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A34532
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An account given of the principles & practices of several nonconformists wherein it appears that their religion is no other than what is profest in the Church of England in vindication of themselves and others of their perswasion, against the misrepresentation made of them, and in hearty desire of unity in the Church, and of peace and concord among all true Protestants, for the strengthening of their common interest, in this time of their common danger / written by Mr. John Corbet ...
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Corbet, John, 1620-1680.
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1682
(1682)
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Wing C6251; ESTC R224970
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23,021
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37
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An Account given of the Principles Practises Of Several NONCONFORMISTS Wherein it Appears that their Religion is no other than what is Profest in the Church of England In Vindication of themselves and others of their perswasion against the misrepresentation made of them And in hearty desire of Unity in the Church and of peace and concord among all true Protestants for the strengthening of their Common Interest in this time of their common Danger Written by Mr. John Corbet late of Chichester and approved by many other Nonconformists LONDON Printed for Tho. Parkhurst at the Bible and 3 Crowns near Mercers Chappel at the lower end of Cheapside 1682. To the Reader REaders Least you should think that the agreement of all here written in sense and very much in words with what I have Published doth signifie that it is not wholly the Authors work but any of it mine I do truly acquaint you that he never so much as acquainted me with his writing it nor did I read it all before I gave it to the Printer nor did I alter adde or diminish one word in all the book But as we were of one Mind and Heart our agreement is no wonder And his widow the daughter of the famous Dr. Twisse assureth me that several eminent Nonconforming Divines saw it and approved it as I doubt not but most others will do when they have seriously perused it But alas I that have known these twenty years what other designes have been in some mens heads inconsistent with all such indeavours for our Concord and how powerful those men have been who profess that there is no way of Concord and avoiding Schisme but by obeying the Governing Universal Church which hath the power of Universal Legislation and Judgement which is a Forreign Jurisdiction I say I that know this must needs know how little more than the satisfying of our Consciences such pacificatory endeavours as these do signifie But as my dear Brother dyed in the comfort of Christs judgment Blessed are the Peacemakers the rest of us wait in hope so to dye Richard Baxter Feb. 10. 1681. Several Tracts not yet Printed prepared for the Press and left under Mr. John Corbett's own handting intended shortly to be Published are as follows 1. THE true State of the Ancient Episcopacy 2. The present Ecclesiastical Government compared with the Ancient Episcopacy 3. A Consideration of the present State of Conformity in the Church of England 4. A Discourse of the Church and of the Ministry thereof 5. A Tract of Certainty and Infallibility 6. Of Divine Worship in three parts 1. Of the Nature Kinds Parts and Adjuncts of Divine Worship 2. Of Idolatry 3. Of Superstition less than Idolatry 7. His Humble Representation of his Case touching the Exercise of his Ministry 8. Discourses between Dr. Gunning late Bishop of Chichester and himself wherein are several Humble Defences made both as to his Principles and Practice 9. An humble endeavour of some plain and brief Explication of the Decrees and Operations of God about the free Actions of Men. More especially of the Operations of Divine Grace 10. Matrimonial Purity An Account given by some deprived Ministers of their judgement and practice c. THE manifold reproaches heaped upon the Nonconformists among whom it is our lot to be numbred have filled the whole Nation Our Religion hath been represented as a mixture of folly and villany our principles and tempers as turbulent seditious and utterly inconsistent with the peace of Church or State and our pretences as frivolous and often baffled Our Governours have been admonished to beware of us as their worst and most dangerous enemies and excited to use the utmost severities against us Hereupon it behoves us to humble our selves in the sight of the Lord and to implore his mercy and to bear his just rebukes in the unjust reproaches cast upon us by men also to suffer these indignities with Christian patience and to shew our selves reconcilable to those who have been so adverse to us and to endeavour peace and concord with them if it be possible many of whom we suppose to have been acted in this matter with an undissembled zeal though not regulated by sound knowledge or due charity but hurried with unreasonable prejudice and passion We hold it also our duty not to neglect our own necessary vindication but in honest simplicity to make known to all what principals and practices we own and stand to Though we are taught and encouraged to labour and suffer reproach and to reckon it a very small thing to be judged by man's judgment yet we are bound to vindicate our innocence for the truths sake and out of charity towards all men to provide what in us lies that none may take an occasion of stumbling in us And here it shall suffice us only to make a true representation of our selves having this confidence that the bare stating of our case will be our sufficient defence 1. In the first place we declare that with us the kingdom of God is not Conformity or Nonconformity as such but Christianity or real Godliness which is most summarily comprized in the baptismal Covenant of Grace and more explicitely yet briefly in the Creed Lords Prayer and Decaloge and at large and most perfectly in the Holy Bible A religiousness made up of little opinions and modes and phrases and sidings with this or the other party is none of ours though we are injuriously personated in some late writings to act such a part Faith hope and love is the essence of our Religion and with us differences in things not essential do not make different Religions VVe disdain our being of a party as such And though the godly be a peculiar people we confine not godliness to any peculiar way narrower than mere Christianity We make no Humane additions in Sacred things nor any mutable circumstances to be the terms of Christian Fellowship 2. Accordingly we seek not the advancement of any Sect or Party to the injury or neglect of the Universal Church or Christian cause or the common good And as we are no faction we know that Factiousness is not our Interest but turns to our greatest loss Our aims being Christian and Catholick we seek the increase of the visible Catholick Church or the whole Society of men professing true Christianity in order to the increase of the Church invisible or the Society of Regenerate Christians And to these ends we desire and most approve the primitive simplicity in Doctrine Worship and Discipline And herein we boast not as if we were the only men of the Primitive Christian Spirit but we answer them who have trampled upon us as an impertinent trifling Sect. 3. We heartily own the Protestant Reformation in Doctrine and particularly that of the Church of England contained in the Nine and Thirty Articles except those Two or Three that relate only to some of our present differences and not at all to the Doctrine of
