Selected quad for the lemma: cause_n
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A44665
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An ansvver to Dr. Stillingfleet's Mischief of separation being a letter written out of the countrey to a person of quality in the city. Who took offence at the late sermon of Dr. Stillingfleet, Dean of S. Pauls; before the lord mayor.
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Howe, John, 1630-1705.
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1680
(1680)
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Wing H3014A; ESTC R215389
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34,952
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57
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Christian World viz. the adding other conditions of Church-communion than Christ hath done And though he hath lately told the World there are some passages in that book that shew only the inconsiderateness of Youth and that he seems to wish unsaid yet he hath not that we know declared that these are some of them However since this present determination and judgement of his against us is so peremptory and positive as well as severe let us in the next place 2. Consider and carefully examine as we are concerned what he hath performed in defence of it and it is to be hoped the inefficacy and weakness of his attempt therein will sufficiently appear What I can find in his Sermon hath any aspect or design that way is either ad rem or ad hominem And to my apprehension his reasonings of the one kind or the other are altogether unconcluding 1. As to what may be supposed to be ad rem if you look narrowly you will find that the principal things alledged by him that can under that notion give support to his Cause are only affirmed but not proved For instance p. 9. When he tells us that the Apostle supposed the necessity of one fixed and certain Rule c. This had been very material to his purpose if 1. He had told us and had proved the Apostle meant some Rule or other super-added to the Sacred Scriptures For then he might it is to be presumed as easily have let us know what that Rule was which most probably would have ended all our controversie it being little to be doubted we should all most readily have agreed to obey it Or 2ly If he had proved that because the Apostle had power to make such a Rule and oblige the Churches to observe it that therefore such Church-Guides as they whose cause the Doctor pleads have an equal power to make other Rules divers from his containing many new things which he never enjoyn'd and to enforce them upon the Church though manifestly tending to its destruction rather than edification But these things he doth but suppose himself without colour of proof Again for his Notion of Churches p. 16 17 18 19. examine as strictly as you will what he says about it And see whether it come to any thing more than only to represent a National Church a possible thing and whereto the name Church may without absurdity be given His own words seem to aim no higher Why may there not be one National Church from the consent in the same Articles of Religion and the same order of Worship pag. 18. The word was used in the first Ages of the Christian Church as it comprehended the Ecclesiastical Governours and the people of whole Cities And why many of these Cities being united together under one Civil Government and the same Rules of Religion should not be called one National Church I cannot understand p. 19. But can it now be infer'd thence that therefore God hath actually constituted every Christian Kingdom or Nation such a Church Can it further be infer'd that he hath invested the Guides of this Church not chosen by the people according Scripture and Primitive practice for some ages with a power to make Laws and Decrees prescribing not only things necessary for common order and decency but new federal Rites and teaching Signs and Symbols superadded to the whole Christian Institution with many more dubious and unnecessary things besides and to exclude sober and pious Christians from the Priviledges that are proper to the Christian Church as such meerly for that out of conscience towards God they dare not admit into their Worship those Additions to the Christian Religion To take order they shall have no Pastors no Sacraments no Assemblies for Worship and because they will not be so much more than Christians that they shall not be Christians at all He that would go about to make these Inferences meerly from the forementioned ground would gain to be laught at by all sober men instead of a conclusion whatsoever better success he should have who should undertake to prove the same things any other way This Reverend Author was so wise as not to attempt either of these But then in the mean time what doth the meer possible notion of such a Church advantage his Cause Because it is possible there might have been such a Macedonian or such a Lydian Church is such a one therefore necessary and any other Constitution of a Christian Church impossible or unlawful Or because the General meeting of the Magistrates of the whole City and People together in Pagan Athens was called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 therefore such must be the constitution of a Christian Church And therefore such a Church hath such powers from Christ as were above mentioned Here howsoever we make our stand and say that till the Doctor hath proved these two things 1. That such a Church as he hath given us the notion of as of a thing meerly possible is actually a Divine Institution And 2ly That God hath given to the Ecclesiastical Governours in it never chosen by the Christian Community or to any other Power to super-add Institutions of the nature above mentioned and to enforce them under the mentioned Penalties All his reasonings that pretend to be ad rem are to no purpose and do nothing at all advantage his Cause Yet there are some passages in this part of his Discourse that though they signifie nothing to his main purpose are yet very remarkable and which 't is fit we should take some notice of As when pag. 16. He tells us what he means by whole Churches viz. The Churches of such Nations which upon the decay of the Roman Empire resumed their just power of Government to themselves and upon their owning Christianity incorporated into one Christian Society under the same common tyes and rules of Order and Government As if there could be no whole Churches in the world that had not been of the Roman Empire Or as if those of the Roman Empire could not have been whole Churches without resumption of the Civil Government Or as we suppose he means as if which he intimates p. 19. we needed this so dearly espoused notion as a ground to acquit us from the imputation of Schism in our separating from the Church of Rome Which certainly it were not for the advantage of the Protestant Cause to admit For then all that remain within the Empire were bound to continue in the Communion of the Roman Church And in the other Kingdoms where Princes have not resumed their just right of reforming Errors in Doctrine and Corruptions in Worship all should be Schismaticks that should separate from the Church of Rome Again when p. 17. He would confute that great mistake the making the notion of a Church barely to relate to Acts of Worship A mistake whereof I never knew any man guilty He surely runs into as great an opposite mistake in making the notion of a Church
