Selected quad for the lemma: christian_n
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A51956
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The Church of England and the continuation of the ceremonies thereof vindicated from the calumnies of several late pamphlets, more particularly that entitled, The vanity, mischief, and danger of continuing ceremonies in the worship of God, subscribed by
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1690
(1690)
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Wing M65; ESTC R4181
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64,933
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67
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choose Men to sit in Convocation c. The possibility of it if the King should be so ill advised as to give consent to it I shall not much dispute remembring that a Parliament in King Henry the Eighth's Reign surnamed the Almighty-Parliament and some since have de facto done such strange things in annulling transferring Titles Rights Claims Possessions and Inheritances c. without regard to Superiour Laws as argue Infallibility and Arbitrary Power except in the Persons of Popes and Kings to be neither absurd nor disallowable I shall only take leave to say that the Clergy are as competent Judges of the Parliament-men as the Knights and Burgesses of the Convocation-men that whatever alterations they may make de facto in our Liturgy or Ceremonies without the Clergy yet it is absolutely impossible to make an Union without them I need not add that such alterations would be a taking away that Liberty of Conscience from the establish'd Church which is given to all Dissenters for it is to be supposed that our Parliament-men if not infallible are yet wiser than at the suggestion of this Furioso to attempt the removing the ancient Land-marks and constitutions of the Nations Government such violent Convulsions of the Monarchy must needs both presage and produce a dissolution of it All the Art and Power in the World cannot make trifles in the Worship of God seem matters of importance to them that rellish heavenly things 〈…〉 6. The conformable Clergy and Laity of the Church of England knowing many things to be lawful and innocent and judged by our Superiours to tend to Order Decency and Devotion use them as such and cannot so properly be said to make them seem matters of importance as they who pretend Conscience for disobedience in the use of things no where prohibited and therefore indifferent and disturb all peace and Unity in the Church to introduce their own confusions and divisions 〈…〉 7. What Trumpery are Habits various Gestures and Postures to a Man that is swallowed up in the contemplation of the infinite Majesty of the Glorious God This Man is too wise as being wise above what is written A modest and well-bred Man would never have used such rude and vilifying terms of such things as the Almighty God was once pleased to appoint and command in his own Worship If any say those sacerdotal Habiliments and Levitical Impositions are not obligatory to us Christians I say no more are the Judicial Laws given by Moses and yet if any Man shall therefore say they are unjust absurd foolish or ridiculous I think God the Supreme Legislator is reflected on and concern'd in his Honour and the person so saying must be supposed immoral bold and prophane If our Author should be censured by this Paragraph he would be thought not only a Phanatique but an Enthusiast Would this contemplative Politico have the Priest officiating lose his Body as well as his Mind and Wits for otherwise he must of necessity use such Trumpery as Habits Gestures and Postures and if they in use are lawful as our Author saying nothing to the contrary must in all reason be supposed to allow why not those as well as others especially since they are few Grave Decent Ancient Naturalized and by Law established Innovations are always hurtful and sometimes dangerous always tend towards and sometimes precipitate dissolution 3. It is unreasonable to continue Ceremonies Ibid. After all the Wisdom and Power of Imposers can do the judgments of Men will differ And I can say with equal truth and reason After all that Abolishers can do Pag. 〈…〉 the judgments of Men will differ He proceeds It is as possible to make their Hair all of one colour their Bodies of the same proportion their Faces all alike as their Judgments to be the same in Rites and Ceremonies To which I may add or in any thing else Must nothing therefore be continued If every thing must be abolished concerning which Men have different Opinions not only Rites and Ceremonies but our Creeds and Sacraments nay our Houses and our Bibles which gave occasion to great diversities of Opinions and some Heresies must be abolished and burnt not only University Habits Notes of Degrees and Church Vestments but all manner of Clothes must be left off and if our Author's inference were pursued home it would abolish his own dear Corps As for that Rule Ibid. Nothing but what is necessary should be imposed as terms of Communion to understand it aright we must first enumerate those things which are enjoined the Members of the Church of England and they are That they should duly frequent their Parish-Church be present at and join in the Publick Prayers and Offices of the Church with reverence and attention hear the Church Homilies or other Sermons read or preach'd and receive the Holy Communion at the least thrice in a Year That they should bring their Children to the Font to be baptized to the Church to be Catechized and to the Bishop to be Confirm'd I know nothing else required of any person as necessary to their holding Lay-communion with it and these I think to be both few and such as are generally necessary to Salvation What is meant by Imposition of things as Terms of Communion when spoken if properly it may be so of persons here born and bred is not so easily understood It is true the Church assumes as her part a maternal care to instruct and educate her Children in her Bosom Whereas that Expression Imposition of things as Terms of Communion seems to relate properly either to Foreiners or Converts presupposing them Professors of some other Religion and She treating with them and offering them conditions of admittance to her Communion and this if such Foreiners are already received into the Catholick Church by Baptism with us is done by vertue of the Communion of Saints upon their freely uniting themselves with the Congregation of that Parish where they inhabit joying therewith in its Publick Worship and other Churches Offices and if duly qualified their participating of the Sacraments But if a person yet unbaptized and consequently no Christian being made a Convert desires to to be received into the Communion of this Church it is requisite that he make profession of the Christian Faith contained in the Apostles Creed desire and receive Baptism What else can be understood by Imposing Terms of Communion The Prescriptions Rules and Constitutions of the Church of England are all directed to those already in her Communion and suppose all Persons born in this Kingdom to be by Baptism made so But if by it is meant that nothing may be prescribed in a Church to be observed by the Members of it which is not necessary to Salvation I cannot believe it to be in that sense true for some things may be not only lawfully but also laudably used and established in a constituted Church which are not absolutely necessary to Salvation A Man
