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Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
cause_n	church_n	just_a	schism_n	2,608	5	10.7463	5	true

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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A40086	The resolution of this case of conscience whether the Church of England's symbolizing so far as it doth with the Church of Rome, makes it unlawful to hold communion with the Church of England?	Fowler, Edward, 1632-1714.	1683 (1683)	Wing F1713; ESTC R9491	34,420	57

that Finger But there is used nothing of this impious or Superstitious fooling about the Ring in our office of Marriage All the doings about it are the Ministers putting it on the fourth Finger the Bridegroom saying after him with this Ring I thee Wed and the mentioning of it in the Prayer following as a Token and Pledg of the Vow and Covenant made between the Married Persons So that 't is so far from being used as a Sacramental sign among us that it no otherwise differs from a meer civil Ceremony than as 't is a Token and Pledg of a Covenant made between the Parties in the most Solemn manner viz. as in the presence of God And in truth this is such a Symbolizing with the Church of Rome as I should be ashamed to bestow two Words about but that so many of our Bretheren have been pleased to take offence at it Lastly As to our Observation of certain Holy days All I shall say about it is 1. That there is no Comparison between the number of our Holydays and the Popish ones 2. Our few are purged from all the Superstitious and wicked Solemnizations of the Popish ones 3. We observe scarcely any besides such as wherein we have the Primitive Church for our Example Excepting those which are enjoyned upon the account of Deliverances and Calamities in which our own Nation is peculiarly concerned 4. An observation of them void of Superstitious conceits about them and only as our Church directeth can have no other than a very good Effect upon our hearts and lives If we could say as St Austin did of the Christians in his time viz. By Festival Solemnities and set days we dedicate and sanctify to God the memory of his Benefits lest unthankful forgetfulness of them should in tract of time creep upon us we should certainly be much the better Christians for the observation of our Holydays Mr. Calvin saith in Festis non recipiendis cuperem vos esse Constantiores c. I could wish that you would be more constant in your not receiving Festivals but so as not to contend and make a stir about all but about those only which nothing at all tend to Edification and which have a manifest appearance of Superstition c. And he instanceth in those Days which Popery dedicates to the Celebrating of the immaculate Conception of the Virgin Mary and of her Assumption on which Holydays nothing he saith can be said in the Pulpit by a servant of God besides exposing the folly of those who have invented them And in another Epistle Caeterùm cùm Festi dies hic abrogati c. Moreover whereas some of your Country are much offended at the Abrogation of Holy days among us and 't is likely that much odious talk is spread about it And I make account that I am made the Author of this whole matter and that by the Ignorant as well as Malicious I can solemnly testifie of my self that this was done without my knowledg or desire c. Before I ever came into the City there was no Holy day at all observed besides the Lords day those which are Celebrated by you were taken away by that same Law of the People which banisht me and Farel And 't was rather Tumultuously extorted by the violence of Wicked Men than decreed legally Vpon my return I obtained this temper or mean that Christmass day should be observed after your manner but upon the other days extraordinary supplications should be made the Shops being kept shut in the Morning but after Dinner every one should go about his own Business And no doubt the Governours of our Church would be abundantly satisfied with such an observation of most of our Holy-days as Mr. Calvin ordered at Geneva would the People be generally so far conformable And thus I have I hope sufficiently shewed that our Church's Symbolizing in this Rite too with the Church of Rome no otherwise than she doth can be no colour for Separation It may be objected that notwithstanding our having several times cited Mr. Calvin for the unlawfulness of Separation from the Church of England on the account of her Symbolizing as she doth with the Church of Rome yet he calleth her Ceremonies tolerabiles ineptiae tolerable fooleries which would make one think that he was not in earnest in calling them tolerable fooling in the Worship of God being no doubt intolerable In Answer hereto let Mr. Calvin account for his joining ineptiae tolerabiles together but the instances he gives of things he so censured were such as the Liturgy was cleared of in the amendment of it under Queen Elizabeth viz. Prayers for the dead that is