Selected quad for the lemma: doctrine_n
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A27392
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An answer to the dissenters pleas for separation, or, An abridgment of the London cases wherein the substance of those books is digested into one short and plain discourse.
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Bennet, Thomas, 1673-1728.
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1700
(1700)
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Wing B1888; ESTC R16887
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202,270
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335
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Edification Nor do's our Church impose them like the Church of Rome as necessary and as parts of Religion but as merely indifferent and changeable things As for our Penances 't is needless to shew that they are not cruel like those of Rome 3. The Church of Rome subjects her Members by several of her Doctrines to enslaving passions For instance Purgatory subjects them to fear and auricular confession to shame and the dependence of the efficacy of the Sacraments upon the Priest's intention exposes them to great anxiety But our Church rejects the Doctrines of Purgatory and the dependence of the efficacy of the Sacraments upon the Priest's intention and do's not oblige her Members to Confess their sins to Men but when for the relief of their Consciences or making satisfaction c. it is their duty so to do 4. The Church of Rome maintains Licentious Principles and Practices which our Adversaries cannot charge upon the Church of England Secondly In all those Doctrines and Practices in which the Church of Rome is justly charg'd with plainly contradicting the Scripture For instance our Church rejects and utterly abhors the Popish Doctrines and Practices of Image-worship invocation of Saints Transubstantiation Pardons Indulgences Sacrifice of the Mass denying the Bible to the Vulgar Prayers and Sacraments in an unknown Tongue robbing the Laity of the Cup in the Lord's Supper prohibiting Marriage to Priests Merit Superogation making simple Fornication a mere venial sin damning all that are not of her Communion c. Nor is there any Church that more severely condemns all instances of unrighteousness and immorality than the Church of England do's Thirdly In their public Prayers and Offices To shew this in all particulars wou'd be a tedious task therefore I shall instance only in the office of Infant-Baptism by which the Reader may judge of the rest Before they go into the Church after many preparatory prescriptions the Priest being drest in a Surplice and purple Robe calls the Infant saying what askest thou c. the Godfather answers Faith P. What shalt thou get by Faith G. Eternal Life P. If thou therefore c. Then the Priest blows three gentle puffs upon the Infant 's face and saies Go out of him O unclean Spirit c. Then Crossing the Infant 's Forehead and Breast he saith Receive the sign of the Cross c. Then he praies that God wou'd alwaies c. And after a long Prayer the Priest laying his Hand on the Infant 's Head comes the idle and profane Form of the Benediction of Salt viz. I conjure thee O creature of Salt in the Name c. with many Crossings Then he puts a little Salt into the Infant 's mouth saying Take thou the Salt of Wisdom and adds most impiously be it thy Propitiation unto Eternal Life After the Pax tecum he praies that this Infant c. Then the Devil is conjur'd again and most wofully be-call'd Then the Priest Crosses the Infant 's Forehead saying And this sign c. Then he puts his Hand on the Infant 's Head and puts up a very good Prayer Then he puts part of his Robe upon the Infant and brings him within the Church saying Enter thou c. Then follow the Apostles Creed and the Paternoster Then the Devil is conjur'd again and the Priest takes spittle out of his mouth and therewith touches the Infant 's Ears and Nostrils saying c. Then he conjures the Devil again saying Be packing O Devil c. Then he asks the Infant whether he renounces the Devil c. Then dipping his Thumb in Holy Oyl and anointing the Infant with it in his Breast and betwixt his shoulders he saies I anoint thee c. Then he puts off his Purple Robe and puts on another of White colour and having ask'd four more questions and receiv'd the answers he pours water thrice upon the Child's Head as he recites over it our Saviour's Form of Baptism Then dipping his Thumb in the Chrism or Holy Ointment he anoints the Infant upon the Crown of his Head in the figure of a Cross and praies O God Omnipotent c. Afterwards he takes a white linnen cloth and putting it on the Child's Head saies Take the white garment c. Lastly he puts into the Child's or his God-Father's Hand a lighted Candle saying Receive the burning Lamp c. Besides those things which are in the Common Ritual there are divers others added in the Pastorale which I shall not mention And now if any Man will read our Office of Baptism he will acknowledge that no two things can be more unlike than these two Offices are Our Litany indeed has been Condemn'd by Dissenters as savouring of Popish Superstition but nothing is more false if a Man compares it with the Popish one the greater part of which consists in invocations of Saints and Angels But the Brevity I am confin'd to in this Discourse will not permit me to abide any longer upon this Argument Fourthly In the Books they receive for Canonical For the Church of Rome takes all the Apocryphal Books into the Canon but the Church of England takes only those which the Primitive Church and all Protestants acknowledge 'T is true she reads some part of the Apocryphal Books for instruction of manners but she do's not establish any Doctrine by them Fifthly and Lastly in the Authority on which they found their whole Religion The Church of Rome founds the Authority of the Scriptures upon her own infallibility and the Authority of many of her own Doctrines on unwritten traditions and the Decrees of her Councils which she will have to be no less inspir'd than the Prophets and Apostles but the Church of England builds her whole Religion upon Scripture which is her rule of Faith and Practice She Reverences ancient general Councils but do's not think them infallible And as for that Authority which our Church claims in Controversies of Faith by requiring subscription to 39 Articles 't is plain that she means no more Authority than to oblige her Members to outward submission when her decisions do not contradict any essentials of Faith or Manners but not an authority to oblige Men to believe them infallibly true and this is necessary for the Peace of any Church 'T is true she thinks it convenient that none should receive Orders be admitted to Benefices c. but such as do believe them not all as Articles of our Faith but many as inferiour truths and she requires Subscription as a Test of this belief but the Church of Rome requires all Persons under pain of damnation to believe all her false and wicked Doctrines as much as the most undoubted Articles of Faith as may be seen in the Creed of Pius the fourth As to the Motives which our Church proposes for our belief of the Doctrine of the Holy Scriptures they are such as are found in the Scriptures themselves viz. the excellency of them and the Miracles which confirm them
