Selected quad for the lemma: christian_n
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A36832
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The conformity of the discipline and government of those who are commonly called independants to that of the ancient primitive Christians by Lewis Du Moulin.
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Du Moulin, Lewis, 1606-1680.
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1680
(1680)
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Wing D2533; ESTC R25012
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54,163
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74
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and he makes these two Tribunals so independant one on the other as hotly to maintain that he would rather suffer death or banishment than permit the appeals of Consistorial Sentences to the Magistrate TO be short the Congregational way hath this advantage over all the other establishments of Religion both the National Popish Episcopal and Presbyterian Church these cannot subsist but with a subordination of Consistories Colloquies Provincial and National Synods things which are not practicable but under Secular Powers either which may approve them or else may tolerate them whereas the Congregational way subsists not only under good Emperours as were Constantine the Great and Theodosius the first but also under the Pagan Dioclesians and under an Arrian Constantius for what persecution soever may be raised against this way nothing hinders but that a Minister who watches over a small flock may go to visit the Members from house to house to administer spiritual pasture and food to them for their nourishment and growth in grace To conclude the excellence of this way appears in this that it is far less exposed to persecution than any other and that the Presbyterian and the Episcopal do fall into it when the Magistrate is contrary to them CHAP. IX That the most Judicious Divines of France and other places without any thoughts of it do naturally fall into the Hypotheses of the Congregational Churches Of the Judgment which ought to be made of their Confession of Faith of their discipline and conduct I Could also streng hen all that I have said by the testimony of our new Doctors by that of Mounsieur Rivet Mounsieur Mestrâ—zat Monsieur Pajon Monsieur Claude and others showing that they undesignedly fall into the Opinion and Judgment of the Independants in laying down 1. THAT there is no other visible Church of Divine right than that which is assembled together in one place to attend upon the preaching and hearing of the word upon prayer and the participation of the Sacraments and it is in this manner that the Confession of the Church of England Article XIX defines the Church 2. THAT such a Church is Independant either on other Churches or on Synods that it may very well take from one or other advice and Counsel but it ought not to submit to their Commands 3. THAT no person can be forced to be a Christian nor to joyn with one Church rather than with another 4. THAT this Church hath liberty to do its own business its self or to connect into one body in the same manner as the Churches of France have done that it hath the liberty to retire from that connection or confederacy as the Churches of Metz and Sedan have done 5. THAT this Church to which the Christian is joyned is obliged to seek and to preserve a strict communion of Faith and Charity with the other Churches but yet hath a liberty of having a separate discipline 6. THAT this church ought to receive the fraternal admonitions of the other Churches and of their Synods in the same manner as a Synod of Africk acted upon the dissention which hapned between Innocent the first Bishop of Rome and the Church of Alexandria as Barlaam recites it I could also find these maxims in the Writings of the English Divines and show that in treating of the nature of the Church or of any other matter of divinity they have kept the language of the Independants or at least have approved of their practices The Learned Jackson Chap. 14. of the Church sayes that for these two causes one may lawfully frame Congregations distinct from others to have a separate Communion 1. WHEN they impose such practises as are contrary to Faith and Charity 2. WHEN they forbid wayes that are apparently most edifying and tend more to the increase and strength of Piety and Salvation than those which are now in use Dr. Stillingfleet assures us in pag. 109. of his Ireniâ—uâ—n that when in one and the same Territory Judgments and Churches are different the one from the other a Christian ought to joyn to that which retains most of the Evangelical purity He is bound to adhere to that Church that retaineth most of the Evangelical purity And in pag. 116. he sayes that a Christian is obliged to separate from Churches although Orthodox in the essential matters in case they retain some mixture of corruption in the practise His Words are a mixture of corruption as to the practise I could find the opinion of this Learned Doctour in several places up and down Monsieur Claude his Book where having laid down to us for a principle that the power of the Keyes and that of binding and loosing only is reposed in the faithful people of God he draws this Conclusion from it that private Churches ought to get to themselves such Members as they know to be more particularly the faithful and to remove from it the worldly persons to whom God hath not affixed that power of binding and loosing nor committed the management of the Keys of the Kingdome of Heaven I could ascend as far as Luther and Melancton to justifie the separation even from Churches that have not any errour in their Doctrine Luther in cap. 4. Geneseos Etiamsi praeterea nihil peccatum esset in Doctrina Pontificia justas tamen fuisse causas cur ab Ecclesiá Romanâ nos sejungeremus BUT the Independants have reasonably outvied Luther and the other Doctors for they hold though the Church of Rome should not have any defects either in Doctrine or Discipline yet they were not to be condemned for separating from Rome and for being independent on the Romish Church and her Synods more then to find fault with the Church of Sedan which is separate from that of Metz in regard of any dependance one upon the others or upon the Synods that were common with them In a word it is a thing as natural and as reasonable for a Church to divide it self into two other Churches which may each do their own business separately as for one family to be divided into two others whereof each hath the liberty to govern themselves according to their own way and fancy THUS you have in all this discourse if I am not much mistaken the Justification of the carriage and government of the Congregational way and very clear and full proofs of their conformity with the Ancient Christians As also their Confession does evidence that which they have with the Apostolical in a more plain free expressive and incontestable manner than any of the confessions that are collected in the Corpus or Syntagma Confessianum so far are they from being the work of persons distracted and Enthusiasts as some of our Divines have fancied that you might altogether with as much reason put among the productions of Fools and mad men the three most excellent and consummated pieces according to the Judgment that Alexander More has made of them the Epistle of Calvin before his Institutions
