Selected quad for the lemma: england_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
england_n	according_a	church_n	doctrine_n	4,717	5	6.8021	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A31349	Catholicon, the expediency of an explicit stipulation betwixt the parochial ministers and their congregations, or, An essay to prove that the intervention of solemn mutual promises betwixt the parochial ministers and their people (faithfully to discharge their relative duties to one another) would be useful and expedient for these ends to promote in clergy-men regularity of life, and diligence in their ministerial function, to increase in the lay parishioners, Christian knowledge, sincere godliness, with a free and friendly conversation, to give a stop to separation, and reduct dissenters to the communion of the church without using secular compulsion, to secure the peace of the nation, to inlarge trade, and make provision for the poor, and that all may be effected without the least innovation, or alteration of the present legal establishment of the Church of England humbly tendred to the consideration of all English Protestants / by a parochial minister.	Parochial minister.	1674 (1674)	Wing C1498; ESTC R17127	21,417	32

by the Spirit of God who alone gives the increase whoever endeavours to plant or water be Conversion Multitudes to the praise of the Glory of the Grace of God have been and are daily Converted by the Ministry of the Church of England But yet I apprehend and shall endeavour to make it good in this present Essay that not only the more immediate ends of the Ministry would probably be more effectually promoted by such an explicit Confeederation intervening betwixt the Parochial Ministers and their people but many other appendant advantages would thence refult to the whole body of the Nation as I have insinuated in my Title-page I presume that all knowing Christians will grant that the ends wherefore Christ by his Apostles did institute Ministers in the Churches I mean amongst persons already converted to the faith were at least these following That they might watch over the souls of their flocks that they might administer to them the Word and Sacraments that they might in the name of their people assembled with them and with the concurrence of their peoples hearts and mouths also at least in saying Amen offer up Confession of Sins Prayers Praises and Thanksgivings in the publick Assemblies That they might Instruct Admonish Reprove and Comfort their People as their condition should require and that not only in publick Preaching and Catechising but in Personal Conference and by teaching from House to House That they might visit the Sick and promote the due relief and maintenance of the Poor of the Flock That they might baptize the Children of Believers and Adult Persons duly qualified and that they might receive to the full Communion of the Church in the Eucharist such Minor Members as being baptized in their Infancy are grown up to a due measure of the knowledge of God and Christ and his Gospel and are of unblameable lives and do make solemn profession to stand to their vow made in Baptism That all these are duties incumbent upon Ministers even under the Parochial Form I hope will be granted and shall not trouble my Reader with a proof of them till they are contradicted And that no Law of the Land or Ecclesiastical Constitution restrains any Parochial Minister from the faithful discharge of all those duties is undeniably evident in that those Laws confirm to Ministers their setled Maintenance for this very cause that they might be encouraged to be faithful in the service of God and of his Church in the premised duties And it is evident also that the most Reverend Fathers of the Church the Bishops would not only encourage Ministers to be faithful herein as some of us have found by address to our pious and learned Diocesans but that they would also rejoyce over such diligent and faithful Ministers and thank God for them and make mention of them in their prayers without ceasing So that upon an impartial search I believe it will be found that one of the chiefest reasons why this work is not done more effectually is to be laid to the charge of Parochial Ministers and their People And the greatest hindrance of them in doing mutually their duties herein will I presume be found to be this Because Ministers enter upon their charge with so little of solemnity and without such particular application to the people at their entrance as might advantage them in their future work For if we consult common experience we shall find that when any Persons enter upon any Office of Trust for others benefit the want of due solemnity at their entrance doth not only render them less careful to consider and discharge their duty but also those for whose benefit Officers are intrusted are both less inclined to submit to them in the discharge of their Office and more prone contumaciously to oppose and discourage their Officers when they attempt faithfully to do their duty Now it is but a little engine that I propose as likely to remove this and other great weights and mischiefs with Namely that at every Ministers entrance upon his charge there should pass a solemn Stipulation and Promise betwixt him and his People and the same should also with all convenient speed be solemnly made betwixt those Ministers who are already setled in Parishes and their People I shall not be so presumptuous as to impose upon any of my Brethren any forms of my own devising But yet that my Reader may clearly understand what I aim at it is necessary that I set down some form of words which