Selected quad for the lemma: doctrine_n
Text snippets containing the quad
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A81282
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The case of peoples duty in living under a scandalous minister, stated and resolved
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1684
(1684)
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Wing C965; ESTC R229514
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12,032
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23
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the Holy Apostle Heb. 13.17 Obey them that have the Rule over you and submit your selves for they watch for your Souls as they that must give account that they may do it with joy and not with grief for that is unprofitable for you So also 1 Thess 5.12 13. And we beseech you Brethren to know them which labour among you and are over you in the Lord and admonish you and to esteem them very highly for their work sake Again 1 Tim. 5.17 Let the Elders that rule well be counted worthy of double Honour especially they who labour in the Word and Doctrine But if ill honour them nevertheless as Rulers not only in point of Maintenance but Esteem for so I conceive we may infer from the Text. Honour them for Gods sake as set over you in the Lord for their Work sake as Watching for your Souls for their Character sake as Elders and Rulers for their Doom sake that they may be able to make their Account with joy and not with grief and for your own sake lest the contrary Practice be unprofitable for you For the Ordinances are Gods their Efficacy is from God and your Service herein is done to God on purpose to confound all glorying in Man St. Paul speaks of some that preached Christ out of envy with purpose to add Affliction to his bonds Phil. 1.15 16 17 c. who therefore must certainly be very bad men yet since Christ was preached he therein did rejoyce yea and would rejoyce You do not think that the Morning and Evening Sacrifices under the Law were to be neglected because of the sinfulness of Elies Sons or that their wickedness gave warrant to the people to abhor the Offerings of the Lord. St. Paul taxeth the Corinthians for manifold Enormities and Sins in the receiving of the Lords Supper And it is not unlikely but the Ministers might share too much with the People in those failings which were so prevailing and general yet all his Arguments tend to the better qualifying themselves to become more worthy Receivers but by no means in the least to the exempting them from that most necessary and most indispensible Duty I know you will say you plead not to be excused from the Ordinances but only for a liberty to hear some body else But then Sir what becomes of that mutual Relation betwixt a Pastor and his People and of that mutual Obligation of Duty of each towards other How shall they hear without a Preacher saith St. Paul And how shall they preach without Hearers say I. But you will again say That some body will hear him if you do not to which I reply If your Principle be good and true they ought not and if the rest follow your Example who are a leading Man in the Parish they will not Whence it follows that the People are at liberty to go to whom and where they list while the same Man as you and I have known shall leave the Church of England to go to the Presbyterians from thence to the Independants thence to the Anabaptists next to the Quakers and at last cast off all regard to the Worship of God So true is that saying That Toleration in one Age is Atheism in the next if not in the very same or that That the first step to Apostacy is the forsaking of Publick Assemblies Considering all which I am confident all the worst of Inconveniences from a Minister that is a bad Liver and yet teacheth well are not worthy to be put in the Ballance with those sad and dismal ones above-named to which more might be added But Sir I am further to beseech you to weigh seriously and without prejudice these following Considerations with respect to the publick as well as to your self 1. That upon this very same Principle that you think of leaving your Pastor upon and his Communion viz. Because he is a wicked sinful Liver did Donatus found that lamentable and woful Schism which did create so much disturbance and misery to the Church of Christ in St. Augustine's time and a long time after I had almost said ever since And as it began in a sad Schism and was accompanied with manifold grievous Heresies in the Church so it went on with Commotions and Rebellions in the State Donatus and his Faction as they grew in power denying Obedience and Conformity to the Publick Laws upon the account that they were made and administred by wicked Men. I would undertake for the truth of this sad Example in each particular if I thought that you either knew it not or were so hardy as to deny it But we need not look back so far for it was this very Principle which first set on foot and after brought to pass those Barbarities Outrages and bloody Executions in Germany of later days And in truth that Doctrine which blew the Trumpet to our lamentable and unhappy Commotions here in England both in Church and State For First they began as you well know to traduce the Bishops and whole Clergy as most sinful and wicked Men calling them Idol Idle Shepherds dumb Dogs swearing drunken unclean Priests Incaruate Devils Cogging Cozening Knaves Desperate formal Atheists Robbers Wolves c. for the sad Truth of all which with a great deal more I need only to turn you to their publick Sermons Libels and Centuries which are now in Print and some of which even the most invective have been lately re-printed Next for the good King and his Government in the State His Sacred Majesty King Charles the First was so sensible of the like hard Speeches and Prints as he himself saith The worst Effects of open Hostility came short of those designs for I can more willingly lose my Crown than my Credit nor are my Kingdoms so dear to me as my Reputation and Honour Again These soul and false Aspersions were secret Engines at first employed against my peoples love of me that undermining their Opininion and Value of me my Enemies and theirs too might at once blow up their Affections and batter their Loyalty Thus this Principle hatched up the Covenant for Reformation and more pure Religion as was pretended and that fed and maintained that long and bloody Civil War which ended in the Ruin of King and Laws Religion and Church for a time I had not revived the memory of these said Truths had it not been necessary to shew you what bad use designing Men make of this bad Principle how under the appearance of Zeal against Sin and Jealousie for God and his Glory it carries them to all violation of Sacred Duty and exposeth all Persons and Things that are Sacred to all sorts of most ungodly Outrages and Villanies so easie a thing is it to find faults and make Offenders when partiality and prejudice come to sit upon the Bench God help the Innocent Donatus and his Party after his Example refused Communion with Caecilianus then Bishop of Carthage because he was as they said
