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
A95370	A sermon preached before Sir P.W. Anno 1681. With additions: to which are annexed three digressional exercitations; I. Concerning the true time of our Saviour's Passover. II. Concerning the prohibition of the Hebrew canon to the ancient Jews. III. Concerning the Jewish Tetragrammaton, and the Pythagorick Tetractys. / By John Turner, late fellow of Christ's College in Cambridge.	Turner, John, b. 1649 or 50.	1684 (1684)	Wing T3318AB; ESTC R185793	233,498	453

A SERMON PREACHED Before Sir P. W. Anno 1681. WITH ADDITIONS To which are annexed Three Digressional Exercitations I. Concerning the true Time of our Saviour's Passover II. Concerning the prohibition of the Hebrew Canon to the ancient Jews III. Concerning the Jewish Tetragrammaton and the Pythagorick Tetractys By JOHN TVRNER Late Fellow of Christ's College in Cambridge LONDON Printed for Walter Kettilby at the Bishop's Head in St. Paul's Church-Yard 1684. 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 Kettilby 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 TO THE Right Reverend Father in GOD HENRY Lord Bishop of LONDON Dean of the CHAPEL ROYAL AND One of His Majestie 's most Honourable Privy Council May it please Your Lordship WHen the following Sermon was preached which is now a full twelve-month ago and as much as since the latter end of October it made so great a noise about the Town and was the occasion of so loud a cry against me from a d●sloyal and disaffected party that I was forced immediately to put it to the Press not out of any vain opinion which I had of my performance which as it was but mean in it self so it could not be well expected that it should be better considering the short●ess of the time which was spent in the composing but for my own just and necessary vindication that the world might see and be satisfied what it was that had opened the mouth of Calumny and Detraction so wide and Your Lordship having received information that there was a design to make my Sermon publick which Iacknowledge I ought not to have done without Your Lordship's good leave by whose commission and authority it was preached I was commanded to deliver up my Notes to be perused by Your Lordship before they went to the Press but it so happening that they were then actually in it before that order came and the first sheet having been printed off all the possibility of Obedience that was left me was to recall my Papers from the Press and lay them at Your Lordship's feet as they were torn in pieces by the Printer and in a condition very much ashamed to make their appearance before You. Your Lordship was sensible of the confusion my Papers as well as my self were in and would not suffer them to blush in your presence but was pleas'd to dismiss me in a most obliging manner for which unexpected goodness when I came so apprehensive as I was of a less favourable usage I am bound to pay you my everlasting thanks and to command me further not without expressing some trouble at the incivility and indiscretion of Sir P. W. which was indeed an affront to Your Lordship and the whole Clergy of the three Kingdoms in my person to let you see the Papers when they were printed I came away as I had reason from Whitehall where I had the honour to pay my duty to Your Lordship then going to the Council not onely well satisfied but very much transported with so obliging an answer and having now a Licence from your self as well as from the Eighth of the Ecclesiastical Canons made and set forth by a Convocation of the two Provinces in 1640. whereby we are obliged twice every year to preach upon the Subject of Decency and Order and whatsoever may be preached may be printed also if occasion so require I had now a double encouragement to go on with the Impression and accordingly I did go on If Your Lordship shall demand of me as it is very natural for you to doe what was the reason of its publication being so long delayed all the answer I can make is that it was so far was I at first from designing it for the Press had I not been provoked to it by the clamours of the worst of men as well as encourag'd to stand up in my own defence by such as were friends to the Government and by consequence to me I say as it was I found it to be a very imperfect and unfinish'd piece and such as had reason to apprehend the censures of its friends as well as enemies therefore I presumed to take the liberty not to alter any thing which I had spoken but onely to add so much to it as might make a just disquisition upon the Subject and yet if I had taken a liberty of making alterations so it had been onely in the expression not the sense it would have been such a liberty as would have been vouched by the best examples that antiquity affords Pliny as himself confesses in his Epistles did so by his Panegyrick to the Emperour Trajan and before him that great Master as well of thought as expression did the same by his Oration in defence of Milo and not to say any thing of the Verrine Orations and the invectives against Catiline it is very reasonable to believe that the Philippicks instead of being burnt as Anthony would have had them have been transmitted to Posterity with an improvement of incens'd eloquence and Ciceronian rage There is one thing indeed which I know not whether I ought to mention or no which did receive some little alteration if the omission of a Line or two for it was no more may be called by that name and that is that upon occasion of discourse concerning the persecution still raging in the Territories of the French King I did speak of his Majesty out of the zeal I had for the Protestant Religion and being under no tie of obedience to a foreign Prince but onely of respect to his Character if he do worthily sustain it with so much sharpness and Satyr comparing his Persecution to that of Nero Maximine or Dioclesian which was the very thing and the onely thing that was omitted that there were persons

