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love_n act_n faith_n soul_n 2,563 5 5.2634 4 false
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ID Title Author Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication) STC Words Pages
A29616 A perswasive to reformation and union as the best security against the designs of our popish enemies Brokesby, Francis, 1637-1714. 1680 (1680) Wing B4844; ESTC R11932 21,237 35

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under more than ordinary shews of Godliness we should never be fixed on any sure foundation but must be always wavering always changing And indeed many instances might be given of persons who upon such slender Reasons have withdrawn themselves from their Parish-Churches and from thence have fallen from one Error to another till at length they have fallen into gross delusions and some into Atheism In this Trial make use of those helps which God in his providence affords you I mean the assistance of able peaceable Divines and of their Writings I know if I should direct you to the Friendly Debate or Dr. Combers explications of our publick Prayers or any other Treatises of this nature which are written by Conformists you will with disdain reject my advice I shall therefore only desire you to read the writings of some learned Non-conformists viz. those of Mr. John Ball against Separation and others written long since and especially Mr. Baxters Cure of Church-divisions and Mr. Tombes his Theodulia which have been published of late 2. If upon impartial trial you cannot satisfie your selves so far as to comply with every thing that the Magistrate enjoyns yet however seriously consider whether you have ground enough from thence to forsake the Communion of the Church of England and to withdraw your selves from our Assemblies To this end consider in what things we and you agree as well as in what things we disagree particularly whether there be not a full agreement in all the Essentials and Substantials of Christian Religion We both own the same Lord Jesus Christ we agree in the same Faith and that not only in the main fundamentals but also in lesser matters there being few if any Non-conformists who do not approve the doctrinal part of the Thirty Nine Articles of the Church of England We both hope to obtain the same Heaven and both to obtain it the same way viz. by Faith in Christ manifested in an holy conversation Nay further we both agree in the main parts of Gods Worship And that both in reference to the object of our Worship and manner of it We and you worship the same God and him alone We pray not to Saints or Angels We pay no adoration to the consecrated Bread in the Lords Supper We bow not down to Images We worship God in the inward acts of our Souls our Faith in God our reliance and dependence on him our Love to him our Sense of his infinite goodness and the like graces and affections and by expressing these in such outward acts which God hath ordained and you and we own them as his Institutions such as Prayer Thanksgiving hearing the Word and the two Sacraments Baptism and the Lords Supper Where is the difference in all this betwixt you and us It must be therefore in something that is circumstantial And is this a sufficient Reason to separate from us It is evident that God hath not obliged us to this or that Gesture in his Worship suppose it be but reverent that he hath not determined circumstances this way or that but hath left them to humane prudence I will clear this by one instance As we both acknowledge Prayer to be one especial part of Gods Worship so we hold that the chief things we are to request of God are Pardon Sanctification assistance against temptation and the like We both own that our petitions are to be put up in and through the same Mediator Jesus Christ We both hold that it is the fervent desire of our hearts and the representation thereof to God that makes our prayers to be indeed such And that the holy Spirit works in our Souls a sense of our wants and an earnest desire that they may be supplied This is all that concerns the essence of Prayer and herein we are agreed But in reference to the gesture supposing it be such as becomes dust and ashes when they address themselves before the great King of Kings God hath not determined whether it should be kneeling standing or lying prostrate on our faces and therefore any of these may be used In reference to Time whether it should be this or that hour for publick prayer and therefore that time should be imployed therein which humane prudence determines as most convenient And the same is true in reference to words in Prayer For God hath not determined whether our desires should be represented in words premeditated or in words immediately conceived Neither of these are of the essence of Prayer neither of them particularly commanded of God so as to exclude the other both have been used by Saints in the Holy Scriptures and both approved by God Therefore when any ask Where God hath required forms of Prayer in Scripture I would ask these persons Where God hath required extemporary Prayers And when they demand where our Common prayers are to be found in Gods Word I would enquire where they find therein those particular Prayers which they and their Ministers have poured out to God By a serious consideration of all this you may easily understand how great our agreement is and consequently that those things must needs be small wherein we disagree And will you on account of such things separate from us If any pretend there are corruptions in our Church I would desire such to consider the state of the Churches in the time of Christs Apostles and see if they do not find as great in the Churches of Corinth and Galatia of Ephesus Pergamus Thyatira Rev. 2. and of Sardis and Laodicea Rev. 3. as they do among us And withal consider whether it would not have been a sin to separate from those Churches See this handled by Mr. Baxter in his Cure of Church-divisions Chap. 5. I cannot think of any thing that may be a just plea for Separation but this That something that is sinful is required as a condition of our Communion The chief thing that is instanced in is this that they must worship God by a Form of Prayer To make this plea good they must shew that forms of Prayer are sinful and to prove that it is a transgression of a Law and instance in the particular Law that is hereby violated But the case is so far from this that we have Forms of Prayer mentioned in Holy Scripture used by good men and that as an expression of their Piety nay in several cases prescribed by God himself or his extraordinary Ministers as that Num. 10.35 36. David and other Psalmists penned Forms of Prayer and Praise to be used by the Church of God in his Service Neither was there any thing typical in this thing nor any thing that had respect to that legal Oeconomy And indeed if Forms of Prayer were unlawful then which it would be blasphemy to utter our Saviour sinned when he bid his disciples when they prayed to say Our Father c. Luke 11.2 And when he himself prayed using the same words Matth. 26.44 And now I need not add that