Selected quad for the lemma: conscience_n
Text snippets containing the quad
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A45675
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The Minster of Cirencester's address to the dissenters of his parish occasion'd by the death of their preacher : together with the answer that was made thereto and his reply to that answer : to which is prefixed a letter relating thereto from the Right Reverend Father in God Edward Lord Bishop of Gloucester.
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Harrison, Joseph.
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1698
(1698)
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Wing H899; ESTC R28524
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45,184
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52
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own and study to honour God by abstaining from these things by which he never said that he was dishonoured O that all tender Consciences would seriously consider this for they would soon discern that your Ministers by forbidding those things now in dispute lay greater Burthens upon the Consciences of their Brethren and clog them with more duties than God hath laid upon them Whereas we who think those things may be done lay no other Burthen upon the Conscience than what God himself hath laid which is to obey our Governours in all things wherein he himself hath not bidden us to do the contrary ANSWER I shall only touch of Additions in the Service Book there are added three whole Verses to the Fourteenth Psalm and one Verse to the Thirteenth Psalm REPLY If it be granted that there are those Additions he speaks of yet it was not the Mistake of the Common Prayer Book but of the Translations which the Common Prayer followed viz. the Septuagint and Vulgar But I wonder how he came to be so cautious as not to call these Additions to Scripture for that certainly was his meaning The Additions to the 14th Psalm are accounted for in one of the old Bibles by this Note That of this 14th Psalm the 5th 6th and 7th Verses which are put into the Common Translation and may seem unto some to be left out in this are not in the same Psalm in the Hebrew Text but are rather put in more fully to express the manners of the wicked and are gather'd out of the 5th 140th and 10th Psalms the 59th of the Prophet Isaiah and the 36th Psalm and are alledged by St. Paul and placed together in the 3d to the Romans But the saying that there is a Verse added to the 14th Psalm is a notorious Falshood there are only these words I will praise the Name of the Lord most Highest which are in the seventh Psalm and the last Verse What then can this Man be thought to mean Would he insinuate that these Additions are Inventions of our own or that they are inserted by the Church upon some wicked selfish design I hope it appears that they were not nor we upon the score thereof obnoxious to the Penalty of Deut. 4.2 before quoted by him But I would fain know whether they are not deeply guilty of the Crime they charge us with who teach That nothing is to be used in the Worship of God but what is prescribed by God himself for if that be not a Scripture Truth then what an Addition is this Do not they who teach this for a Scripture-Rule and Precept impose upon Mens Consciences as much as Papists and like them and the Pharisees of old teach the Traditions of Men for the Doctrines of God Nay is not this directly contrary to the Gospel it self which tells us that Sin is the Transgression of a Law and that where there is no Law there is no Transgression And thus you all along see with how keen an edge those Weapons turn upon you which you make use of in fighting against us ANSWER In a word I may say of all the Ceremonies in the Service Book as one of your own Church saith of the Succession of Church-Officers and in particular that of Bishops He tells us That our English Bishops received their Orders in the Communion of the Church of Rome and ergo they had as good Orders as any of the Church of Rome they must needs be as good when they are the same But 't is but a weak Proof for the Succession of their Bishops when they must go to Rome for it REPLY One would think it were high time for you to have done with this old Accusation of Popery and that you should have more Prudence than to give us Occasion to upbraid you with your fawning upon and sneaking to it in the late Reign while the Bishops and Clergy of our Church made such a brave and vigorous Defence against it even to the hazard of their ALL. If indeed it be true that our Bishops received their Orders in the Church of Rome then his ergo is good and the only good one he has made in this Paper and the Argument is a good one against the Papists and no weak one neither for the Succession of Church-Officers against you if you pretend to impugn it which if you do it lies at your door to prove a failure in their Succession since our Bishops are in possession of their Authority He ought to have quoted his Author for a Reason before mention'd But what if it be true is therefore Episcopacy unlawful or the Succession of our Bishops not good He may as well argue that the Water is not good or comes not from the Fountain-head because the Conduit thro' which it is convey'd is faulty But since this Man questions the Succession of our Bishops and upbraids us with having our Orders from the Church of Rome it is but reasonable to demand Whether your Preachers have any Orders at all and if they have Whence they had them and thro' what Channel they were convey'd down to them and whether you have any Arguments to urge for the Validity of Their Orders which we cannot with much more reason make use of to prove the Goodness of Ours But we may see how far Envy and Malice will sometimes make People overshoot themselves This Man rather than not send forth his Bolt at our Bishops and Clergy will strike at the whole Reformation and call in Question the Validity of the Orders of all the Reformed Churches of Luther and Calvin himself nay even the Authority of their own Ambassadors As for our Ceremonies tho' they be superstitiously abused by the Papists yet that is no Argument against the present use of them in the Church of England who retains them not because they are of Rome but of an Ancienter date than that now corrupted Church and if they are therefore unlawful because they are used by her then every thing done in that Church is so which I suppose you will not say We only reformed from the Errors and Corruptions of that Church and not from what was Apostolical Primitive and Innocent because they used it And whatever Opinion these People would have others entertain of them yet their admired Mr. Calvin declares in express words that He would not have any Man think him so Austere or bound up as to forbid a Christian without any Exception to accommodate himself to the Papists in any Ceremony or Observance for says he further it is not my Purpose to condemn any thing but what is clearly evil and openly vicious But for a full Answer to all you Object against us upon this score I refer you to the Case of Symbolizing with the Church of Rome by Dr. Eowler our present Bishop where he quotes those very words of Mr. Calvin ANSWER Sir we desire not Separation but Reformation for I hope we have all of us so tender
