Selected quad for the lemma: england_n
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A25196
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The case of ministring at the communion-table when there is no Eucharist stated and discussed, upon occasion of a treatise entitled, Parish churches turn'd into conventicles, &c. : together with some preliminary reflections made upon two papers in answer to that treatise.
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T. A.
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1683
(1683)
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Wing A29; ESTC R21330
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27,156
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35
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knew not before I learnt so much from his Title Page And might have well doubted whether this lover of Moderation that is he knows not what be Resident upon his Cure as he there also professes to avoid the Suspition of the Leader of a Conventicle But in truth he doth not attain this end there being so many ways of Equivocation invented now adaies to seem what men are not and not to seem what they are that 't is not incredible that his Cure may be a gathered Church tho I knowing nothing of that affirm no more than I know But now I apply my self more particularly to O. V. and his Letter to his Friend N. D. both true Sons of the Church of England as they Write themselves But I think they should have added to that Character this Supplement For ought they know For there is great Suspicion that O. V. hath taken some of his Instructions from the Conference of Worcester-House as Printed and Published by the Dissenters where this Sentence of Socrates in his Ecclesiastical History Lib. 5. 23. is made great use of to the same end that is as little purpose as here viz. Those of the same Faith differ as to Custom from one another Can this reach Mr. Hart's Case think we Or so much as prove any such Moderation of Rites and Ceremonies our Church requires This the Conferrers and surely this our Present Vindicator imagined deceived by them in all Probability But they are all much mistaken For Socrates meant nothing less than to countenance or so much as to say that any Church in the Christian World in those or Ancienter Days did ever allow any of their Subordinate Members to differ from the Rules of their Respective Churches or to differ from them in Rites and Ceremonies and least of all in such things which were prescribed them in the Service of God But this is the plain and certain Case between the Church of England and the Dissenters and their Advocates pleading for Moderation and Liberty in things standing determined by their Superiours But Socrates tells us how several Churches of several Nations and Provinces under Coordinate Governours did use their known Liberty in forming the external part of Gods Publick Worship somewhat diversly And doth the Church of England or any of it's Defenders speak write or act otherwise This were indeed blame-worthy but no such thing appears and therefore Mr. Hales of Eaton famous for his Learning might have shewn his Judgement as well as his Reading if he had made no such use of such Instances as these and taught others so to do To this stumble in the very Threshold I might add another Errour charged upon Mr. Hart in the Title Page which pretends Mr. Hart defames the Church of England contrary to the 11th Canon of those 1603. But I find no such Defamation chargeable upon Mr. Hart nor proved by him as is attempted Page 3. The Canon even as quoted by him speaks thus To affirm and maintain that there are within this Realm other Meetings Assemblies or Congregations of the Kings born Subjects than such as by the Laws of this Land are held and allowed which may rightly challenge to themselves the Name of true and Lawful Churches This is all with him but scarce sense without that which follows in the Canon Let him be Excommunicated c. Now the matter is how to bring to this any thing that Mr. Hart says in any place of his Book The most and worst that he hath in all his Book is the Title Parish Churches turned into Conventicles c. Does this at all contradict the Canon mentioned which flatly denies all Assemblies in opposition to our Church to be any true Churches The Canon does not so much as say that the Church of England is the true Church therefore he that should say it is no true Church doth not defame it upon the account of that Canon tho upon others he doth But I cannot think it was ever in Mr. Hart's mind to deny the Church of England to be a true Church but to affirm that such Parish Churches as did deviate from such Prescriptions as he conceived all were obliged to in that particular did Symbolize with Conventicles in which acceptation his meaning is more just and sincere than to be confuted either by your or my Labours And this probably you found by Experience and therefore you more wisely than justly relinquish the true State of the Case and all along fall upon his Person and Qualifications with greatest Scurrilities and Reproaches becoming rather the Son of a Conventicle than a Son of the Church of England which manner of Confutation I have chosen chiefly to except against First you acknowledge him to be a Gentleman you had in my opinion done much more advisedly and peradventure more successfully if you had shewn your self to have been such too by Civil Usage and especially if you be of the Clergy which I neither know nor have enquired after to your Civility you should have added a Degree of Modesty more It may be remembred how above Forty Years ago a Bishop's unadvisedly casting out a word which was drawn to imply a Contempt of Gentlemen it gave such Alarm to many Gentlemen and so Incensed them against that Order if not the Clergy in General that it contributed not a little to their Sufferings It had been Prudence therefore to have been more sparing of your Spittle in that respect And so Secondly as a Barister and Lawyer a Friend and Well-willer to the Church would have omitted the many Taunts and Revilings you have cast upon him as such Do you not consider how much it becomes the Clergy to mitigate the Prejudices that Order are too Subject to against the Church and how powerful they are to strengthen or weaken the Interest of the Church and it's Prosperity Another man not inferiour to you would have found occasion of Gratitude and Praise from whence you raise your reproaches viz. that with honest and sincere mind and good Ingenuity he zealously undertook the Asserting of the Rights and Rites of the Church Wherein if he failed as I my self am of opinion he did tho I cannot say that either I or you have Demonstrated so much it was a laudable intention tending to it's Vindication from private Interpreters of it's Laws and Corrupters too as he judged His severity in drawing such Conclusions from such a supposed Sense gave me occasion to imagine he might be a Lawyer whose property it is to condemn a whole Deed for a Rasure committed in it he conceiving that this omission of the due Performance of the second Service was of that nature But do you think it requisite or tolerable that every ordinary Minister should so modifie his Worship as the Presbyterians in their Books speak or so use their Discretion as in truth rather to follow the Discretion of the Multitude and Common People than their own or the Churches There is not any thing
