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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A27392	An answer to the dissenters pleas for separation, or, An abridgment of the London cases wherein the substance of those books is digested into one short and plain discourse.	Bennet, Thomas, 1673-1728.	1700 (1700)	Wing B1888; ESTC R16887	202,270	335

our Church is sufficient for this encounter She designs to make Men good by making them first judicious but some others desire to bring them to their side by catching of their imaginations and so some new device shall in time bring them over to a new Party Dissention it self amongst Protestants weakens their interest and that which weakens one side strengthens another Many that are wearied with endless wrangling are too apt for quiet sake to run to infallibility Some Dissenters prepare the way for Popery by running into another extreme to avoid it By decrying Episcopacy Liturgy Festivals c. as Popish they condemn that as Popish which is decent and Christian and so bring Popery into reputation For men will be apt to say if such good things be Popish surely that which is Popish is also Primitive and Evangelical What we have examin'd is good and probably the rest may be of the same kind It appears also from the History of our late Wars that Popery gains ground by the ruin of our Church For it made such a progress in those times that the Dissenters charge the Jesuits with the King's murther thereby tacitly owning that they had so great a power over some of them as to make them their instruments in it 'T is evident to any man that Popery was not then rooted out (n) Vid. Rob. Mentit de Salmonet Hist des troubles de la grand Bret. lib. 3. p. 165. Short view of the troub p. 564. Arbit gov p. 28. Whitl Mem. p. 279 280 282. Exact Coll. p. 647. 't is notorious that many Priests and other Papists fought and acted for the Parliament against the King Nay in 49 there was a design to (o) ibid. p. 405. settle the Popish Discipline in England and Scotland The Papists generally sheltred themselves under the Vizor of (p) Edwards's Gangr par 2 p. 10. Independency A College of Jesuits was settled at (q) B. of Heref. Narrat to the Lds. p. 7. Come in 52 and 155 were reconciled to Rome that year· Cromwel (r) Cromwel's Declar. Oct. 31. 1655. said that he had some proof that Jesuits had been found amongst the Discontented Parties and Dr. Bayly the Papist (ſ) Dr. Bayly's Life of Bp. Fisher p. 260 261. courted him as the hopes of Rome One of his Physicians (t) Elen. mot Par. 2. p. 347. saith he was Treating with the Papists for Toleration but brake off because they came not up to his Price and because he fear'd it would be offensive We are (u) Hist Indep Part 2. p. 245 c. told also that an agreement was made in 49 even with Owen Oneal that bloody Romanist and that he in pursuance of the Interest of the State rais'd the Siege of Londonderry A great door was open'd to Romish Emissaries when the Oaths of Allegiance and Supremacy were by public order taken away and the Doctrine of the unlawfulness of an Oath reviv'd in those days by (w) Cotton's Lr. Exam. p. 4 5. Simplicit defence p. 22. Min. of Lond. Test p. 18. Williams Gorton c. help'd equivocating Papists to an Evasion as I fear it may the Quakers at this day It was the Church of England that kept out Popery in those times The patient sufferings of her Members prov'd that they were not Popish or earthly-minded and the Writings of Laud Chillingworth Bramhal Cosins Hammond c. kept men stedfast in the Protestant Religion To this we may add that the Papists themselves think their Cause is promoted by our Divisions as appears from 2 Jesuits viz. Campanella in his discourse of the Spanish Mon. cap. 25. p. 157. Printed at Lond. in English in 54. and Contzen's Polit. Lib. 2. Cap. 18. Sect. 9. And they act accordingly for they widen our breaches that themselves may enter and hope that we shall be dissolv'd at last by our distempers They expose Protestants as a Disunited People and ask men how they can in prudence join with those who are at Variance among themselves As for the design of advancing the Protestant Religion to greater Purity and Perfection by dissetling the Church it is not likely to be effected for six reasons First the dissetling that which is well setled corrupteth Religion by removing Charity which is the Spirit of it It lets men loose that cannot govern themselves it moves men to Atheism Idolatry and contempt of the Church and confirms them in sin It exposes the Church for a prey to the Enemy as it did formerly in Africa and Egypt Those that dissent from a National Church generally move for alterations in it when there is a ferment in the State and in such seasons a Church may be pull'd in sunder but there is not temper enough to set it together to advantage State-dissenters generally begin Revolutions with the pretence of Reforming Religion and well-meaning Dissenters when in such hands can establish nothing but what pleases their secular Leaders A change in the Church naturally produces some change in the State and who can secure the event for the better None can foresee all the ill consequences of disturbances When the vessel is stirr'd the lees come up and Religion is made less pure by commotions Politicians promise fair and use conscientious men to serve a turn but afterwards they take other measures Men may intend well but by using the illegal Arm they frequently render that which was well setled much worse by their unhinging of it Secondly in the Times of Vsurpation which began with pretence of a more Pure Religion our Dissentions caus'd great Corruptions both in Faith and Manners The War was Preach'd up as the Christian Cause and many believ'd that God wou'd not lay the greatest villanies to the charge of an elect person The instances of their extravagancies are endless and the Lords and Commons as well as the Ministers were (u) Vid. Ordin Feb. 4. 1646. Min. Testim p. 31. highly sensible of them Thirdly if by Purity of Religion be meant such Doctrine Discipline and Life as the Gospel teaches and a removal of human inventions that Purity is in our Church already and as for her Injunctions they are like those of the Primitive Church Rules of Ecclesiastical Wisdom in pursuance of the general Canons in Holy Writ But if by Purity of Religion be meant a fewness of parts as the Quakers believe their way is purer because they have taken away Sacraments and outward Forms by the same reason the Papists may say that their Sacrament of the Lord's Supper is more pure than that of the Protestants because they have taken the Cup from it But it must be consider'd that that which makes a Pure Church is like that which makes a pure Medicine not the fewness of the ingredients but the goodness of them how many soever they be and the aptness of them for the procuring of health Therefore our Church being already Pure the ruin of it will not tend to the purity