may to preserve a worthy esteem of the Religion of the Church of England and we humbly supplicate them who have cast us out to consider how they may receive us again upon the account of this common interest which God is our witness we value more than our own particular inlargement 36. A great part of the invectives written against us is made up of the pretended weaknesses and mis-behaviours imputed to those that go under the name of Non-Conformists To this we say first that it is a palpable injury to burden us with the various parties with whom we are now herded by our ejection in the general state of Dissenters and to make us responsible for them all Nor are we justly chargeable with all the absurdities and miscarriages of such as are of our own perswasion But let it here be minded what the Scripture saith in many things we off end all and that none of ours pretend to be more than men in their imperfect state as also that besides the huge multitudes of common hypocrites who by open intemperance unrighteousness and ungodliness notoriously discover the falshood of their profession by which sort in general none are more hated than we are there be many specious hypocrites who are the servants of sin under the shew of greater zeal for God and these will be the blemish of all Religious societies into which they are admitted Now we would not that any detected hypocrisie should be palliated nor that the real faults of the sincere should be unreproved But promiscuously to asperse a whole â—â—rt of men known to be strict and serious in their profession and to describe their way in general as a course of hypocrisie or folly is like to do no good but much mischief especially in exposing seriousness in Religion on all sides to the scorn of the irreligious VVhen we look through the big and swelling words of crimination into the matter it self we find little more in it than their meer inconformity blazond with ugly tearms and the names of horrid sins put upon it For the accusers call them proud froward false fierce sullen traytorous seditious clamourous and an unruly generation upon no better proof than that they have said it The farrago of the late cunningly contrived defamations if well examined will be found really to produce against them little more than such weaknesses and swervings as are common to any even the most moralized sort of men Indeed we find this against us if it be material that our Religion hath not made our Plough-men Courtiers nor our Trades-men Philosophers VVe never took it for any part of the work of true grace to make men of rustick wits and breeding to become gentile or to raise our plain people to the accomplishments of the learned Yea such as excell in grace may be very mean and low in the gifts of nature and speak so incongruously as to make themselves ridiculous to proud wits But should Ministers make a scorn of them for defects in this kind and have more value for an ungodly sort that are of finer wits and better breeding If so there is not the same mind in them that was in Christ who said with rejoycing I thank thee O Father Lord of Heaven and Earth that thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent and hast revealed them to babes Nevertheless for ought we find the people of our perswasion according to their rank and quality in the VVorld are not inferior to others in point of discretion civility good neighbourhood and acceptable conversation among men in all which their Religion is a furtherance and no disadvantage to them VVe vvill not justifâ—â— our favourers in vvhat they are reproveable but then let every one bear his ovvn guilt and let not the innocent be burdened vvithout cause VVe as well as the accusers take notice of divers things in some of ours which are not justifiable and yet not remediable by us in our present state The weaker sort of true Christians are liable to errors and failings that occasion trouble to themselves and others and there be many that have no troublesome differences in Religion because they have no Religion Shall those irreligious persons because they are not troublesome be more esteemed and thought better Christians than serious zealous and conscientious persons because peradventure they give us some trouble through their mistakes The Pastors should not value people by the interest of the flesh but of Christ. To what end have they received their Pastoral Office which is to help the weak and to heal that which is lame that it be not turned out of the way if they cannot bear with such nor restore them in the Spirit of meekness Besides let the breaches offences and exasperations of these times be considered and it cannot seem strange that the weaker sort of sufferers should be more averse than they ought to be from those by whom they suffer especially when in many places their more able teachers are driven from among them by the five mile Act and they are left to such as will heighten their aversation We would our reprovers would help us for their parts to make our people better Whereas some have charged us with cherishing their naughty humours for unworthy ends we thought all might understand that if we basely sought our own profits we might make a better trade of Conformity than of seeking a sorry maintenance by serving the sins of our adherents in this poor condition of outcasts VVe desire not to hold the people as appropriated to our selves but teach them highly to esteem all faithfull Ministers for their works sake and we are glad of their profiting by others as by our selves VVe are not conscious of willfull connivence at their faults VVe humour none in their injurious thoughts of Governors or speaking evil of dignities VVe teach men to fear God and honour the King yea to honour all men and love the Brotherhood to bridle their tongues to be meek and lowly no busie bodies but to do their own work with quietness VVe exhort all to unity with the whole Catholick Church and to be at peace among themselves The truth is there is too much wrath and bitterness railing and intemperate language on all sides and we condemn it as much in those that are among us as in others and are more offended at it in them than in others And we think our accusers have little reason so to accuse and judg us and ours as if they took themselves and theirs to be sinless in this kind The Lord forgive and heal us all and increase the number of the sons of peace and true peace-makers 37. VVhereas a remarkable writer hath published these words we should be reconciled if the Presbyterian Ministers would perswade their people to do what they can do themselves We declare to the world that we heartily embrace these tearms of reconciliation And as we have done already we will not cease