Selected quad for the lemma: doctrine_n
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A30985
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Several miscellaneous and weighty cases of conscience learnedly and judiciously resolved / by the Right Reverend Father in God, Dr. Thomas Barlow ...
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Barlow, Thomas, 1607-1691.
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1692
(1692)
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Wing B843; ESTC R21506
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129,842
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472
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declared both by our Church and State For 1. Our Church has declared her Judgment that all Images are not absolutely unlawful or simply forbidden in the New Testament but only some in some Places and Circumstances when they may especially to poor ignorant People be dangerous Occasions of Superstition and Idolatry and more expresly a little after the Words are these We are not so scrupulous as to abhor Flowers wrought in Carpets Hangings Arras c. or Images of Princes on their Coin nor do we condemn the Art of Painting or Image-making c. Whence it is evident that our Church is neither against the Art of Painting nor any Civil Use of Images 2. Our State has by express Act of Parliament declared even in the time of our Reformation That they did not condemn any Civil Use of Images For even in that Statute in which they severely condemn and command the defacing Images in Churches they have this Proviso Provided always That this Act shall not extend to any Images or Pictures set or engraven on any Tomb in any Church Chappel or Church-Yard only for a Monument of any King Prince Noble Man or any other dead Person which hath not commonly been reputed for a Saint but that all such Images may continue Whence it is evident that our Church at the Reformation did not condemn any Civil Use of Images no not in sacred Places as Church-Yards Chappels or Churches much less in other Places And that we may more distinctly know what Images they condemn'd and why they would not tolerate them in Churches It is further to be considered 1. That the Church of England absolutely condemns all Images of the Trinity or any Person in it Father Son or Holy Ghost as absolutely unlawful and expresly condemned in Scripture Such Images are not to be tolerated neither in nor out of Churches 2. No Images of our Blessed Saviour of any Saints and Martyrs which with stupid Superstition and Idolatry have been and still are worshipped in the Popish Church are in the Judgment of our Church to be tolerated in our Temples or any Place of God's publick Worship For if they be it will be to the great and unavoidable danger of Idolatry This I conceive is the approved and received Doctrine of the Church of England and that it may more plainly and distinctly appear to be so I shall cite the Judgment of our Church and her Reasons for it in her own express Words and amongst other things too many to be transcrib'd she plainly tells us 1. That it is an ungodly thing to set up Images or Idols which in her Judgment signify the same thing in our Churches because it may give a great occasion of worshipping them 2. That Images in Churches painted on Clothes or Walls are unlawful and contrary to Christian Religion 3. That setting up Images in Churches is to the great and unavoidable danger of Idolatry and that the Law of God is against it 4. That the setting up the Image of God of our Blessed Saviour or any Saints is not tolerable in Churches but against God's Law 5. Wo be to the setters up and maintainers of Images in Churches 6. It is not possible if Images be in Churches to avoid Idolatry 7. Images of God our Blessed Saviour and the holiest Saints are of all others the most dangerous to be in Churches 8. Images in Churches are a Snare and tempting of God to the great danger and destruction of many 9. That Images in Churches in the Judgment of the Prophet and Apostle are only Teachers of Lies 10. God's horrible Wrath cannot be avoided without utter abolishing Images in Churches This is evidently the express Doctrine of our Homilies which absolutely condemns not only the worshipping but having Images in our Churches And it is no less evident that the Homilies and the Doctrine contained in them are both approved received and established by the Supreme Authority of our Church and State Canons of Convocation and Acts of Parliament This will appear 1. By the Testimony of King James who commends the diligent reading of our Articles and Homilies set forth by the Authority of the Church of England 2. By the Convocation of Q. Elizabeth the Supreme Ecclesiastical Power which expresly and particularly names and approves all our Homilies and declares the Doctrine contained in them to be a godly Doctrine as appears by the Articles of our Church composed and published in that Convocation 3. By the Convocation I Jacobi For as the Article last named declares our Homilies to contain a godly Doctrine so the Convocation of King James declares all things contained in that Article to be agreeable to the Word of God 4. All the Clergy of England all Graduates in the Universities all Chancellors Commissaries and Officials before they exercise any Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction are willingly and ex animo to assent consent approve and subscribe these Articles and this Doctrine and that absolutely without any Glosses or Senses of their own 5. And these Subscriptions are required and so the Doctrine subscribed to confirm'd by several Acts of Parliament 6. And if any impugn this Doctrine so declar'd and establish'd by the Supreme Power or maintain any Doctrine contrary or repugnant to it he is by our Canons to be excommunicated ipso facto and by the Statute if he be a beneficed Clergyman deprived The Premisses being certain and evident Truths the natural and necessary Consequences which follow from them to omit others will be these 1. That neither the Deputy-Chancellor of Lincoln nor any inferiour Court has or can have any just Authority or Power to approve and authorize the setting up of such Images in the Church which by the Supreme Power Ecclesiastical and Civil in Convocation and Parliament is expresly condemn'd as altogether unlawful and to the poor ignorant People pernicious 2. That they who maintain and encourage this Doctrine of setting up Images in our Churches if they persist in it are by our known Laws now in Force to be excommunicated ipso facto and if they be beneficed Clergy-men to be deprived Viderint quorum interest 3. And if any Ecclesiastical Judg or Court quod absit should approve authorize or encourage the setting up of such Images in our Churches it evidently follows from the Premisses that in so doing they approve and authorize that which the Church of England has publickly declared to be dangerous against the Law of God against Christian Religion and to many pernicious And therefore we have reason to believe that no good Son of the Church of England will approve authorize or encourage that which his Holy Mother has so absolutely and publickly condemned A Friend of the late Bishop of Lincoln's observing how customary it is to Protestant Writers to charge on the Papists the Tenet of Dominium fundatur in
