. 122. Such was the prudence and temper of the French Churches in the composing their publick Forms of Brayer that they were so far from inserting any thing controversial into them that the Papists themselves would use them and inserted them into their own Prayer book The same temper was used by our Reformers in the composing our Liturgy in reference to the Papists to whom they had then an especial eye c. And certainly those holy men who did seek by any means to draw in others at such a distance from their principles as the Papists were did never intend by what they did for that end to exclude any tender consciences from their Communion That which they laid as a bait for them was never intended by them as a hook for those of their own profession But the same reason which at that time made them yield so far to them would now have perswaded them to alter and lay aside those things which yield matter of offence to any of the same profession with themselves So far Dr. Still By the letters Dr. Eurnets Letters Pag. 46. c. he means of our reformers to Bullinger of which I read the Originals it appears that the Bishops preserved the ancient Habits rather in compliance with the Queens inclinations than out of any liking they had to them So far were they from liking them that they plainly exprest their dislike of them Jewel in a Let. Feb. 8. 1566. wishes that the Vestments together with all the other remnants of Popery might be thrown both out of their Churches and out of the minds of the people and laments the Queens fixedness to them So that she would suffer no change to be made And Jan. 1566. Sands writes to the same purpose Contenditur de vestibus Papisticis utendis vel non utendis dabit deus his quoque finem Horn Jul. 16. 1565. writes of the Act concerning Habits with great regret and expresses some hopes that it might be repealed next Session of Parliament if the Popish party did not hinder it and he seems to stand in doubt whether he should conform himself to it or not upon which he desires Bullingers advice And in many letters wrote on the Subject it is asserted that both Cranmer and Ridley intended
as much instruction as ever and so much the more in that they are apt to think now the name of Christians will carry them to Heaven c. Men must be beat off from more things which they are apt to trust to for Salvation now than in those times men could not think so much then that diligence in Publick Assemblies and attendance at Publick Prayers was the main Religion Few would profess Christianity in those times but such as were resolved beforehand rather to let go their lives than their Profession but the more Profess it now without understanding the terms of Salvation by it pag. 335. the greater necessity of Preaching to instruct men in it The Lords day hath met with many and great Enemies among the Ritualists This is a gracious injunction and gift of infinite Wisdom and Goodness necessary for us to rescue our Souls from Levity of mind carnal affections and worldly cares and to feed nourish and strengthen them with Spiritual Meditations and Heavenly Joys They that seriously endeavour to converse with God and their own Souls know the truth hereof But Formalists are ignorant of the Divine life to them the Sabbath is a burden Amo. 8.5 they say When will it be gone Pleading some years since with a grave Ceremonious Don of our Church for the sanctifying of the Lords day by spending it in Religious exercises he was so far from understanding me that his return was Shall a man be a whole day on the rack Such a mystery is the Spiritual life to a man that spends his Zeal on Rites and Ceremonies To ease such animal men from the rack a book for sports on the Lords day was injoined Ministers to read in the time of Divine Service Here we may wonder at the Fantastical humour of a sort of men they persecuted the people for working in their lawful callings on the Festival days and silenced conscientious Ministers for not reading a book for sports on Gods Day It was pretended in that sportful book that the superstitious observation of the Lords day did render his Majesties Subjects unfit for his Service in the Wars But what kind of Fighters those sportmongers on Gods day were the event shewed not long after Jer. 44.21 Did not the Lord remember them and came it not into his mind The Lords day duly observed is a mighty instrument for the promoting the Life of Godliness in the Souls of Christians The serious observation of this begets in people another Spirit than is in Christians of other Reformed Churches They are much more above the carnal World than most of them and than any that slight that day in our own The Scripture hath its share of contempt from Ceremonialists of the truth hereof the Impositions of Rome are a full proof We need not go so far For other Imposers are guilty of the same in a lower degree while they injoyn on Ministers and People terms of Communion not warranted by the Word of God And this is the worse because when Scripture is urged foolish preciseness and impertinency hath been charged on them that have pleaded against such unscriptural Impositions Our holy Religion hath been mightily exposed to the scorn of evil men when they see pretenders to it spend all their zeal on little things Force and Rigorous Impositions make men suspect the weight of the thing it self Dr. Stilling Iren. Pref. pag. 11. when such force is used to make it enter When people are very earnest for trifles as if the whole weight of Religion depended on them some may be tempted to suspect that all is but a cheat a trick of cunning Churchmen to form people to serve their purposes especially when one that hath written books for Conformity shall say that is the best Body of Divinity that enables a man to keep a Coach and six Horses Our blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ who hath suffered so much for sinners suffers again by the mockery of Ceremonies without the heart All the pomp of them is to him a Crown of Thorns if persecutors for them wound the weak consciences of his members One may conform to the use of the transient sign of the Cross and Scoff at the knowledge of Christ a book so called Parker of Religion and Loyalty Par. I. Pag. 28 29. Lon. 1684. ridicules the Title it bears Another is much more bold takes upon him to dethrone the King of Kings and set him at the footstool of Crowned dust It is but a crude expression not to call it prophane because it is so common by customary mistake to affirm that Kings are Supream Governours under Christ They are and ever were so under God but so as to be Superiour to Christ as Christ is head of his Church within their Dominions II. Mischiefs in promoting an increase of all kind of wickedness The most immoral men if they did pretend zeal for Ceremonies and were furious against Dissenters did pass for good Christians and true sons of the Church This false measure hath hardened abundance in their evil ways mightily cherished and increased vice in the Land Conformity to Ceremonies hath been a Cloak that hath covered the most filthy abominations The continuance of them in the Worship of God will be a gratification of the worst Christians and a grief to the best A Ceremonious service is apt to corrupt people with sensuality It is easy to the flesh not crossing any of its interests Holiness requires the subjection of the thoughts and imaginations of the heart unto Christ that we should be pure in thought word and deed But a ceremonial worship is only a bodily exercise which tho it profiteth little as the Apostle saith yet it serves to silence natural conscience and to represent men to imposing Governours as good members of the Church This is all that sensual men look for and if they obtain this they let loose the reins to all excess of riot How much did sensuality increase when it was connived at if not incouraged and tender conscience as the only bug-bear was every where hunted with a full cry People are regardless of the power of Christianity when they find that their Superiors are contented with a conformity to the externals of it The most vicious people cry The Temple of the Lord the Church of England to cover their Immoralities Away then with these mighty Engines of mischief Let us all chiefly mind and pursue those things which tend most to the promoting the work of Regeneration in the world If this course be taken Hypocrites will lose their advantages of seeming religious by zeal for those things wherein Religion doth not consist Corbets Kingdom of God Pa. 74. and carnal designs and interests that now rend the Churches and trouble all things would be defeated and abandoned Of all things that should most be regarded which qualifieth for heaven Mat. 5.8 that is holiness Without it there is no entring into that glorious Kingdom