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cause_n	army_n	great_a	king_n	2,073	5	3.6840	3	true

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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A63919	A sermon preached before Sr. Patience Ward, upon the last Sunday of his mayoralty, Anno 1681 with additions / by John Turner ...	Turner, John, b. 1649 or 50.	1683 (1683)	Wing T3318A; ESTC R23557	54,614	86

number they be intollerable to a devout Soul which cannot suffer it's self to be so far taken off from the more inward and substantial part of Religion though in their nature they be mostly foolish and in their use Superstitious and in their design Idolatrous as being directed to a false object yet as well these as the Jewish Formalities do prove thus much by the common consent of Mankind that an Uniformity in the outward circumstances of Divine Service is necessary to the more due and solemn performance of Religious Worship and to the publique peace and quiet of the World What is the reason that at this day the French Persecution against the reformed Religion and its Professors rages with so much violence and fury thorough all the spatious Territories and Dominions of that mighty Monarch Shall we think it is a Zeal for the Catholique Religion as they are pleased to call it that is for a Fardle of absur'd ridiculous and blasphemous Superstitions that inspires so wise and powerfull a Prince with so mean thoughts of Cruelty and Revenge Shall we think he acts upon a principle of Conscience who has sufficiently discover'd to the world by his insatiable thirst after Empire which cannot be purchas'd without the price of Bloud that he has no other principle of action than that of a boundless appetite of Rule and Greatness Shall he be thought to act upon a principle of Duty and Religion who makes destructive and depopulating Wars without giving a reason and violates the faith of Peace by arbitrary Dependances and unwarrantable Claimes Who conquers more by the peremptory Decrees of his late erected Chambers than by the conduct of his Generals or by the numbers discipline and valour of his Armies What therefore can be the true cause and motive why he that glories in the blessed title of the Most Christian King should yet notwithstanding persecute Christianity it self What else can be the true reason of all this Cruelty and seeming Madness but that he wisely considers that the true way to Empire abroad is by unity and peace at home that a Kingdome divided against it self cannot stand and that these differences of Religion as they have done already in the experience of that Kingdome as well as ours will some time or other prove the occasions of great disorders and commotions in the State And shall we not then make use of the same wisdome for the support of Christianity which is with so much diligence and zeal made use of by others for its Extirpation For Popery is either no Christianity at all or it is Christianity wrapt up and hid in such an heap of Ceremonies and Superstitions that it can hardly be discerned Is it worth our while to contend about Ceremonies when we are losing the Substance to squabble and fall out about indifferent things when our Religion and our Liberty our temporall and eternall Interest lye at stake If the things prescribed be indifferent and consequently lawfull why do we not show that they are so by complying with them If the quarrells raised about indifferent matters do yet notwithstanding rise as high as those which are agitated between the Papists and us about matters of a necessary and unalterable nature why do we not cement and compose these unhappy breaches by adding Humility to Obedience and by submitting to every ordinance of man so far as we may without any violation of the Laws of God or right reason All our publique feuds and animosities are comprehended in our Religious Disputes and if they were but once composed we should be an happy Nation The King would be glorious and his People secure We should be safe at home and formidable abroad We should be in a condition to succor our Allyes to relieve the distressed Protestants to keep the ballance even betwixt our neighbour Princes and to stop the progress of the Arms of France which threaten to involve all Europe in Slavery and Superstition together Whereas now all we are able to do is to give protection for a while to persecuted Religion when it flies hither for shelter But what will become of us when the same torrent of Ambition having overflown what ever stood in its way shall at length beat upon the Brittish Shore Shall we suffer our selves to be devoured by our own intestine Divisions when the Enemy from without is battering our Walls and throwing in his Bombes among us or shall we not rather unite together for our common safety and shall we not severely repent that we did not sooner do it before it was too late that we did not take sweet counsell together and go into the house of God as friends Certainly this one consideration if it were but powerfully and frequently impress'd upon our minds must needs have a wonderfull influence upon us and must even fright men and compell them by arguments both of fear and love into a thorough Reconcilement with the best of Churches before it be too late as well out of a principle of Interest as Duty for besides the considerations of this World it ought to afford matter of very sad reflexion to us or at least to so many of us as have been active either in causing or someting the Differences that are among us that we must one day give a dreadfull account before the Judgment-seat of God for a great part of that Bloud which has been spilt and of those Spoiles Rapines and Depredations which have been made by the ambition or injustice of our Neighbours We must be accountable for the oppression of our persecuted Brethren beyond the Seas and for ought we know if these destructive Animosities be not soon composed for the removall of the Candlestick from among our selves and for the small extirpation of the Protestant Religion The Jewes had their Ritual and the Christians their Liturgies or set forms of Divine Service the one before Christianity and the other long before Popery were known in the World And first As to the Jewish Ritual which cannot be deny'd to have been a thing of humane Institution it was so little disapproved by our Saviour or rather so highly approved that he has been observed by Scaliger and Buxtorf and Camero and Hugo Grotius and other learned men to have borrow'd most of those expressions which he makes use of in the Institution of the blessed Sacrament of his Body and Bloud from thence and that Hymn which after the Celebration of that blessed Feast he and his Disciples went out to sing together on the Mount of Olives was by Paulus Burgensis a Converted Jew and a learned Bishop of the Christian Church and out of him by Buxtorf Drusius and others conjectured to be the same which the Jews are used to call the Hallel hagadol being a Song of Praise and Thanksgiving consisting of several Psalms and used to be sung in consort at the Feast of the Passover and other solemn occasions And that God Almighty has actually approved those