and as to the truth of the Matters of fact she places it not in the testimony of any particular Church but in the Vniversal Tradition of Jews and Pagans as well as of all Christians II. I am to shew that a Church's symbolizing or agreeing in some things with the Church of Rome is no warrant for separation from the Church so agreeing The Dissenters tell us that those things which are indifferent in their own nature do cease to be indifferent and become sinful if they have been us'd by the Church of Rome For say they we read Lev. 18.2 After the doings of the Land of Egypt wherein ye dwell shall ye not do and after the doings of the Land of Canaan whither I bring you shall ye not do neither shall ye walk in their Ordinances Now not to insist on the vast difference of our circumstances from those of the Israelites I answer that it is an absurd thing to imagin that the Israelites were so bound up by God as to be obliged to be unlike those People in all their actions The things forbidden from verse 5 th to 24 th are not Indifferent but Incestuous Copulations and acts of uncleaness and God do's expresly enough restrain that general Prohibition to those particulars in saying v. 24 th Defile not your selves in any part of these things for in all these the Nations are defil'd which I cast out before you And they were therefore forbidden under the notion of things done after the doings of the Egyptians and the Canaanites because they were the doings of those People whom they were exceedingly prone to imitate even in their greatest immoralities If it be said that in other places God forbids the Israelites to imitate the Heathens in things of an indifferent nature I answer 1. That supposing this were so it do's not from thence follow that God intended to forbid such imitations in this place the contrary being so manifest as we have seen But 2. That God has any where prohibited the Israelites to symbolize with Heathens in things of a mere indifferent and innocent nature I mean that he has made it unlawful for them to observe any such Customs of the Heathens merely upon the account of their being like them is a very great mistake Which will appear by considering those places which are produced for it One is Deut. 14.2 You shall not cut your selves nor make any baldness between your Eyes for the dead Now as to the former of these prohibited things who sees not that 't is unnatural and therefore not indifferent And as to the latter viz. the disfiguring of themselves by cutting off their Eye-brows this was not merely indifferent neither it being a Custom at Funerals misbecoming the People of God and which wou'd make them look as if they sorrow'd for the Dead as Men without Hope Another place is Lev. 19.19 Thou shalt not let thy Cattel gender with a diverse Kind thou shalt not sow thy Ground with mingled Seed nor shall a garment of linnen and woollen come upon thee But I answer that tho' these things are indeed indifferent in their own nature yet they are forbidden not because the Heathens us'd them but because they were mystical instructions in moral duties If it be objected also that God forbad the Jews Hos 2.16 17. to call him by the Name of Baali which was a very good Name and signify'd only My Lord because that word was abus'd in being the name of the Idol Baal I answer that God did not forbid the Name Baali because an Idol was call'd by that Name for he is call'd Baal in other places of the Hebrew Bible and also Jah which the Heathens us'd for an Idol but because the word Baali signifies an unkind husband or Lord such as Baal was to his worshippers whereas God Promises he wou'd be call'd Ishi that is a tenderly-loving husband for he design'd to be kind to his People Israel I shall add that Baalim in the next verse signifies Idols which God there Promises to destroy But suppose that God forbad the Jews to call him Baal for the future yet it might be because of their vehement inclination to the worship of Baal lest by using it they shou'd be tempted to worship him again whereas our Ceremonies were us'd by the ancient Fathers without any Superstition or Idolatry and we are not in danger of returning to Popery by retaining them Well but they say it appears from Scripture-precepts and examples that it is unlawful to symbolize with the Church of Rome in things that have been notoriously abus'd in Idolatrous and grosly Superstitious Services To this I answer First that it is not sinful to use those things which have been abus'd to Idolatry as I shall prove by these following Arguments 1. No abuse of any Gesture tho' it be in the most manifest Idolatry doth render that Gesture simply evil and for ever after unlawful to be us'd in the Worship of God upon that account For the abuse of a thing supposes the lawful use of it and if any thing otherwise lawful becomes sinful by an abuse of it then it 's plain that it is not in it's own nature sinful but by accident and with respect to somewhat else This is clear from Scripture for if Rites and Ceremonies after they have been abus'd by Idolaters become absolutely evil and unlawful to be us'd at all then the Jews sinn'd in offering Sacrifice erecting Altars burning Incense to the God of Heaven bowing down themselves before him wearing a Linnen Garment in the time of Divine Worship and observing other Things and Rites which the Heathens observ'd in the worship of their false gods If the Dissenters say they except all such Rites as were commanded or approv'd of by God I reply that such an exception avails nothing For if the abuse of a thing to Idolatry makes it absolutely sinful and unlawful to be us'd at all then it 's impossible to destroy that Relation and what has been once abus'd must ever remain so that is an infinite Power can't undo what has been done and clear it from ever having been abus'd And therefore I conclude from the Command and Approbation of God that a bare conformity with Idolaters in using those Rites in the Worship of the true God which they practise in the worship of Idols is not simply sinful or formal Idolatry For if it be God had obliged the Children of Israel by his express Command to commit sin and to do what he strictly and severely prohibited in other places In truth such a Position wou'd plainly make God the Author of sin 2. This principle intrenches upon Christian liberty if St. Paul himself may judge who tells us 1 Cor. 10.25 c. that to the pure all things are pure and affirms it lawful to eat of such things as had been offer'd up in Sacrifice to Idols and to eat whatsoever was sold in the Shambles And what reason is there why a Gesture