Selected quad for the lemma: england_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
england_n	ceremony_n	church_n	rite_n	3,560	5	9.9325	5	false

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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A27035	A second true defence of the meer nonconformists against the untrue accusations, reasonings, and history of Dr. Edward Stillingfleet ... clearly proving that it is (not sin but) duty 1. not wilfully to commit the many sins of conformity, 2. not sacrilegiously to forsake the preaching of the Gospel, 3. not to cease publick worshipping of God, 4. to use needful pastoral helps for salvation ... / written by Richard Baxter ... ; with some notes on Mr. Joseph Glanviles Zealous and impartial Protestant, and Dr. L. Moulins character.	Baxter, Richard, 1615-1691.	1681 (1681)	Wing B1405; ESTC R5124	188,187	234

c. 3. That many of them deny all proper Sacramental causality of Grace 4. Specially Physical And Protestants make them not meer signs but investing signs 5. And ponere obicem is to want necessary moral qualification and action as aforesaid And now the Dr. had done well to tell me wherein I was very much mistaken § 15. He next saith The Cross is in no sence held to be an instrument appointed for conveying Grace Answ 1. Not by God for it is none of God's Ordinances 2. But that by men it is I have manifested if a moral objective moving and teaching means may be called an Instrument If not the word Instrument is noting to our case 1. To work on the soul of the adult by representation signification excitation as the word doth is to be an operative moral cause or means And this the Church ascribeth to it Pref. to Liturg. c. 2. The death of Christ and the benefits of it and reception into the Church and State of Christianity and the sense of our Engagement to fight under Christ's banner c. are Grace some of which is given by excitation and some the Relation by investiture § 16. And now whether I have only invented these objections to amuse and perplex mens consciences and this Dr. hath made all so plain that all may venture on it and he and all Ministers may deny them Christendom that dare not venture and cast out all from the Ministry that be not as bold as he I leave to consideration He next turneth to Mr. A. about bowing and so goeth to their Excommunication CHAP. XI Whether the Excommunicating Church or the Excommunicated for not Communicating when Excommunicated be guilty of Schism § 1. THeir Canons excommunicate ipso facto all that say Conformity is unlawful and many such like 1. He saith The excommunication is not against such as modestly scruple the lawfulness of things imposed but those who obstinately affirm it Answ Reader trust neither him nor me but read the words Can. 3 4 5 6. Whosoever shall affirm that the Church of England by Law established under his Majesty is not a true and an Apostolical Church let him be excommunicated ipso facto Whosoever shall affirm that the form of God's worship in the Church of England established by the Law and contained in the Book of Common-prayer is a corrupt superstitious or unlawful worship of God or containeth ANY THING in it that is repugnant to the Scriptures let him be excommunicated ipso facto and not restored till c. Whosoever shall affirm that any of the 39 Articles are in any part superstitious or erroneous or such as he may not with a good conscience subscribe unto let him be excommunicated ipso facto and not restored till c. Whosoever shall affirm that the Rites and Ceremonies of the Church of England by Law established are wicked antichristian or superstitious OR such as being commanded by lawful authority men who are zealously and Godly affected may not with any good conscience approve them use them OR as occasion requireth subscribe to them let him be excommunicated ipso facto and not restored till he repent and publickly revoke such his wicked errours Can. 7. Whosoever shall hereafter affirm that the Government of the Church of England under his Majesty by Arch-Bishops Bishops Deans Arch-Deacons and THE REST THAT BEAR OFFICE IN the same is antichristian OR repugnant to the word of God let him be excommunicate ipso facto c. Can. 8. Whosoever shall affirm that the form and manner of making and consecrating Bishops Priests or Deacons containeth ANY THING in it that is repugnant to the word of God let them be excommunicate ipso facto c. Can. 11. Whosoever shall affirm that there are within this Realm other Meetings Assemblies or Congregations of the Kings born subjects than such as by the Law of this Land are held and allowed which may rightly challenge to themselves the Name of true and lawful Churches let him be excommunicate ipso facto c. And now if the Reader will no more believe the Doctor it is not long of me If all this be no more than to excommunicate them that obstinately affirm the Ceremonies Antichristian impious or superstitious understanding them is not possible § 2. But I confess they excommunicate not men for secret thoughts We thank them for nothing It is but for telling their judgment And Dissenters may have many occasions to tell it The