no It is not how far Christians are bound to submit to a restraint of their Christian liberty Which I now inquire after of those things in the Treatise it self but whether they do consult for the Churches Peace and Unity who suspend it upon such things How far either the example of our Saviour or his Apostles doth warrant such rigorous impositions We never read the Apostles making Laws but of things supposed necessary When the Counsel of Apostles met at Jerusalem for deciding a Case that disturbed the Churches Peace we see they would lay no other burden 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 besides these necessary things Act. 15. 29. It was not enough with them that the things would be necessary when they had required them but they looked on an Antecedent necessity either absolute or for the present state which was the only ground of their imposing those Commands upon the Gentile Christians There were after this great diversities of practice and Varieties of Observations among Christians but the Holy Ghost never thought those things fit to be made matters of Laws to which all parties should conform all that the Apostles required as to these was mutual forbearance and condescension towards each other in them The Apostles valued not differences at all and those things it is evident they accounted such which whether men did them or not was not of concernment to Salvation And what reason is there why men should be so strictly tyed up to such things which they may do or let alone and yet be very good Christians still Without all controversie the main In-let of all the distractions confusions and divisions of the Christian World hath been by adding other conditions of Church-communion than Christ hath done Nor am I now inquiring whether the things Commanded be lawful or no Nor whether indifferences may be determined or no Nor how far Christians are bound to submit to a restraint of their Christian Liberty But only inquiring as he there doth concerning the Charter given by Christ for the binding men up to more than himself hath done And I further inquire by what power they can be bound which Christ hath not given And if there be no such power to bind them suppose the things required were all lawful which if it can be evinc't I should rejoyce to see done yet while they cannot in conscience think they are how can they apprehend themselves bound to be without the means of Salvation which Christ's Charter entitles them to I readily grant it is fit a man do many things for peace and Common Orders sake which otherwise no Law doth formally oblige him to i. e. supposing he can do those things without intolerable prejudice to himself And so it is commonly determined in the matter of scandals But can it be thought a man is to put himself out of the state or way of Salvation in complement to such as will otherwise take offence And be so Courteous as to Perish for ever rather than they shall be displeased Yea and it may be moreover added That our course being accounted lawful must also as the Doctor speaks in another case be thought a duty For the things that are as means necessary to our salvation are also necessary by Divine Precept We are commanded to hear Gods Word to devote our selves and our Children to God in Baptism and at the Lords own Table to remember him and shew forth his death till he come And if we compare together certain Positions of this Reverend Author we cannot see but he must as our case is acknowledge our obligation to the practice which he here seems to blame For in his Iren. p. 109. He asserts That every Christian is under an obligation to joyn in Church-society with others because it is his duty to profess himself a Christian and to own his Religion publickly and to partake of the Ordinances and Sacraments of the Gospel which cannot be without society with some Church or other And he after adds on the same page It had been a case disputed by some particularly by Grotius the supposed Author of a little Tract An semper sit communicandum per symbola When he design'd the Syncretism with the Church of Rome whether in a time when Churches are divided it be a Christians duty to communicate with any of those Parties which divide the Church and not rather to suspend communion from all of them A case not hard to be decided for either the person questioning it doth suppose the Churches divided to remain true Churches but some to be more pure than other in which case by vertue of his general obligation to Communion he is bound io adhere to that Church which appears most to retain its Evangelical purity To which purpose he further tells us page 110. He knows not whether Chrysostom ' s act were to be commended who after being made a Deacon in the Church of Antioch by Meletius upon his death because Flavianus came in irregularly as Bishop of the Church would neither communicate with him nor with Paulinus another Bishop at that time in the City nor with the Meletians but for three years time withdrew himself from communion with any of them And p. 113. Where any Church is guilty of Corruptions both in Doctrine and Practice which it avoweth and professeth and requireth the owning them as necessary conditions of communion with her there a non-communion with that Church is necessary and a total and positive separation is lawful and convenient What he discourses page 111 112. upon the Question Whether it is a sin to communicate with Churches true as to Essentials but supposed corrupt in the exercise of Discipline Many of us will no doubt heartily concur with him in But it touches not the case of many more who do not so much fear upon the account of the neglect of Discipline to be involv'd in the guilt of other mens sin as there seems to be little cause that part being not incumbent upon us Nor if that be his meaning when he speaks of separating on a pretence of great purity is it the case with most of us but we justly fear and therefore avoid to be made to sin our selves by having such things as we judge to be sinful imposed on us as the Conditions of our Communion And as to this case this Reverend Author speaks our sense in this last cited Proposition and pleads our present Cause Nor need we more to be said on behalf of it than what is reducible to that general Proposition or particularly to that second thing compared with the third which p. 115. he says makes separation and withdrawment of communion lawful and necessary viz. Corruption of practice where we say as he doth We speak not of practice as relating to the civil conversation of men but as it takes in the Agenda of Religion when unlawful things of that kind are not only crept into a Church but are the prescribed devotion of it Those being