Selected quad for the lemma: england_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
england_n	write_v	writing_n	year_n	42	3	4.0632	3	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A35047	Reformation not separation, or, Mr. Crofton's plea for communion with the church ... in a letter, written July 20, 1661 ... / by the said R.S. to whom it was written ; unto which, is added the copy of another letter, written on the same occasion and subject.	Crofton, Zachary, 1625 or 6-1672.; P. E., Reverend.; R. S.	1662 (1662)	Wing C7000; ESTC R12168	52,912	78

to health and growth or directly destructive as intrinsecal and vitiating to the subject or extrinsecal and conversant about the same notwithstanding which the subject remains the same participation in which contracts guilt as in offering sacrifice to an Idol or contracts no guilt to the Communicant eating in an amicable friendship what is offered to an Idol such as put us out of a possibility of salvation the only ground of separation or are therewith consistent imposed by others and so their sin not sufficient to b●r our duty all which were applyed to the Popish administrations nullifying Christs Offices and Ordinances and so necessitating separation polluting by participation and Englands corruptions grieving God and his people some 8. some 7. some 4. years now past but preserving Gods worship in the substantial matter and essential form thereof and so not sufficient to supersede communion If you look into the writings which bear my name in the world you will find separation because of corruption condemned by reasons beyond what the most serious Church-gathering Separatists ever undertook to answer otherwise then by rage and reproach the dialect of restrained lust in that as well as in this revolution Read at your leisure my Bethshemesh clouded Saints zeal against sinful Altars Virtue and value of Baptisme written many years since and you will see Mr. Crof●ons communion with the Church of England is not repugnant to his judgement more then seven years since declared and in those very writings lately published before and for which men have by Gods permission brought my light under a bushel you shall find my zeal for Reformation consistent to union and communion with the Church nor did the force of opposing corruption drive me as I might probably have done to let fall any expressions in favour of separation My logical casuistical Contests for Reformation do very plainly condemn and protest against schisme and sedition as thereunto destructive particularly in my Anal●psis to Doctor Gaudens Analysis my Argument and Answer is thus concluded Whatsoever shall be the establishment in the Church though never so corrupt yet whilst consistent with salvation though it may occasion to me suffering and a suspence of my Ministry by Gods Grace it shall not effect on me or such on whome I have influence Schisme from the Church or a resistance of his Majesties just Authority And in my Epistle to the Lyturgicall Considerator considered in which I urge my apprehended grounds for the alteration and abolition of the Ministerial method of solemn publique prayer used in our Church with a pro●est for Communion under it though against administration by it I am so much affected to the peace of the Church that I have of late preached what God assisting I am resolved for to practise viz. that many and graet corruptions in Gods worship are to be grieved for and patiently groaned under before Schisme be consented to or separation be consulted Provided neverthelesse I be passive not active in them I can keep Communion under that form of worship whereby I cannot administer and heartily say Amen to the matter of those petitions which are put up in an order so preposterous and indigested that I dare not stand between God and his people with the same The liberty that I now pursue when obtained and used is no more than a practice commensing on these professions whereby they are made more legible not more censurable than they were before My good friend These things considered I must professe when ever God shall mollifie the hearts of men into whose hands he hath given my present liberty I see not any reason that I dare plead before the Lord or reflect as a barre on my Conscience whereupon my solitary Sabbaths may be sweetned and spent with comfort my passage to the publique assemblie and worship though in this order and with these appendants which are burdensome to my spirit standing open and so my absence being a voluntary act within my own power If any man professing the fear of God can produce any I should be glad for I fear to be charged with the omission of Gods publique worship celebrated in Christ his Church though with extrinsecal corruption and in a rude Ministeriall order which ought to be reformed but will not excuse me though unforced by the offence of some weak brethren zealously affected to the purity of Gods House and Worship I am not insensible that the Committee of discretion will be no lesse ready to call me fool for steering this course than they were for my entering the Lists in defence and ●●…o●cement of Reformation wherein I am deserted by my more prudent brethren for that I hereby strike ost from that party on whom my former contests did seem to 〈◊〉 me But to them I must breifly answer I am willing to be wise as a serpent and resolved to keep my inno●…n●… as a dove so long as these do correspond and agree I have an heart to lodge them but if prudence once ob●…ate or obstruct duty or guide into o● guard sin I fear the serpent begins to wind too farre and getting in the head will wind in the body and devour the do●… that some who have been objects of my opposition because subjects of separation have in my present sufferings embraced me and shewed kindnesse to me and mine beyond some more specially charged with it as their more particular duty I am very sensible and thankfully acknowledge to God and them and hope they did not thereby designe to charme my zeal against what I ever cenceived to be sin I confess it hath been a check to my comforts to consider some triumph in me and my sufferings because opposed to the superstitions and prophanesse which they dislike who agree not with me in those positive truths which I have asserted and will be turned in their hearts against me when the same two-edged-sword in my weak hand shall be constrained to strike their more civil seemingly sacred lusts The Usurer huggs and hath the Preacher home to dinner when he preacheth against the prodigal profusal spending drunkard who will hunt and hurry him out of the Parish when he shall preach against usury I cannot but tell you a passage which here befell me In my close confinement three persons full of seeming zeal to piety and purity stumbled into my chamber and saluted me with this salutation we are strangers to you but in conscience of our duty are come to visit you as a sufferer for Jesus Christ to which kind and Christian salutation I returned a short admonition that we might endeavour to understand the truths of the Lord Jesus and labour to agree in positives for I feared many rejoyced in my sufferings as negative and against what is grossely evil who would not embrace the truths I did contend for on which these persons zeal boiled over into this angry Taunt what I warrant you you are yet for the Church of England and your

