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cause_n	father_n	person_n	son_n	3,185	5	5.8825	4	true

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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A69535	The grand debate between the most reverend bishops and the Presbyterian divines appointed by His Sacred Majesty as commissioners for the review and alteration of the Book of common prayer, &c. : being an exact account of their whole proceedings : the most perfect copy.	Baxter, Richard, 1615-1691.; Commission for the Review and Alteration of the Book of Common Prayer.	1661 (1661)	Wing B1278A; Wing E3841; ESTC R7198	132,164	165

dissent shewed Rom. 14. then you ever yet produced for forcing others from Ministry and Church into sin and Hell if they will not obey you against their consciences and all for that which you never pretended to shew a command of God for and others shew you as they think Scripture and Councils and customes against To tell us then that Paul spake of things not decent and sign ficant is pardon our plainess to say much less then nothing For it was not against imposing that Paul spake but using and not using censuring and despising And their Arguments were sutable to their cause of another kind of moment then decency or indecency significancy or insignificancy even from supposed Idolatry rejecting Gods Law and complying with the Jews and Hereticks in restoring the Law and casting away the liberties purchased by Christ even in their private eating drinking To be no more tedious now we humbly offer in any way convenient to try out with that Reverend brother tha● so confidently asserted the disparity of the Cases and to prove that these Scriptures most plainly condemn your impositions now in question though we should have thought that one impartial reading of them might end the controversy and save the Church and you from the sad effects As to that 1 Cor. 11. 16. We answer first it is uncertain whether the word Custom referr to the matter of Hair or to Contention so many Expositours judge q. d. The Churches of God are not contentious 2d Here is no institution muchless by fallible men of new Covenanting dedicating or teaching Symbols or Ceremony nor is here any unnecessary thing enjoyned but that which nature and the custom of the countrey had made so decent as that the opposite would have been abusively undecent This is not your case A Cross or Surplice is not decent by nature or common reputation but by institution that is not all for if it be not instituted because decent it will not be decent because instituted nor are these sodecent as the opposite to be indecent The Apostles worshipped God as decently without them as you do with them the Minister prayeth in the Pulpit as decently without the Surplice as in the reading place with it 3d. Paul doth but exhort them to this undoubted comliness as you may well do if men will do any thing which nature or common reputation makes to be slovenly unmannerly or indecent as being covered in prayer or singing Psalms or any such like about which we will never differ with you but even here he talks not of force or such penalties as tend to the greater hurt of the Church and the ruine of the person Sect. 12. A. 4. That these Ceremonies have occasioned many divisions is no more fault of theirs then it was of the Gospel that the preaching of it occasioned strife betwixt father and son c. The true cause of those divisions is the cause of ours which S. Jam. tels us is Last and inordinate desires of honors or wealth or licentiousness or the like were these Ceremonies laid aside there would be the same divisions if some who think Moses and Aaron took too much upon them may be suffered to deceive the people and to raise in them vain fears and jealousies of their Governours but if all men would as they ought study peace and quietness they would find other and better fruits of these Laws of Rites and Ceremonies as edification decency order and beauty in the service and worship of God Reply Whether the Ceremonies be as innocent as to divisions as the Gospel a strange assertion will better appear when what we have said and what is more fully said by Dr. Ames Bradshaw and others is well answered If the true cause of our divisions be as you say lust and inordinate desires of honours or wealth or licentiousness then the party that is most lustfull ambitious covetous and licentious are likest to be most the cause And for lust and licentiousness we should take it for a great attainment of our ends if you will be intreated to turn the edge of your severity against the lustfull and licentious O that you would keep them out of the Pulpits and out of the communion of the Church till they reform And for our selves we shall take your admonitions or severities thankfully when ever we are convicted by you of any such sins We are loath to enter upon such comparison between the Ministers ejected for the most part and those that are in their Rooms as tends to shew by this Rule who are likest to be the dividers And for inordinate desire of honors and wealth between your Lordships and us we are contented that this Cause be decided by all England even by our enemies at the first hearing without any further vindication of our selves and so let it be judged who are the dividers only we must say that your intimation of this Charge on us that seek not for Bishopricks Deaneries Archdeaconries or any of your preferments that desire not nor could accept pluralities of Benefices with cure of souls that never sought for more then food and raiment with the Liberty of our Ministery even one place with a tolerable maintenance whose provoking cause hath been our constant opposition to the Honors Wealth Lordships and pluralities of the Clergy yea who would be glad on the behalf of the poor Congregations if many of our brethren might have leave to preach to their Flocks for nothing we say your intimation maketh us lift up our hearts and hands to heaven and think Oh what is man What may not by some History be told the world Oh how desirable is the blessed day of the righteous universal judgment of the Lord how small a matter till then should it be to us to be judged of man we hope upon pretence of not suffering us to deceive the people you will not deny us liberty to preach the necessary saving truths of the Gospel considering how terrible a Symptom and Prognostick this was in the Jews 1 Thes 2 15 16. Who both killed the Lord Jesus and their own Prophets and persecuted the Apostles and God they pleased not and were contrary to all men forbidding to preach to the Gentiles that they might be saved to fill up their sins alwaies for wrath was come upon them to the utmost We can as easily bear what ever you can inflict upon us as the hinderers of the Gospel and silencers of faithfull Ministers and troublers of the Churches can bear what God will inflict on them And so the will of the Lord be done Sect. 13. Cer. 3. There hath been so much said not only of the lawfulness but also of the conveniencies of those Ceremonies mentioned that nothing can be added This in brief may here suffice for the Surplice that reason and experience teaches that decent ornaments and habits preserve reverence and awe held therefore necessary to the Solemnity of Royal Acts and Acts of justice and