Kings Commission once allowed some of us to tell it The Demands Accusations calumniating Books and Sermons c. may call many to it § 3. He saith All Excommunication supposeth precedent Admonition Answ 1. They should do so The worse is yours because it doth not so It only alloweth admonition to repent for his restoration which made M. Anton. Spalatensis say so much against it 2. If it did oblige you to admonish us as you have done by your Books you know that this changeth not our judgments So that to be excommunicate before the admonition and after comes all to one But indeed when the Law ipso facto excommunicateth the Law it self is the admonition § 4. He addeth General excommunications though they be latae sententiae do not affect the particular persons till the evidence be notorious not only of the bare fact but the contumacy Answ Affecting is a word that signifieth what you please Ipso facto is for and upon the fact proved without any sentence of a judge While the fact only is thus made the full cause the contumacy need not be proved It 's true 1. That the fact must be proved 2. And then the Law is a sentence and Relatively affecteth the person as sentenced 3. But no persons else are obliged to avoid him till the fact be lawfully published But the man is excommunicate And 4. Whether the man that knoweth the Law and his own Fact be not bound himself to avoid the Churches Communion is a great Controversie And the plain truth is If it be a just Excommunication he is bound to forbear Communion in obedience to it As much as a silenced Minister is to forbear Preaching But if it be a sentence unjust and injustice be not so gross as to nullifie it still he must forbear But if it be so unjust as to be invalid he may Communicate till he be executively rejected As one so unjustly silenced may preach if he can for the case is much like The Reader would be displeased if I should cite him many Casuists in so plain a case 2. But no man doubteth but the General sentence of the Canon speaketh the sence of the Church and doth all that Law-makers can do before judgment And the Law is norma officii judicii obliging Subject and Judge § 5. It 's true that Linwood saith that a Declaratory sentence that is A Declaration that such a man is already sentenced by the Law is necessary to oblige any to the

1. The Eunuch baptized in his Travails Acts. 9 was only a Member of the Church Universal 2. Those that were converted by Frumentius and Edesius when there was no particular Church And all that are first converted in any Infidel or Heathen Land before any Church be formed 3. Those that by Shipwrack are cast on heathen Countries where no Churches are 4. Travellers that go from Country to Countries as Lythgow did nineteen years and others many And I think he unhappily named Jerusalem where Travellers come that are of no fixed Church unless he in that also be a Superindependant and think that men may be many years Members of a Church many hundred miles off which they have no personal communion with 5. Merchants and Factors who are called to dwell long among Infidels where are no Churches 6. Embassadors who by their Princes are sent to reside among such much of their lives 7. Wanderers that have no fixed habitations as many Pedlers and other poor wandering Tradesmen and loose Beggars that have no Dwelling 8. Those thot live among Papists or any other Christians who impose some sin as a condition of communion 9. Those that live among such Christians as have no true Pastors who are constitutive parts of particular Churches Some being incapable through insufficiency some by Heresie and some for want of a true Call Such as by Mr Dodwells Doctrine most of the Christian World are for want of uninterrupted rrue Episcopal Ordination 10. Those who are subjects to such as permit them not to be fixed Members As Wives hindred by Husbands Children by Parents and some Subjects violently hindred by Princes who yet allow them transient Communion And verily a man would think by the writings of many Conformists that they took it for a Duty to obey a Prince in such a case 11. Those who live where Church-corruptions are not so great as to make transient Communion unlawful but so great as to make fixed communion seem to be a culpable consent If I come in travel to a Church of Strangers I am not bound to examine what their Discipline is what their Lives be or how their Pastors are called But where I am fixed I am more bound to know these and if I find them exclude Discipline live wickedly and have unlawful Pastors I may in some cases be a partaker of the sin if I fix among them 12. They that live in a time and place of Schism and distraction striving who shall prevail and condemning each other all following several Factions and needing Reconcilers It may for a time become in prudence the duty of peace-makers to own no Faction nor to be more of one Church than of another while he seeth that it will do more hurt than good And those that wait in hope as the Nonconformists now do to see whether their Rulers will restore them to reformed Parish Churches may at once in prudence find it needful neither to fix as Members in some