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

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A63919	A sermon preached before Sr. Patience Ward, upon the last Sunday of his mayoralty, Anno 1681 with additions / by John Turner ...	Turner, John, b. 1649 or 50.	1683 (1683)	Wing T3318A; ESTC R23557	54,614	86

A SERMON Preached before Sr Patience Ward UPON THE Last SVNDAY of His MAYORALTY Anno 1681. With ADDITIONS By John Turner late Fellow of Christ's College in Cambridge Virtus repulsae nescia sordidae Intaminatis fulget honoribus Nec sumit aut ponit secures Arbitrio popularis aurae LONDON Printed for Walter Rettilby at the Bishop's Head in St. Paul's Church-Yard 1683. SUMMA PRIVILEGII Constitutions and Canons Ecclesiastical 1640. Artic. 8. WHereas the Preaching of order and decency according to St. Paul's rule doth conduce to edification it is required that all Preachers as well beneficed men as others shall positively and plainly preach and instruct the people in their publick Sermons twice in the year at least that the Rites and Ceremonies now established in the Church of England are lawfull and commendable and that they the said people and others ought to conform themselves in their practice to all the said Rites and Ceremonies and that the people and others ought willingly to submit themselves unto the authority and government of the Church as it is now established under the King's Majesty And if any Preacher shall neglect or refuse to doe according to this Canon let him be suspended by his Ordinary during the time of his refusal or wilfull forbearance to doe thereafter I. COR. 14. 40. Let all things be done decently and in order THE unhappy breaches and differences among us in matters of Religion are at present the subject of universal Complaint and though nothing be more talked of than an Union among Protestants against the common Enemies of our Liberties as we are English men and of our Faith as we are Christians yet if we will believe mens Actions rather than their Words there is nothing that seems less heartily to de desired or if you will give me leave to speak a little plainer for it is not now a time to mince the matter with more solicitous Care and Industry to be avoided For my part I am not come hither to enflame those differences and if I were 't is twenty to one but I should lose my Errant for they are so great already that perhaps they are incapable of being encreased But if you will allow me that liberty which every man now pretends to as his birthright that is to spend my private opinion about the publick Concerns I will put you in a way by which this blessed Union can onely be effected and that is by keeping up strictly to the Discipline of the Church and by doing all things decently and in order We have almost every day many excellent Discourses delivered in the Pulpit to persuade us to mutual Charity and Forbearance with one another and indeed this is in a manner the whole design of Christianity to produce in us those calm and peaceable dispositions of mind which are best fitted to make us happy in this life and to prepare us for the blessedness of that other state whose very nature consists in perfect Charity and perfect Peace Wherefore Saint Paul tells us plainly that without charity which is the very bond of Peace and of all vertues all our pretences to Religion and all our attainments in it our proficiencie in spiritual knowledge and our super-errogation if that were possible in good works will signifie just nothing at all though I speak with the tongue of men and Angels saith he and have not charity I am become as sounding brass or a tinckling Cymbal and though I have the gift of prophecie and understand all mysteries and all knowledge and though I have all faith so that I could remove mountains and have not charity I am nothing nay though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor and though I give my body to be burned and have not charity it profiteth me nothing And if to the Testimony of St. Paul you will add the greater Authority of our Saviour himself he makes reciprocal Charity and Love to be the distinguishing mark and character of his Disciples By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples if ye love one another If therefore this Charity which is so essential to a Disciple of Christ that he cannot be so without it if the Vnion of the spirit in the bond of peace can be preserved under differing denominations of different Sects and Parties notwithstanding the different external forms and circumstances of Divine Worship if all or any of those pious and learned Exhortations which have been made to persuade you to this Christian temper can have that good effect which is intended by them notwithstanding the various forms of Church Government and the diversity of all other outward appendages and ceremonies of publick Worship if we can fear God and honour the King and love one another as well and as heartily in the midst of these differences as if there were no such things to be found among us then by my consent let all the Ecclesiastical Enclosures be laid open and let every man worship God so he do but worship him in spirit and in truth and believe aright as to the fundamental Articles of the Christian Faith according to his own particular humour and fancie because by gratifying such an harmless though unaccountable humour there can no inconvenience follow but by disturbing and crossing it there may and therefore the ends of Religion will be better served by a diversity in Worship than by an uniformity of it But now on the contrary if it should prove true as it will most certainly if either Experience or Reason can be heard amongst us that the onely way to Unity and Peace is by an Uniformity of Discipline and Obedience as to the external circumstances of Divine Worship then this great end being so necessary as it is for the procuring us all that Happiness which either this World or the next can afford us will justifie all the necessary means that can be used in order to the obtaining it Wherefore Uniformity being necessary as a means to Peace and yet being impracticable unless the Church be supposed to be invested with a Power of prescribing the external modes and circumstances of Obedience it follows plainly that the Church is actually invested with such a Power and that all its members are bound to obey its Prescriptions For the Topick of Experience it is not without some unwillingness that I mention it much less do I think it proper at this time and place to lay open the wounds of our late unhappy times or present you with a mournfull Scene of those Miseries and Distractions which neither can nor ought to be remembred without Amazement and Horrour But if you will every one of you retire into your own thoughts and ask your selves the question What it was that brought those dreadfull Calamities upon us that involved three flourishing and powerfull Kingdoms in Bloud and Slaughter and Confusion that made the Gods to dye like men and fall like one of the Princes while Slaves were set over