or might doe by vertue of these our Letters patents or any thing therein contained in case he or they were personally present In witness whereof we have caused these our Letters to be made patents witness our self at VVestminster the 25 day of March in the thirteenth year of our Reign Per ipsum Regem Barker THE EXCEPTIONS OF THE PRESBYTERIAN Brethren Against some passages in the present LITURGY ACknowledging with all humility and thankfulness His Majesties most Princely condescention and indulgence to very many of his Loyall subjects as well in his Majesties most gracious Declaration as particularly in this present Commission issued forth in pursuance thereof we doubt not but the Right Reverend Bishops and all the rest of His Majesties Commissioners intrusted in this work will in imitation of His Majesties most prudent and Christian Moderation and Clemency judge it their duty that we find to be the Apostles own practice in a speciall manner to be tender to the Churches peace to bear with the infirmities of the weak and not to please themselves nor to measure the Consciences of other men by the light and latitude of their own but seriously and readily to consider and advise of such Expedients as may most conduce to the healing of our breaches and uniting those that differ And albeit we have an high and honourable esteem of those Godly and Learned Bishops and others who were the first Compilers of the publick Liturgy and doe look upon it as an excellent and worthy Work for that time when the Church of England made her first step out of such a mist of Popish Ignorance and Superstition wherein it formerly was involved yet considering that all humane Works do gradually arrive at their maturity and perfection and this in particular being a Work of that nature hath already admitted several emendations since the first compiling thereof It cannot be thought any disparagement or derogation either to the Work it self or to the Compilers of it or to those who have hitherto used it if after more than one hundred years since its first composure such further emendations be now made therein as may be judged necessary for satisfying the scruples of a multitude of sober persons who cannot at all or very hardly comply with the use of it as now it is and may best suit with the present times after so long an enjoyment of the glorious light of the Gospel and so happy a Reformations especially considering that many godly and learned men have from the beginning all along desired the alteration of many things therein and very many of his Majesty's pious peaceable and loyal Subjects after so long a discontinuance of it are more averse from it than heretofore the satisfying of whom as far as may be will very much conduce to that Peace and Unity which is so much desired by all good men and so much endeavoured by His most Excellent Majesty And therefore in pursuance of this His Majesty's most gracious Commission for the satisfying of tender Consciences and the procuring of Peace and Unity amongst our selves we judge meet to propose I. That all the Prayers and other Materials of the Liturgy may consist of nothing doubtful or questioned amongst Pious Learned and Orthodox Persons inasmuch as the professed end of composing them is for the declaring of Unity and consent of all who joyn in the Publick Worship it being too evident that the limiting Church-Communion to things of doubtful disputation hath been in all Ages the ground of Schism and separation according to the saying of a Learned Man To load our Publick Forms with the private Fancies upon which we differ is the most Sovereign way to perpetuate Schism to the Worlds end Prayer Confession Thanksgiving reading of the Scriptures and administration of the Sacraments in the plainest and simplest manner were matter enough to furnish out a sufficient Liturgy though nothing either of private Opinion or of Church pomp of Garments or prescribed Gestures of Imagery of Musick of matter concerning the dead of many superfluities which creep into the Church under the name of Order and Decency did interpose it self To charge Churches or Litnrgies with things unnecessary was the first beginning of all Superstition and when scruple of Conscience began to be made or pretended then Schisme began to break in If the speciall Guides and Fathers of the Church would be a little sparing of incumbring Churches with Superfluities or not over-rigid either in reviving obsolete Customs or imposing new there would be far less cause of Schism or Superstition and all the Inconvenience likely to ensue would be but this they should in so doing yield a little to the imbecility of their Inferiours a thing which S. Paul would never have rrefused to doe mean while wheresoever false or suspected Opinions are made a piece of Church-Liturgy he that separates is not the Schismatick for it is alike unlawful to make profession of known or suspected falshood as to put in practice unlawful or suspected actions II. Further we humbly desire that it may be seriously considered that as our first Reformers out of their great wisdome did at that time so compose the Liturgy as to win upon the Papists and to draw them into their Church-Communion by varying as little as well they could from the Romish forms before in use so whether in the present constitution and state of things amongst us we should not according to the same rule of Prudence and Charity have our Liturgy so composed as to gain upon the judgement and affections of all those who in the substantials of the Protestant Religion are of the same perswasions with our selves In as much as a more firm union and consent of all such as well in Woship as in Doctrine would greatly strengthen the Protestant Interest against all those dangers and temptations which our intestine Divisions and Animosities do expose us unto from the common Adversary III. That the Repetitions and Responsals of the Clerk and People and the alternate Reading of the Psalms and Hymns with a confused murmure in the Congregation whereby what is read is less intelligible and therefore unedifying may be omitted the Minister being appointed for the People in all Publick Services appertaining unto God and the holy Scriptures both of the old and new Testament intimating the peoples part in publick Prayer to be only with silence and reverence to attend thereunto and to declare their consent in the close by saying Amon. IV. That in regard the Letany though otherwise containing in it many holy Petitions is so framed that the Petitions for a great part are uttered onely by the People which we think not to be so consonant to Scripture which makes the Minister the Mouth of the People to God in Prayer the particulars thereof may be composed into one solemn Prayer to be offered by the Minister unto God for the People V. That there may be nothing in the Liturgy which may seem to countenance