THE CASE OF Peoples Duty In Living Under A Scandalous Minister STATED and RESOLVED LONDON Printed for Sam. Tidmarsh at the Kings-Head in Cornhill near the Royal Exchange 1684. THE CASE OF Peoples Duty In Living Under A Scandalous Minister Honoured Sir I Must needs acknowledge that Yours is indeed a most sweet and pleasant Seat but there is this inward allay as you say to that outward Felicity that your lot is cast under a Scandalous Minister your Light is Darkness your Salt hath lost its Savour and your Tree of Life is guarded as you complain by an evil Angel And now what course is to be taken What must you do for your Souls health This makes your dwelling Meshec and your otherwise most delightful Habitation as among the Tents of Kedar I could heartily wish you had asked my Opinion in a more pleasing Subject and that you had commanded me to speak in a Cause wherein I might have more hopes of being heard instead of this which is surrounded with almost invincible prejudices However to comply with your importunity I shall make bold to offer some few things in Answer to the Question propounded by you 1. If his Life be Notorious make it yet more so by complaint let his Diocesan know it and see to it that the Church Censures pass upon him The Laws are not so weak nor yet their Administration so remiss but they will ease you and themselves of such a rotten Member they will with-draw the fewel to his exorbitances by suspending the Profits and disable him from all publick taking Gods Word into his mouth who hateth to be reform'd by suspension from his Office Nor need you be afraid of so doing for all good Men will approve and applaud this your most Pious Zeal they will thank and not upbraid you for it and will even concur with you in the doing of it Whereas it is on the other hand a great failing that all the Neighbourhood almost will agree to tell the story of such a Ministers miscarriages and sins to one another and indeed in all Companies but few or none have the courage or faithfulness to report it to such as may and would remedy it What shall they become Informers As if that were a worse name then Whisperers or Backbiters Shall they peal upon their Ministers Yes certainly this would be the greater Charity yea this might prove a Charity indeed for this might wound his Soul in order to his cure while the other only wounds his good Name incurably this may be a means to Reform him whilst the other serves only to blast his Reputation and perhaps hardens him in his sin this Answers all the ends of Discipline and roles the guilt from your selves and the Church whilst the other doth but gratifie some naughty vile affection in your selves and ethers In a word this makes for the glory of God the other only to your Ministers defamation and discredit Provided your Proof be plain and there appear no Design but what is good and honest at the bottom I dare say that such as preside in the Government will both right and thank you 2. But if your Ministers failings be only now and then a being meerly over-taken with a fault and comes under the head of sins of infirmity methinks love might cover them and a spirit of meekness might by degrees cure them soft Words might melt his heart and good Exhortations proceeding from sincere and unfeigned affection joyned with your own pregnant Example might gain him to God and make him your Convert instead of your becoming his Are we commanded to exercise this point of Charity to every Brother and not to our Minister Or do we judge or conclude him less sensible of our affection and tenderness than a rude and illiterate Neighbour Or is he the only Man in all the Parish to be despaired of whom no sweetness can oblige and no warnings work upon Sir Give me leave to tell you that till this like method be essayed and that more than once or twice to win him you have not discharged your Duty to God or to him Perhaps he is not so bad as he is painted report may have wronged him you know this Age is easie to believe any thing that makes against the Ministry in general some study to find or to makes faults where indeed there are none others lay Temptations in their way purposely to make them fall thinking by becoming privy to their failings to make them fear to have the greater awe upon them or to render them more plaint to all their politick secular Ends and Designs at least to justifie their own sins by making them of the Company or to silence the noise of their own guilty Consciences and salve their crazed Reputations by appearing zealous for God and Goodness in crying as loud as they can against them Besides Ministers tell the People of their faults and it is a kind of pleasing revenge to some to find fault with them again Nor must I forget their taking Tyth which you know in this Sacrilegious Age is a most unpardonable crime and a scandal sufficient that a Minister is a Gentleman and Rich that he behaves himself like a Man and will not disfigure his face or effeminate his voice to humor a Party who though they spoke a Minister never so holy and never so powerful both in Life and Doctrine before yet he forfeits all by keeping a Coach or being made a Bishop which by the way is a strange confutation of that so much approved Doctrine of never falling from grace These Sir are some of your own Observations in Discourse betwixt you and I and how often have I heard you say what Notice you have taken of some chief and leading Men in their Countrey who have seemed never more delighted at Market or such like publick Meetings then when they have fallen upon the Subject of reviling the Ministry That Man being always the most welcome Companion who could expose any of them most Remember I beseech you with what regret you have bewailed this thing to me as a most unchristian and unseemly Behaviour as an infallible sign of a most ulcerated rotten heart and the effects of direct direful Atheism void of all regard to God whose Ministers they are and void of common Civility or Christian Charity which should teach them to hide rather than with Solomons Character of a Fool to make a mock of sin I am fuily confident God will one day judge these jolly Men in earnest for all that pastime they make of their poor Ministers infirmities which are indeed rather matters of Humiliation and Mourning to Men who are any whit under the sense and power of sincere godliness I had not called these Passages to your memory at this present was it not that I am exceeding jealous for you lest any Practices of yours should give any countenance or encouragement to such as set themselves thus in the seat of the