suppose for once let what Toleration will be granted that things will never proceed to this extretremity but it is still to be considered that all these separate Congregations are Imperium in Imperio there being in a manner so many several Societies as there are several and independent Congregations without any foreign Appeal or Judge in Ecclesiastical matters for at this rate it shall be at the Liberty of every private Pastour to preach what Doctrine he pleases be it never so much to the disturbance of the Government of the publick as some of them doe at this time take a most unpardonable liberty in their Sermons But if it be lawfull for the Government to assume to it self a Judgment of what Doctrines tend most to the Establishment of its peace and safety it is much more lawfull for it to concern it self in matters of Discipline which are not in themselves of so great moment and which notwithstanding being left undetermin'd will have the same effects which it is for the interest of the World they should be adjusted after an uniform manner and in which the Gospel has left no rule whereby we are to manage and govern our selves If the Government where we live shall impose such things upon our Belief and Practice as are inconsistent with Salvation contrary to the duties of natural and revealed Religion and repugnant to such Propositions of Belief as are expresly revealed in the Scriptures of the New Testament then all we have to doe is to suffer patiently as our glorious Predecessors the Apostles and the primitive Christians did and we shall certainly have our reward in Heaven for so doing but if we suffer onely for breaking the Rules of decency and order which have been found by experience to be so necessary to the publick Peace and which have no other tendencie meaning or design but in order to this end unless we can alledge reasonably what I shall by and by insist upon that there is Superstition or Idolatry involved in our obedience this is not Persecution but Punishment we suffer either like Fools or Madmen or what is worse than either of these like Boutefeus Incendiaries and Disturbers of the quiet of mankind and must not expect either the Title or the Reward of Confessours or Martyrs I reckon there are three Causes especially of the present Non-conformity from the established Discipline of the Church of England The First is The Ambition or Necessity or Discontent of some bad men who know very well what Advantages may be made for the promotion of any ill Designs by a Separation neither is it any matter whether such persons be all of them actually listed in some separate Assembly so they do but abet and favour those that are but rather by paying a personal obedience to the Authority of the Church which they would have not destroy'd but enlarged by breaking down that Wall of partition to which we have no right because the Dissenters have built it upon their own ground by endeavouring to let in the Trojan Horse of Fanaticism through the Breaches of the Church by very specious but very destructive and pernicious Pretences of moderation and comprehension and such other hard names which can onely be understood by being felt by a pretended tenderness of dis-uniting Protestants and yet at the same time uncharitably representing the best Defenders of the Reformation under the odious and invidious Characters of Papists or Popishly affected by questioning the Jurisdiction of the Bishops in temporal causes that by that means they may weaken their Ecclesiastical Power by striking at the King through the sides of his loyal and well-affected Clergy and by doing all this and a great deal more out of a dissembled Zeal for Unity and Peace and out of a passionate Concern for the Honour and Safety of the King and Church they doe abundantly more mischief than either the Dissenters themselves or they who are the most unmanageable and indiscreet in the expressions of a bitter and unchristian Animosity against them because these as being prejudiced and profess'd Parties will not be heard so equally on both sides Secondly a second Cause though indeed in the order of causality it may well enough deserve the first place of the Continuance of such an unnatural Separation among us notwithstanding there is so little or rather nothing at all to be said in justification of so prejudicial and so unwarrantable a Practice is the Necessity or Revenge of those who at the happy revolution of his Majesty's return like the rising of the Sun with healing in his wings to heal the Sores of three divided Kingdoms being ejected in great numbers out of those Livings and Benefices of which they were then possessed being unable to digg unless it were in the Vineyard and being ashamed to begg being desirous to reak their Revenge upon the Government which had ejected them onely for that reason because it could not trust them and because they would not obey it being tainted with the Leaven of the good old Cause being soundly seasoned with Democratical and Demagogical Principles of which it is very hard for a thorough Common-wealth's man especially when he is no Philosopher to rid himself being in some small hopes as drowning men are when they catch at a Reed of reaping a new Harvest out of the Church-lands and out of the Spoils of the Crown being encouraged and abetted by men of like Principles and Practices and Circumstances with themselves by good old Officers that had been in Commission by Proprietours that had lost those Tenements and Hereditaments that never were their own by inconsiderate Women that are naturally fond of Saintship and Persecution by Men that were Bigots to a Party or Dependents upon an Interest that wanted a Wife or would oblige a Chapman or insinuate themselves into a Last Will and Testament by the Womens caressing their Husbands and the Husbands persuading their Wives by causes that cannot be justifi'd and causes that must not be named the black Fraternity of the short robe were at length so far emboldened as notwithstanding the Severity of those wholesome Laws whose edge was rebated by the fatal Clemency of a too Gracious Prince towards men that ought not to be trusted and cannot be obliged to own and justifie a Separation which is now grown to that excessive height that the Contention is no longer about Liberty but Dominion they break the Laws openly without regard to Justice or to Shame and to propagate a Succession of Law-breakers like themselves they have ordained an Under-wood of Non-conforming Shrubs who will in time grow up to be Cedars of Rebellion and come by the Priesthood much by the same right and title that Oliver came by the Protectourship or Trincalo by his Dukedom So that it is now with the Dissenters as it was with the Israelites in Jeroboam's time they have their separate Assemblies and their distinct Altars their Priests not of the Levitical or Aaronical Tribe