Parish Churches till reformed in the Teachers at least nor to seem to be Separatists by gathering new Churches In none of all these cases is a man unchristened nor schismatical for being no fixed member of any Church besides the Universal And as it is the ill hap of these men commonly to strike themselves I doubt they will prove Grotius himself no Christian by this Rule who for many years before he died they say joyned with no particular Church as a fixed member And I know not well what particular Church they make the King a Member of Sect. 2. To his Questions Pag. 3. Were we not Baptized into this Church and do you not Renounce Membership This is scarce a civility I answer 1. This Church which Church do you mean I was not Baptized into St. Giles's nor St. Andrew's Parish Church but into one above an hundred miles off and yet my removal made me no culpable Separatist Or doth he mean This Diocesan Church No I was Baptized in the Diocess of Lichfield Doth he mean This National Church as it is supposed a political body constituted of the Ecclesiastical Governing and Governed Parts he saith there is no such Church of England but that It inferreth Popery to assert such But if he equivocate here and mean not by a Church as in the rest but either a christian Kingdom or an agreeing Association of many Churches I am still a fixed member of such a Kingdom and of such an Association in all things necessary to Churches and Christian Communion 2. But Baptism as such entred me only into the Universal Church much less did it fix me in any other I was Baptized where I was to stay but a little while And this phrase of being Baptized into our Church is to me of ill sound or intimation Bellarmine saith that all that are baptized are interpretatively thereby engaged to the Pope I was baptized in a Parish and in a Diocess and in a Christian Kingdom but not so into them as to be obliged to continue under that Priest or Bishop or in that Kingdom And my Baptism I hope did not oblige me to every Canon Ceremony Form or Sin of the associated Churches in England abusively by him called one Church 3. And unhappily it is not meer Independancy that he is still pleading for but some extremes which the moderate Independants disclaim viz. That a member of their Churches is so tyed to them that they may not remove to another without their consent And am I so tyed to what to Parochial or to the Diocesan or to the association of English Churches If it had been to the Species I would fain know whether their things called by them Indifferents specifie them Sect. 3. P. 111 112. He yet more pleads as for Separation why then above once or twice why should I so countenance defective Worship and not rather reprove it by total forbearance of Communion c. Answ My Reasons I told him because the accidents may continue which made it a Duty but I cannot hinder others from yielding to his arguments Let him make his best of them Only I must tell him yet 1. that if he lay his cause on this that their Parochial or Diocesan Churches are not defective 2. Or that the defects cannot by others be avoided he will quite marr his matter and undo all by overdoing 3. And if he indeed think that all defective Churches must be forsaken he will be one of the greatest Schismaticks in the World But who can reconcile this with the scope of his whole Book Sect. 4. P. 112. He saith Here are no bounds set to peoples Fancies of purer Administrations Answ Have I so oft and copiously named the bounds and now is the answer Here are none Are there none in all the same Books he citeth 2. Scripture is their bounds as he well openeth in his desence of Bi●hop Laud. Sect. 5. P. 114. He complains of my leaving out the best part of his argument viz. The people may go

Clergy represent the Laity in the Convocation 21. By your Rule if divers parties of Christians agree to set up divers forms of Church-Government with mutual forbearance they would be one National Church And so would Episcopal Presbyterians and Independants if the Law allowed them all 22. Was the Church of England the same thing in the days of H. 8. Ed. 6. Q. Mary Q. Eliz. c. 23. Who maketh National Churches in absolute Hereditary Monarchies where are no Parliaments to signifie popular consent 24. If every Law of Order be essential to your Church few Conformists are of it If only the true essentials why are not we also of it 25. How ill agree you with Mr. Cheny who maketh it Atheism Infidelity Blasphemy Impiety to assert Church-making consent or confederacies besides Baptism 26. But the best is you leave us in hope of Reformation for if Parliaments will but consent for us to take down Diocesanes lower and to reform Parish-Churches and alter Liturgy c. we are the National Church still And one prevailing Vote may prove us all consenters and make the Church quite another thing § 14. Yet he saith Page 299. By this description any one may see how easily the Church of England is distinguished from the Papists on one side and the Dissenters on the other Answ I am one and I cannot see it nor so much as see how to know the Church it self nor who is a Member of it nor how any man can know it