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A70888 A discourse of ecclesiastical politie wherein the authority of the civil magistrate over the consciences of subjects in matters of external religion is asserted : the mischiefs and incoveniences of toleration are represented, and all pretenses pleaded in behalf of liberty of conscience are fully answered. Parker, Samuel, 1640-1688. 1671 (1671) Wing P460; ESTC R2071 140,332 376

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free Grace and Goodness in that in the first Ages of Christianity he was pleased out of his infinite concern for its Propagation in a miraculous manner to inspire its Converts with all sorts of Vertue Wherefore the Apostle St. Paul when he compiles a complete Catologue of the Fruits of the Spirit reckons up only Moral Vertues Gal. 5. 22. Love Joy or Chearfulness Peaceableness Patience Gentleness Goodness Faithfulness Meekness and Temperance and elsewhere Titus 2. 11. the same Apostle plainly makes the Grace of God to consist in gratitude towards God Temperance towards our selves and Justice towards our Neighbours For the Grace of God that bringeth Salvation hath appeared to all Men teaching us that denying ungodliness and worldly lusts we should live soberly righteously and godly in this present world Where the whole Duty of Man is comprehended in living Godlily which is the Vertue of humble Gratitude towards God Soberly which contains the Vertues of Temperance Chastity Modesty and all others that consist in the dominion of Reason over our sensual Appetites Righteously which implies all the Vertues of Justice and Charity as Affability Courtesie Meekness Candour and Ingenuity § 3. So destructive of all true and real Goodness is the very Religion of those Men that are wont to set Grace at odds with Vertue and are so far from making them the same that they make them inconsistent and though a man be exact in all the Duties of Moral Goodness yet if he be a Graceless Person i. e. void of I know not what Imaginary Godliness he is but in a cleaner way to Hell and his Conversion is more hopeless than the vilest and most notorious Sinners and the Morally Righteous Man is at a greater distance from Grace than the Profane and better be lewd and debauch'd than live an honest and vertuous life if you are not of the Godly Party Bona Opera sunt perniciosa ad salutem says Flaccus Illiricus Moral Goodness is the greatest Let to Conversion and the prophanest wretches make better Saints than your Moral Formalists And by this means they have brought into fashion a Godliness without Religion Zeal without Humanity and Grace without good Nature or good Manners have found out in lieu of Moral Virtue a Spiritual Divinity that is made up of nothing else but certain Trains and Schemes of Effeminate Follies and illiterate Enthusiasms and instead of a sober Devotion a more spiritual and intimate way of Communion with God that in truth consists in little else but meeting together in private to prate Phrases make Faces and rail at Carnal Reason i. e. in their sense all sober and sincere use of our Understandings in spiritual Matters whereby they have effectually turn'd all Religion into unaccountable Fansies and Enthusiasms drest it up with pompous and empty Schemes of Speech and so embrace a few gawdy Metaphors and Allegories instead of the substance of true and real Righteousness And herein lies the most material difference between the sober Christians of the Church of England and our modern Sectaries That we express the Precepts and Duties of the Gospel in plain and intelligible Terms whilst they trifle them away by childish Metaphors and Allegories and will not talk of Religion but in barbarous and uncouth Similitudes and what is more the different Subdivisions among the Sects themselves are not so much distinguish'd by any real diversity of Opinions as by variety of Phrases and Forms of Speech that are the peculiar Shibboleths of each Tribe One party affect to lard their Discourses with clownish and slovenly Similitudes another delights to roul in wanton and lascivious Allegories and a third is best pleased with odd unusual unitelligible and sometimes blasphemous Expressions And whoever among them can invent any new Language presently sets up for a man of new Discoveries and he that lights upon the prettiest Nonsense is thought by the ignorant Rabble to unfold new Gospel-Mysteries And thus is the Nation shattered into infinite Factions with sensless and phantastick Phrases and the most fatal miscarriage of them all lies in abusing Scripture-Expressions not only without but in contradiction to their sense So that had we but an Act of Parliament to abridge Preachers the use of fulsom and luscious Metaphors it might perhaps be an effectual Cure of all our present Distempers Let not the Reader smile at the odness of the Proposal For were men obliged to speak Sense as well as Truth all the swelling Mysteries of Fanaticism would immediately sink into flat and empty Nonsense and they would be ashamed of such jejune and ridiculous Stuff as their admired and most profound Notions would appear to be when they want the Varnish of fine Metaphors and glittering Allusions In brief were this a proper place to unravel all their affected Phrases and Forms of Speech which they have learn'd like Parrots to prate by Rote without having any Notion of the Things they signifie it would be no unpleasant Task to demonstrate That by them they either mean nothing at all or some Part or Instrument of Moral Vertue So that all Religion must of necessity be resolv'd into Enthusiasm or Morality The former is meer Imposture and therefore all that is true must be reduced to the latter and what-ever besides appertains to it must be subservient to the Ends of Vertue such are Prayer Hearing Sermons and all manner of Religious Ordinances that have directly no other place in Religion than as they are instrumental to a vertuous life § 4. 'T is certain then That the Duties of Morality are the most weighty and material concerns of Religion and 't is as certain That the Civil Magistrate has Power to bind Laws concerning them upon the Consciences of Subjects So that every mans Conscience is and must be subject to the Commands of lawful Superiours in the most important matters of Religion And therefore is it not strange that when the main Ends and designs of all Religion are avowedly subject to the Supreme Power that yet men should be so impatient to exempt its means and subordinate Instruments from the same Authority What reason can the Wit of man assign to restrain it from one that will not much more restrain it from both Is not the right practice of Moral Duties as necessary a part of Religion as any outward Form of Worship in the World Are not wrong Notions of the Divine Worship as destructive of the Peace and settlement of Common-wealths as the most vicious and licentious Debaucheries Are not the rude multitude more inclined to disturb Government by Superstition than by Licentiousness And is there not vastly greater danger of the Magistrates erring in matters of Morality than in Forms and Ceremonies of Worship in that those are the main essential and ultimate Duties of Religion whereas these are at highest but their Instruments and can challenge no other place in Religion than as they are subservient to the purposes of Morality Nay is it not still more