Right God who is the Author of Humane Nature must be the giver of it but that he never gave any such Right to Mankind appears from Exod. 20.4 5 6. Because God who is the Author of the Law of Nature is none of those short-sighted Legislators which make a latter Law contrary to the former and the Moral Law hath always been expounded as explanatory but never as contradictory to the Law of Nature neither will it help to say that tho God might contradict the Law of Nature yet man cannot for both the Law in Deut. 13.6 c. and the approved practice of Hezekiah in 2 Kings 18.4 c. quite overthrow that pretence nor will it avail to say that Idols are not Gods for besides that the Heathen did not Worship the Idol as the God it self but some as the Representation or Visible Resemblance and others as the Body or Vehicle of the God which they supposed to be present therein there is the same reason for the Dictates of Conscience to be free in the one Case as in the other and the whole Worship must be supposed agreeable to the Dictates of their Consciences since no other reason can be assigned for the Institution of it 2. If this were true then Hezekiah and Josiah for what they did 2 Kings 18.4 and 23.4 c. to 17. were most wicked Persecutors and unjust Invaders of that first and chief Right and yet they are both highly commended for what they did herein Ch. 18.3 c. 23. v. 24 25. 3. It would from hence follow that if any Men from Turkey the East or West-Indies should come hither and follow their Mahometan Pagan or Diabolical Worship or if this new Indulgence as the late Rebellion should cause a Resurrection of the Adamites and they should go naked through the Streets to their Conventicle which is as justifiable as their being naked at it they must not be hindred by the Magistrate for fear of Invading that first and chief Right of Humane Nature of following the Dictates of Conscience in the Service of God Lastly the Dictates of Conscience are by no Divines affirmed to be the Rule of it And if they are the first and chief Right of Humane Nature in the Service of God I see no reason why they should not be so as much or rather much more in all other actions of the life and then the Jews in killing the Apostles John 16.2 and St. Paul in Persecuting the Christians Acts 9.1 c. ought not to be hindred Or the Anabaptists in Germany the Presbyterians in Scotland the Dragoons in France all pretending Conscience for their several Barbarities to be interrupted and every thing must be allowed for which the Dictates of Conscience may be pretended for fear of abridging this first and chief Right of Humane Nature The Act of Indulgence sets all Men at liberty and it comes not long after a very fierce Persecution Our Author by virtue of an Act of Indulgence which sets all Men at liberty makes an unhandsome reflection upon K. Charles II. in his Grave and his two Houses of Parliament in calling the Late Legal Moderate Prosecution of the Dissenters unto which their Caballing Intriguing and Plotting provoked the Government a fierce a very fierce Persecution Not to mention that the Presbyterians were the first among the Reformed who taught and practised Persecution or the carriage of that people where ever they have gotten the Secular Power of their party or the concurrence of it and particularly here in England betwixt the Years 1640 and 1660. It is to be considered that during the pretended Persecution no Man was under any legal pressure for holding any Opinion or performing any religious exercise in his own Family but only for his external action not necessary to Religion and his publick frequenting of and joyning in such Assemblies as experience had taught to have been dangerous to the Government and therefore prohibited under a pecuniary penalty and farther that this prosecution was founded upon a Law invented and consented unto by the People's Representatives in whose Persons the whole Commons of the Kingdom are virtually interpretatively and determinatively comprehended So that by consequence if it was a Persecution the people persecuted themselves or at least the Representatives the persons represented which is not to be supposed they would do under that Notion Therefore in common Reason and Charity it must be supposed That the Parliament the grand Council of the Nation advised and consented to that as to all other Laws for the publick good and safety a moderate Coercion of such illegal Assemblies and a wholesom Statute to prevent a factious and dangerous Schism and establish an Uniformity in divine Worship though time and experience have proved it as ineffectual as the abolishing of Liturgies Ceremonies Church-Orders and Constitutions c. were any so senseless as to try the experiment would now be to reduce them to Unity Order Peace or Reason We can impose these things upon none but the Ministers and their Clerks Pag 〈…〉 Then all others being unconcerned may be satisfied And if nothing be imposed on them What is it they complain of or would be eased from Why doth our Author rage rave and be in such a mighty heat in the behalf of Dissenters for the pulling down such Ceremonies as are imposed on none but the Minister and Clerk cannot he let the Minister and his Parish-Clerk keep their Ceremonies if they please as well as let him have a May-pole who hath a mind to one Ibâ—â— As knowledg encreaseth Zeal for Ceremonies will grow more and more ridiculous That is a great mistake Had it been for his purpose he might more truly have said As Knowledg encreaseth opposition to Ceremonies will vanish For Scrupulosity the parent of Opposition if conscientious is the Child of Ignorance It is generally believed that there is no Rite Ceremony or Custom enjoined and practised in the Church of England but the same is fully and sufficiently explained maintained defended and vindicated by the Learned Mr. Hooker Dr. Falkener Dr. Comber c. to the satisfaction of all free indifferent and competent Judges whether Natives or Foreiners And as far as I could ever observe the more knowing discreet and pious Men are so much the more conformable to the established Church and accordingly it is in every Man's observation that the more learned and judicious Men of all persuasions Opinions and Sects are the most moderate and the vulgar and unthinking Herd the most violent and furious hence the Epithete of blind Zeal And that to be doubtful timorous and scrupulous in things indifferent of small moment and not essential to Religion are symptoms of little knowledg weak judgment and an erroneous Conscience appears sufficiently from the Apostles Discourse in the 14 and 15. Chapters of his Epistle to the Romans As to our Authors new Project of the Parliaments making a Law that the Members of both Houses shall