same Ecclesiastical Governnours and to be obedient to their Laws their Commands and their Censures 6. THAT to compass this Union every party of different perswasion and Judgement in matters of Faith and Discipline ought to abate something of their rigour and their right and come one part of the way to a Reconciliation that is to say that every party ought to recover an insidious peace to abandon the truth he believes he has on his side or to enervate the force of it THESE maxims which are those of Rome have been and will be the cause why there will never be in the World neither Church nor Reformation without some mixture of corruption The Felicity of being freed from these is only to be found in the Independant Church ABOVE all they find the 5 th maxim to be unreasonable wicked and tyrannical◠principally when they press to an Uniformity of Discipline all the Inhabitants of a Territory or Kingdom under one and the same Soveraign about which both the greatest number of people and the most illuminated are divided and do not find one clear constant and perpetual truth in the Sacred Scriptures to press the Uniformity of it nor the necessity of that way that they find as to what concerns Faith Theodosius the II. had his reason better grounded when he commanded all his Subjects to believe according to the Faith of Damasus of Rome and Peter of Alexandria then if he had commanded them an Uniformity in Discipline which he did not do and which he could not execute For he could not be ignorant that as there was but one Faith to which every faithful soul ought to adhere and to be verily perswaded that his was the true it was not without reason that he rather commanded the belief of that Faith than the practise of a discipline since that the one was expresly laid down in the holy Scripture and the other was not 'T IS after this manner the Independant Churches argue They believe with Theodosius that the Subjects of an Empire are obliged to embrace the same Faith supposing it be that of Jesus Christ but they are not obliged to practise one certain discipline which is not found in the holy Scripture THE first maxim was that of Dioclesian who alone did shed more Christian bloud than his Predecessors all together had done It cannot be practised without Fire and Sword and it is as full of Impiety and of Paganism as Excommunication Titus Livius lib. 39. tit 9 puts among the Roman Laws Ne qui Romani Dei neque alio more quam patrio colerentur ne quis in publico sacrove loco novo aut externo ritu sacrificaret The Scythians caused Anacharsis to be put to death for having a Worship a part which he had learnt in Greece And Mecaenas exhorted Augustus to punish those who would not conform themselves to the Religion of the Countrey Dio. lib. 52 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 BUT yet this maxim was not so much practised when the Government was more popular and when Altars were erected to strange Gods and to some unknown for after they had subdued Nations they also brought their Gods in triumph I met with the Defeat and overthrow of the fifth maxim in a discourse at the beginning of a Treatise of that excellent Knight to whom I Dedicated my Fasciculus as an Answer to some questions that were put to him by thoughts much agreeing with mine before ever we had any communication of them together which he also confirms by those of a Learned Divine whose name is Chillingworth and whose Authority is so much the more considerable and weighty as being a Church of England man There are say they but two wayes to make all Christians to enter into one and the same communion either in taking away the diversity of Opinions that divide them which is impossible without a Miracle and unless God had established and set up a visible Judge to whom their differences should be referred or else being all perswaded that this diversity of Opinions ought not to hinder their communion and their Union in things wherein they do agree and where charity complaisance and condescention ought to have place without any ones being deprived of their Opinion or that one should persecute the other that differs from his DOCTOR Jeremy Tailor who was a strong man for the English Hierarchy by reason whereof he was made a Bishop in Ireland and who was extroardinarily illuminated and Learned agreed in the same Sentiment with Dr. Chillingworth and hath published a great Book whose Title is the Liberty of Prophecying against the wicked and unreasonable carriage of those who rigorously impose set Forms of Faith to others and who Persecute and ill-use those who are not of their Opinion in matters of Religion ALSO the Independants have indeavoured not so much to establish the goodness of the Congregational way in sound clear minds because they are soon convinced of it by the description they make of it as to disabuse them of those maxims which are but so many illusions though most commonly it is easier to refute Errours than to establish Truth as Cicero very well says Vtinam tà m facile possem vera probare quà m falsa convincere NOW the tyranny of these maxims which are as much that of the Protestants as of the Papists is the cause why the transition of the Romish Religion to the reformed is but imperfectly done in France Germany England and elsewhere how little complaisance soever we have had for Rome and for an affinity with her it has cost us very dear we have thought we ought not to go from one extremity to another at one leap As we fell from the Impanation to Transubstantiation so likewise have we gone from Transubstantiation to Consubstantiation its Neighbour then we have retained the real presence in the Sacramental Supper which has some agreement and is conciliable with those three illusions of words 'T is said indeed that this presence was spiritual but at the same time it was clothed with the flesh when they kept at the beginning of the reformation such wayes of expressing themselves which have been a great Shock to Bullinger and many other great men of his time That we were nourished in this Sacrament with the substance of the flesh and with the blood of Jesus Christ Which has given occasion to the Bishop of Candom to Mounsieur Arnauld and to Father Maimbourge to put this Interrogatory to us if you speak as we do why do you not believe as we do Especially the Bishop of Condom has made use of it and they have given him reason to triumph over us as much in that as he hath done as to the eminent Authority that is established in our Churches with as much incontestability as if it were Infallible The Missionary Pean sayes that it is a Gallimauphrey of the Protestants to speak of being nourished with the substance of Jesus Christ and with his flesh and