that they might have a happy Resurrection not such Prayers as supposed Purgatory Chrism at Baptism and Extreme Vnction And besides he saith he was informed by Mr. Knox of several other Popish Ceremonies that were retained viz. the Use of Wax Candles divers Crossings at the Communion c. which Information was not true And now how happy should we think our selves would our Brethren at length be perswaded to cease fearing where no fear is as also to fear what is really very frightful namely the guilt of so great a sin as that of Schism or making and continuing a breach in the Church by Separation without just cause The greatness of which sin none have more aggravated than Mr. Calvin and several of our old Non-Conformists who have also zealously born their Testimony against Separation from the Church of England and accordingly did themselves hold Communion therewith generally viz. all the Presbyterian Party to their dying day though they could not Conform as Ministers And there is another very formidable Evil too which I wish more of our Brethren had a greater sense of viz. the advantage that our Common Enemy is too like to make of our Sad Divisions and being crumbled into so many Sects and Parties and hath already made in order to their final accomplishing their designs upon us The truth on 't is they themselves have had the main hand in those Divisions they so upbraid us with of which we have abundant Evidence having most industriously followed that advice of the famous Jesuit Campanella viz. There is no such effectual way to weaken the English as to stir up strife and discord among them and still to feed it This will quickly put into our hands very fair advantages and opportunities Their main spight is at the Church of England as being well aware that it hath ever since the Reformation been their most formidable Enemy and the most impregnable Bulwark in all Christendom against the mighty Power and Policy of their Church of Rome What a madness therefore is it in hearty Protestants to joyn with those People in layi●g this Church as low as ever they are able And by contending with our Church about innocent if not commendable things upon the account of her symbolizing in them with the Church of Rome eminently to endanger the opening such a breach as shall let in all her Heresies Superstitions and Idolatries among us Which God in his infinite Mercy prevent by causing us to live more answerably to the happy Means and Opportunities we now enjoy by quenching our as unreasonable as unchristian fierce Feuds and Animosities and by making our Church like Ierusalem of old a City compact together and at Vnity within it self Amen FINIS See Libertas Evangelica Chap. 17. Which Crossings are also prescribed by the Ritual in the Office of Adult Baptism but with a variation of the Forms Calv. devitanâ Superstitione c. L. 4. cap. 4 §. 2 Acts and Monuments p. 1696. Contra Westphalum vol. 1. p. 255. P. 416 c. Resp. ad Baldw. p. 324. In Epist. ad Monsbelgardenses p. 81 82. In Epist. ad Hallerum Jam veròadenervandos Anglos nihil tam conducit quàm dissensio discordia inter illos excitata perpetuóque nutrita Quod citò occasiones meliores suppeditavit Camp de Mont. Hisp. p. 204. Amstel

upon for the same purpose is Lev. 19.19 Thou shalt not let thy Cattle Gender with a divers kind thou shalt not sow thy Ground with mingled seed nor shall a Garment of Linnen and Woollen come upon thee Now these three 't is said are things of so indifferent a Nature that none can be more indifferent I answer 'T is readily granted But where is it said that these things were forbidden because the Heathens used them Maimonides indeed as I learn from Grotius saith that the Aegyptians used these mixtures of Seeds and of Linnen and Woollen in many of their Magical Exploits but 't is universally acknowledged that these things among many other were forbidden to the Iews as Mystical instructions in Moral Duties I have found no other Text made use of to prove meer indifferent things to have been forbidden the Israelites only in regard of Heathens using them which make more for this purpose than these two do nor hardly another that makes so much But if there were never so many it is not worth our while to concern our selves now with them because though we should suppose a great number of instances of such things as were forbidden those People for no other reason but because the Egyptians or Canaanites used them yet this would signifie nothing to the proving Our Churches Symbolizing with that of Rome in indifferent things to be Unlawful because there is not the like reason why in such things we may not Symbolize with Papists that there was why the Iews should be forbidden to Symbolize in such with those Heathens For there could not be too great a distance and unlikeness between those People and these in their usages in regard of their strangely Vehement inclination to their Superstitious and Idolatrous Practices And upon this account the distance was