Service which may very well be done without any Schism or Separation from the body of the Church abroad either on the one part or the other Yet for private men to separate from the National Establishment upon pretence that the Ceremonies are too burthensome or too many is manifestly unlawfull The reason is because this will be lyable to the same Inconveniences to which a separation upon pretence of greater Purity is expos'd and in both cases if every private man shall be allow'd to judge for himself and to proceed to a Separation in pursuance of that judgment so infinite are the humours the fancies the prejudices the perversities of some men so fond are they of Novelty and Change so apt to controul Authority and so desirous to be govern'd only by their own Measures that there can be no lasting Establishment in the World but the Discipline of the Church will be alwaies reeling like a Drunken Man and driven to and fro like a Wave of the Sea by every Capricious wind of Innovation We will suppose for the present in favour of the Dissenters because they cannot prove it that there are too many Ceremonies in our Church yet I presume it will be granted that there are not above four or five or half a dozen too many or if you will to make it a plump number and to put the Objection into better shape let them be half a score which I believe upon an exact computation will go a great way in the Ceremonies of the Church of England and let all these be imposed as indispensable conditions of Communion 'T is pretty severe I confess to lay so great a stress upon Indifferent Matters but yet certainly no man in his wits will ever pretend that this is such an intollerable burthen as that he must needs separate rather than comply but if there be any that are so hardy to do it though I will not discommend them for their courage a vertue of which in this contentious Age we have a great deal of need yet in my opinion they deserve rather to be soundly Laught at than seriously Confuted What hath been said of the Churches Power in retrenching the number of her Ceremonies the same is likewise true as to the Ceremonies themselves that they may from time to time be altered and changed for others in their stead by the Authority of the Church as shall seem most Expedient to that publique Wisdome for the great Purpose of Edification but for every private person to challenge this Right to himself is unlawfull because liable to the same inconveniences with separating under colour of Ceremonious Superfluities or of purer Ordinances and purer Worship which are therefore justly to be suspected to proceed out of a bad design because they never can have any end Saint Paul in several places of his Epistles expresses great tenderness for the infirmity of the weak Brother but yet if the Instances of such his condescention be examined they will be found to be of a quite different nature from those which make up the pretences of our daies as consisting first in the eating of things sacrificed to Idols which as looking like a participation of the table of Devils and as being expresly prohibited by a temporary Canon of the Council of Jerusalem must needs give very great offence and scandal to the Christians of those daies who did not understand so well as Saint Paul did that an Idol was nothing and that the consideration of the Food might well enough be prescinded from that of the Idol and that therefore it was lawfull for one who was well grounded in the reason of things and might doe it without offence to any weaker than himself to eat whatever was sold in the shambles From which last cited place of St. Paul we may observe a threefold difference in the practice of those times as to this Affair First There were some and they the most perfect Christians in which number St. Paul himself was who would make no scruple of eating the Idolothyta though they knew them to be such so they might doe it without scandal to others Secondly There were others who could not justifie to themselves the eating of such food but yet by Saint Paul's permission they would not be at the pains of a solicitous enquiry but suffering themselves to remain in ignorance would eat whatsoever was sold in the shambles asking no question for conscience sake Lastly There were a third sort more scrupulous than either of the former who thought themselves bound not to eat any manner of meat but what they were sure had not been sacrific'd to Idols and it is to these especially that Saint Paul's condescention is with abundance of equity and justice made because their scruple was founded not in a Circumstance or Ceremony onely but in a deep sense of Devotion and in a jealousie for the Honour of God and Religion The second Instance of this Tenderness of St. Paul's is taken from the Jewish Abstinence from things strangled and from bloud which was not onely strictly enjoyned by the Ceremonial law but also continued and confirmed by the same temporary Edict of the Jerusalem Synod and what hath been said of Abstaining from Bloud the same was true likewise of Circumcision which in some cases was dispensed with even after Conversion to Christianity this was the reason why Paul circumcised Timothy because of the Jews in the 16th of the Acts and it is his advice in the first to the Corinthians c. 7. v. 18. Is any man called being circumcised let him not become uncircumcised is any called in uncircumcision let him not be circumcised And then it follows For Circumcision is nothing and uncircumcision is nothing but the keeping of the Commandments of God What is meant in this place by becoming uncircumcised is needless to my purpose at present to examin and scarce consistent with Modesty to explain But that which is more pertinent to my design at present to take notice of is this that in both these instances of abstaining from Bloud and of Circumcision the case is far different from the scruples of our daies since it was not the squeamish aversation of a Ceremonie but an obstinate adherence to the Ceremonial Law on which those scruples were founded with which notwithstanding Saint Paul as it were on purpose to show how little an enemie he was to Ceremonies was pleased for the time to dispense although the retaining of those two Ceremonies in the Church pursued into those consequencies of which they were not sensible did in reality include in it a Denial of Christ and his Gospel For Circumcision what was it but the Seal of that particular Covenant which God had entred into with Abraham and his Posterity whereas now that enclosure was laid open and that partition wall was broken down the renting of the vail in sunder at the instant of our Saviour's Passion was to signifie the final abolition antiquation and repealment