to be submitted to which are inconsistent with Salvation And that Church whatever she is let her pretences to Infallibility and Truth be never so great which imposes those either Opinions or Practices as the terms of Communion which are directly contrary to the word of God or to the light of Nature and the impartial dictates of right Reason is by no means to be communicated with any longer but we must immediately come out from Her and separate in our own desence lest we be made partakers of Her sins and of Her plagues and in this case it is she who is guilty of the Schism by necessitating a Separation not we who separate when we cannot avoid it As to matter of Doctrine I presume there is no man who calls himself a Protestant of what Denomination or Party soever he be who will charge our Church with any damnable Errour but on the contrary there are many of our Dissenting Brethren who when they are tax'd with the unpleasant imputation of propagating very absurd and very unreasonable Opinions are used to take Sanctuary in the Articles of the Church of England of whose Authority as to some points they will pretend themselves to be the only Assertors with what Justice I think I have in part discovered in some other Papers As to Ceremonies there are three Restrictions chiefly to be considered which if they be all carefully observed in the discipline of any Church there is no manner of pretence or ground for Separation upon a Ceremonial account and those three Restrictions are these which follow First They must not be too cumbersome and heavy by their number Secondly They must not be Superstitious in their use Thirdly They must not be Idolatrous in their direction First They must not be too cumbersome and heavy by their number for this is that which eats out the very heart and root of Religion and takes it off from being a Devotional exercise of the mind by turning it into outward Pomp and Show which can neither make us better men for the future nor appease the wrath of God or apply to us the merit and satisfaction of Christ for what is past This was that of which St. Austin in his time complained but yet he did not think it Lawfull to make any breach or distrubance in the Church upon this account but rather to take this occasion for the exercise of those two excellent vertues of Patience and Humility and expect the good time when this burthen should be remov'd by the same regular Authority that had impos'd it This was the case of the Mosaick Bondage especially as that Bondage was afterwards increased by the Pharisical 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or by the traditionary Rites and Usages of the Jewish Church and this is at this day and was at the time of the Reformation and for many Ages before the case of the Roman Yoak from which the Wisdome and Piety of our Ancestours has with no less Justice than Necessity freed us and plac'd us in that state of Christian Liberty which does not consist of such an exemption from all Ceremonies as some men seem to desire which is absurd and impossible in the nature of the thing it self but in the choice of such as are best fitted to the ends for which all Ceremonies ought to be designed and have the greatest tendency to Edification There were other causes upon account of the Ceremonies imposed by the Church of Rome which might be sufficient to justify a Separation of which I shall speak in the two following Heads And though a National or Provincial Church have a Right and Power within it self of retrenching the supersluities of the Ceremonial part of their Divine 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 sancies 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 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 sound 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

that the Jewish Nation must have been canton'd and divided into as many Sects as there were different possibilities of interpretation arising from either of the two causes which have been above specified and assigned What confusion would this have introduced into the Ceremonial part of the Mosaique Law while every alteration of a letter or vowel would have made a new Ceremony and there would have been as great diversity of rites as there was possibility of variation and all pretending to the same divine authority to justifie and vouch themselves how would the people out of that innovating humour which is natural to the populace of all the world have divided and subdivided themselves into several Parties Conventicles and Factions and how would the Priests as fast as revenge or ambition or opiniatrity and affectation should prompt them have put themselves in the head of disagreeing Sects and would have fomented those differences among the Jews with the same real or pretended zeal and earnestness that the Non-conformists do now among us only with this advantage that the Jews might have done it when the interpretation of places for want of a standing punctation was left so much to every man's honesty and judgment with infinitely greater plausibility and pretence of warrant from above than our dissenting Incendiaries can do who are so shamef●lly driven out of