might be suitable for the transaction of that solemnity Though I know that abler persons will easily find more apt and more comprehensive terms than mine are I will therefore suppose that some such forms as these following may conveniently be devised for this business I N. N. legally presented instituted and inducted into the Rectory or Vicaridge of N. in the Diocess of N. do solemnly promise in the presence of God to the Parishioners of the said Parish of N. That during my legal imcumbency and possession of the said Rectory or Vicaridge I will through the Grace of God endeavour faithfully to discharge amongst them and for their benefit the Ministry which I have received of the Lord I will declare to them the Gospel of the Grace of God in Jesus Christ and instruct them in the saving truths thereof both by publick Preaching and Catechising and by private conference as I have opportunity I will labour to secure them from those that would pervert them to either sins or errors I will endeavour to establish the weak to comfort the disconsolate and to reform the disorderly by admonition and reproof or if any continue obstinate after my private reproof I will proceed in my endeavours for their reformation in such effectual ways as the Gospel of Christ and the Laws of the Land do warrant me to pursue I will visit their sick and endeavour that due provision be made for the Poor of the Parish I will constantly at due periods of time unless hindred by sickness or other lawful impediments administer amongst them the Sacraments and other parts of publick worship according to the authorized forms of the Church of England I will prepare their Children by Catechising that they may be confirmed by the Bishop of the Diocess where such confirmation can with due solemnity and conveniency be obtained or that they may be admitted to full communion with the Church in the Sacrament commonly called the Lords Supper upon their serious profession to stand to the Covenant which they made in Baptism And in my discharge of all this I shall submit my self to the oversight and guidance of the Lord Bishop of the Diocess Witness my Hand The Parishioners may subscribe some such form as this I N. N. Inhabitant of the Parish of N. in the Diocess of N. do promise by the Grace of God to live as becomes the Gospel in charity with all men and unity of more special love with the visible Catholick

us or soon admit the suspicion instilled by deceitful workers that we seek theirs not them But after this mutual contract hath made them secure that it is our care of them only that calls us to their help we may more easily perswade them impartially to consider both our arguments and the discourses written by pious and learned men in vindication of communion with us and for the cure of Church Divisions Add to this that it is more than probable that all the Parishioners of the league would be very careful to study how to defend their own Conformity to the Orders and Constitutions Ecclesiastical by Law established and would stand more zealously for the Credit of the same than now many of them think themselves obliged to do For it is obvious to observe that scarce a Separatist can be met with but is taught like one brought up in the School of War and Contention to say more by way of cavilling against the publick Settlement and our Communion therein than one in twenty of our Lay-Conformists can say for it because indeed they do not concern themselves in the study of those truths by which our Communion in the setled Order is justified But this explicit Covenant would make them think they are concerned in honour to be able to plead for their way And besides it would urge Ministers to maintain both publick and private conferences with their people about Church Order and other matters of Religion and Conferences are but Catechising the Elder sort as Catechising is conference with the Younger In short if either this or some other course be not taken to excite and quicken the Parochial Ministers and their Congregations jointly to endeavour either the reforming or else the putting away from among themselves the scandalous and notoriously vitious persons and to unite those who do yet own the setled Order and to fortifie them in the truth and obedience to the same we shall soon find that not only the Sectarian Catholick Recusant on the one side and the Popish Catholick Recusant on the other will daily get upon us and if our banks and shores be not better fortified those two working Seas will eat our Island quite through but also that prophaness will prevail and overspread us as a Leprosie which is most of all to be dreaded And whether of those two Catholick Recusants I mean whether the Romish or the complicated Sectarian will prevail against the other and keep the field if once the Church of England be diffolved which hath always been terrible to the Romanists as an Army with Banners is not difficult to foresee For how can the several little bodies and sects into which the other Dissenters from the English Protestantism will be crumbled by division upon division be able long to bear up against that united interest which the fine and subtile Romanists will obtain in this Nation acting in part under the Vizor of other Sects partly wearing their own profession openly For it is easie to observe how their Emissaries according to instructions seek another manner of Quarry fly at another sort of Game when they appear as Romanists than that which some of the other sects do follow They strive not so much to ingage Meticulous Scrupulous Women and Mechanicks or narrow spirited Melancholists or Opinionative Burgers and