Selected quad for the lemma: christian_n
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A42476
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Charis kai eirēnē, or, Some considerations upon the Act of uniformity with an expedient for the satisfaction of the clergy within the province of Canterbury / by a servant of the God of peace.
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Gauden, John, 1605-1662.
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1662
(1662)
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Wing G347; ESTC R26763
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28,892
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52
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the Church what contempt of the Clergy what overthrows of Magistrates and all Government have been managed by the Principles now contended for all sober men have beheld with sorrow of heart and can bear witness to with their sighs teares and ruine O tell it not in Gath publish it not in Askelon I pray God give us all moderation and impartiality the best tempers in religion unpassionately to consider from whence we are fallen by humane policies and to what we are transported by popular zeal that all distempers may be laid aside by free converse and a Christian correspondence whereby those sad principles of everlasting schism might be removed by which on our side men think because in many things they are right therefore they can erre in nothing and on the other side because in some things men have mistaken and erred therefore they can be in nothing right without regard so that Truth and Charity which is the life and quintessence of Christian Religion 9. It s of very dangerous consequence that you who should promote the joy and thankfulness of His Majesties loving subjects for His happy Restauration should now occasion these fears jealousies and publick sorrow that when all rejoyce to see things grow up to a publick order and symmetry you should be discontent as when all the people cryed Hosanna the Pharisees murmured is a sin against that Deut 28. where it is said Because thou servest not the Lord thy God with joyfulness and with gladness of heart for the abundance of all things therefore which is the danger shalt thou serve thine enemy in hunger in thirst in nakedness and in want of all things and he shall put a yoke of iron upon thee till he have destroyed thee These are the dangerous Conseqences of Non-conformity viz. 1. Hiding your talents in a napkin and putting your light under a bushel and becoming unserviceable in your Generations 2. The grief of many good people who value high your persons and gifts who thought you would have died for them under persecutors and therefore you would much more obey for their sakes under a lawful Prince 3. The disadvantage of the Church which by your unexpected revolt will miss your gifts and services which were devoted to it 4. The disparagement of your brethren who are censured as unworthy for practising those things which rather then you will do you will resist unto blood whereby their labor is rendered unserviceable for those souls from whom your labor is withdrawn 5. The undoing of your families for whom ye are to provide unless ye will be worse then infidels O your wives and children what have they done That while you are disputing whether you should wear a Gown or whether you should stand or kneel whether you had best use these sorts of words or those to God Almighty In a word whether you shall obey or Rebel these should perish If you should go out which God forbid it 's you that will be thought to turn out your selves for men judge that the Law intends onely obedience and peace and that the offenders cause the punishment the Parliament would have you live orderly and obediently in your places you will not who is to be blamed But you cannot believe the orders of the Church to be lawful and obliging and the whole Kingdom in Parliament cannot believe that Non-conformity is lawful You cannot submit and the whole Kingdom in Parliament cannot think you fit to be encouraged with Ecclesiastical Livings unless you submit whether it is more fitting the whole Kingdom should submit to you or you to the whole Kingdom judge ye In a word if you do reject the moderate impositions the Church layes upon you I humbly crave leave to offer it to your consideration what judgement the Protestant Churches are likely to make of your proceedings And how your cause and the Churches will stand represented to them and to all future Ages The present danger is this As in disaffected bodies the humors fall to the weakest part so in a distempered Kingdom the ill disposed persons fall in with the discontented part 1. Upon this falling off of your party there are persons exasperated by just punishment on themselves and relations 2. There are thousands purchasers of Delinquents Deans Chapters Bishops King and Queen and Princes Lands unsatisfied 3. There are thousands of Cavaliers notwithstanding all care to provide for them dejected 4. There are abundance of Atheists and Neuters expecting some trouble and alteration and persons of desperate fortunes wishes they may once more fish in troubled waters 5. There are several persons turned out of Livings by the proper owners thereof and notwithstanding they are willing to submit are not likely to be admitted to so good again 6. There are many of the old Army that want employment 7. There are thousands of disobliged Sectaries 8. There are too many that for want of Trading are not able in this dead time to provide for themselves and families who would be all willing to hazzard themselves in the engagement of 41. they are in their method already Popery preached against Ceremonies and Lyturgies are cried down the Reverend Clergy afftonted Non-conformists are pittied the silencing of them is resented trading is dead taxes are complained of meetings are appointed plots discovered and all things by your dissent tend to a confusion These thoughts I leave to your cooler and more moderate intervals to meditate upon between your selves and the great searcher of hearts The Expedient But my business is not so much to exasperate as to accomodate dissenters and therefore I shall intreat those reverend persons concerned seriously to consider the following Propositions which if assented to will bring them up to the design of the Act of Uniformity agreed upon by all sober Protestants Prop. 1. That since the first plantation of true Religion which is a judicious and sincere devoting of the whole soul to God as the Supream good offered us in Jesus Christ and the right performance of that duty we ow to that God upon such grounds to such ends and after such manner as he requires it of us there have been an holy Company called by his word to the knowledge of God in Christ who in all holy ways and orderly institutions publickly profess their inward sence of duty and devotion which they ow to God by believing and obeying his word and also that Charity which they ow to all men especially to that houshold of the faith that holds communion with Christs body the Catholick Church Prop. 2. It s agreed That this outward profession of Religion as it is held forth in the word in its truth zeals duties and Ministry makes one Church Catholick of all Christians joyned in a mysterious inward and religious Communion with God and one another in Christ by the word and spirit in the inward part of Religion and in obedience charity and comely order as to the outward part of that Religion and that any part of this Church distinct
〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 OR SOME CONSIDERATIONS UPON THE Act of Uniformity WITH AN Expedient for the Satisfaction of the CLERGY within the Province of CANTERBURY By a Servant of the God of Peace London Printed for Edward Thomas and Henry Marsh 1662. Some Serious CONSIDERATIONS UPON THE Act of VNIFORMITIE WITH AN Expedient for the Satisfaction of the CLERGY within the Province of CANTERBURY K. CHARLES I. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 161. Neither do I desire any man should be further subject to me then all of us may be subject to God SECT I. ALthough fraile nature below Heavenly grace above and the common float of all things round about me the lively Emblems of Mortality summoned me to dye dayly the misery of late time giving leisure enough their injustice allowing occasion more then enough to those Contemplations of Mortality which are never unseasonable because this is alwaies uncertain Death being an Eclipse which often happeneth as well in a clear as in a cloudy day Although the common burden of Mortality that lyeth upon me as a man the clear apprehensions of another world that I am indued with as a Christian and the serious observation of the successive Revolutions of nature that I am capable of as an inhabitant of the world have put me most of the dayes of my appointed time to wait when my change should come when I should say I shall not see the Lord even the Lord in the land of the living I shall behold man no more with the Inhabitants of the world the keepers of the house trembling the strong men bowing themselves the grinders ceasing because they are few and those that look out at the Windows being darkened this dust of mine expected that it should return to the dust from whence it came and this spirit of mine should return to God that gave it I was willing that God should hide me in the Grave and that he should keep me secret untill his wrath and our calamity was overpast Although I was thus willing to retire to another world while that darknesse covered the face of this Yet when by a wonderfull Revolution of Providence managed by nothing lesse then an Omnipotence that perplexed Chaos of affairs and confused heap was admirably disposed to a sweet order and beauty and a new frame of another world viz. a new Heaven and a new Earth wherein dwelleth Righteousnesse I was in a strait betwixt two having a desire to depart and to be with Christ which is far better neverthelesse to abide in the flesh I thought might be more needfull for the Church whose sad breaches I hoped should now be carefully repaired whose sacred order peace honour unity and happinesse I hoped should now be recovered to a glory becoming so antient so holy so true so venerable so divine a Religion as ours in its nature author end center and circumference so one so deserving to be most united and uniform in the Catholick truth which is according to holinesse justice order and charity after the Primitive pattern and constant practice of all true Churches Preachers and Professors founded upon Verity fortified with Charity edified in Unity Reverend for Antiquity permanent in their Constancy according to the particular Constitutions of every Church which still kept the great and Catholick Communion as to the main every Christian Catechumene Penitent Communicant Deacon and Presbyter keeping the peculiar place wherein God Nature and the Church hath set them every Member keeping to its Congregation every Congregation to their lawfull Minister set over them to watch over their Souls every Minister to his own Bishop obeying them that have the rule over them and submitting themselves every Bishop to his Metropolitan upon whom is the care of all the Churches and the Metropolitan to his Soveraign as Supreme and he to God over all blessed for ever The Faith delivered to the Saints I thought might have been solemnly established the worship in spirit and truth decent and in order legally settled the Primitive Discipline orderly restored and our antient Church recovered to that beauty order glory and majesty for which it was spoken of throughout the Reformed world that rejoyced to behold our Faith and Order and therefore I was contented if it stood with the good pleasure and will of God to be absent a while from that Church which Christ presented to himself that glorious Church not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing that it should be holy and without blemish that City of the living God that Heavenly Jerusalem from an innumerable company of Angels from the generall Assembly and Church of the first born which are written in Heaven and from God the Judge of all and from the spirits of just men made perfect which I well hoped to enjoy that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that Heaven upon Earth the Church in rest and peace round about with the beauty of holinesse without as well as all-glorious within in its Doctrine Apostolical in its Government Primitive in its Order Venerable in its Members Holy and Devout in its Worship Heavenly in its Laws Exact and Prudent which preserved every Christian every Family every City every Country every Province not only in a Church way Communion and Correspondence as to their particular bounds and nearer Relations in every Parish Congregation City or Country but as to that generall bond of charity that Catholick unity of an universal spirit in a bond of peace which binds all Christians in one fellowship of one body whose head is Christ to whom every true believer and visible professor in the whole Latitude of the Church being by the word of God and spirit of Christ fitly joyned together and compacted by that which every joynt supplieth according to the effectual working in the measure of every part doth both edifie and increase it self and others in truth and love 1. Instead of the immediate presence of God whom blessed are the eyes who see which I hope to enjoy with these eyes face to face One thing have I desired of the Lord that will I seek after that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the dayes of my life to behold the beauty of the Lord and to enquire in his temple for I have loved the habitation of his house and the place where his honour dwelleth ever since I have gone with the multitude ever since I have gone with them into the house of God with the voyce of joy and praise with a multitude that kept Holy day How amiable are thy Tabernacles O Lord God of Hosts my soul longeth yea even fainteth for the Courts of the Lord my heart and my flesh cryeth out for the living God blessed are they that dwell in thine house for they will be still praising thee 2. Instead of that perfection of Soul Nature Faculty Gifts and Graces which I hope for I am contented to stay here a while growing in grace and in the knowledge of God perfecting