but he seems to me to make it a Church invisible But I see the Dissenters must be none of it 1. How was the Church of England known from Papists in the beginning of H. 8. or in the middle or in the end or how known when it began How was it known in the beginning of Queen Elizabeths days when the Papists came to Church or now as to Church-Papists How shall we know to which Church the late Bishop Bramhall and other Doctors belong who would have the Pope Govern us according to the Canons as Patriarch of the West principium unitatatis universalis and all go for Schismaticks that deny it Some call this the New-Church of England differing from the old one which was before Bishop Laud. 2. How shall one know how far consent is necessary to a Member and dissent unchurcheth him Lately a Doctor was accused for saying he scrupled to call the King according to the Liturgy Our most Religious King Mr. Jole of Sarral was suspended for not oftner wearing the Surplice and denying to pray in the Litany for Our most Gracious Queen Katherine and James Duke of York But these are small dissents The sense is the Churches Law and Doctrine and not the sound of words in various senses I have oft shewed in how many contrary senses the Conformists take the 39 Articles the Liturgy the words of Subscription and Declaration and the Oaths imposed How shall one know among all these who are or are not of your Church When you tell us that it is Agreeing in the Faith Government and Worship which is established by Law and then speak so hotly against the need and being of any common Government save the Civil at all established over the Church as a. National body and never distinguish any necessary parts of Faith Government and Worship from the rest nor tell us how to know them And when Conformists dissent in so many things some from Lay Chancellours Government by the Keys some in the sense of the Articles and the Noncon●o●●●ists say they consent to all that Scripture requireth and the meer Circumstantials determined by Law how shall you be known Either it is in the Essentials only or the Integrals also or also in all the Laws de Accedentibus that the Church of England by agreement is made that One Church 1. If it be only in Essentials is there either Confession Rubrick Canon or any Writer that hath told us which be those and all those and only those Essentials I never met with man that pretendeth to know them and therefore never met with man that can thus tell whether he be of the Church of England or not nor that can tell of others and who is not 2. To say it must be consent also in the Integrals that is necessary ad esse is a contradiction and is to make Integrals Essentials To say that it must be consent in all Laws of Accidents also is to make that an essential part which is no part Our loose confounding Disputers when they have lost the truth in such contradictions may say as Mr. Dodwell doth to me that I Cavil But will that answer help down all absurdities with reasonable men It 's plain that as the Papists Doctrine of defining Church-Members and Christians by no Essential Articles of Faith but by Probable Proposal of more or less doth make their Church invisible so doth this definition of the Church of England by Doctor Stillingfleet make theirs and leave us uncertain who is of it It makes me think what I hear Oliver the Usurper said to a Bishop that now is as I am credibly told Doctor how know you that you are a true Minister of Christ who answered him on Mr. Dodwell's Principles Because I have received Ordination by uninterrupted successive conveyance from true Bishops from the Apostles Saith he Are you sure they were all true Bishops and the succession uninterrupted Doctor will you take your Oath that you are thus a true Minister At which when he stuck Come come Doctor saith he there is a surer and a nearer way Certain I am that if Agreement in the sense of the 39 Articles or in all Forms and Ceremonies be necessary to constitute a Member of the Church of England abundance that subscribe are none that now go for such But if not I pray tell us why such as I also are not Members of your Church Do I more differ from you than Doctor Heylin Mr. Thorndike Mr. Dodwell and in a word than the party which adhered to Arch-bishop La●d differed from the party which adhered to Bishop Abbot Whitgift and the Parliaments of those and after-times If the Church of England as such a one be constituted by no supreme Church-Government we are all of it so far as we consent to the Association and none as it is one Political body And what then becomes of its Laws and all the Treatises of its Church-Policy § 15. But yet the Doctor stops not here I unavoidably introduce Popery if I make a Constitutive Regent Church power necessary to a Church for then the Universal Church must have such Answ 1. It 's not necessary to an equivocal ungoverned Church such as our Worcestershire Association made But to a Political Governed Church it is 2. Mark here all you that go the Political Church way that your Doctor accuseth you more than the Nonconformists even of certain opening the door to Popery What if I had said so by you Is it such