Traders these the Romish Fishermen seek not after but if any such come to their Net they cast them not away But their most taking Arts are laid out for the inveigling young and pregnant Wits in the Universities or elsewhere who may be trained up to write Polemicks and practise Politicks and to ingage Persons of Honour and Interest amongst the Nobility and Gentry not mattering what their Morals are who are likely to be of great importance in the legal alteration or settlement of a Nation and those whom they have gained in their concealed and by-trade as Undertakers and Brokers for other Sects they will easily turn over into their great bank when they find it seasonable to unmask themselves And this Mystery of iniquity hath been and is still working only that which hath letted will lett till it is taken out of the way namely the legal establishment of the Church of England owned by his sacred Majesty and the Laws CAP. IV. The Expediency of the Explicit Promises to secure publick Peace THat the publick Peace of Nations is the most valuable temporal blessing that men enjoy is without dispute And that the peace of England would be in a great measure secured by this Parochial Covenant may easily be evidenced For first the Doctrine of the Church of England doth so influence all that are Genuine Sons thereof as renders them the best Subjects in the World and makes them obey the King and the Laws for Conscience sake in all lawful things and restrains from resistance on any account civil or religious lest they should receive to themselves damnation Whether any of the Catholick Recusants whether Romish or otherwise Sectarians be so disposed to Obedience to Authority let their own Writings and Practises witness in the Gate for it is not agreeable to the peaceable design of these Papers to question other mens Loyalty who own Religion under any form But the Sons of the Church of England have givne sufficient evidence that in Conscience of their Allegiance by Law required they will not only not resist but if occasion be they will fight for their Soveraign and the established Laws and venture life and estate in that just Service And if their own sins and the sins of the Nation render their arms succesless they will not only pray still for their Soveraign but suffer with him yea though they should know beforehand that Zibah the false Informer should keep half sequestred Mephibosheths estate even after our Lord the King was returned in peace So that his Majesty might be assured that this Parochial Combination would give the Royal Interest the strongest ●ooting in the hearts of his subjects But besides this way of securing publick peace by right principling the Subjects the Parochial Covenant would do much also towards prevention of rebellion For it is no small advantage to Governours in order to the preventing of seditions to know beforehand from what quarter they are most likely to rise and blow And without all doubt it a new Civil War should spring up in England in our daies which God in mercy prevent his Majesty might have the Muster-roles of his Enemies by requiring the Catalogues of them who in the several Parishes because of their prophaness are refused or through other pretences do refuse to combine in Conformity But yet far be it from me to design to intimate that the Scrupulous Dissenters would make the main body and bulk of any Rebellious Army or would be the head and contrivers of the War there are amongst them unquestionably many who fear God and the King But we have rather reason to suspect that as it was in

measure now manifested to be like to produce such a general benefit may be objected against as impracticable by reason of the weakness of the present Ministry of the Church of England few of which are equal as to parts and prudence for the management of such a work as this is Answ My answer is very short and peremptory if I only say then let them be deprived of their places and more able Persons put in their rooms But I rather answer that notwithstanding the slanderous insinuations of some prophane Droles and other malignants I am confident to assert That there are not many of the Clergy of England and indeed it is not fit there should be any who are not able from the Scriptures of the New and Old Testament to prove unto the People their misery both of guilt and impotency in their lapsed state And that God hath sealed a New Covenant in the blood of Christ wherein he hath promised through the propitiation of that blood to forgive and blot out the sins of the penitent believer and to give grace and power to resist corruption on those that are sincere and humble and smother not or stifle their convictions and to increase Grace from Christs fulness to the sincere and diligent and to secure by his Grace the humble and the watchful that they shall not fall away and that finally he will give to them who by patient continuance in well doing seek for honour and glory and immortality eternal life I doubt not also but that they are able from the Scriptures to prove the contrary threatnings namely That they who resist Gods Spirit in its motions and convictions sinning against their light are in danger to be given over to a reprobate sense and to be estranged wholly from the life of God through a blinded mind and hardned heart and that the Impenitent and Unbelievers continuing such shall perish in their sins and that he who useth not his talents is like to lose them and that he who trusts to an old age repentance or a death-bed change is in danger to be cut off in his sins for combring the ground And that there is unsupportable and everlasting indignation and