Selected quad for the lemma: diversity_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
diversity_n	ceremony_n	church_n	ordain_v	421	5	9.4689	5	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A26853	An accompt of all the proceedings of the commissioners of both persvvasions appointed by His Sacred Majesty, according to letters patent, for the review of the Book of common prayer, &c.	Baxter, Richard, 1615-1691.	1661 (1661)	Wing B1177; ESTC R34403	133,102	166

the greater number though the worse or hath secured us that they shall not be the worst or why we are not tyed rather to imitate the purer Ages then the more corrupt If it be said that the Church hath authority to command us we desire to know what Church that is and where to be sound and heard that may command England and all the Churches of his Majesties Dominions If it be said to be a General Council 1. No General Council can pretend to more Authority then that of Nice whose 20th Canon back'd with tradition and common practise now binds not us and was laid by without any Repeal by following Councils 2. We know of no such things as General Councils at least that have bound us to the religious observation of Lent The Bishops of one Empire could not make a General Council 3. Nor do we know of any such power that they have over the universal Church there being no visible Head of it or Governours to make universal Laws but Christ as Rogers on the 20th Article fore-cited shews our 21th Article saith That General Councils may not be gathered together without the Commandment and Will of Princes And doubtless all the Heathens and Mahometans and all the contending Christian Princes will never agree together nor never did to let all their Christian Subjects concur to hold a General Council It saith also And when they be gathered together for as much as they be an Assembly of men whereof all be not governed with the Spirit and Word of God they may erre and sometimes have erred even in things pertaining unto God therefore things ordained by them as necessary to salvation have neither strength nor authority unless it may be declared that they be taken out of the Holy Scriptures And if they may erre in things pertaining unto God and ordained by them as necessary to salvation much more in lesser things And are we contentious if we erre not with them Our 39 Article determineth this Controversie saying It is not necessary that Traditions and Ceremonies be in all places one or utterly like for at all times they have been divers and changed according to the diversitie of Countries times and mens manners so that nothing be ordained against Gods Word And after Every particular or National Church hath Authority to ordain change or abolish Ceremonies or Rites of the Church ordained onely by Mans Authority so that all things be done to edifying They that believe not this should not subscribe it nor require it of others As for the Testimonies cited by you they are to little purpose We deny not not that the custome of observing Lent either fewer days or more was as Ancient as those Authors But first That Lent was not known or kept in the second or third Ages you may see as followeth Tertul. de jejun l. 2. cap. 14. pleading for the Montanists Si omnem in totum devotionem temporum dierum mensium annorum erasit Apostolus cur Pascha celebramus anno circulo in mense primo cur quadraginta inde diebus in omni exulcatione deturrimus Cur stationibus quartam sextam sabbati dicamus jejuniis Parasceven quanquam vos etiam sabbatum si quando continutatis nunquam nisi in Pascha jejunandum c. And cap. 15. excusing that rigour of their Fasts quantula est apud nos interdictio ciborum duus in anno Hebdomadas xerophagiarum nec totas exceptis scilicet sabbatis dominicius offerimus Deo The old general Fast at that time was onely the voluntary unconstrained fasting on Good Friday and after that on one or two days more and then on six Irenaeus in a Fragment of an Epistle in Euseb. Hist. Lib. 5. Cap. 26. Gr. Lat. 23. saith the Controversie is not onely of the day of Easter but of the kind of Fast it self for some think they should fast one day some two others more some measure their day by forty hours of day and night and this variety of those that observe these Fasts began not now in our Age but long before us with our Ancestors who as is most like propagated to posterity the custome which they retain as brought in by a certain simplicity and private will and yet all these lived peaceably among themselves and we keep peace among our selves and the difference of Fasting is so far from violating the consonancy of Faith as that it even commendeth it Thus Irenaeus read the rest of the Chapter thus is the true reading confessed by Bellarmine Rigaltius c. and Dionys. Alexand. Ep. Can. ad Basil. pag. 881. Balsam saith Nor do all equally and alike sustain those six days of fasting but some pass them all fasting some two some three some four some more And the Catholicks in Tert de jejun cap. 2. says Itaque de caetero differentur jejunandum ex arbitrio non ex imperio novae disciplinae pro temporibus causis uniuscujusque sic Apostolos observasse nul●um aliud imponentes jugum certorum in commune omnibus obeundorum jejuniorum And Socrat. admireth at many Countries that all differed about the number of days and yet all called i● Quadrages●ma lib. 5 c. 22. Lat. Gr. 21. So Sozomen lib. 7. c. 19. Gr. Niceph. lib. 12. cap. 34. which may help you to expound Hierom and the rest cited by you as Rigaltius doth ad Tertul. de jujun 118. as shewing that they did it with respect to Christs forty days fast but not as intending any such thing themselves as any fast of forty days It is against the Montanists that the Quadrag was but once a year that Hierom useth the title of Apostolical tradition And how to expound him see Epist. ad Lucin unaqueque provincia abundet in suo sensu praecepta Majorum leges Apostolicus arbitretur But saith August ad Casulan Ep. 86. In Evangelicis Apostolicis literis totoque Instrumento quod appellatur Testamentum Novum animo id revolvens video preceptum esse jejunium quibus autem die●us non oportet jejunare quibus oport●at precepto Domini vel Apostolorum non invenio definitum And that Christians abstinence in Lent was voluntary quanto magis quisque vel minus voluerit vel potuerit August affirmeth cont Faustum Manich. lib. 30. cap. 5. And Socrat. ubi supr saith ac quoniam nemo de care praeceptum literarum monumentis proditum potest ostendere perspicuum est Apostolos liberam potestatem in eadem cujusque men●i ac arbitrio permisisse ut quisque nec metu nec necessitate inductus quod bonum sit ageret And Prosper de vit Contempl. li. 2. C. 24. veruntamen sic jejunare vel abstinere debemus ut nos non jejunandi vel destinendi necessitate subdamus ne jam devoti sed inviti rem voluntariam faciamus And Cassianus lib. 2. col 21. cap. 30. saith In primitiva Ecclesia equale fuisse jejunium per totum annum Ac

