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england_n	bishop_n	king_n	return_v	2,805	5	7.1565	4	false

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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A36832	The conformity of the discipline and government of those who are commonly called independants to that of the ancient primitive Christians by Lewis Du Moulin.	Du Moulin, Lewis, 1606-1680.	1680 (1680)	Wing D2533; ESTC R25012	54,163	74

Saint Paul to Timothy the 1 Epist 4 Chap. and 5 Verse which I lately mentioned that that good practise of reading the holy Scriptures during their repasts succeeded both a good and an evil custome among the Heathen of quality and condition according to the disposition of persons and according to their manners for the debauchees during theirs had as Pliny the Younger tells us their Moriones and their Cynaedos qui inerrabant Mensis to pass away the time and please the Company But those who were serious and more composed as Cicero Cratippus Seneca Pliny the Elder Euphrates and Spurinna had their Anagnostes who read to them the Golden Sentences of Pythagoras and of the other Sages of Greece It doubtless therefore thus came that the Heathen families which were of the disposition of these latter being come over to Christianity as was that of Cornelius the Centurion Publius the Proconsul Philemon and Lydia took this good custome not only to have a Church in their house but to practise there all the Religious duties as well during their repasts as out of them THIS comes very near to the Idea of the Congregational way which is to be considered in two respects either when their Pastors and their people retire and withdraw from the crowd of the world I mean from the Worldlings to live continually in the contemplation and meditation of the works of Creation of Providence and of Redemption in the devotion and elevation of the Soul to God or else when those same persons do form to themselves Religious assemblies distinct from the national Church and Parochial assemblies in a word when they are distinct from the Ecclesiastical Government which is of the same extent as that of the Civil that is establish'd by Lawes though in this last respect their separation be not an absolute and intire abandoning of the profession of the doctrine and life of those who follow the Religion of their Country but of those who condemn that carriage that doctrine and Discipline which retained the most of the Apostolical 'T is a separating of the good Seed from the Chaff whereof there is but too much in parochial Assemblies where one is as much if not more a Christian by the chance of birth of place and of custome than by any inward principle or design fratned for otherwise the people of the Independant Church and their Pastors are no more backward than the Episcopal men or the Presbyterians to participate with them in the Ministry of the parochial Churches provided they do not force them there to practise such things as they do really believe from their Consciences to be contrary to the word of God and provided also that they permit them to believe that if the Churches reformed from Popery where all sorts of persons are received are the true Churches of Jesus Christ in which Salvation may be had they ought to have no less good and charitable opinion of the Independant Churches which are come out from them FOR these reasons all disinteressed persons that have a zeal for all the true Worshippers of Jesus Christ indifferently in what way of communion soever whither Episcopal or Presbyterian or Congregational may easily be perswaded that this last retains more of the Apostolick because it is not only the Cream and best of the others and a part of that good Seed that has the least of chaff in it but also because it hath more goodness love and Charity in the esteem of those who follow it for the way of communion with others and of those who are of it then the others have for the Congregational way 'T is very rarely seen that any one of the Congregation does not love all good men of what Communion soever they be and that they do not speak of them as of the true Churches of Jesus Christ whereas even the more sober and honester party of the Episcopal men and some of the Presbyterians are so strongly prepossessed with prejudices against those of Congregations that they are in their account no better than Hypocrites Schismaticks and men of strange Enthusiasms A Learned Lawyer having cast his eye upon the matter contained in this Chapter assured me that one Mr. Hubbart a grave Barrester in a Cause between Colt and Glover plaintiffs on the one part and the Bishop of Gloucester defendant on the other makes it out that the Assemblies in the Primitive Church were Congregational He hath also acquainted me with an Ordinance of Canutus KING of England in the year one thousand and sixteen which began thus hae sunt sanctiones for the establishment of peace and Justice where it is clear that beside the Ecclesiastical National Government established according to the Model of the civil the Towns were full of little private Congregations which assembled together voluntarily in the Towns and which the King permitted whilest neither Justice nor the publick peace were interrupted He prest me likewise mightily to insist upon the definition which the Church of England made of the Church in its Confession of Faith made in the year 1562. Article the XIX because it is absolutely conformable to that which the Congregational Churches give of theirs to be as I have already a little touched an Assembly of persons together in one place to attend upon the hearing of the word of God and upon the Administration of the Sacraments CHAP. VIII Of the great Benefits and Advantages that come from the Establishment of the Congregational way in the World THUS you see we are insensibly fallen upon the conformity of the carriage and government of the Congregational assemblies with that of the Primitive Christians for their smalness of number and for the way and manner of gaining souls to Jesus Christ by Prayer by Exhortation and by Preaching which they do to a few persons or a few Families as when their Elders inculcated into them every day and line upon line the necessity of leading holy and exemplary lives so that the Christian people made far greater progress in Sanctification by the means and helps of those Elders than when they assisted at publick assemblies where the severities of discipline and the degrees of penitence through which but very few persons went seem'd to retain more of the affected devotion of pride and of worldly pomp than of sincerity and where the fruit of the Bishop's preaching was like to that of which S. Chrisostome speaks in one of his Homilies which resembles the water that is thrown in Buckets upon a great number of Bottles which have a strait Neck and where there goes in but a few drops whereas the fruit of the exhortations which are made in private to a few is the effect of him who having taken the bottles wil fill them by degrees one after another Beside that it is impossible that a Bishop or other person who shares out all his time between his Chamber-studies and preaching in publick and who hath some thousands of persons under charge it