wrath tribulation and anguish certainly to come on all those who obey not the truth but obey unrighteousness and die in a state of impenitency and unbelief I do not question also but that most of the English Clergy are furnished with ability to prove the equity beauty and real pleasure and benefit of all the holy precepts of the Gospel and obedience to them not only from the direct testimony and assertion of the Scriptures but also by rational appeals to the light and experience of those of their Auditors who have not lost that dignoscitive power of their souls whereby their spiritual sense discerns betwixt good and evil which power whoever hath lost is not far from the condition of the damned spirits for he also is reserved in the chains of darkness to the judgement of the great day if God do not in a miracle of mercy break through that darkness wherein the resolved sinner hath shut up himself Such duties are these to love God with all our heart and to delight our selves in the manifestation of his glory by Jesus Christ and to love our Neighbour as our selves to forgive injuries to compassionate and help them who are miserable either by reason of sin or outward affliction to delight in those who are holy upon earth and to mortifie and crucifie worldly and carnal lusts and chearfully to bear the Cross when we suffer for righteousness sake I doubt not also but they can from Scripture and from the like rational applications and appeals prove the real danger unseemliness and unprofitableness of every sin with the real damage that sinners suffer by sin especially in their souls being thereby estranged from the life of God and more indisposed than before the perpetration of it to the reverence love and delight and confidence in God which is the life and happiness of all rational spirits I doubt not I say but most Ministers can prove this also to the conviction of them who will ponder and consider the sad influences of their own sins and have not sinned away the ability of tasting the good word of God and the powers of the world to come I do not know that I have set down either in the promises precepts or threatnings any but what is necessary to be known by all who live under the means of grace even by Lay-men And if a Parochial Minister hath a competent knowledge of these truths and can make them out to the conviction and instruction of honest plain men who desire to know what they must do to be saved and if withal the Teacher himself be of an holy humble and sober conversation he is not to be judged unfit for the Ministry because he hath not studied the Mathematicks or Modern Politicks or cannot humour his Discourses to the pleasing of their Gusto who go to the Theater with greater devotion than they do to the Church and prefer a modern and modish Play stuft with that they call wit namely interlardings of prophaness and scurrility far before a serious and seasonable but plane Sermon Object If it be objected further that every Minister that is able to Preach and instruct plain men is not able to manage the guidance of a Parochial Congregation wherein may be persons of great learning and parts and quality the Nobility Gentry Lawyers and Physicians of the Nation and can any imagine that these will subject themselves by explicit Promise to the oversight of the Parochial Clergy many of which want both experience and prudence to rule their own Houses well how shall they then take care of the House of God Answ I Answer that supposing those Persons of great abilities and qualities to be Christians and Protestants they will think it agreeable to Scripture and reason to put themselves into the society of those Christians amongst whom they do cohabit for the celebration of publick worship administred by some person set apart to that office according to the Order of the Gospel If then they own themselves for members of the Church of England in their particular Parish Assemblies their quality and abilities do not exempt them from owning the Parish Minister as their immediate Pastor But on the contrary their better abilities oblige them to give so much more assistance and incouragement to him in his work And so the Minister who was not equal to the guidance of a Parish in the single strength of his own prudence will by the advice and countenance of such helps in Government be rendred more able and successful in his work And an humble and modest Minister cannot want help sufficient from God to make his work prosperous if he be sincere in aiming at Gods Glory and the good of his people And if through pride and self-willedness any balk the advice of

Church that is with all that profess the faith of Christ crucified And that I will hold constant communion with the Church of England that is with all those Christian Subjects of the Kings most excellent Majesty who are united in the profession of those articles of Doctrine and in the exercise of those Forms of publick worship and in submission to that Ecclesiastical discipline that are agreeable to the Scriptures and owned by the Laws of this Realm And I will generally and ordinarily assemble with the rest of the Parishioners of N. aforesaid at the Parish Church there for the celebration of all parts of the established publick worship by Mr. N. N. Rector or Vicar there and that I will own the said Mr. N. N. as my immediate Guide in spiritual things under the inspection of the Right Reverend Father in God the Lord Bishop of the Diocess And that I will attend upon the Preaching of the Word and Catechising and Administration of the Sacraments by the said Mr. N. N. and submit to his admonitions and give him all due honour for