2. This I conceive to be a manifest Mistake for it will evidently and undeniably follow God permitted Vsury and Polygamy and marrying a Sister to the Jews by a positive Law therefore neither of them is or can be against the Law of Nature it being a demonstrative Truth and generally confessed by the best Lawyers School-men and Casuists That God never did nor manente naturâ humanâeadem could dispense with the Law of Nature So that I think that Assertion of Grotius and many before him to be a certain Truth That nothing was permitted to the Jews in the Old Testament which was against the Law of Nature nor should any such Sins be tolerated now 2. The Second sort of Sins are such as are against some positive Law of God and of such the Jews must needs be guilty I mean such of them and only such to whom the Gospel has been sufficiently reveal'd as denying the blessed Trinity and the whole Gospel of Jesus Christ That I may not be mistaken in this Assertion I say 1. That sufficient Promulgation is absolutely necessary to the Obligation of any positive Law of God or Man Humane or Divine it being morally impossible that any Man should be bound to obey the Laws of any Authority till it be sufficiently evidenced to him that indeed they are the Laws of such Authority 2. If then there be any Jews in any part of the World as I doubt not but there may be many to whom the Gospel or any part of it is not sufficiently revealed then I dare pronounce them innocently ignorant of all or so much of the Gospel as hath not been sufficiently discovered to them and Christians guilty who have taken no more Care and Pains to discover that Truth to others of which they were abundantly convinced themselves And upon this ground I think that there lies a sacred and heavy Obligation upon Christians as being bound to seek the Glory of God the Propagation of the Gospel and the Conversion and Salvation of their Brethren to endeavour the Conversion of the Jews which certainly cannot be by banishing them from all Christian Common-wealths And therefore they must either go to the Jews or bring the Jews to them that so they may win them to Christ by the Innocence of their Lives and the Truth and Evidence of their Doctrine Now these two are both one as to our present Case and Purpose for certainly if it be lawful for us to go and live amongst the Jews to Preach the Gospel then it will be as lawful to bring them hither and let them live amongst us to the same Purpose And so the bringing in of the Jews will not be so irrational a thing as some phansie for 't is no more very strongly and would make the World believe their Readmission to be guilty of I know not what Iniquity Dub. But it may and may be will be said That the whole Gospel was sufficiently promulgated by our Saviour and his Apostles that their Preaching and innocent Life and prodigious Miracles done in Confirmation of it and the Obsignation of it by our blessed Saviours Death and Resurrection were Evidences enough that it was a divine Law and therefore obligatory both to them that heard it and their Posterity so that it needed no more Promulgation but is still obligatory by the Force of the First as Moses his Law being once miraculously promulged in Mount Sina brought an Obligation on those that heard it and all their Posterity Sol. To this I say that 't is a manifest and certain Truth That the Publication of the Gospel by our Saviour and his Apostles was a Promulgation of it abundantly sufficient to all those who heard and saw those divine Persons their Preaching and Miracles I say personally to them and properly per se to none else unless 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as the Greek Scholia tell us by the Tradition and constant and faithful Testimony of those Eye-witnesses it had been carefully delivered down to Posterity For suppose which is not impossible that all those who heard our Saviour's and his Apostles Doctrine and saw their Miracles had concealed them from their Posterity so that they had never heard any thing of them Then I say their 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and Descendents who neither heard the Doctrine nor personnally saw the Miracles nor had them any way delivered to them by the Tradition or Testimony of their forefathers were no way obliged to believe any Gospel-Law as never having any such Law sufficiently promulged and made known unto them without which it was impossible they should know those Laws and by consequent impossible they should be obliged by them So that it is not the first miraculous Promulgation of the Gospel which does per se and of its own Nature oblige us to Faith and Evangelical Obedience but the Continuation of it down to us by the Tradition and constant concurring and faithful Testimony of those that were Eye-witnesses and those that followed them And if through the impiety or negligence of this or any other Age this Continuation of the First Promulgation should cease then the Obligation to believe the Gospel would cease also as to our Posterity unless it ceased by their Fault or were otherwise made sufficiently known unto them Whence also it follows that the Sin and Infidelity of those Jews who saw Christ's Miracles is far greater as being against such demonstrative Evidences of Truth then the Infidelity of the present Jews whose Evidences for Conviction though enough are much lesser and by Consequent their Infidelity not so great And hence it further follows evidently enough that seeing the Apostles themselves held Correspondence and had Communion and civil Conversation with those Jews whose Obstinacy and Infidelity was far greater as standing in Contradiction to all those miraculous Works and divine Testifications of Evangelical Truth certainly we may have our Conversation and civil Communion amongst those Jews whose Obstinacy and Infidelity though great enough is far less And then it will be manifest that their Readmission into our Christian Common-wealth with those bounds and limitations which we believe and hope the Piety and Prudence of the State will put upon them is not in it self unlawful Quod er at dicendum I have stood the longer upon this Discourse because I believe that from these and such like Principles an evident and fundamental Reason may be given why Sinners against the Law of Scripture and positive Evangelical Sanctions may be tollerated in a Christian Common-wealth when Sinners against the Law of Nature are not nor indeed can be Quaere Let the Query then be this Why may a Christian Magistrate tolerate Sins and Sinners against the positive Law of the Gospel and not against the Law of Nature Sol. In answer to which Query I shall crave leave to say Two Things 1. De facto That it ever hath been so in all Ages of the Church all Christian Kings and