the Praise and Glory of God and who worship God in a conceived Prayer of their own Invention to the utter Exclusion of that Prayer which our Saviour in express words hath taught them when they Pray to say Luke 11.2 where it is delivered upon a quite different Occasion from that in the other Gospel St. Matthew indeed brings in our Saviour delivering this Paper as a Pattern to square ours by but St. Luke as an express Form of Words which when we pray we are punctually to make use of But strange as it is these Men who would be thought the most sanctified Persons of the place they live in will rather implicitely own themselves so wicked as not to be fit to use this Prayer than admit of such an undeniable Argument as that is of the Lawfulness of a set Form which I must confess I wonder this Man I am now dealing with took no Notice of But I conclude from his silence herein that their real Opinion is that those Invectives which they so commonly use against Forms of Prayer in general and ours in particular are only fit to amuse ignorant people with and not well enough grounded to be openly defended though they help to keep up a Party Since there fore he durst say nothing about this I pass it by and if there be any well-meaning people among you that are disatisfied therein I refer you to those two unanswerable Treatises writ by Dr. Scott in Vindication of publick Forms and to Dr. Beveridges Sermon upon that Subject to convince you of the Vsefulness and Excellency of our Common Prayer That which gave me Occasion to mention this was the instances I pitched upon to shew that you not only used things in the Worship of God without the Command of God but that swerving from the Example of the Jews whose doing as the Lord commanded Moses you so much insist upon you omit that which Christ himself particularly prescribed in the Worship of God How highly absurd therefore is it for any one to object that to another of which he himself is no less guilty nay much more when besides what I have already urged it is done with this disadvantage of Inequality that the Inferior who owes a defference to Authority in things doubtful and indiferent seems to obtrude upon the Superior that which he would not have the Superiour to impose upon him There is yet one thing more which I would gladly know of you who speak so much of doing nothing about the Worship of God but what Christ hath commanded and it is this What Law of Christ is there which enjoyns you to hold your Meetings just then when the publick Service of God established by Law is performed This is neither the Law of Christ nor the Practice of a great many of your Brethren in other places nor can you assign any truer reason for it than that you are not content to enjoy your own way of Worshipping God but you must also undermine and subvert ours which you are obliged to joyn in though not under the Penalty of the Law yet in point of Conscience and in Obedience to the preceptive part of it Upon the same Accounts likewise you are as guilty of Will-worship as we are granting it to be true that to bring any thing of our own Invention into the service of God be Will-worship But this being a word that you often make use of especially in your Calumniating of us I will venture to give you the Meaning of it that you may both understand it and know how rightly to apply it This word is not used above once in the whole Bible and that by St. Paul Col. 2.23 and therefore he must be his own Interpreter and we must fetch the Meaning of the Expression from the Matter wherewith it is connected If you look a little back in that Chapter you will find the Apostle forbids worshipping of Angels verse 18 and then he speaks against such superstitious people as made it unlawful to Marry to eat some kind of Meats to touch or come near some things none of which God hath made sinful but they were the meer Commandments of Men verse 21 22. Now those that were of this Humour he immediately after ver 23. charges with Will-woship So that according to the Judgement of the Learned which I hope I may have the Liberty of quoting as well as my Antagonist A Will-worship is erected when either the Worship due to God is given to a Creature or when any thing is so enjoyned to be done or not to be done as if it were the Will and Commandment of God when it is a meer Constitution of the Will of Man Having now found out what Will-worship is let us impartially examine who are most guilty of it You or We. And because I may be thought partial in this Enquiry or however not duly qualified to make it let the learned Man now a Reverend Father of our Church that assisted us in finding out the Meaning of Will-worship state the Case betwixt us and let us on both sides rest satisfied in his Determination He is speaking to a Person of the same Kidney with the Man that has engaged me in all this trouble and thus discourses him I am sure you will not make us guilty of the first sort of Will-worship because none are more against it than we As for the second Our Church hath declared to all the World that none of those things you boggle at are imposed under the Notion of necessary or religious in themselves or as commanded by God but are of an Indifferent Nature and only used as decent and comely in the Judgment of the present Governours who can alter these things and constitute something else in their room if they see it fit which they could not pretend to did they think them necessary But then as our Church is not guilty of Will-worship in the Apostles sence so on the other side I know not how to excuse those from that very guilt who oppose what is ordained among us as unlawful and forbid us to use those Rites and Orders because sinful things For they make that to be necessary to be forborn and left undone which God hath not made so but left indifferent and so they in effect condemn those as sinners whom God acquits from all blame As those in the Apostles Discourse said Touch not Taste not Handle not so you say Knees not Pray not by a Form Wear not a Surplce c. Now since you think as those Men did to please God by not doing those things which he hath no where forbidden I do not see but you commit the very fault which the Apostle reproves i. e. you make that necessary not to be done if we will be true Worshippers of God which he hath not made necessary not to be done but left us at Liberty to do it if we please By which means you make a Religion of your