Book or to read or learn it or to beware that he add or diminish not whereas the holy Scriptures that were then given to the Church men are exhorted to read and study and mediate in and discourse of and make it their continual delight and it s a wonder that David that mentions it so oft in Psal. 119. doth never mention the Lyturgy or Common Prayer Book if they had any And that Solomon when he dedicated the house of Prayer without a Prayer Book would onely beg of God to hear what Prayers or what Supplication soever shall be made of any man or of all the People of Israel when every one shall know his own sore and his own grief and shall spread forth his hands in that house 2 Chro. 6. 29. and that he giveth no hint of any Lyturgy or Form so much as in those common Calamities and talks of no other Book then the knowledge of their own sores and their own griefs And in the Case of Psalms or singing unto God where it is certain that they had a Lyturgy or Form as we have they are carefully collected preserved and delivered to us as a choice part of the holy Scripture And would it not have been so with the Prayers or would they have been altogether numentioned if they also had been there prescribed to and used by the Church as the Psalms were would Christ and his Apostles even where they were purposely giving Rules for Prayer and correcting its abuse as Mat. 6. 1 Cor. 14 c. have never-mentioned any Forms but the Lords Prayer if they had appointed such or desired such to be imposed and observed These things are incredible to us when we most impartially consider them for our own parts as we think it uncharitable to forbid the use of Spectacles to them that have weak eyes or of Crutches to them that have weak Limbs and as uncharitable to undo all that will not use them whether they need them or not so we can think no better of them that will suffer none to use such Forms that need them or that will suffer none to pray but in the words of other mens prescribing though they are at least as able as the prescribers And to conclude we humbly crave that ancient customs may not be used against themselves and us and that you will not innovate under the shelter of the name of Antiquity Let those things be freely used among us that were so used in the purest Primitive times Let Unity and Peace be laid on nothing on which they laid them not let diversity of Lyturgy and Ceremonies be allowed where they allowed it May we but have Love and Peace on the Terms as the Ancient Church enjoyed them we shall then hope we may yet escape the hands of uncharitable destroying zeal we therefore humbly recommend to your observation the Concurrent testimony of the best Histories of the Church concerning the diversity of Lyturgy Ceremonies and modal observances in the several Churches under one and the same civil Government and how they then took it to be their duty to forbear each other in these matters and how they made them not the test of their Communion or Center of their peace concerning the Observation of Easter it self when other Holy-days and Ceremonies were urged were less stood upon you have the judgement of Irenaeus and the French Bishops in whose name he wrote in Eusob. Hist. Eccl. l. 5. 6. 23. Where they reprehend Victor for breaking peace with the Churches that differed about the day and the antecedent time of Fasting and tell him that the variety began before their times when yet they nevertheless retained Peace and yet retain it and the discord in their Fasting declared or commended the concord of their Faith that no man was rejected from Communion by Victors Predecessors on that account but they gave them the Sacrament and maintained Peace with them and particularly Policarp and Anicetus held Communion in the Eucharist notwithstanding this difference Basil Epist. 63. doth plead his cause with the Presbyters and whole Clergy of Neocesarea that were offended at his new Psalmodi● and his new order of Monasticks but he onely defendeth himself and urgeth none of them to imitate him but telleth him also of the novelty of their own Lyturgy that it was not known in the time of their own late renowned Bishop Greg. Thaumaturgus telling them that they had kept nothing unchanged to that day of all that he was used to so great alte●ations in 40. years were made in the same Congregation and he professeth to pardon all such things so be it the principal things be kept safe Socr. Hist. Ec. l. 51. c. 21. about the Easter difference saith that neither the Apostles nor the Gospel do impose a yoke of bondage on those that betake themselves to the Doctrine of Christ but left the Feast of Easter and other Festivals to the observation of the free and equal Judgement of them that had received the benefits And therefore because men use to keep some Festivals for the relaxing themselves from labours several Persons in several places do celebrate of custom the memorial of Christs Passion Arbitrarily or at their own choice For neither our Saviour nor the Apostles commanded the keeping of them by any Law nor threaten any mulct or penalty c. It was the purpose of the Apostles not to make Laws for the keeping of Festivals but to be Authors to us of the reason of right living and of Piety And having shewed that it came up by private custom and not by Law and having cited Irenaeus as before he addeth that those that agree in the same Faith do differ in point of Rites and Ceremonies and instancing in divers he concludeth that because no man can shew in the monuments of writings any command concerning this it is plain that the Apostles herein permitted free Power to every ones mind and will that every man might do that which was good without being induced by fear or by necessity And having spoken of the diversity of customs about the Assemblies Marriage Baptism c. He tells us that even among the Novatians themselves there is a diversity in their manner of their praying and that among all the Forms of Religions and parties you can no where find two that consent among themselves in the manner of their praying And repeating the decree of the Holy Ghost Act. 15. To impose no other burden but things necessary he reprehendeth them that neglecting this will take fornication as a thing indifferent but strive about Festivals as it were a matter of life overturning Gods Laws and making Laws to themselves And Sozomen Hist. Eccl. l. c. 18. and 19. speaketh to the same purpose and tells us that the Novatians themselves determined in a Synod at Sangar in Bythinia that the differenoe about Easter being not a sufficient cause for breach of Communion all should abide in the same concord and in the same