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A52421 A discourse concerning the pretended religious assembling in private conventicles wherein the unlawfullness and unreasonableness of it is fully evinced by several arguments / by John Norris ... Norris, John, 1657-1711. 1685 (1685) Wing N1251; ESTC R17164 128,825 319

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Ordinances of Christ in unity and uniformity as far as is possible Which our Liturgy sets up by prescribing the manner of it Whereas otherwise all will be left to the chance of mens wills which saith Doctour Hammond can no more be thought like to concur in one form than Democritus's Atomes to have met together into a world of beautifull Creatures without any kind of providence to dispose them For the Scriptures call for unity and uniformity as well as purity and verity And surely it is not impossible to obtain this so much desired unity and uniformity because that God hath promised that his Children shall serve him with one heart and with one way and with one shoulder And that in the days of the Gospel there shall be one Lord and his Name one And Christ hath prayed that we may be all one as the Father is in him and he in the Father And he adds a most prevalent reason That the World may believe that thou hast sent me Nothing hinders the propagation of the Gospel so much as the division and separation of Gospel-professours If it be God's promise and Christ's prayer it is certainly a thing possible to be obtained and a duty incumbent upon all good Christians to labour after Secondly as it cannot be denyed that the Civil Magistrate hath authority over the persons of Ministers so 't is as true that he hath power to act for the regulation of all their Ecclesiastical meetings and assemblies though not to act in sacris Yet circa sacra non ad docendum quod est sacerdotale yet ad jubendum quod est regale As Constantine the Emperour told the Bishops whom he invited to a banquet 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Ye are Bishops within the Church and I am ordained by God's Grace a Bishop without the Church That the King of England saith Sir Henry Spelman is persona mixta endowed as well with Ecclesiastical authority as with temporal is not onley a solid position of the Common Law of this Land but confirmed unto us by the continual practice of our ancient Kings ever since and before the Conquest even in hottest times of Popish fervency For this cause at their Coronation they are not onely Crowned with the Diadem of the Kingdom and girt with the Sword of justice to signisie their temporal authority but are anointed also with the oil of Priesthood and cloathed stola Sacerdotali and veste Dalmatica to demonstrate this their Ecclesiastical jurisdiction whereby the King is said to be in Law the Supremus ordinarius and in regard thereof among other Ecclesiastical rights and prerogatives belonging to him is to have all the tithes through the Kingdom in the places that are not of any Parish for some such there be and namely divers Forests Magistrates we grant can neither preach the word nor administer the Sacraments any more than Vzziah could burn incense or offer Sacrifice to God Yet they are nursing Fathers of the Church not to give the milk of the word and Sacraments but of disclipline and Government During the old Testament times the King's power extended to the instituting and commanding of such Religious meetings as do no where appear to be either instituted or commanded of God or his Servant Moses v. g. The solemnity of the Passover which was to be kept by the Law of Moses but seven days by a special Command of King Hezekiah with the consent of the people was commanded to be kept other seven days The Feast of Purim in Commemoration of the deliverance of the Nation of the Iews under Ahasuerus the Persian King was instituted by Hester and Mordecai Moses onely Commanded one day of Fasting to be yearly observed viz. in the seventh month But the Kings and Magistrates of the people instituted other yearly solemn Fasts So that in the times of the latter Prophets there were four yearly Fasts observed viz. besides that yearly in the seventh month three others in the fourth fifth and tenth month Now if they may by their authority institute and enlarge why not then as well abridge and restrain Provided the publick assembling together of God's people according to Divine appointment be no-way prejudiced or infringed If the Magistrate may appoint then he may forbid too Law reason and sense teach that appointing and forbidding belong to one power Thirdly neither can there be any ground of quarrell made against the justness of these Laws forbidding Conventicles For as it is well observed by a worthy Divine before me that Law is undoubtedly just in which there is a concurrence of the justice of these four causes of Law wherein the whole of a Law doth consist viz. the justice of the final efficient formal and material causes of Laws 1. The final Cause of End of a just Law is that it tend to the common and publick good And of this the Lawgivers are to be Judges and not the Subjects And most unreasonable it were that what the Lawgivers shall adjudge to be for the publick good should be made to yeild to private and particular mens interests 2. The efficient Cause of a just Law is the lawfull power of the person or persons in authority that made the Law Otherwise Laws are onely so in name and not indeed And as Aquinas Violentiae magis quam leges They are rather acts of violence than Laws And it is a sure rule in Logick Causa aequivoca non infert effectum a sentence passed by one that is no Judge binds not the party 3. The right form of a Law is that it be a rule of rectitude for humane actions according to the guidance of distributive justice giving to every one according to his demerits 4. The matter of a Law must be a thing that is good according to the rule of universal justice at leait indifferent A Law wherein these 4 things concur must needs be good and obligatory to all persons that are concerned in it Now in which of these the aforesaid Laws against Conventicles are faulty I know not Perhaps some will say in the latter the Matter of it is not good to lay a restraint on Religious Assemblies and Meetings It were so indeed if Religious Assemblies and Meetings were forbidden But I think it will appear in the sequel that these in question are not such whatsoever some conceive them to be It were so if all Religious Meetings or Assemblies were forbidden But blessed be God 't is otherwise We have still 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the publick ancient lawfull and orderly assemblies allowed commanded and encouraged by Authority in all places of the Kingdom and onely such meetings by the Law forbidden as are private new and disorderly and tend to Faction and Schism and such other evils as are not without trembling to be mentioned Lastly I answer with that learned Casuist Dr. Sanderson that it is not necessarily requisite that whatsoever is established