and ordinances and reflectes on the work of reformation it selfe as if their proper genuine and natural parent The reformation of the Church is a duty incumbent on every man and member thereof Reformation must be by lawfull means onely it must be pursued in their places and capacities by just and lawful means without schism from or if possible in the Church or sedition in the Common-wealth both which my soul ever did abhor as disgraceful to Religion dishonourable to God and destructive to Reformation I never did nor yet can allow or advise other means of reformation then Ministerial admonition to the Church Logical dispute and Theological argumentation and redaurgtion among equals humble proposal petition and supplication to superiors with a patient and submisse attendance on their pleasure and on God acting the same such as receive Kings as nursing Fathers to the Church will rejoyce in them as Christians much more as professedly reformed and with all peaceable submission embrace such degrees of Reformation of the extrinsecall order and ministerial method of Gods worship enjoying the substance in the essential form thereof as they will allow untill God encline their hearts to allow what himselfe expecteth and his people desire soberly pursuing the bene esse with joy in the esse of Religion and in communion with the Church waiting on the truth of Gods ordinances quietly attending their Superiors for purity and regularity of dispensation I find not that the men fearing God in Iudah did tumultuously tumble down the high places nor turn away from Gods Temple because of them yet their standing was the stain of Government to their reforming Kings to flye out of Gods house or in the face of Gods Vicegerents because his own appointments are administred by instruments in order to his service unsuitable and to us offensive is a frowardness which God cannot nor will not admit or indulge in any of his children Ministerial reproofs and admonitions and vulgar mournings and murmurations are loud alarums to God and the consciences of men and strong enforcements of Reformation preces Iacrymae ever were and still are the onely weapons of the truly Godly Our state and time calleth for an higher degree of Reformation under and against the oppositions of just authority and lawful Princes such as God hath in his mercy and by his miraculous providence restored to our Church and Nation I am afflicted by and ashamed of the slow progress and shameful retrogradation of Englands Reformation under and against publike national solemn sacred bonds whose obligation will abide before God and conscience though the affirmations thereof may be interdicted by men If Calvini in his days could say If Godly Religion had flourished in England till that day the time of Queen Mary her Raign there ought to have been an order of service better corrected Epistle to the Ch. at Frankford and many things quitte taken away Can we without grief consider our Church hath enjoyed true Religion more then eighty years since that time and yet we ignorantly continue and violently contend for that order of service as if ashamed to give place unto better things yet I dare not deny her to be a reformed Church or as such decline Communion with her in and for whom the Lord hath emminently appeared and out of whom he hath gratiously purged all things venentous and destructive though some things nauseous and distastfull were continued and are returned into her having defended her against the Spanish Ari●ado and Popish Conspiracy by Gunpowder and other agitations and attempts of Papall power and Antichristian rage with an Almighty hand and outstretched Arme. I do beleive the infancy of Reformation might rejoice in and grow up under that order of divine service which the adult estate thereof ought to cast off as puerile and unsutable First degrees were matter of Comfort though not of Content to such who seek the simplicity of the Gospell remaining dreggs ought to be discharged and I doubt not God will notwithstanding mens aversness and opposition in due time effect it In the mean time i see no reason to refuse to drink because my waters are pudled or presented in an unclean Vessel and I can come by no purer remaining degrees of Reformation must be so purified that those obtained may not appear to be disowned or despised though our order of Divine Service be a Roman dregge of some dangerous distastfull influence yet it is not Popery shall we not blesse God and rejoyce in England as brought out of Babylon though some Babylonish Vestures Rites and Orders which ought to be abandoned are yet retained I conceive them ingratefull for the purity obtained who run out of Gods house for the Corruptions continued and obtruded I cannot but repute them over forward who shall refuse the Substantials of true Religion and Christs Institutions because of some rude Rough Appendants shall we not acknowledge Gods mercy in affording us and humbly use the truth of Gods word because transmitted unto us with some humane traditions and the substance of his own worship celebrated in a disorderly way and method with some foolish Appendants of mens inventions My good friend my zeal care and contests for Reformation of this poor Church have cost me dear yet if God suffer the Charge to rise as h●g● as did that of my namesake by the unkindness of King Joash not one mite too dear I blesse God however my passions worke I see no cause to repent my bargain I pray God glorifie himself and edifie his people by my bonds onely I must professe to all that fear God I see no sufficient cause to satisfie my Conscience or to plead before my God on which to refuse Communion with her and attendance on Gods solemn publique worship under her rude Ministerial method for that duty is not warantably superseded by the iniquity of another man my sufferings nor other mens sin under which I mourn because I cannot mend it must not turn me out of Gods way to the right or left hand superstition and separation must be shunned as Rocks equally dangerous to Gods Church and worship the prophanesse of this and its Subjects must not drive me nor the pretended purity and piety of the other and its Subjects allure or draw me unto the positive evil of separation or privative evil of voluntary non-Communion I pray and hope God will keep me upright under and against all temptations from falling into the extreams of our unhappy age and Church and yet give me to see the purity of his worship in Union and Communion with his Church here on earth or possesse me with his undefiled unstained glory in Heaven for from the one I dare not depart untill I arrive at the other least by shipwarck I should be deprived of both Fourthly Let it be considered Consi 4th Scandall is an argument of no strength when pleaded to supersede or condemn a positive duty Jobs friends