THE CASE OF MINISTRING AT THE Communion-Table When there is no EUCHARIST STATED And Discussed upon occasion of a Treatise Entitled Parish Churches turn'd into Conventicles c. TOGETHER With some Preliminary Reflections made upon two Papers in Answer to that Treatise LONDON Printed by Ralph Holt for Obadiah Blagrave at the Bear in St. Paul's Church-Yard 1683. THE CASE OF MINISTRING AT THE Communion-Table When there is no EUCHARIST STATED And Discussed upon occasion of a Treatise Entitled Parish Churches turn'd into Conventicles c. In a Letter to I. B. Worthy Sir TO your Second Letter received last Thursday with the inclosed Dissertation I cannot but yield the Debt of an Answer somewhat sooner because I perceive you expect it so fully tho I could scarce at any time set about such a Task as you set me more incommodiously as being wasted with such a Grievous Catarrh Hoarsness and Soreness that as I was constrained on that Thursday to break off my constant Attendance at Church this Lent and keep close within Doors so next day to confine my self to my Chamber and procure help for the following Lords day But beginning through Gods goodness to be better at ease I would not deferr to give you mine opinion of the Book And that in the first place of the sour Title which I confess offended me as I suppose it will others lying under the same Guilt with me which he makes very Notorious and of that nature whereby the nature of the Church of England is shaken and her Reputation deeply wounded not so deservedly nor justly as is insinuated or rather openly charged as I suppose will in some measure appear in the Sequel of my unpolished Discourse and very hasty as you may gather from the short time and long Letter But lest it should be imagined that I offend in the like sharpness or prejudice against the Author I do here premise this sincere profession That I do discern a great deal of Ingeniousness Acuteness Nervousness and Weight in the Discourse And that being as may be drawn from some Passages given to the Study of the Law of this Nation he should shew such an unusual Zeal for the Power and established Orders of the Church which I would to God were with no less Conscience observed by the Clergy it self this not excepted which he contends for so vigorously And that I flatter not him nor dissemble with you may be attested in part by your self who know I restored the Usance of Ministration at the Communion-Table or rather introduced it where it was not heard of in the Memory of Man and so continued it for 7 years when for causes some not touched by him and some endeavoured to be refuted by this Author I desisted I would not therefore be looked on at any hand at present as going about to confute what he delivers but upon your request deliver mine own Thoughts somewhat diverse not contrary to his and that in these in Propositions First I do fully Grant and firmly believe that it is most agreeable to the mind of the Church of England that the Office called the second Service be performed at the Communion-Table Circumstances remaining the same as when it was first so instituted For seeing Circumstances do vary the case egregiously the intention of the Author of such Orders is to be judged from the Motives and Ends inducing to such Constitutions which ceasing or changing the Intention of the Ordainers may be said to cease and change likewise and consequently the Obligation to observe the first Institutions according to the rigour of the Letter Examples or Instances whereof I shall afterwards give you In the mean time I must here note how wide the Author of that reproachful Title to his Papers is to wit Parish Churches turned into Conventicles from making the Omission of Ministration at the Lords Table Conventicling or Phanatical For what I beseech Mr. H. is Conventicling or Phanaticism which I make Synonymous however some that call themselves the Sober Dissenters would fain deny this Doth it consist in simple Omission of some part of the Service absolutely and not rather in these two things principally and in my opinion Essentially First to have a contrary judgement and affection against the Established Lyturgy and as far as safely and successfully they may strennuously to oppose the same And if a man be far from any of these Distempers of mind and actions yet neglects somewhat enjoyned for that we may suppose at present which we shall Question hereafter rather than opposes is there no favour to be shown him but he must be condemned for a Phanatick and his Ministration for Conventicling Or are the Parish Priests Phanatical who observe not Holydays and the Service of Wednesdays and Frydays Or rather are they not according to this Gentlemans Rule worse than Conventiclers as I think before God they are who come not to Church nor go to Conventicles but on Publick Days of Worship profanely stay at home Surely as perverseness and obstinacy in errour are by the Learned judged the formal part of an Heretick So likewise is it of a Schismatick or Schismatizer the Material part being the errour it self of no small importance And this is the second Reason distinguishing Omssion at most of a Circumstance in Publick Worship from Conventicling For see and judge indifferently the whole worship of Conventiclers Is it not in Matter and in Form both and also in all Circumstances as much different from the Church-worship as they well can to bear up the Name of Christian Doth it not wholly proceed from their own humane Brain An intolerable crime with them when they whom they have made their Adversaries cannot alledge direct and express Scriptures for all they say or do in Gods Worship I am of St. Hilary's mind of old That not the love of Walls sacred alters the Worship but the Doctrine and Worship rather changes and unhalloweth the Place And when the Imaginations of private men are graced with the Fabrick of a Lawful Church the Church is disgraced into a Meeting-Room or Conventicling place But where a Circumstance and that of Place is only changed I am quite of another opinion unless this be done out of Opposition For what if we should suppose a Minister should be so absurd as to change the time of the second Service and keep his due place of the Communion-Table reading it after Dinner This would be worse than the former but still it would not be Conventicling unless all Irregular Worship makes a Conventicle which if so it may make it Popery too and with better Reason such as the Phanaticks never dreamt on or dared never to utter For Papists divide not their Service into several Places but keep their Station where they began using some variety of Gesticulations But I have spoken more under this Head than I intended and therefore break from hence to The second Proposition intended and that is That it doth not appear that