made wider as our Brethren themselves will acknowledge between the Iews and the Pagans than it ought to be between Christians and them or between Protestants and Papists And we find that the distance that God made between the Jews and Heathens as very wide as it was was not wide enough to preserve the Iews from being very often and that generally too infected with their Superstitions and various kinds of Idolatry No though they frequently paid most dear for these their Wicked Imitations of them But thanks be to God there is no such inclination in the Members of Our Church to go over to that of Rome nor hath any such inclination been observ'd ever since the Reformation And where one of our Communion hath Revolted out of Love to Popery of those few Comparatively who have play'd the Apostates we have cause to believe that many have so done meerly upon the score of interest And I need not say that such Persons would not have been preserved from Apostasy by our Churches being set at the widest distance possible from the Church of Rome in indifferent things Nay 't is so far from being true that there is a general inclination in our Protestants to Popery that nothing is better known or hath of late been more observed than the greatest Antipathy and Aversation thereto imaginable in the generality Upon which account I say the foresaid and the like Prohibitions to the Iewish Nation although they should be understood in the sense of our Dissenting Brethren can by no parity of reason be obliging to us Protestant Christians And indeed most of them have seemed of late years to be pretty well aware of this and therefore divers of their Writers have limited the unlawfulness of Symbolizing with the Romish Church to things that have been abused notoriously in Idolatrous and grosly Superstitious Services And that our Symbolizing with that Church in any such things is Unlawful they endeavour to demonstrate both by Scripture Precepts and Examples First They endeavour to demonstrate this by Scripture Precepts And if any such Precept as this could be produced That all such things as have been notoriously abused and Polluted in Idolatrous or grosly Superstitious services should by all be abolished and laid aside there could be no place left for dispute about this matter and I doubt not but we should all of us express as great Zeal as our Brethren do for the abolishing of all such things But no such express and unlimited Precept is pretended but the chief of those Texts from whence our Brethren endeavour to Infer this Proposition That it is the will of God that all things so polluted should be utterly destroyed and laid aside are these following Isaiah 30.22 Ye shall Defile also the covering of thy Graven Images of Silver and the Ornament of thy Molten Images of Gold Thou shalt Cast them away as a Menstruous Cloath thou shalt say unto it Get thee hence Deut. 7.25 26. The Graven Images of their Gods shall ye burn with Fire thou shalt not desire the Silver or Gold that is on them nor take it unto thee lest thou be snared therein for it is an Abomination to the Lord thy God Neither shalt thou bring an Abomination into thy House lest thou be a cursed thing like it but thou shalt utterly detest it and thou shalt utterly abhor it for it is a Cursed thing Jude 23. hating even the Garment spotted with the Flesh. Revel 2.14 I have a few things against thee because thou hast there them that hold the Doctrine of Balaam who taught Balac to cast a Stumbling block before the Children of Israel to Eat things Sacrificed unto Idols c. v. 20. Notwithstanding I have a few things against thee because thou sufferest that Woman Jezebel which calleth her self a Prophetess to teach and to seduce my Servants to commit Fornication and to Eat things Sacrificed to Idols Now to their alledging of these Texts to prove the foresaid Proposition I reply First That the last of them is altogether impertinent For the eating of things offered to Idols condemned in those two verses is nothing better than joyning and complying with Idolaters and Communicating in Idol-worships Which the vile Gnostiques held they might do and accordingly practised this doctrine to avoid persecution Which abominable Sect arose in the Church as we learn from Irenoeus Epiphanius Eusebius c. even in the Apostles times of which Simon Magus was the first Founder But St. Paul hath given us his judgment concerning Eating of things offered to Idols without any respect to Idols in Eating in 1 Cor. 8 chap. viz. That upon no other account but that of Scandal it is unlawful And the like he hath done 1 Cor. 10.27 28 29. If any of them that believe not bid you to a Feast and you be disposed to go whatsoever is set before you Eat making no question for Conscience sake But if any man say unto you this is offered in Sacrifice unto Idols Eat not for his sake who shewed it and for Conscience sake c. Conscience I say not thine own but of the others For why is my liberty judged of another mans