all their posts unless it be their ignorance knavery and impudence which are citadels impregnable against all the power of argument in the world and can only be taken in by the faithfull and vigorous execution of severe and wholesome Laws how would they have lampoon'd and ridicul'd the Prophets and how would the several Parties by a several way of reading pointing or accentuation have discharged the several Prophecies at one another Lastly what strange uncertainty would this have brought upon the Law and Prophets how would it have confounded all those Prophecies that foretold and all those Rites and Sacrifices that typified and shadowed out the coming of the Messias And by consequence how would it have perplexed and entangled nay plainly evacuated and disanulled all the evidence which we have besides the unquestionable miracles of our Saviour and his Apostles for the Christian Religion how would it have baffled and defeated that argument for our Saviour's Person and Doctrine upon which he himself laid so mighty stress that he despaired any miracle how great soever should perswade them with whom the testimonies of Moses and the Prophets were of no force and signification For upon supposition of such infinite variation as the Promiscuous use of the Original Hebrew before the use of points would have introduced these testimonies could not possibly have been of any weight or value with any considerative or thinking man because the several readings by their mutual opposition would have destroyed and supplanted one another It is so far from being true that the ancient Jews were permitted the promiscuous use and reading of the Law that it seems rather to have been denied to most of the Priests and Levites themselves for we are to consider that in the distribution of the Levites to their several employments there were none admitted to the actual exercise of any sacred office whatsoever till they were arrived to the age of twenty years and that at that age they were only capable of the more servile or handy-work employments and as they arrived to greater maturity of years so they were admitted to offices and employments of a more honourable nature that there were some appointed for Porters others for Singers whose business was only to be instructed in the Songs of the Lord without any obligation that appears to any particular study of the whole Law And so for those that were employed in dressing or preparing the sacrifices or in sprinkling the blood it was not requisite they should learn this skill by a personal converse and acquaintance with the Law as well because all the Ceremonies belonging to the performance of such Ministeries as these neither were nor could be prescribed in the Law it self without swelling it into a much larger Volume than that in which it is now contained as hath been already observed to the shame of all Non-conforming scruples and to the undeniable justification of humane institutions in religious worship as because it is seen that things of this nature that is the ceremony and formality of Offices whether Civil or Divine may be and are actually handed down to men in a traditionary way as it is possible for a man and many a man actually does understand the Laws of England sufficiently well and yet in the practice of a particular Law-Court is not half so well skilled as an ordinary Attorney Besides all which it is still further to be considered that at the return from the Captivity of Babylon as hath been already observed Esdras did not only instruct the people in the knowledge of the Law but also the Priests and the Levites themselves Nehem. 8. 13. which would have been needless if all the Priests had been equally instructed in the knowledge of it or if some of them unless in those matters which belonged to their particular charges which as well as the Law it self were now by seventy years disuse forgotten had not been either altogether or very nigh as ignorant as the common people Wherefore it is most reasonable to conceive that as the line and family of Aaron were of all the Levitical race the highest in the Priestly dignity among the Jews insomuch that the Priests and the Levites are frequently distinguished from one another in Scripture though it is true that the Levites were Priests too though in a greater latitude as well as Aaron and his sons being all of them equally substituted instead of the first born and all of them dedicated though in a less degree to the service and ministery of the holy things I say it is highly reasonable from hence to conclude that the more particular knowledge and study of the Law was confined to the family of Aaron who were those Priests most properly and strictly so called whose lips in the language of Malachi were to preserve knowledge and to whose custody alone as being the most sacred depositum in the world the Original M S. of the Law it self or the most Authentique and unquestionable Copy of it was committed Deut. 17. 18. It is not certainly for nothing that the Letter or Commission of Xerxes to Esdras in Josephus is thus superscribed 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to Esdras the Priest and Reader or Interpreter of the Law of God and so he is called again afterwards in the body of the Epistle it self which is to me a plain intimation that the skill of reading and much more of interpreting the Law was in the time of Esdras a great rarity among the Priests themselves for that by 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Reader somewhat more is implied than what the Jews afterwards in their Synagogue