not to believe Transubstantiation A Learned English Dr. named John Hales hath written a Learned Treatise upon this Subject where he condemns this way of Reconciliation that sayes one thing and believes another and that turns again to Rome and he exhorts his Brethren to condemn rather the use of it than to justifie it He sayes also that Martyn Bucer was the first of the Reformed that made use of this way of speaking IT must be confessed that as the weakness of those great lights of Reformation Bucer Calvin and Reza was very great when they explained those Scriptures concerning the Lords Supper by a Comment that was more obscure than the Text nor hath it been less great in those that have come after them when they have explained the words of Jesus Christ in S. John VI. concerning the fleshly eating to the Sacramental and Spiritual eating and when they have made long comments upon the words of Calvin to sweeten and smooth the harshness of them instead of condemning them this obstinacy in adhering to errors hath brought in the pretended infallibility into the Church of Rome and the Incontestability into the Reformed Churches Inter caetera mortalitatis incommoda hoe est errandi necessitas erroris amor Seneca NOW these ways of speaking which simbolize with those of Rome and which give it occasion to insult and triumph over us makes me remember what I have read in the Memoirs and specialties that Joseph Hall hath made of his Life and absolutely convinces me of this truth that it has been so unlikely that they who have believed they might gain upon Rome by retaining some of their ways and modes of speaking or their practises should have succeeded therein that on the contrary She has been so much the more set and hardened against us and have gone so far in it as to make us and their Religion far more reasonable than ours He sayes that in his journey to the Spadan Waters for his health he had before a great company of persons of quality both Papists and Protestants a very hot dispute with a Sorbonist a Prior of the Carmelites who maintained that the Kneeling practised in the Church of England at the receiving of the Eucharist strongly shewed that she believed Transubstantion for that kneeling and the belief of Transubstantiation were things inseparable and always went hand in hand together and since the one had never been believed in the Church without the practise of the other and since it was a distraction of reason and a wicked practise to carry their adorations to Elements that were only Bread and Wine this kneeling of necessity must be a natural consequence of the belief of Transubstantiation Bishop Hall adds that as the company was divided in their judgments and that several of them joyned with those of Rome in condemning this kneeling unless it was a consequence of Transubstantiation more than two thirds of the company were so heated against the poor Bishop that he had not the liberty to speak nor to stand up in defence of the Church's Opinion For if they had given him time to speak he had alleadged the Rubrick of the Church of England which undeceives the Communicants from the thoughts that they might possibly have that that Kneeling or Adoration is carried out to the Bread and the Wine But beside that there is not of a hundred Communicants one who reads the Rubrick it might have happened that those who were so violent against Bishop Hall would have pleasantly stopt his mouth with the Apologue which Beza writ in a Letter to the good Arch-Bishop Edmund Grindal who seeing that he was offended at this kneeling after Transubstantiation was banished endeavoured to cure him of the scandal he had taken making him to know that the Rubrick of the Church of England would give him enough wherewith to be satisfied Upon which Beza returned him this story A Lord having built his house near to the high way where he left a great stone that he had no occasion for just in the road several persons coming by in the night stumbled at it and did hurt themselves and often complaints being made to him about it and intreaties that he would take it out of the way he was very obstinate a long while and was resolved not to meddle with it but being wearied by the continual solicitations that were made to him he bethought himself to set over the stone a Lanthorn with a light Candle in it to warn people of it but that Admonition proving troublesome too one of his friends came and gave him this good Counsel Sir if you would be at quiet take away both stone and Lanthorn together The stone of stumbling is this kneeling at the Sacrament and the Rubrick is for a light and Declaration to signifie to the Communicants that this kneeling is not done to the bread and wine but to Jesus Christ If you take away both you will take away the scandal and the remedy to the scandall You will bring back the way with which Jesus Christ instituted the holy Supper who gave it not kneeling but in the posture of those who take their ordinary repasts at their Tables so that Jesus Christ never required any Genuflexion either at the time or place THESE two stories hit as we generally say two birds with one stone For they may relate to that neerness of assinity with Rome which I have already spoken of above and which I have showed has rather sharpened and embittered the Spirits and tempers of those of that communion to plot against the sacred person of the KING and against his Government than it has any wayes sweetned them and moreover they discover that those who go furthest off from the Doctrines and practises of Rome who renounce all reconciliation with Her as the people of the Congregational way do have most conformity with the blessed peace-Makers of whom Jesus Christ speakes and whereof the Character of the Children of God which he gives them upon this respect carryes them so much the farther from all thoughts of Rebellion CHAP. XII An Apology for the Author of the Conformity of the congregational Churches with that of the Antient Primitive Christians That a disinteressed person such as he is the most sit to write about these matters Of the Obligation he hath to the Bishop of Condom for the light he hath given him I Think my self here obliged to add an Apology as to my own account for what I have said as to the Independant Churches I do imagine I shall be accused at first for having made the description of the congregational way not according as it is in effect but in that manner as Xenophon did the Cyropaedia to be the perfect model of a Prince They will say that any other interest than that of the inward knowledge I have of the goodness truth and holiness of the Congregational way ought to have excited me to commend it so as I have done That I