difference must be in the Manner But are conceiv'd Prayers the more Inspir'd because the words are Extempore Did God continue the gift for no other end but that Men might ask those things Extempore which they might as well have asked in a Form Or are they more Inspired because they do generally more enlarge and express the same Matter over again in different words Was the Spirit continu'd only to vary phrases Our Saviour forbids us to use vain repetitions or as Munster's Hebrew reads it to multiply words above what is fit and seasonable thinking we shall be heard for our much speaking and therefore these enlargements are so far from being signs of their immediate Inspiration that supposing the Spirit to be of the same mind with Christ they are generally signs of the contrary 4. That extraordinary manner and way of expressing them for which they are thought to be Inspir'd ordinarily proceeds from natural causes viz. Natural Enthusiasm or present fervour of temper For 1. The Dissenters confess it comes upon them much oftner in their public than in their private Devotions And the reason is plain because the passions of the Congregation do so excite their affections and the reverence of an Auditory obliges them so much to wreck their inventions that their Spirits are many times transported into raptures 2. They are not so fluent in the beginning as when they have Pray'd a while the reason of which is this because the Spirits do not move so briskly till they are chafed and heated with Labour Then do they naturally raise the fancy and render the invention more copious and easy And certainly 't is unwarrantable to attribute that to Inspiration which do's so apparently proceed from natural causes Thus have I shewn what the extraordinary operations of the Spirit are and that they are not to be pretended to in these Times I proceed in the next place to shew very briefly what those ordinary operations are which he has Promis'd to continue to the end of the World They are therefore the proper graces and affections of Prayer such as shame sorrow hope c. But as for the expressions of Prayer they are of no account with God but as they signify to him the graces and affections of it Now can any Man imagin that those affections will be the less acceptable to God because they are presented in a Form and not Extempore Will a Father deny Bread to his Child because he askt it to day in the same words that he did yesterday Is God more taken with words than with affections Certainly his withdrawing the Inspiration of words and continuing the Inspiration of affections prove the contrary Now that God do's continue the Inspiration of Devout affections in Prayer is manifest from Gal. 4.6 Jude 20. and Rom. 8.26 where the Spirit is said to make intercession for us with groans which cannot be utter'd that is with most flagrant affections For these words do not as some persons wou'd persuade us prove the Inspiration of the Words of Prayer because the Inspiration of those things that are too big for words and cannot be uttered cannot mean the Inspiration of words but this Intercession of the Spirit signifies his exciting such affections as make our Prayers acceptable For as Christ who is our Advocate in Heaven enforces our Prayers with his own Intercessions so the Spirit who is our Advocate upon Earth begets those affections which render our Prayers prevalent And these are the standing and ordinary operations which the Scripture attributes to the Spirit in Prayer Secondly Stinting or limiting the Spirit is a phrase that is never mention'd in Scripture or Antiquity and therefore 't is a very new objection against Forms of Prayer which I have shewn to be warranted both by Scripture and Antiquity However what the Dissenters mean by it is this viz. that by confining our selves to a Form of words we stint or limit that is restrain the Spirit from giving us that assistance which he ordinarily vouchsafes in conceiv'd Prayer And now having explain'd the Two forgoing particulars the answer to this Objection will be very easy For if the Spirit be stinted or restrain'd by Forms of Prayer it must be either from Inspiring the words or from exciting the affections of Prayer But I have prov'd that Forms are so far from restraining the Devotion of Prayer that they do very much promote and improve it and as for the Words I have prov'd that since the first propagation of the Gospel the Spirit has withdrawn the immediate and Miraculous Inspiration of them And since that cannot be stinted which is not therefore the Inspiration of the Words of Prayer is not stinted by Forms 3. 'T is Objected that public Forms are a sinful neglect of the Ministerial gift of Prayer For the Dissenters say the gift of Prayer is an ability to express our minds in Prayer which God has given to Ministers as a means of public Devotion and therefore they may not omit the exercise of it by using Forms of other Mens Composure Now to this I answer 1. That supposing that 't is a fault in Ministers to omit the exercise of their ability yet the People are not to be charged with it God will not reject the People's Devotions because the Minister is to blame He only is accountable for that for the People do not join with him in his omission but in that which is acceptable to God 2. This gift of Prayer is either natural or acquir'd For certainly 't is not Inspir'd at Ordination because the Scripture do's not promise any such thing nor is there any experience of it Nay the Dissenting Ministers must own that just before their Ordination they were as able to express the Devotions of a Congregation as they were just after which shews that they had no new ability to Pray Inspir'd in their Ordination Now since this gift or ability is nothing more than a quickness of invention and speech which is either natural or acquir'd by art and practice therefore 't is no otherwise the gift of God than our natural strength or skill in History or the like All that God has Promis'd his Ministers is to concur with their honest endeavours as far as is necessary to the discharge of their Office and to suppose that this cannot be done without Praying Extempore is to take the Matter in question for granted 3. This freedom of utterance is never call'd the gift of Prayer in Scripture Praying in unknown Languages is once call'd a gift but Praying in our own Language is never call'd so Therefore 't is plain that the gift of readiness of speech is not appropriated by God to Prayer but left in common to all other honest uses that it can be apply'd to and it may as well be call'd the Gift of Pleading at the Bar or of Disputing or Conversation as the gift of Prayer Accordingly we find that those who have this gift in Prayer have it