his work sake And that I will readily and chearfully do my duty as a fellow member of the same body to all the Parishioners of the said Parish of N. in labouring to build them up in the most holy Faith and in provoking them to love and to good works and in communicating to those of them that shall need relief according to that estate which God hath or shall bless me with And that I will mark those who cause divisions and avoid them And that if I shall happen to remove my dwelling out of the Parish of N. aforesaid I will desire and receive a Certificate from the Minister and Parishioners here to the Minister and Parishioners of the Parish to which I shall remove That I have lived in communion with them and with the Church of England and I shall likewise desire Letters of Commendation from the Minister and Parishioners of this Parish to the Minister and People of the Parish to which I shall remove requesting them that they will receive me with those of my family that are qualified for it to Communion with them in Holy Worship And I shall be ready to testifie by like solemn promise my readiness to joyn in Communion with that Minister and Parochial Congregation to whom I shall remove as I did before with the Minister and People of this Parish of N. Witness My Hand These or the like solemn promises do not as far as I am able to apprehend so much as shake one Pin in the present Fabrick of either Church or State Nor in the Stipulation is there any thing promised by either the Ministers or the People but what I judge they are obliged already to do and execure by the general precepts of the Gospel or the Ecclesiastical Laws and Constitutions of this Realm or Christian Prudence though they should never make and subscribe such explicit promises as these are I am sure that Ministers oblige themselves expresly to all this at their Ordination before the Bishop and Presbyters and Congregation then assembled And I easily grant that it is only matter of expedience and prudence as Ecclesiastical affairs now stand in England that this mutual covenanting should be so express and solemn for the Minister and Peoples doing their mutual duties to one another as Offices of Relations implies in both a Conscience that they are under an Obligation to one another which may not improperly be called an implicit Covenanting And therefore if any man shall rise up against these Papers I request him to remember That the Controversie betwixt us is likely to be only this whether what he shall offer be in the ballance of Christian prudence of more probability to promote those great ends of piety and peace c. than this which I propose And if any can offer better Expedients or shall evince that mine deserve not to be esteemed such I resolve to be no Heretick in Politicks or Prudentials desiring in uprightness to be conformed to St. Paul's profession to do all things for the truth and nothing against it In the mean time I will labour to shew how useful this Order would be to the ends proposed CAP. II. The usefulness of the Parochial Stipulation to promote regularity of life in the Ministers and their People with Brotherly Love and good Neighbourhood IT is plain to every mans observation that all the perswasives of men to any undertaking whether by representing the attempt as necessary or beneficial or honourable or under any other respects have no longer force than they are kept present and fixed in the mind and imagination of the Undertaker So that when once those arguments are slipt out of the thoughts the attempt goes on very dully because promoted only by the habitual impression yet remaining upon the Phancy The Solemnity therefore of this promise would six upon Ministers such a lasting and warm sense of their duty and so frequently renew their thoughts of it as would not probably permit them easily to grow remiss and inadvertent For indeed the promise made to many and before many witnesses would be apt to awaken in Ministers a remembrance of their duty upon the very sight of any of those to whom and before whom they made their ingagement But why should I trouble my Reader with a more large proof of that which I think no man can deny who is but Master of so much judgement and phancy as to present to his own imagination as it were in different Scenes One Person hasting and posting to his Living as to a Preferment only and another Person gravely and considerately entring upon his imployment with such solemn Application to the People as this we speak of Letting them know he comes amongst them with a desire and purpose through Gods assistance to serve to the Glory of God and their edification in the truth as it is in Jesus Christ Which of these two in any mans judgement is likeliest to pursue the work of his Office with the more vigorous diligence Besides this very solemnity of entrance would give the Minister such an esteem with the people as would highly advantage his future discharges For when themselves had thus by Covenant received him they would look upon him with all affectionate respects as their Guide yea they would entertain him as an Angel of God Whereas now the People till they have trial of us keep at a distance and are shy and jealous of us and if after some time they find that we are not proud and contentious or strict in looking after our dues many of them are not much further solicitous intimating therein that in the present state of Parishes the care of many Parishioners is rather to have a well-humour'd and quiet Neighbour than an able and faithful Minister And there is no question to be made but that the like Postnate Solemnity would strengthen the sense of duty in us who